ABSTRACT:  The science of wholeness emerging from interdisciplinary approaches to the nature of reality reflects many Qabalistic principles.  Among the theories expressing this new paradigm are quantum mechanics, chaos theory, Bohm's holographic universe, Pribram's holographic brain, Buckminster Fuller's synergetics, Sheldrake's morphogenetic fields, co-evolution, the Gaia and Panspermia hypotheses, semiotics, hermeneutics, hyperdimensional realities, the new cosmology and consciousness studies.

In new sciences, consciousness and matter share the same essence as different expressions of the same reality.  New sciences describe the evolution of the laws of nature, the evolution of our perception of nature.  In this view there are no abolutes, no fixed laws of nature, only a relative stability.  The laws of nature are evolving because nature is creative.

This universal dynamic creativity is also the domain of the Qabala with its consciousness map, the Tree of Life.  It presents a holistic image of emergent creativity, a webwork of the interaction of various spheres of influence, and the complex feedback loops which bind them to one another.  In terms of consciousness, each sphere (hypersphere) represents a discrete state of consciousness, and each path a transitional phase, or transformation.  Aspects of the system can be entrained through resonance.

Every body placed in the luminous air spreads out in circles and fills the surrounding space withi infinite likenesses of itself and appears all in all.                         --Leonardo da Vinci

Our mapmaking changes the very terrain, and terrain in turn changes our map.  Maps, mapmakers, and terrains whirl around each other like the vortex in a river which expresses the whole. 
                              --Briggs and Peat, Looking Glass Universe

A WHOLE -- IF NOT ABSOLUTE -- TRUTH

Wholeness has traditionally been a mystical perspective.  Now, the new sciences with radical notions of nonlinear complex dynamics, nonlocality, chaotic behavior, patterns of energy flow, relativity, enmeshment, fuzzy logic, etc. are revealing a deeper order underlying the nature of our directly experienced reality.

Wholeness is characterized by "flow," and the influence of every event on every other.  Through minute fluctuation, this flow gives birth to sudden orders of all kinds--structures of flowing energy exchange.  The whole is contained, paradoxically, within the "part," holographically.  Yet, wholeness can include incompleteness, the higher degree of order always hidden in apparent randomness.

Analogous processes of transformation in consciousness lead to insight and creativity.  Each moment in the therapeutic process, as in all life, reflects all others in the past.  Each therapeutic image contains a fractal-like representation of past, present, and future.  The transformation of imagery reflects in creativity; transformation of beliefs, thoughts, fellings, values, attitudes and behavior.

The Tree of Life encodes a dynamic system of transformation of the individual at the physical, emotional, conceptual, and spiritual levels.  Rather than a hierarchical "ladder" to be climbed, the Tree is a stratified image of the holistic nature of existence which interpenetrates as a fluid exchange of energy at every level.  More subtle "planes" are simply more deeply enfolded aspects of reality--hidden domains of order creating variables in our ordinary existence.

More than the sum of its parts, the Tree represents a multidimensional web of processes emanating in all directions by the conjoint macro-micro co-evolution of all systems.  This web exalts the pure intensification of life.  The secret of the universe is that it is alive.

The qabalistic Tree presents a model of reality and consciousness which is organic in nature.  It reflects the nature of nature, the nature of mind, and relevates the nature mind (natural mind) -- void of conceptualization -- the Clear Light.  Qabala offers an animated alternative perspective to the mechanistic, cybernetic models of psychoneurological function.

The living Tree models co-evolution as a creation that is happening at every point everywhere, in a fractal-like bottomless unfolding.  It also accomodates the self-referential process of recursive feeding back (or recycling) of consciousness in psychological transformation -- modeling the penetration of awareness into deeply implicate realms.  Pathworking provides for the opening, amplification, and exploration of specific feedback channels, and the induction of specific altered states of consciousness.

The Tree is a graphic representation of the dynamic process of becoming.  There is no real hierarchy, no fundamental level of description.  Rather, there are different levels, each dependent on the others in complex ways.  Higher levels feed back strands of information to lower levels, back to new higher levels, and so on.  Rather than describing a world of things, it describes process structures and emphasizes relationship.  It describes hidden formative principles, and a webwork of multiple perspectives.

Modern cosmology suggests that all matter plus all gravity in the observable universe equals zero.  So the universe -- and therefore, ourselves -- could come from nothing, because it is fundamentally nothing.  This echoes the qabalistic creation myth where all substance emanates from the primordial Veils of Negative Existence.  It reminds us of the Vedic and Buddhist notions that we and all we can observe are no more than 'mind-stuff.'  It reminds of Jung's conclusion that at the most fundamental levels psyche and matter are the same, that psyche and soma are indissoluably welded in our psychophysical selves. 

The story goes that around 4,000 years ago an angel of God gave the Qabala and Tree of Life to Abraham.  Though the glyph has gone through a few permutations through the centuries, it's essence has remained intact.  Curiously, this matrix describes the exact geometries of the nucelus of atomic structure as described by Buckminster Fuller in Synergetics.  By "looking within" the qabalists correctly deduced the primal structure of reality without any recourse to modern science and technology.  Apparently, the angels spoke the Truth.  This is the essence of Synergetic Qabala.