[synapse essay the second]
VISUAL POETRY: Phase Space of the Gods
Harry Polkinhorn
Visual poetry, like other cultural forms, leads a double life. On the one hand, there is the body of visual poetry itself, an open set susceptible of any of a variety of characterizations. The "poems themselves" are to be found in anthologies, magazines, books, galleries and other display spaces, on the Internet, and so on. However, in addition we must consider the conceptually slipperier existence of visual poetry as seen from within its theory. Whereas to grasp the possibility of the first category, made up as it is of a potentially infinite number of contingent examples, is relatively easy, much more difficult is it to arrive at a balanced understanding of how visual poetry is theorized, since the very process of theorization is postulated upon a foundational split by means of which the object of analysis is established, just as in psychology all statements about the psyche are mediated by someone's psyche, ruling out a transcendent point of view. In the human sciences, such a split mimics that of the physical sciences but with skewed consequences. The failure in the Euro-American experience to draw the necessary conclusion of critical humility (i.e., respect for the visual poem) from the early twentieth-century's great lesson of the relativization of point of view has plagued criticism of visual poetry, as well as other cultural forms, in our time. This has been especially pernicious with regard to practice in the United States, which has been cursed by these arrogant and ethnocentric aggrandizements, constituting lack of a history of responsible, thoughtful, and insightful criticism. In what follows, I want to try to lay the groundwork to redress this imbalance, even if only partially, by proposing an expanded theory, but one of a different stripe, a self-conscious theory that nevertheless doesn't abdicate its respect for the visual poem as seen within a given social and historical context.
In order to do this, I will propose a break with the ideological mystification of linear growth in the so-called history of an aesthetic form, based as it is on the implicit notion of development, rarely examined as such. In its place let's put a fresh consideration of the form/content dichotomy, and for paradigmatic contexts let's go to the heart of the matter, namely, Egyptian hieroglyphic writing, to be modulated by drawing on analytical psychology and the complexity theory of our own time. No argument will be made here that visual poetry traces its origins to the ancient Egyptians, since, as indicated, I am not interested in establishing a canonical genealogy. My intention is to illustrate several aspects of visual poetry through discussion of a culture in many ways antithetical to our own. Perhaps we can learn a more useful attitude towards visual poetry, which is badly needed at the beginning of the twentieth-first century A.D., by taking a look at how the Egyptians approached the border areas between the verbal and the visual that we find so fascinating. A secondary advantage to examining Egyptian practice, of course, is that it will remove us from the dreadful swamps of contemporaneity, after which on returning to them via a current scientific theory we may be able to apply criticism's discriminatory function more reasonably and usefully than would be the case if we (once again) took the historical short view, pretending—with a mere token gesture to other sources—that visual poetry came into existence in Moscow in 1911, for example, or in São Paulo in 1953. The main objective in what follows is to provide an expanded context for critical evaluation of visual poems being produced in our own time.
The Pyramid Texts are the oldest substantial body of documents in the world. They were discovered in 1880-81 in the pyramids at Sakkara and date back to the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties. They are recorded in hieroglyphic on the walls of five of these pyramids and date from the latter half of the 27th century B.C. to early in the 25th century B.C. (c. 2625-c. 2475 B.C.). However, the material they contain refers to a time that antedates the earliest of these "texts" by hundreds of years. (Breasted, 85) These documents are remarkable for a variety of reasons, not the least of which—customarily and expectedly noted but misunderstood by some Egyptologists—is their insistence on visuality and all that this implies.
He [the Egyptian] thought in concrete pictures, he moved along tangible material channels, and the material world about him furnished nearly all of the terms which he used. . . . such terms for the most part remained concrete for the Egyptian. (8)
Perfectly capable of abstraction, however, as is revealed, for example, in the associations with the goddess Ma'at ("world order, balance, harmony, justice, and truth") (Silverman, in Shafer, 34), the ancient Egyptians preferred to retain an image-based manner of expression in the formal structure of their pantheon, its accompanying theology, and the hieroglyphic system of writing. Breasted's comment reveals his bias in favor of thinking in abstractions, a position rejected by poets and debated by philosophers at least since Plato's Republic. Thinking in "concrete pictures" (an oxymoron to be critically examined later) carries with it a rich nexus of implications regarding the status of the individual and his gradual differentiation from whatever may have preceded self-consciousness, which becomes the powerful filter through which everything gets viewed. This "individual," of course, was first the king, specifically in his relationship to the divine order. Later in Egyptian history, individuality so conceived spread down to the higher ranks of the nobility and below.
