I remember some many years ago while reading an expansive collection of rather thin volumes on the subject of psychology, stumbling across a quote that has stuck with me ever since. I realize that I was somewhere between the ages of eleven and thirteen and the subject matter was mostly of a popular nature but for reasons that were beyond me at that time, my mind fastened onto those few words and have stayed me with to this day. I may not be repeating this quote exactly as it has been over thirty years since I laid mine eyes apon it and I have not seen it elsewhere nor have I been able to find it anywhere that I have looked. You are free to make of this fact what you will. “Physics and Psychology are Facets of the same Concept,” C.G. Jung.
I, like many other people whom have ever come to age in the world without ever feeling the need much less the interest to question what I was preceiving. If my eyes saw it, ears heard it, I tasted it, felt it or smelt it then it was beyond question real in the most absolute sense. The people around me, friends, family or other all seemed to agree with this conclusion, superfically in the very least, that if you preceived it then it was so, without a doubt. Much went on those years as I grew and discovered college, I learned much and faced many acedemic challenges but the greatest challenge of all came after college was done with me. It was the discovery that I happened to be a paranoid schizophrenic. It was as if some strange ancient spell had been cast and, practically overnight, my ever reliable eyes ears and such had been changed into tricksters full of deception. Now how could that be?
Chemical imbalance they would say. I had neither the interest nor the energy to fight the diagnosis.  Instead, over time, I found it increasingly curious how the difference between absolute, accurate senses and senses that lied to you all came down to a handful of neural transmitters and buffers (generally salts in solution).  Trying to grasp such a thing was overwhelming so instead I began to pay careful asttention to the little world in which I lived and the people that on occasion would pass through.  When we as people begin to ponder the notion that our ability to preceive the world with absolute accuracy is dependent on biochemistry then it becomes easier to understand the effects of things like narcotics, alcohol, industrial chemicals, tobacco and even mundane things like coffee, sugar, chocolate and certain foods or spices that, as the Suffi might say, “get your blood up.”  I even found myself wondering about the effects of Financial, Family, Health or other stressors on the shade through which we preceive the world.  Simply by watching I have found that even the simplest preceptions vary from individual to individual.  My wife, Meta, has a difficulty differentiating between  green and blue but whatever color I say I see, she, and it never fails, will correct me by instructing me in what color it actually is,  I see blue she sees turquoise, I say yellow she says tangerine and so on.  Eyewitnesses to a crime in common often see very different things.  It took time, but I finally reached the conclusion that my preceptual weirdnesses just interfered with my life more and fell further outside the range of culturally acceptable preceptual perculiarities.  In time all I became certain of was just how uncertain our flawless, absolute and perfect physical senses really were.

Remember the quote, “Physics and Psychology are facets of the same concept” C.G. Jung.  Facets encourages my mind to visualize a stone, a diamond for reasons I can’t immediately fathom.  Maybe its because of the way a large, finely cut diamond sparkles as if it has a light all of its own.  This has a great deal to do with the optical qualities of diamond.  Such a stone with high quality clarity, size and cut has an effect on light, two effects I believe, but I could be wrong and if so will happily admit it, which are called diffraction and rarefraction.  The light from the outside strikes the stone, if it comes in contact with any given facet at the right angle, perpendicular to the face or plane of the facet, then it will pass into the interior.  Once inside, the light will diffract slightly lending hints of color to the stone.  But only so much of the light that has reached the interior will easily pass back through into the greater world outside.  Whatever facet it comes in contact with it must be at the correct angle in order to pass through, otherwise it will bounce around the interior until the proper condition is met.  Thus the spectacle of a large clear diamond, sparklers as my mother was known to call them.  The process is easy to imagine and if you remove the stone from the light it will quickly dim as it has no light of its own.  Can you imagine such a thing, a diamond before you either set or loose.

If you can picture it in your own mind clearly, then try to imagine a light within the diamond.  Call it what you will, soul, mind, spirit, current, god energy, vibration or conciousness.  Also imagine that light comes from the greater world outside the stone as well.  The simple principles we illustrated above still apply.  So put directly, what the being inside the stone preceives is in part some of its own light reflected back at it and some of the light from the greater outside.  It can not tell which is which giving its reality a seemless fluidity.  Nor is the entity within aware of all the light that fills its tiny world, in reality only a tiny portion of said light fills its thoughts and awareness.  Finally, adding to the complexity of the situation, each facet of the stone respresents a school of thought, academic discipline, cultural or spiritual prespective.  It seems our little friend lives in a surprizingly complicated world that he or she is only slightly aware of, maybe in the future we could consider giving the little critter a break because after all, he or she is we.