Book Review: by David Lorimer, Programme Director, Scientific and Medical Network

The Dream of the Cosmos By Anne Baring

Archive Publishing, 2013, ISBN 978-1-906289-23-2 Twenty years in the making and distilling a lifetime of experience and reading, Anne Barings magnum opus is one of the most important books of the decade brilliant, profound, passionate, magisterial in its scope and articulating a feminine and spiritual outlook on the crisis of our time in its many dimensions - spiritual, psychological, ecological, social, political and economic. Needless to say, these are all interlinked at the level of worldview and reflect much deeper patterns than most people are aware of. Anne draws on her own extensive background as a historian of culture and healer of the psyche to convey an extraordinary synthesis of essential ideas. These are accompanied by her husband Robin Barings beautiful images. A diagram on page 488 outlines the scheme of the book, beginning with the lunar phase of original participation and identity with the Great Mother. This is followed by the advent of solar mythology bringing separation of mind and soul as well as of mind and nature. The Cosmos, God and the world are objectified. She called the third phase stellar, bringing the sacred marriage and conscious participation in an ensouled cosmos. The book is then structured into six parts: the beginning of Annes quest, the lunar era of the original participation, the dissociated psyche and the pathology of separation and loss, recovering the connection to the soul, a new vision of reality, and transformation leading to final participation (a phrase from Owen Barfield). There are two interludes about the significance of the Sleeping Beauty as a fairy tale for our time, and the Way of the Tao as a feminine symbol. Anne writes lyrically about her early life, especially visits to her grandmothers house in the south of France and her discovery of Moorish Spain, Italy and India. The reader comes to understand the trajectory of the journey her life has taken and her passion to rediscover the ancient image of the soul as an all-embracing cosmic web of life in which we live, move and have our being. At the age of 11, she had a life changing experience in which another order of reality broke into the physical and set her off on her quest, on which her mother had already embarked. What she calls her awakening dream was the most awesome of her life, a vision of the goddess as Anima Mundi with an immense revolving wheel at the centre of her abdomen. Anne notices that she also has such a wheel, but that it is not centred. The figure indicates that her task is to centre that wheel. It is a wonderful image and so representative of personal and cultural imbalance. The dream represents an important step in 1

her quest leading to the philosophy and psychology of Carl Jung, who was undoubtedly one of the most significant thinkers of the 20th century, but too profound and threatening to be included in university psychology courses. Twenty years ago, Anne published The Myth of the Goddess with Jules Cashford in which they explored the implications of our cultural separation from nature and the goddess. This present book builds on their findings and her subsequent exploration of the Divine Feminine. A recurrent and central theme is the oneness of life and energy, but the rational mind can only see separation and thinks itself superior to the unconscious and the instinctual. In a chapter on the tree of life, Anne explores the significance of the Shekinah as a symbol of divine immanence that is also named womb, palace, enclosure, fountain, apple orchard and mystical Garden of Eden. Further imagery emerges in Gnosticism and the Holy Spirit as Presence. The image of the Great Mother implies a sense of participation in a Sacred Cosmic Order, which Anne explores extensively across a number of cultures, explaining the deep symbolism of the phases of the moon in terms of death and rebirth. She identifies a number of key themes of lunar mythology that are transmitted to later cultures in terms of the feminine qualities relationships and connection, including the shamanic vision of kinship with all creation. She shows how this sense was lost in Greek culture between Parmenides and Plato, also referring to the seminal work Iain McGilchrist, which will be familiar to many readers. The next part explains the advent of the solar era leading to a separation from nature and the battle between good and evil, the archetype of which is very much still with us. The solar myth refers to a cosmic battle between light and darkness that was to have a profound political impact in the idea of the holy war and the formation of a warrior class associated with a quest for power and omnipotence; also with the development of utopian ideologies and their negative projection of evil on the other. The Great Mother gives way to the Great Father: good is identified with spirit, light, order and the rational mind, while the feminine aspect of life is frequently identified with evil in terms of nature, darkness, chaos and the body (p. 122). This polarisation continues into our own time and is reflected in the Christian myth of the Fall and its associated doctrine of original sin, to which Anne devotes a separate chapter. The literal interpretation of this myth bequeathed to generations of Christians a legacy of sexual guilt, misogyny and fear of Gods anger, the indications of which are examined in great detail through the writings of church fathers, especially St Augustine of Hippo. The obsession with sexuality sin and guilt is still with us. Other scholars have interpreted the story of Adam and Eve as the birth of self-awareness and the consequent loss of an unconscious participatory state, while the Celtic priest Pelagius provided a much more humane theology. In her work as a therapist, Anne came to understand the harm inflicted by a deep sense of self-rejection. The next chapter examines the history of misogyny and the effects of the oppression of women throughout history. Even in our own day, women are still being raped, trafficked and brutalised by domestic abuse, especially in war zones. Anne expresses her deep outrage on behalf of women to this history of oppression, which makes especially sobering reading for men. 2

