The Horizontal Spectrum

Over a decade ago I chose the name for an educational theatre workshop I was starting, beginning with children, as The Laughing Rainbow.

Behind this title were some very clear ideas about consciousness, life, human experience and Spirit manifest in and as Kosmos.

The laughter was a clear indication of two things–or really perhaps one thing with two primordial aspects. This was the ultimate play of the Kosmos. Emptiness as Form. Lila. And the fact that no matter how tragic and dramatic it all may become there is this awe-inspiring potential for laughter. Release. Ever-present. In Taoism, as I understand it, Yin, the feminine aspect, is always just a tid-bit more powerful than Yang. The 'hard' must always, and will always, yield to the 'soft.' That could be tears or laughter. Joy or surrender. And I do believe this is so when we apply the Yin and Yang to comedy and tragedy. In an immediate manifest sense, we see this on Saturday Night Live all the time. Very often the funniest sketches are based upon the most dramatic movies that rocked the culture. On really good nights of genius they are based upon dramatic and tense events in mainstream cultural life. There is something about the tension and struggle of drama being released or surrendered into utter comedy that when this transformation occurs, the best and most joyful hilarity results. In a higher or deeper sense there is something sacred or divinely ecstatic about this. A Laughing Buddha. Emptiness in Love with Form, which it hated just a few minutes ago. All tragedies will end in a divine and gentle, ultimately releasing, Laughter or Comedy. Or simply in Softness, Love and an unspeakable Smile.

So, the laughter was sort of a principal and a promise, something deeply Kosmic and Spiritual. And it was also simply . . .well, we do call these things plays. We can realize and discover ourselves, or even just simply enjoy ourselves–perhaps a novel idea sometimes these days!–in an aesthetic modeling of our own Kosmic play. Bring the children up on this and there will certainly be something better about the world.

The Rainbow idea, however, had many meanings. In one sense it was the endlessly varied and variable hues and shades and combinations of emotion (or Affect, in a broader sense of the word) and its relation to human experience. We live this varied palette constantly. Paint its colors through action and reaction, interaction and Karma out of our own lives and the stuff of this living Kosmos. The Rainbow is the primordial Elements of Emptiness as Form–far more that just cosmic physical elements (strong nuclear, weak nuclear . . . oh, I'm so excited). Life, Consciousness, Feeling, Desire, Relationship and Emotion. Through the endless sport and play of Eros and Agape out of the stuff of Tragicomic Kosmic Majesty.  

But the other idea behind it was indeed both the Vertical and Horizontal Spectrum of Consciousness.

While we have the Vertical Rainbow of Consciousness well represented and emphasized in AQAL, there is something about the Horizontal Spectrum of Consciousness that . . . doesn't ring with the vibrancy that it could or should yet. Something about "lines" is pretty dry and maybe even uninspiring. "Streams" is better. Streams in the River of Live is definitely better. But emphasis on The Horizontal Spectrum of Consciousness is, in my opinion, even better. AND, could go far in building friendlier relations with our old pal Vertical Green. This is an aesthetic potential.

It's not an accident that I speak of this Horizontal Spectrum as an artist. Start throwing the talent streams in there and look at them in a manner akin to Howard Gardner and indeed the great beauty and diversity and Reality of the Horizontal Spectrum starts to shine, like a bright beacon in the night; like a bright rainbow colored beacon in the day! Like Spirit smiling forth as Kosmos as opposed to (strong nuclear, weak nuclear) cosmos. Coloring the world–the modern and postmodern world, even in Flatland–in a way you had never dreamed.

It is more than clear that AQAL not only includes this Horizontal Spectrum of Consciousness, but is more inclusive of it than anything else we yet have. But somehow, perhaps because of immediate need of emphasis on the Vertical Spectrum–which is, of course, a reality and understandable enough–something about the beauty, diversity and vibrancy of the Horizontal Spectrum gets lost. Like lines are just some cold hard auxiliary fact of reality that we've thrown in because we had to. When, in fact, this is far, far, far form the case. I suppose my main critique: it just doesn't spring to life like it could or should.

The problem, as I see it, is a common criticism of Ken Wilber's work going back decades, but I give it a bit of a different twist here: it is too easily read as Orange. Or maybe better, too easily felt as orange and the "clincher" seems to me to be the manner of emphasis on, and elucidation of, the Horizontal Spectrum. Somehow it is too easily "comes off" as orange or even just "feels" orange. Don't get me wrong. I'm not bashing the model as many of these inept critiques do. I'm looking for a way to bring it to life even more and by so doing begin to infect the consciousness in this Kosmos with it. (Does that make sense? . . . Mmm. Yeah, I think it does.)

In my own estimation, this is in part behind Howard Gardner's recent criticism of Wilber in Five Minds for the Future.

" . . confronted with one of Wilber's texts, I feel myself strangely antagonistic . . . When everything connects to everything else . . . one is hard pressed to make priorities, distinctions, illuminating comparisons."

While I do not agree with the full import of Gardner's critique (and will not venture a counter-critique here), and indeed matters of either depth (States) consciousness and insight or altitude (Vertical Spectrum) can be cited (and in many cases, must be cited), it is this "strangely antagonistic" feeling that I think is a valid critical point, because it does arise and has arisen again and again. Folks get worried that this is just way to orange or even amber. I think we can do better with that. (Then, at least, we'll know it really is all their fault. : - )

I think that can change a great deal in simply taking note of the formalistic perspective and asking: How well has the content been realized and communicated in the form? How well are we highlighting, vividly, and communicating not just that "everything connects to everything else" but that we do still make "priorities, distinctions and illuminating comparisons?" And not just that we make them, but that we make them better than anything else that has yet come forward.

