"Holistic Vision" (4/12) - Yin and Yang as Floater Structures in Ancient China

*"Holistic Vision"*	ISSN 2296-178X
4/12 (No. 16)

.	Current Lead Story: Yin and Yang, Bi and Cong – Floater Structures in Ancient China

Stripline in the Eye Floaters News

Introduction

Open eye meditation on eye floaters

This Mouches-volantes-Picture (Eye-Floaters-Picture) is made by Leuchtstruktur Verlag.

(source)

This is the latest issue of “Holistic Vision”, the spiritual project by the author and consciousness researcher Floco Tausin. It is devoted to a phenomenon known as idiopathic or harmless “eye floaters” or “muscae volitantes” (see pictures) among ophthalmologists. We see them as scattered, mobile, transparent dots and strings in our visual field. “Holistic Vision” includes ophthalmology but questions its conclusion on floaters and goes beyond. For the observation and open eye meditation reveals a connection between altered states of consciousness and the way floaters look. Furthermore, a look at different cultures highlights floaters as an object of art and spirituality. By this “holistic vision”, Floco Tausin pursues the question whether these spheres and strings are first appearances of a shining structure of consciousness within which we cover a distance to our spiritual origin – a path that lights up through open eye meditation.

Read further …

Stripline in the Eye Floaters News

News Content

In Western culture, the phenomenon of eye floaters (or muscae volitantes) is primarily understood in line with modern ophthalmology as “vitreous opacities”. However, the review of mythical and spiritual visual arts from former and non-Western cultures discloses abstract symbols that resemble the typical structures of shining structure floaters. This suggests that floaters have been widely interpreted as a mythical or spiritual phenomenon; and that there might be a perceptual dimension of floaters that is hardly known to modern man. This article takes the reader to the visual worlds of ancient China and suggests that floaters have found their way into the art and imagination of this Far East civilization.

Stripline in the Eye Floaters News

Readers’ Hints, Experiences, and Pictures

Eye Floaters as Interference Patterns and Holograms?

“Moreover, the concentric circles of the floaters may be interference patterns or the so-called ‘Newton's Rings.’ These can be viewed with either monochromatic or white light. When light waves propagate in phase with adjacent waves, they reinforce one another (constructive interference); conversely, when they are 180º out of phase, they cancel each other out (destructive interference). Light waves slightly out of phase are partially cancelled. In the Newton Rings experiment, we can obtain concentric circles with either a bright or dark center.”
-- From the book The Crystal Eye Floater. A Link between Ancient Spiritual Traditions, by Enck Kanaj. love-eye-floaters.blogspot.com

„Just made a real discovery.... I have been studying on the nature of the universe being a giant hologram and how the brain/mind is as well. I just realized the floaters, in Tibetan thigle, are actually holograms. We describe them in thogal as looking like ‘rings that occur when one drops a pebble into a pond’. This is an ancient Dzogchen description of floaters as thigle. Here's a quote from a book on holograms being the nature of the universe and brain processing: ‘[…] A hologram is produced when a single laser light is split into two separate beams. The first beam is bounced off the object to be photographed. Then the second beam is allowed to collide with the reflected light of the first. When this happens they create an interference pattern which is then recorded on a piece of film.’”
-- Jackson Peterson, wayoflight.net

These are very interesting insights by Jackson and Enck! A while ago, I wrote an article suggesting that the holographic model of the universe is much more suitable to understand the phenomena of floaters (see link). It's in German, but to sum it up: The mechanical worldview, upon which modern ophthalmology rests, may be sufficient to understand the everyday perception of floaters. In intense states of consciousness however, it is possible to experience phenomena like vertical jumps (zoom effects), lateral jumps and lighting ups of floaters, related to concentration and ecstasy. While the mechanical paradigm fails to explain such phenomena, the holographic model may succeed. This becomes evident by realizing that, in reality, there are no floaters moving in our visual field, but light that illuminates aspects of a whole structure. This structure may be called ‘holographic’ insofar as it is a three-dimensional structure that is capable to reproduce our individual floater pattern in every location, depth, size and intensity. I did not elaborate that idea in (physical) detail.

Artist's impression of the interference between two circular wave systems.