Within the Christian tradition, the three figures of Eve, the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene carry different archetypes, and many readers will be familiar with recent reinterpretations of the role of Mary Magdalene. Eve stands for the contamination of original sin leading men to regard themselves as superior and women as defective. Anne examines episodes such as the witch trials and the continuing oppression of women in Muslim societies, concluding that the millennia-long oppression of women is unfinished, with men still trying to exert patriarchal control. Current Western culture is based on a one-eyed rational consciousness already criticised by Blake in the 18th century. Modern science embraces a secular materialist philosophy with no vertical axis, but this view is being undermined in some quarters by a new science of consciousness and an understanding of how the brain has evolved. A different worldview is emerging, which is explored later in the book: there has been a resurgence of the feminine and a corresponding awakening of the soul with its emphasis on care, connection and feeling values. We are developing a sense of relationship with the Earth, as reflected in environmentalism, holistic science and the Gaia hypothesis demonstrating the interconnectedness of life. The role of women is being gradually affirmed, and the feminine challenges us to develop compassion for life on Earth, to meet the deepest needs of the human heart and to relinquish damaging beliefs and patterns of behaviour. Carl Jung played a pioneering role in this process of rediscovering the soul with his profound exploration of alchemy. He was not afraid to plumb the depths of his own psyche and uncover collective patterns of which we must become more aware. He pointed out the dangers of one-sidedness seeking power and supremacy over others and projecting evil outwards - his work on the shadow could not be more important and it is essential that this should be widely understood in our culture, especially by politicians. As it is, only those familiar with Jungs work are aware of its profound implications. Instinct and the shadow, represented by the Dragon, cannot be conquered, because it is the creative power of life itself. One of our grave dangers, as also pointed out by Joseph Chilton Pearce, is the predominance of survival instincts activated by the reptilian brain and the consequent division between predator and prey. This is projected on a large scale with our development of ever-more sophisticated forms of weaponry and destruction, rendered all the more lethal by pressures to conform to and obey authority. This malignant aggression is also marketed as entertainment in terms of sadism and violence, to which we expose our young people what Anne appropriately calls vicarious visual terrorism, which many defend in terms of freedom of expression. She rightly maintains that the real issue is the creation and protection of a civilised society. The shadow is equally present in terms of religious atrocities and politically endemic militarism to which science has also become beholden. She writes a truly searing chapter on war as the rape of the soul with its archaic roots in the reptilian and mammalian brains. We do not often reflect on the implications of nuclear and chemical (and now electromagnetic) weapons, which are simply an outrage against the sanctity of life and a fundamental betrayal of our humanity. Militarism and the arms trade continue to drive the world economy, at huge opportunity cost to other 3

humanitarian and environmental budgets. The challenge here is that no pattern of behaviour is more resistant to change then the survival instincts that are triggered by fear. Moreover, the mass of humanity continues to follow outdated social customs and religious beliefs, so new leaders will have to be highly advanced in their thinking and genuinely grounded in the oneness of life. The next part articulates a new vision of reality as indicated by emerging sciences and new understandings of consciousness as the ground of being. Anne brings together the findings of physics and biology with parallel metaphors in spiritual traditions - holographic thinking with the net of Indra. Sacred places such as Chartres with its rose windows reflect a multi-layered understanding of reality. Reconnecting with the soul also entails overcoming the split between mind and body and respecting the role of instinct and the perceptions of the heart. Fundamental to this new vision is a new image of God, to which Anne devotes a whole chapter. Contemporary spiritual awakening arises from a direct connection with a transcendent dimension involving the transformation or illumination of consciousness rather than redemption through faith. The influence of the East has given us a different image of spirit along with an understanding of karma and reincarnation. In addition, Nature is now being understood in terms of theophany as in Celtic Christianity, opening up the possibility of healing the split between spirit and Nature. The final part explains stellar consciousness, taking the reader through the transmutational process of alchemy, rediscovered in the 20th century by Jung. Anne elaborates on the principal themes and processes that are also reflected in many myths. This represents a return journey to the unseen dimension that attunes our awareness to a hidden order of reality. She then the marshals the evidence for the survival of the soul beyond death, deriving from this material an understanding of our three bodies and the kinds of world that we will enter after having made our own transition. Reflecting the profound insights of this research, the last chapter explains how Light and Love are the pulse of the cosmos, as all mystics such as Ruysbroeck and Eckhart have maintained. Anne also explains how her book has been written with love: love of life, love of beauty, love of family and friends, love of humanity. She finishes with a vision of humanity aligning to the evolutionary intention of the cosmos and no longer driven by the quest for power, conquest and control and the appropriation of the Earths resources for the benefit of the few. In doing so, she believes, our minds will serve the deepest longings of our heart, the deepest wisdom of our soul. This is a profound message of hope and renewal calling forth the feminine principle of care, compassion and connection, principles that we can all choose to embody and articulate to serve as midwives of a new culture. The book is an absolute tour de force and the crowning achievement of a life well lived in the service of the soul.

This review is reproduced by kind permission of the editors of Network Review, Journal of the Scientific and Medical Network, ISSN 1362-1211, No 112, Summer 2013. For information about SMN, see www.scimednet.org