The AQAL model of "lines" is, in scope, FAR superior to Gardner's seven to nine intelligences. The potential application to all Four Quadrants and Eight Zones is also a far more encompassing model than Gardner's overall beautiful inclusion and accounting for them in Multiple Intelligences Theory. Integral Methodological Pluralism is also more inclusive, differentiating, precise and encompassing than, say, Gardner's highly diverse Eight Criteria for identifying and distinguishing an intelligence, which is composed from key methodologies of multiple disciplines.

But I do think, in terms of formal literature, or aesthetics, Gardner wins the prize for the items he mentions, "priorities, distinctions, illuminating comparisons." One walks away from Gardner's work feeling an explosion of Diversity with a capital D. And in a way, as far as I am concerned, like nothing else you have ever read. Feeling and seeing and being brought to experiencing the awe-inspiring diversity in Nature, Life, Kosmos and Human Being–child, to adult to sage –and even very vividly and clearly in animals. In AQAL we would further apply this to Angels and Deities, Muses and Platonic Forms. Etc.

It's not that these are not there is AQAL, it's just, again, an aesthetic or formalistic critique. There is a feeling that this is missing, and it's really just a matter of emphasis and communicative description. So, my solution? Emphasize the Horizontal Spectrum of Consciousness more and more and in more vivid and creative ways.

Past or present critiques is not the only reason I say this either. The Horizontal Spectrum–the Lines–are vivid and alive in everything we should see and know. I, in fact, think that, despite the obvious contributions of mountain dwelling and cloistered monks and sages, they, like 20^th Century developmental psychologists, tended to emphasize their own skills as the locus of Spirit and realization as opposed to anything else.

I will try to make that clearer. Gardner, for example, was very much driven by the fact that he was stuck with the reality that the entire field of developmental psychology saw their own strengths and profession as the locus, measure or y-axis of development or intelligence. Today we still have a huge over-emphasis on standard IQ as the measure of "intelligence" when the test takes only into account, primarily, math skills; one line of development, with lesser emphasis on a few more like space and language. But this is the Horizontal Spectrum of Consciousness at work. No matter what level of consciousness one arrives at–or Band in the Vertical Spectrum–the Horizontal Spectrum is still a major factor. Thus, even at Ultra-Violet, I still see the Kosmos as composed of Divine Math. If I am a musician, I may see the secret to the Kosmos as the components of Music. Richard Boleslavsky, an actor, dramatist, devotes an entire chapter of his book to what is basically a description of the entire Kosmos from a vision-logical altitude as composed and operating off of the quintessential elements of dramatic intelligence. Thus, again, his specialty in the Horizontal Spectrum is seen everywhere, or as the most important thing, no matter what level. If you're Daniel Goleman, perhaps emotion is the ultimate realization of God as Eros and Agape or either of the two.

What is important here, I feel, is that the lines, the Horizontal Spectrum is consciousness, in a horizontal diversity of such. An individual with what is known in music as 'perfect pitch' (or absolute pitch) is conscious of the fact that, say, a piano is tuned 3hz lower or higher than it should be by standard measure. This, while the rest of us, have absolutely no idea of such a thing, and hardly care. This individual is conscious of something that we are not. Levels will not necessarily reveal that element of reality to be conscious of either. We can be ultra-violet and still not be conscious of that super-precise and domain-specific distinction. (I think. . . . Maybe I have to reach ultra-violet to see. But we really don't have sages or siddhis saying this sort of thing. It took a Bach to give us the twelve tone scale. An Einstein to give us quantum physics. A Thespis to give us drama and comedy.)

And perhaps the main idea, the Horizontal Spectrum is Spirit Itself manifesting as Diversity in both Kosmos and consciousness. Emptiness and Form. This same idea, of course, can be applied to all of the lines, or at least that's how it would seem. Morality is a specific consciousness of something. Something different than emotion. Something different than the periodic table of elements.

One challenge may be that emergence into second-tier as Teal needs only to see a listing of some two dozen lines of development and say "Ah God! We must all realize them all!!!" But from a Turquoise, maybe even higher, perspective self-actualization may in fact be something quite different. Just as people have a right to arrive at whatever Band in the Vertical Spectrum they are going to arrive at and remain there as a Station in life, so too, most people are only going to develop one or a few Bands in the Horizontal Spectrum and have those lines or streams in the Great River as the focus, emphasis and specialty of their life. There is always going to be a Kosmic explosion of horizontal diversity. And Spirit does seem to really like it this way. Or at least that's what it needs and wants to do, or winds up doing at any rate.

A look at how human beings emerge –i.e. as children –seems to emphasize this as well. The idea of a "well-rounded" exposure and education is nothing new. And there certainly is nothing wrong with dancing and playing within as much of the laughing rainbow as possible. And indeed, this is a priority as we move forward and evolve as human beings. It is indeed 'the next step.'

But somewhere we will, I believe, settle into the more diverse fact that Johnny's Spirit is realized in sports, Jane's in poetry, Ginny's in psychology, Bartholomew's simply in being everybody's friend. And that's fine. Emphasis on the strengths and diversity of Spirit in the Horizontal Spectrum is what leads to advance in the Vertical. Maybe even more so than the other way around. But then, eventually, to more realization of the Horizontal. Then the Vertical. Then . . . Levels and Lines are inseparable, although highly distinguishable.

We are all, and shall remain, ever, awe-inspiringly Unique, as is every moment and AQAL situation, occasion, thought our bubbling moment of Spirit as Life.

Emptiness are we as Form within the Laughing Rainbow . . .

Howard Gardner, Five Minds for the Future, 2007, Boston: Harvard Business School Press, p. 62

Richard Boleslavsky, Acting: The First Six Lessons, 1949, New York, NY: Routledge, pp. 115-138