But what was the purpose of hieroglyphic writing? How did it come about, and why was it retained? The Egyptians evolved several writing systems, among them the hieroglyphs. In comparing them with Sumerian pictographs, Fischer says,
Egyptian hieroglyphs were not only much more clearly representational [than Sumerian pictographs] but acquired an even greater degree of naturalism, which persisted for well over three millennia (62)
Whatever advantages hieroglyphic writing brought were important enough for it to be retained for millennia, a primary consideration in our examination of this writing system. Still, the writing system changed. According to Barthel, “Die ägyptische Schrift is die Kombination von drei Elementen: Bildzeichen, Lautzeichen and Deutzeichen” (33). He goes on to demonstrate that there were various registers—the hieroglyphic, the Hieratic, and the demotic—and that writing evolved over time, but always keeping its basic elements intact. (33 ff.) Finally, he confirms the notion that one must view hieroglyphic writing in its larger, determining context.
Bei den ägyptischen Hieroglyphen-Bildern geht es nicht um “Kunst”, wenn auch die Darstellungsmittel kunstvoll beherrscht wurden. Es geht nicht um Deutung aus subjektivem Sehen, sonder um den Wesensgehalt, der im Mythisch-Religiösen wurzelt und durch ihn seine Form erheilt. (44)
In other words, the psychological appropriateness of this writing system was identified and valued as a cultural good worth preserving. Of central importance here is the relationship of naturalistic, graphic image to phonetic representation. Fischer points out that:
hieroglyphs were generally presented in a discrete sequence of phonetic and ideographic elements, and this in turn facilitated the complementary relationship of representations and inscriptions that were fully realized only after the Archaic period. (65)
That is, the relationship was based on maintaining the difference between inscription and representation. Once established, the balance was retained for a long time, although modifications were instituted. There was no pull into "the concrete," in fact, but rather the duality between the two modes of consciousness was cherished, each of which existed by virtue of the fact that the other did.
What is even more remarkable, however, is the fact that the initiation of writing with hieroglyphs may have been the creation of one person. Fischer says,
It [the hieroglyphic system] may well have been conceived by a single individual . . . the hypothetical inventor of Egyptian writing was evidently a talented draftsman; in designing the hieroglyphic system he simultaneously created a new style of art, a style that aimed to present forms with the utmost clarity, often combining a multiplicity of points of view for that purpose. . . . instead of becoming unrecognizable abstractions, as in the case of Sumerian, these forms became more naturalistic and precise . . . in no other civilization have art and writing been so completely amalgamated (66)
If one can trace in Egyptian religion a trajectory that charts the development of individual consciousness (claimed with hard work from the realm of the animal instincts), then whoever invented hieroglyphic writing well exemplifies the success of these early humans in their experiment with consciousness pitted against the irrational as symbolized by death. Many have related this achievement to the social adaptations that evolved over time as necessary to large-scale exploitation of agriculture within the Nile Valley, especially the relationship of human groups to the sources of energy in water and sunlight. (Stewart, 21)
In any case, for the Egyptians written language included phonetic and graphic representations and had a divine status with its own god, Thoth, one of the pre-eminent deities of the Ennead of Heliopolis and eventually a national deity perhaps second in importance only to Amon-Re, the supreme solar overlord. The conjoint relationship between phonetic and graphic representations, in a writing system firmly based upon this kind of duality that was perhaps the invention of one individual, is directly mirrored in the unique form of kingship invented by Menes and similarly retained for millennia. This was the unifying of Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt under one sovereign, a duality mythically reflected in the eternal hostility between Seth and Osiris, the dual thrones in this world and the afterlife, the doubled nature of the king and his Ka, and in many other ways (Frankfort). As that figure who unified the warring factions, the king represented or literally was a gain in civilization, or, in the terminology of analytical psychology, his agency transcended the level of the opposed instincts (without obliterating them), making higher consciousness possible (cf. Jung's "The Relation between the Ego and the Unconscious").
The special amalgamation of what Fischer calls "art and writing" found in the hieroglyphs can best be elucidated from the point of view of their purpose.