Artist's impression of the interference between two circular wave systems.

Enck and Jackson provide these details: floaters are interference patterns which develop when light waves collide. This is visually exemplified by images of such patterns which look like concentric floater spheres. As holograms are produced by the way of interference patterns, floaters might be a visual indication that we actually live in a holographic universe. Seeing floaters, then, would mean that we see the encrypted code of that hologram from which our 3D everyday world arises.

While I find that explanation of floaters absolutely intriguing, I hesitate to fully agree. What Enck and Jackson describe may well apply to the rainbow circles, the colored concentric circles that appear in one’s visual field when gazing into the sun light with the eyes squinted. As I understand it, this is the phenomenon usually mentioned in Dzogchen teachings of Tibetan Buddhism (see Holistic Vision 2/12). However, the shining structure floaters – the subjective visual phenomenon most important to the Emmental seers – look different. They usually are neither colored nor consist of several circles, i.e. they do not fit the Dzogchen metaphor of ‘dropping a pebble into a pond,’ but have an antagonistic core-surround structure. So, to me, the interference pattern as a physical explanation does not apply to shining structure floaters. But the hologram metaphor still might – the details are yet to be worked out. Then again, as Jackson says, “even more important is not the structure, but the state of mind that arises from thogal practice. The non-personal, non-local base Awareness that is revealed is the real goal in my opinion, so far.“

Thanks, Jackson and Enck, for sharing your insights!
-- Floco

References:

Eye floaters and their meaning were interpreted differently depending on the time, culture and personality of the observer. We learn a spiritually meaningful perspective about floaters from Nestor, the seer, with whom I have studied and whose teachings I recorded in the book „Mouches volantes – Eye Floaters as Shining Structure of Consciousness“. In this category, a particular statement from the book on floaters shall be presented and explained.

From: Mouches Volantes – Eye Floaters. The Shining Structure of Consciousness, p. 255-256. (source)

A seer-friend of Nestor, the „thinker“, talks about the idea of hierarchy in the seers‘ teaching. We had a lengthy discussion on this point, because I struggled with the idea of inequality among living beings and humans. It sure did make sense to me that consciousness is different in every living creature and every individual. But in the seers‘ thinking, the whole creation was developed from a single shining structure sphere. This basically meant to me that everyone and everything had a common, identical core. So why all this thinking about the world in terms of rankings and hierarchies?

I learned that the seers have a nuanced view of „hierarchy“. Seers see that there is a center in their visual field with a sphere they call the „source“. In intense states of consciousness, the distance to that center decreases, so the seers say they „approach the source,“ or „pull the source near.“ This means that one can be closer to that center or farther away. Based on this visual experience, it is easy to construct a hierarchy: the closer one gets to his own source, the more one climbs up the „consciousness hierarchy“.

The point is that this can hardly be transferred to mundane conditions. Because everyone sees her/his own closeness to the source. Other shining structure spheres might be other consciousnesses on the way to their own source. But we don’t see who these other consciousnesses are, and how close they already are to their center. So it might be possible to establish a hierarchy by telling one another how near or far away we see (or feel) ourselves from our center. For example, I feel that seers are closer to their center than I am to mine. Seers have an authentic power and insights that move me and cause me to further examine and realize their teachings in my own life. But this is nothing I can see. It is not possible for a seer to fit other human beings into a hierarchy on the basis of seeing the shining structure. And this is certainly not what seeing is all about.

Seers use the idea of the consciousness hierarchy to gain a larger picture about what and how they actually see, or, in other words, to think about their process or path in the shining structure in relation to the principle of ecstasy. Ironically, the ecstasy principle of the seers’ hierarchy can be understood as a message for the bearers of our mundane hierarchies, too. Especially to those with tons of energy bound in the form of property and money: To further climb up the „hierarchy“, you have to give back whatever energy is not needed to live a conscious, healthy and simple life.

Stripline in the Eye Floaters News

Quarterly Picture

“Study for Night Music for Raptures” by Fred Tomaselli; and “Jade Bi Disk”

The category "Quarterly Picture" introduces realistic, artistic and/or spiritual/religious representations from different cultures and times which could show entoptic phenomena, or be inspired by it.

