Before our research group channeled Ra’s information on the archetypal mind, my awareness of this concept came from Carl Jung. He felt, as do the Confederation entities, that we were all one being, with collectively inherited unconscious ideas, and that from this collective unconscious sprang images and symbols which would help us to know what to do in a given situation. He called these ‘instinctual archetypes’ as opposed to ‘archetypal archetypes’, which contained our unconscious knowledge of deep patterns in the roots of mind.
The word, archetype, springs from two Greek words which translate as “first pattern” or prototype. The concept of an archetypal mind bears some resemblance to Plato’s concept of universal ideas. The Greek sage suggests that universal ideas exist with more reality than particular, ‘real’ ideas because of their absolute generality. For instance, an ideal-universe tree would have no specific characteristic, such as a broken branch or a carving on the trunk. In just such a way, for instance, the Jungian archetype of Mother is a pure concept, such as the fighting man’s “Mom and Apple Pie”, while our own mothers contain many special characteristics.
Jung posited that this collective unconscious, with its array of archetypes such as mother, father, child, birth and death, is the deep mind’s foundation. We build our experience of life upon it. When we run into them, they evoke mental connections, images, symbols and patterns of behavior.
In the hands of the Confederation, the archetypal mind is given its place in the hierarchical scheme of cosmology. At the tip of the hierarchy is the Creator, unpotentiated and full of mystery. Next in the hierarchy is free will. The Ra group calls this the first distortion of the Law of One. The Creator chooses by free will to know itself, and the Logos springs forth, that original Idea or Word which is the essence of the Creator. Sometimes the Confederation calls this second distortion love.
The Logos, again choosing by free will to manifest Itself so that It may be known to Itself, sends forth light, the third distortion. Photons of light interact according to their nature to form the constellations of suns and planets. The suns are termed sub-Logoi. Each sun takes the nature of the Logos and refines it, to form an unique sub-Logos. Our particular sun or sub-Logos tweaked the Logos by thickening the veil of forgetting and enhancing the place of free will for us humans. This was to bring our choice of polarity into prominence.
Consequently, the archetypal mind of those on Planet Earth is unique to this sun. As Ra says in Session 76,
“The archetypical mind may be defined as that mind which is peculiar to the Logos of this planetary sphere. Thusly unlike the great cosmic all-mind, it contains the material which it pleased the Logos to offer as refinements to the great cosmic being-ness. The archetypical mind, then, is that which contains all facets which may affect mind or experience.”
If all we had to work with in shaping our choices was this commonly held archetypal mind with its archetypes, we would all be the same. However, Ra notes, in Session 67,
“Archetypes are portions of the one infinite Creator or aspects of Its face. It is, however, far better to realize that the archetypes, while constant in the complex of generative energies offered, do not give the same yield of these complexes to any two seekers. Each seeker will experience each archetype in the characteristics within the complex of the archetype which are most important to it.”
Thusly, if your mother was abusive and abandoned you, the archetype of Mother will be tainted for you, unless you work to balance the distortion, by overlays of distrust, resentment and hatred. By the time we are adults, we have thoroughly personalized and distorted the archetypes with our overlays of experience. Therefore, in order to use these archetypes in our spiritual walk, we have a good deal of balancing of these distortions, so that when we run into the archetype of Mother, for instance, we can access the pure archetype, without any overlays.
An advantage of being able purely to access the archetypes, which Ra also calls concept complexes, is that when we do so, as the Ra group says in Session 74, they “act much like the dialing of your telephone. When they are appropriately vibrated with accompanying will and concentration, it is as though many upon your metaphysical or inner planes received a telephone call. This call they answer by their attention to your working.”
So, all seeking Moms, there’s help abundant from the inner planes when you refine your own concept of motherhood to the pure archetype. Of course, the archetype we all, men and women, hold in common is that of The Seeker, or as the Ra archetype is termed, The Hierophant.
According to those of Ra, they created the original set of twenty-two archetypes found in the Tarot while they were moving through their own third density work on the planet Venus. They gave these archetypes to the Eighteenth Dynasty Egyptian ruler Ikhnaton, along with the Law of One and the Great Pyramid. Although no such drawings have ever been found, at least in space-time, Ra said that the tarot court-card images were drawn by them on the pyramid walls. Either they are in a room which has not yet been accessed by archeologists – and such rooms exist – or they are drawn in time/space.
Although these archetypal images have come down to us as part of a fortune-telling deck called the tarot, the suites of the deck were not given by Ra. They only provided the twenty-two images seen in the court cards. The Chaldeans developed the deck to use in fortune telling. That was not Ra’s intent at all.
These archetypes were organized by Ra into three divisions: the archetypes of Mind, Body and Spirit. Each division was organized into a series of seven images, called The Matrix, The Potentiator, The Catalyst, The Experience, The Significator, The Transformation and The Great Way.
One way to study these archetypes, the Ra group suggested, was to pair, compare and contrast, in each of the three series, The Matrix and The Potentiator, The Catalyst and The Experience, The Transformation and The Great Way. The twenty-second archetype, The Fool, was to be paired with The Significator.
A couple of examples will show the provocative nature of this suggestion. In the archetypes of the mind, The Matrix is called The Magician, while the Potentiator of the Mind is called The High Priestess. The male figure in The Matrix of the Mind is reaching towards a caged bird. The female figure in The Potentiator is that towards which the Magician is reaching. The implications of this for the roles of men and women are far-reaching.