Hieroglyphic writing had only one name: "divine words." This established its status. Writing could not function independently of the spoken word, of which it was merely a transcription. It maintained an a posteriori existence and was essentially limited to a commemorative or archival function. Writing was merely a putting into form, an "in-formation" of the world. With its help, the gods constituted the archives of important events; everything touching on the conflict between Horus and Seth, for example, was carefully written down. Given the role writing played in the world of the gods, there could be no works of fiction there. Written signs themselves were defined as "imprints" of everything contained in creation. Every living creature and every thing could be utilized as written signs. All divine writings without exception were considered "emanations of Re," or faithful representations of the will of the creator. To draw up a catalogue of written signs was to draw up a catalogue of all that had been created. (Meeks, 104-05)
The emphasis on the relationship of hieroglyphic writing to the spoken word retains great interest for us. Both forms of expression were held to be powerful, i.e., sacred. With regard to spoken language, many are the references in the Pyramid Texts to the tongue and the heart. The heart was held to be the seat of thought as well as feeling, and its manner of externalization was the tongue. However, in their ancient confrontation with death, which was central in their culture for thousands of years, the Egyptians encountered the inevitable silencing of the tongue. This unacceptable affront to the desire for immortality was countered by several means, among them hieroglyphic writing. On the walls of tombs, papyri, the inside of coffins, and stelae, this writing was able to freeze speech, allowing it to transcend embodiment in a specific individual and communicate through the ages.
Although this may seem alien to a contemporary, wholly secularized sensibility, hieroglyphic writing, rather than being a supposedly neutral channel of transmission for any kind of information, was conceived as inseparably and structurally related to the profound theocentricity of Egyptian culture. At the center of life was the king, who made it possible. For ancient man, "The purely secular—in so far as it could be granted to exist at all—was the purely trivial. Whatever was significant was imbedded in the life of the cosmos, and it was precisely the king's function to maintain the harmony of that integration." (Frankfort, 2) The function of the hieroglyphs, for the Egyptians, says Breasted, was
essentially to insure the king's felicity in the hereafter. The chief and dominant note throughout is insistent, even passionate, protest against death. . . . the record of humanity's earliest supreme revolt against the great darkness and silence from which none returns. The word death never occurs in the Pyramid Texts except in the negative or applied to a foe. (91)
Whereas this Egyptologist views his subject through the lenses of a desacralized post-Enlightenment humanism, which generates an anguish and a cynicism about the brevity of life that far surpasses anything to be found in the Pyramid Texts or the Book of the Dead, depth psychology provides an alternative, which accords with Breasted's opinion about the purpose of hieroglyphic writing. Thus, the king's life (in this world as well as after death) comes to symbolize the victory of the evolving and developing consciousness over the forces of darkness. In Jungian terminology, the Self or transcendent function is fashioned from the acknowledgement of evil (Seth, the primeval serpent), leading through a series of stages to the divine hieros gamos or alchemical coniunctio. Breasted says, ". . . the supreme subject of the Pyramid Texts is life, eternal life for the king." (92) Such a preoccupation and its manifold expression throughout ancient Egyptian history in architecture, painting, theology, social structure, and literature forms the fuller context needed to understand hieroglyphic writing's significance beyond the level of the merely formalistic. In this sense, then, the ancient Egyptians transcended death, especially through their invention of the dual kings (Horus, of this world, and Osiris, of the afterworld), who were related as father and son and through whose agency the dead king was vouchsafed passage to eternal life.
Indeed, the Pyramid Texts not only symbolically and literally reject death, but they aim themselves towards the realm of Re, the sky: ". . . this distant realm is the sky, and . . . the Pyramid Texts know practically nothing of the hereafter in the Nether World." (99) This latter will be saved for the Osirianism that follows during the Middle Kingdom, when the popular cult of the dying and resurrected god will come to displace that of royal sun-worship. The king's most ardent desire, then, was to live forever as a servant of Re, riding across the sky in his solar boat. "The prospect of a glorious hereafter in the splendor of the Sun-god's presence is the great theme of the Pyramid Texts." (103) Later, under Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV, 1353-36 B.C.), the king elevated himself to a divine status to an unprecedented degree, got rid of anthropomorphic representations of the god, moved towards monotheism, struck evil and suffering from the central preoccupations of state religion, and presented an optimistic view of life (Baines, in Shafer, 190-91). However, these radical changes were rejected under the kings who followed.
