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relatively separate forms of existence also operates within the Movement of Wholeness.
One may think of it as anti-spiritual, but this may be misleading because its operations
take a great variety of forms. While it is active in egocentric desire and the will to be
different and unique at any cost, to speak of it as "evil" may be confusing. The process of
individualization certainly is not evil in itself, although religions often misunderstand its
nature. Above all, one should take care not to personalize this power of differentiation,
that is, not to give it a "human, all too human" character. It is simply the trend toward an
expansive multiplication and fragmentation of being, and it opposes the integrative action
of spirit.
One may consider it the shadow aspect of being, but only after the human stage of
evolution has been reached. For only after the power of the principle of Unity rises in and
through humanity does the "sun" of Unity begin to shine. Then can the opaque materials
of which human beings are made — not only as physical bodies but also as opaque
systems of mental beliefs and religious dogmas — cast a "shadow." Shadows begin at the
Noon of the planetary cycle because the future state of Illumined Man becomes a
potentiality then, as soon as the avataric series begins. A very small vanguard of human
beings already has actualized this potentiality (at least partially). But the "sun" of
avatarhood casts an inevitable shadow when it strikes those human beings who as yet
cannot or deliberately refuse to see its light. As the consciousness and the will of human
beings becomes increasingly translucent, the shadow becomes less dark.
In human beings operating at the tribal level or in religious or sociopolitical
communities still strongly unified by an original avataric revelation, this shadow
manifests as the product of a centrifugal force alienating the person from the unanimous
whole. But when the process of individualization begins as a definite transition between
the still biologically conditioned state of culture and the planetary, Pleroma state, a special
situation develops. As the principle of Multiplicity wanes, its power becomes internalized
or introverted, giving a sharper, more exclusivistic character to the ego — that is, to the
individualized capacity to adjust to increasingly unique family and sociocultural
situations. 28 As the principle of Unity simultaneously waxes, it strengthens the operation
of the true "individualizing principle" or "higher self" (terms which will be defined more
precisely in Chapter 9), which seeks the integration of a spiritual Quality and a human
being. Thus the nearly unavoidable conflict between Unity and Multiplicity begins to
operate more definitely subjectively — that is, in the human consciousness and mind. It is
experienced as that between the exclusivistic ego ("I am uniquely what I am and all I
possess is strictly mine") and the "higher self." The conflict becomes psychological. What
the psychologist usually fails to realize, however, is that what Jung (in a limited sense)
called the Shadow is built by the same force that once generated an immense multiplicity
28 I mentioned a special approach to this internalization of the trend toward Multiplicity in an early series of
articles (1942-43) now revised and integrated in my book The Pulse of Life, which was later retitled
Astrological Signs: The Pulse of Life by the publisher (Shambhala Publications, Boulder, 1970). This book
interprets the cycle of being in terms of the seasonal cycle of the year and the zodiac. See pages 21-25.
The Pulse of Life is now available free online at the Rudhyar Archival Project.
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