“Study for Night Music for Raptures” by Fred Tomaselli

Herbs, flowers, pills, as well as clipped birds and insects, all resting on wooden panels, fixed by a film of resin, arranged to cosmic-psychedelic patterns – welcome to the universe of US-American artist Fred Tomaselli. In his mandala-like collages, he combines nature and culture, spirituality and chemistry, the concrete and the abstract.

Fred Tomaselli, “Study for Night Music for Raptors”, collage and resin on panel (29.12.12). (source)

Many of Tomaselli’s visionary images may well be understood as entoptic art. Some show concentric circles and strings containing shining dots or spheres. They look like phosphenic floaters, i.e. shining structure floaters seen in the dark during in intense consciousness states. This fantastic cosmos of abstract geometric patterns is also reminiscent of the art found in South American shamanic societies (cp. Tausin 2012: Lights from the Other World). Other paintings indicate, in more concrete ways, the lost paradise which, in Tomaselli’s work, seems to reveal itself only in psychedelic experiences. Whether or not these explorations of entoptic spheres and strings represent a glimpse of Eden – to Fred Tomaselli they were significant enough to get involved with body, mind and heart.

“Jade Bi Disk”

The late Neolithic Chinese Liangzhu culture (c. 3300-2200 BC) is known for its finely manufactured jade objects that were found in graves. Together with the rectangular jade tubes (cong), the perforated jade disks (bi) probably were regarded as symbols of status and power. Later in the history, these jades represented two important Chinese mythological concepts, heaven (bi) and earth (cong).

Jade bi disk, Liangzhu culture.

The bi disks probably originate from earlier Stone-Age symbols of circles and perforated disks which symbolized the origin of being and female fertility. Perhaps the perforated disks were used by ancient Chinese shamans for ritual purposes, as today’s Siberian shamans still do (cp. Tausin 2012: Lights from the Other World). As in other early civilizations, the shamanic background combined with the association of heaven and celestial bodies may be indicating the entoptic origin of the bi disk. Specifically, due to the core and surround structure it may be a representation of floater spheres.

A more profound consideration of the symbolism of Ancient Chinese art and shining structure floaters is given in the lead story of this newsletter.

You will find simillar entoptic pictures in the gallery. Do you have drawings of eye floaters or other entoptic phenomena (flying corpuscles, afterimages etc.)? Do you know of realistic, artistic and religious representations of such appearances? Then send me the picture or give me the tip; I would like to publish it in the newsletter and/or in the gallery.

Publications by Floco Tausin

You’ll find a complete list with all previous publications in German and English (monographs, anthologies, magazines) at Website.
These articles are also available in the member area.

Shamash, Ishtar and Igigi – Floater structures in ancient Mesopotamia
In Western culture, the phenomenon of eye floaters (or muscae volitantes) is primarily understood in line with modern ophthalmology as “vitreous opacities”. However, the review of mythical and spiritual visual arts from former and non-Western cultures discloses abstract symbols that resemble the typical structures of shining structure floaters. This suggests that floaters have been widely interpreted as a mythical or spiritual phenomenon; and that there might be a perceptual dimension of floaters that is hardly known to modern man. This article provides a trip to the visual worlds of Mesopotamia and suggests that floaters have found their way into the art and imagination of this ancient civilization.

Published:
- ET. Updates, 6.8.12. etupdates.com (21.11.12)

The Shining Sphere at the End of the Tunnel – Eye Floaters and Near-Death Experiences
Persons who were revived after being clinically dead often report unusual and profound perceptions they had in the state of near-death. These experiences defy scientific and religious thinking alike. Some visual elements of near-death experiences (NDE) resemble one particular type of eye floaters, the ‘shining structure floaters’. The thesis of this article is that floaters and other entoptic phenomena are phenomena of consciousness which continue to exist in states of near-death – and possibly even beyond death.

Published:
- Ovi Magazine, 4.11.12. ovimagazine.com (29.11.12)
- Ufodigest, 26.10.12. ufodigest.com (27.10.12)
- Unexplained Mysteries, 4.11.12. unexplained-mysteries.com (5.11.12)