If we cannot separate hieroglyphic writing from a theocentric world view, the forms that the Pyramid Texts took also must be understood within a context of the sacred. Breasted identifies six (overlapping) literary forms, all of which are inflected by the sacred. These include
1. A funerary ritual and a ritual of mortuary offerings at the tomb.
2. Magical charms.
3. Very ancient ritual of worship.
4. Ancient religious hymns.
5. Fragments of old myths.
6. Prayers and petitions on behalf of the dead king. (93)
Each of these mediates between the human and the divine. The realms of the dead and the gods are blended and constantly threaten to spill over into daily life. The pressure of the past upon the present was felt much more acutely by the ancient Egyptians than by any people since. Indeed, "The Egyptian living and dead were part of the same community, and the dead could intervene positively or negatively among the living. They were an essential factor in the affairs of the living." (Baines, in Schafer, 147) In addition, dual kingship provided a bridge between the realms. Charms guaranteed the passage of the dead person through his various trials until he was judged and accepted into the company of the gods. Hymns praised the gods and assured them of the king's just and noble qualities. In fact, the hymn is the most ancient literary form.
Among the oldest literary fragments in the collection are the religious hymns, and these exhibit an early poetic form, that of couplets displaying parallelism in arrangement of words and thought—the form which is familiar to all in the Hebrew psalms as "parallelism of members." . . . It is indeed the oldest of all literary forms known to us. (Breasted, 97)
Insofar as contemporary visual poems and this original literary form share an obsession with the links between phonetic and graphic/visual representations of language, then an adequate theory must be able to find points in common (beyond the formalist). Before proposing these commonalities, and extrapolating from them some critical observations about contemporary practice, I would like to introduce a second moment in the dialectical relationship between what Fischer calls "art" and "writing," that is, the related scientific theories of chaos and complexity.
During the last several years, concerns of biologists, paleo-archaeologists, statisticians, those involved in fluid mechanics, population theorists, economists, and others have focused on the behavior of non-linear systems over time. One of the hallmarks of chaos theory is an increased role for uncertainty in such systems. Also, the fact that some of the convenient divisions that had served science well no longer function when scale is changed dramatically has been accorded a new importance. Chaos has been defined as ". . . vastly complex effects arising from simple causes . . . " (Cohen, 20) These effects, as well, remain unpredictable. As Percival points out, ". . . chaos theory has underlined the interdisciplinary nature of frontier research." (Percival, in Hall, 21) The operational term here is "frontier," which in my view must include that between graphic/ visual and phonetic representations.
Quantum physics describes the world of the very small. Classical Newtonian physics describes larger scales. But in the border country between the two, rigorous mathematical descriptions are difficult to find, and chaos rears its head. (Berry, in Hall, 184)
Again, this "border country" echoes Percival's "frontier." Of course, no one would attempt to derive "rigorous mathematical descriptions" from the data of visual poetry. However, the impulse behind such descriptions also informs the many taxonomies of visual poetry that we have witnessed. The delimitation of the object of analysis provides ongoing difficulties for discussion of the subject. The impulse to describe belongs preeminently to a technocratic civilization, whose very successes have lead to the unpredictability of behavior in non-linear systems that is captured in chaos theory.
The "paradoxes" thereby generated have lead some thinkers to circle back into the other half of the dichotomy that their original efforts had sought to transcend. Thus, in Berry's view ". . . chaology is a revival of a term used by theologians two centuries ago to mean the study of what existed before the Creation." (185-86) Chaology arises from attempts to describe that part of the physical universe that exists between the scales of extreme magnification and extreme reduction.
The phenomena of quantum chaology lie in the largely unexplored border country between quantum and classical mechanics; they are part of semiclassical mechanics. (195)
In order to get at these phenomena, a new approach is being devised, which validates or takes into account the role of the perceiver, because "We are the context in which we observe the world" (Cohen and Stewart, 262). There can be little doubt that these thinkers are moving towards something analogous with (or identical to) a foundational creation myth. As Kauffman states explicity in his elaboration of complexity theory, "We seek, in short, our creation myth" (54), and "Ultimately, we will discover in our creation myth that we are expected after all." (112) In this way he is alluding to his argument for an implicit emergent order in the structure of things. We see a similar validation of the shaping influence of point of view in Jung's theory of types, by means of which he hopes to transcend the opposition between two opposed theories of neurosis, Freud's eros theory and Adler's ego theory.