Another example from the mind archetypes is the comparing of The Significator of the Mind with The Fool. The Significator of the Mind is The Hierophant or Seeker. It is a male figure who is seated. His feet do not reach the floor. The Fool, with which the Significators are all paired, is walking off the edge of a cliff into thin air. This suggests that the seeker’s walk is not at all physical or earthly, but is conducted in mid-air, the Fool/Seeker having walked off the cliff entirely. The “leap into faith” of which Søren Kierkegaard spoke are literal, according to Ra’s system.
Ra says about these archetypes,
“During the space/time of the Egyptian teach/learning we worked to bring the mind complex, the body complex, and the spirit complex into an initiated state in which the entity could contact intelligent energy and so become teach/learner itself so that healing and the fruits of study could be offered to all.
“The study of the roots of mind is a portion of the vivification of the mind complex and, as we have noted, the thorough study of the portion of the roots of mind called archetypical is an interesting and necessary portion of the process as a whole.”
If you wish to pursue the study of Ra’s archetypes, the images are contained in The Law of One, Book IV, available from L/L Research’s secure-site, on-line store.
Ra also suggests that one may study the archetypal mind equally well by studying astrology or western white ritual magic. They said,
“It is appropriate to study one form of constructed and organized distortion of the archetypical mind in depth in order to arrive at the position of being able to become and to experience archetypes at will. You have three basic choices. You may choose astrology, the twelve signs, as you call these portions of your planet’s energy web, and what has been called the ten planets. You may choose the tarot with its twenty-two so-called Major Arcana. You may choose the study of the so-called Tree of Life with its ten Sephiroth and the twenty-two relationships between the stations.”
Our research group did not delve into astrology’s twelve signs and ten planets or white magic’s Tree of Life glyph, with its ten qualities and their interrelationships, feeling that we would follow Ra’s advice and stick with the tarot as our one way of studying the archetypes. However if you are an astrologer or an adept, by all means muse upon the signs of astrology or the qualities of the Tree of Life and see what inner doors may open for you.
I say, “muse,” because Ra did not suggest that we take this study literally or linearly. They note in Session 88,
“The archetypical mind is a great and fundamental portion of the mind complex, one of its most basic elements and one of the richest sources of information for the seeker of the one infinite Creator. To attempt to condense the archetypes is to make an erroneous attempt. Each archetype is a significant ding an sich, or thing in itself, with its own complex of concepts.
“While it is informative to survey the relationships of one archetype to another, it can be said that this line of inquiry is secondary to the discovery of the purest gestalt or vision or melody which each archetype signifies to both the intellectual and intuitive minds.
“The Significators of Mind, Body, and Spirit complexes are complex in and of themselves, and the archetypes of Catalyst, Experience, Transformation, and the Great Way are most fruitfully viewed as independent complexes which have their own melodies with which they may inform the mind of its nature.
“We ask that you consider that the archetypical mind informs those thoughts which then may have bearing upon the mind, the body, or the spirit. The archetypes do not have a direct linkage to body or spirit. All must be drawn up through the higher levels of the subconscious mind to the conscious mind and thence they may flee whither they have been bidden to go. When used in a controlled way they are most helpful.”
This was frustrating to Don Elkins, the Questioner in The Law of One sessions, because he wanted, as a scientist, to nail down what each archetype or ‘concept complex’ meant. He could not do that. The images are intended to haunt rather than explicate.
To conclude this look at the archetypal mind and spiritual hierarchies in general - and once again I thank JoyousChee of www.cosmiclighthouse.com for this question - I would quote the Ra group in Session 97, as it brings this discussion about the tarot images into proper proportion within our process of seeking:
“We wish not to form that which may be considered by any mind/body/spirit complex to be a complete and infallible series of images. There is a substantial point to be made in this regard. We have been, with the questioner’s aid, investigating the concept complexes of the great architecture of the archetypical mind. To grasp the nature, the process, and the purpose of archetypes more clearly, Ra provided a series of concept complexes.
“In no way whatsoever should we, as humble messengers of the one infinite Creator, wish to place before the consideration of any mind/body/spirit complex which seeks its evolution the palest tint of the idea that these images are anything but a resource for working in the area of the development of the faith and the will.
“To put this into perspective we must gaze then at the stunning mystery of the one infinite Creator. The archetypical mind does not resolve any paradoxes or bring all into unity. This is not the property of any source which is of the third density. Therefore, may we ask the student to look up from inward working and behold the glory, the might, the majesty, the mystery, and the peace of oneness. Let no consideration of bird or beast, darkness or light, shape or shadow keep any which seeks from the central consideration of unity.
“We are not messengers of the complex. We bring the message of unity. In this perspective only may we affirm the value to the seeker of adepthood of the grasping, articulating, and use of this resource of the deep mind exemplified by the concept complexes of the archetypes.”
This is such an important statement, because it is easy to get fascinated by such evocative and complex studies as astrology, magic or the tarot, and lose sight of the fact that the study of the archetypal mind is indeed one way to understand our energy expenditures and how our minds work, but it is a study of part of our mind, not the study of the nature of the Creator and our relationship to It.
I open my arms and embrace your spirit. Whatever means we use to bring us closer to the one infinite Creator, let us never lose focus of the central and overwhelming importance of love, for it is in love that we are all one. Knowing that we are creatures of love and made of light, the bearers and wielders of faith and will, let us never lose our way while tracing the mazes and labyrinths of spiritual practice.