This discovery [of the role of the temperament or psychological attitude of the observer] brought with it the need to rise above the opposition and to create a theory which should do justice not merely to one or the other side, but to both equally. For this purpose a critique of both the aforementioned theoeries is essential. (CW, VII, 44-45)
It is fascinating to follow the chaos theoreticians as they grapple with the dilemmas posed by the application of "rigorous" mathematical methodology to the world. Dimensions of time and space are explored separately, then interrelated. New terms are created to try to do justice to the increasingly strange results of scientific explorations.
Simplexity is the tendency of simple rules to emerge from underlying disorder and complexity, in systems whose large-scale structure is independent of the fine details of their substructure. Complicity is the tendency of interacting systems to coevolve in a manner that changes both, leading to a growth of complexity from simple beginnings—complexity that is unpredictable in detail, but whose general course is comprehensible and foreseeable. (Cohen, 3)
Scale, point of view, and the physical characteristics of the methods of measurement all affect the outcomes of experiments, in such a way that no unitary model seems workable. Strictly speaking, of course, the divisions between domains that we make don't exist.
There is no line [between fractal basins], just a grayish fractal fuzz. Boundaries in real life are often similar; it may not be possible to draw a precise line that distinguishes two obviously different extremes—not even legal/illegal, alive/dead, or male/female. (195)
Nevertheless, the lines are drawn in practice, and the energy released by simultaneously holding the arbitrarily separated domains in awareness is set free for development of the next level of complexity, just as Menes' joining of Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt made available a tremendous net gain in civilizing consciousness that resulted in cultural goods that lasted thousands of years. By the same token, the delineation of different domains of the phonetic and visual/graphic representations, best achieved under highly controlled, very specific micro-circumstances, serves to strengthen subsequent generalizations based on this art form today. That is, one might argue that the conjunction of these two different kinds of representation releases a non-theorizable (i.e., sacred) energy.
New concepts of space have become necessary in order to discuss the findings and theories of chaos and complexity. One such concept is "phase space." "The geometry of dynamical systems takes place in a mental space, known as phase space. . . . It's the space of the possible. . . . What's possible depends on what questions you ask." (200) Clearly, this area of possibility overlaps with that of uncertainty.
[Freeman Dyson said that] quantum mechanics describes what a system might do in the future, whereas classical mechanics describes what it has done in the past. The future is indeterminate, but the past is determined because it has been observed; and this asymmetry, this contextual difference, is responsible for the very different characters of quantum and classical mechanics. Moreover, the present, where our consciousness resides, is a moving boundary at which the context changes—a traveling catastrophe in paradigm space. (272)
In the same way, a "phase space" can be proposed for visual poetry whereby its various interpretations are linked in a landscape that includes as an integral part the viewer/reader's horizon of expectations and experiences. By the same token, one might speak of the phase space of a series of visual poems, which are often presented in the form of artists' books or free-standing series. This concept enables us to include the chronological dimension in a discussion of visual poetry.
In Kauffman's formulation, at a certain magnitude of scale phenomena of order become noticeable in the behavior of physical systems. Since this order has nothing to do with the details perceptible at a lesser degree of scale, he claims there is an "emergent" quality to this order.
. . . much of the order seen in development arises almost without regard for how the networks of interacting genes are strung together. Such order is robust and emergent, a kind of collective crystallization of spontaneous structure. Here is order whose origin and character we can hope to explain independently of the details. Here is spontaneous order that selection goes on to mold. (18)
This notion parallels Jung's idea of the archetypes of the collective unconscious, which he holds to be biological patterns of order that come hard-wired into the species in question. The archetypes are structural tendencies that operate irrespective of their individual contents. Interestingly, "The symbolic process is an experience in images and of images." (CW, IX,1, 38). In this same essay Jung goes on to underscore the role of the psyche in the formation of myths, art, religion, and fairy tales. One might add science to the list, as I have suggested. Upon a base of the archetypes, the individuation process works itself out, much as in Kauffman's complexity model Darwinian natural selection works in tandem with the impulses towards emergent order or "self-organization." He says, "the sources of order in the biosphere will now include both selection and self-organization" (25), and "The best exploration of an evolutionary space occurs at a kind of phase transition between order and disorder." (27) By "best," he means most suitable for survival.
But this standard introduces another aspect of this theory worth pursuing here, namely, the relative claims of the individual and the group that was mentioned above.
. . . the origin of the individual is problematic. Natural selection favors fitter individuals. If the world consists of dividing single-celled eukaryotic organisms,* and I am one of them, why is it to my benefit to form part of a multicelled organism where my fate is to die? . . . [Because] membership in a multicelled critter affords an enhanced chance to invade new niches and leave lots of offspring. (158)
Again, we see a close parallel among the ancient Egyptians, where one increased one's chances for eternal survival to the degree that one subsumed oneself in the "group" that had its source, life, and meaning in the person of the god-king, without whose agency in this life and from beyond the grave the forces of disorder (Seth) would engulf man, society, and nature in chaos. At the same time, this dualism of individual/group is reflected in analytical psychology's notion of the dynamic relationship between the ego and the unconscious, leading through the complicated processes of individuation towards the creation of the transcendent function, or Self, itself a still point whereby the "traveling catastrophe of phase space" of the flux of human experience takes on a central significance in all human cultures.
Because of hieroglyphic writing's representational ("naturalistic") images and its great antiquity, Egyptologists claim that ancient Egyptians thought in "concrete" terms. In their thinking, such as we can deduce its qualities from looking at their monuments, sculpture, and writing, they placed value on a proximity to the data of physical sensation; that is, they used relatively less of what we would call abstract language. Their reliance especially on visual/graphic representational images has its analogue in the sensuous qualities of mythological narratives and of dreams, foregrounding the visual although under the rubric of the complete psyche, not some isolated single aspect of it, such as the thinking function.
However, as I tried to indicate above, at the same time one must take into consideration the full context of what these people were writing about, and why. This touches on the dimension of the sacred that any examination of hieroglyphic writing or almost any other aspect of ancient Egyptian civilization comes up against. Similarly, analytical psychology acknowledges the reality of the sacred as one of mankind's most basic needs.
This is the reason why men have always needed demons and cannot live without gods, except for a few particularly clever specimens of homo occidentalis who lived yesterday or the day before, supermen for whom "God is dead" because they themselves have become gods—but tin-gods with thick skulls and cold hearts. The idea of God is an absolutely necessary psychological function of an irrational nature, which has nothing whatever to do with the question of God's existence. . . . the idea of all all-powerful divine Being is present everywhere, unconsciously if not consciously, because it is an archetype. (Jung, CW, VII, 71)
The dimension of the sacred requires that we rethink the tired old dichotomy between "concrete" and "abstract" thought. The way I have proposed to begin this rethinking is through a reconsideration of the relationship of phonetic to visual/graphic representation, linking them afresh with the help of concepts from depth psychology, chaos theory, and complexity theory. In the absence of some such reformulation, discussions of visual poetry must of necessity focus inadequately either on the two-dimensional formal level of the physical page space (usually the typographic poem printed in black ink on a single sheet of white paper, that is, without color, the evidence of the individual hand of the poet/artist, or the chronology implicit in the series or sequence), or on an antiquated and stiff conception of the relationship of form to content. "Criticism" then becomes fatuous and superficial, whereas what we need is a much broader vision of the significance of visual poetry as a basic cultural form pursued avidly throughout human history.
VISUAL POETRY: Phase Space of the Gods
Harry Polkinhorn
Physics takes a pragmatic and severely critical stance. It concentrates on simple, highly controlled systems; in return it expects impeccable agreement between experiment and theory. (Cohen, 12)
Visual poetry, like other cultural forms, leads a double life. On the one hand, there is the body of visual poetry itself, an open set susceptible of any of a variety of characterizations. The "poems themselves" are to be found in anthologies, magazines, books, galleries and other display spaces, on the Internet, and so on. However, in addition we must consider the conceptually slipperier existence of visual poetry as seen from within its theory. Whereas to grasp the possibility of the first category, made up as it is of a potentially infinite number of contingent examples, is relatively easy, much more difficult is it to arrive at a balanced understanding of how visual poetry is theorized, since the very process of theorization is postulated upon a foundational split by means of which the object of analysis is established, just as in psychology all statements about the psyche are mediated by someone's psyche, ruling out a transcendent point of view. In the human sciences, such a split mimics that of the physical sciences but with skewed consequences. The failure in the Euro-American experience to draw the necessary conclusion of critical humility (i.e., respect for the visual poem) from the early twentieth-century's great lesson of the relativization of point of view has plagued criticism of visual poetry, as well as other cultural forms, in our time. This has been especially pernicious with regard to practice in the United States, which has been cursed by these arrogant and ethnocentric aggrandizements, constituting lack of a history of responsible, thoughtful, and insightful criticism. In what follows, I want to try to lay the groundwork to redress this imbalance, even if only partially, by proposing an expanded theory, but one of a different stripe, a self-conscious theory that nevertheless doesn't abdicate its respect for the visual poem as seen within a given social and historical context.
In order to do this, I will propose a break with the ideological mystification of linear growth in the so-called history of an aesthetic form, based as it is on the implicit notion of development, rarely examined as such. In its place let's put a fresh consideration of the form/content dichotomy, and for paradigmatic contexts let's go to the heart of the matter, namely, Egyptian hieroglyphic writing, to be modulated by drawing on analytical psychology and the complexity theory of our own time. No argument will be made here that visual poetry traces its origins to the ancient Egyptians, since, as indicated, I am not interested in establishing a canonical genealogy. My intention is to illustrate several aspects of visual poetry through discussion of a culture in many ways antithetical to our own. Perhaps we can learn a more useful attitude towards visual poetry, which is badly needed at the beginning of the twentieth-first century A.D., by taking a look at how the Egyptians approached the border areas between the verbal and the visual that we find so fascinating. A secondary advantage to examining Egyptian practice, of course, is that it will remove us from the dreadful swamps of contemporaneity, after which on returning to them via a current scientific theory we may be able to apply criticism's discriminatory function more reasonably and usefully than would be the case if we (once again) took the historical short view, pretending—with a mere token gesture to other sources—that visual poetry came into existence in Moscow in 1911, for example, or in São Paulo in 1953. The main objective in what follows is to provide an expanded context for critical evaluation of visual poems being produced in our own time.
The Pyramid Texts are the oldest substantial body of documents in the world. They were discovered in 1880-81 in the pyramids at Sakkara and date back to the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties. They are recorded in hieroglyphic on the walls of five of these pyramids and date from the latter half of the 27th century B.C. to early in the 25th century B.C. (c. 2625-c. 2475 B.C.). However, the material they contain refers to a time that antedates the earliest of these "texts" by hundreds of years. (Breasted, 85) These documents are remarkable for a variety of reasons, not the least of which—customarily and expectedly noted but misunderstood by some Egyptologists—is their insistence on visuality and all that this implies.
He [the Egyptian] thought in concrete pictures, he moved along tangible material channels, and the material world about him furnished nearly all of the terms which he used. . . . such terms for the most part remained concrete for the Egyptian. (8)
Perfectly capable of abstraction, however, as is revealed, for example, in the associations with the goddess Ma'at ("world order, balance, harmony, justice, and truth") (Silverman, in Shafer, 34), the ancient Egyptians preferred to retain an image-based manner of expression in the formal structure of their pantheon, its accompanying theology, and the hieroglyphic system of writing. Breasted's comment reveals his bias in favor of thinking in abstractions, a position rejected by poets and debated by philosophers at least since Plato's Republic. Thinking in "concrete pictures" (an oxymoron to be critically examined later) carries with it a rich nexus of implications regarding the status of the individual and his gradual differentiation from whatever may have preceded self-consciousness, which becomes the powerful filter through which everything gets viewed. This "individual," of course, was first the king, specifically in his relationship to the divine order. Later in Egyptian history, individuality so conceived spread down to the higher ranks of the nobility and below.
But what was the purpose of hieroglyphic writing? How did it come about, and why was it retained? The Egyptians evolved several writing systems, among them the hieroglyphs. In comparing them with Sumerian pictographs, Fischer says,
Egyptian hieroglyphs were not only much more clearly representational [than Sumerian pictographs] but acquired an even greater degree of naturalism, which persisted for well over three millennia (62)
Whatever advantages hieroglyphic writing brought were important enough for it to be retained for millennia, a primary consideration in our examination of this writing system. Still, the writing system changed. According to Barthel, “Die ägyptische Schrift is die Kombination von drei Elementen: Bildzeichen, Lautzeichen and Deutzeichen” (33). He goes on to demonstrate that there were various registers—the hieroglyphic, the Hieratic, and the demotic—and that writing evolved over time, but always keeping its basic elements intact. (33 ff.) Finally, he confirms the notion that one must view hieroglyphic writing in its larger, determining context.
Bei den ägyptischen Hieroglyphen-Bildern geht es nicht um “Kunst”, wenn auch die Darstellungsmittel kunstvoll beherrscht wurden. Es geht nicht um Deutung aus subjektivem Sehen, sonder um den Wesensgehalt, der im Mythisch-Religiösen wurzelt und durch ihn seine Form erheilt. (44)
In other words, the psychological appropriateness of this writing system was identified and valued as a cultural good worth preserving. Of central importance here is the relationship of naturalistic, graphic image to phonetic representation. Fischer points out that:
hieroglyphs were generally presented in a discrete sequence of phonetic and ideographic elements, and this in turn facilitated the complementary relationship of representations and inscriptions that were fully realized only after the Archaic period. (65)
That is, the relationship was based on maintaining the difference between inscription and representation. Once established, the balance was retained for a long time, although modifications were instituted. There was no pull into "the concrete," in fact, but rather the duality between the two modes of consciousness was cherished, each of which existed by virtue of the fact that the other did.
What is even more remarkable, however, is the fact that the initiation of writing with hieroglyphs may have been the creation of one person. Fischer says,
It [the hieroglyphic system] may well have been conceived by a single individual . . . the hypothetical inventor of Egyptian writing was evidently a talented draftsman; in designing the hieroglyphic system he simultaneously created a new style of art, a style that aimed to present forms with the utmost clarity, often combining a multiplicity of points of view for that purpose. . . . instead of becoming unrecognizable abstractions, as in the case of Sumerian, these forms became more naturalistic and precise . . . in no other civilization have art and writing been so completely amalgamated (66)
If one can trace in Egyptian religion a trajectory that charts the development of individual consciousness (claimed with hard work from the realm of the animal instincts), then whoever invented hieroglyphic writing well exemplifies the success of these early humans in their experiment with consciousness pitted against the irrational as symbolized by death. Many have related this achievement to the social adaptations that evolved over time as necessary to large-scale exploitation of agriculture within the Nile Valley, especially the relationship of human groups to the sources of energy in water and sunlight. (Stewart, 21)
In any case, for the Egyptians written language included phonetic and graphic representations and had a divine status with its own god, Thoth, one of the pre-eminent deities of the Ennead of Heliopolis and eventually a national deity perhaps second in importance only to Amon-Re, the supreme solar overlord. The conjoint relationship between phonetic and graphic representations, in a writing system firmly based upon this kind of duality that was perhaps the invention of one individual, is directly mirrored in the unique form of kingship invented by Menes and similarly retained for millennia. This was the unifying of Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt under one sovereign, a duality mythically reflected in the eternal hostility between Seth and Osiris, the dual thrones in this world and the afterlife, the doubled nature of the king and his Ka, and in many other ways (Frankfort). As that figure who unified the warring factions, the king represented or literally was a gain in civilization, or, in the terminology of analytical psychology, his agency transcended the level of the opposed instincts (without obliterating them), making higher consciousness possible (cf. Jung's "The Relation between the Ego and the Unconscious").
The special amalgamation of what Fischer calls "art and writing" found in the hieroglyphs can best be elucidated from the point of view of their purpose.
Hieroglyphic writing had only one name: "divine words." This established its status. Writing could not function independently of the spoken word, of which it was merely a transcription. It maintained an a posteriori existence and was essentially limited to a commemorative or archival function. Writing was merely a putting into form, an "in-formation" of the world. With its help, the gods constituted the archives of important events; everything touching on the conflict between Horus and Seth, for example, was carefully written down. Given the role writing played in the world of the gods, there could be no works of fiction there. Written signs themselves were defined as "imprints" of everything contained in creation. Every living creature and every thing could be utilized as written signs. All divine writings without exception were considered "emanations of Re," or faithful representations of the will of the creator. To draw up a catalogue of written signs was to draw up a catalogue of all that had been created. (Meeks, 104-05)
The emphasis on the relationship of hieroglyphic writing to the spoken word retains great interest for us. Both forms of expression were held to be powerful, i.e., sacred. With regard to spoken language, many are the references in the Pyramid Texts to the tongue and the heart. The heart was held to be the seat of thought as well as feeling, and its manner of externalization was the tongue. However, in their ancient confrontation with death, which was central in their culture for thousands of years, the Egyptians encountered the inevitable silencing of the tongue. This unacceptable affront to the desire for immortality was countered by several means, among them hieroglyphic writing. On the walls of tombs, papyri, the inside of coffins, and stelae, this writing was able to freeze speech, allowing it to transcend embodiment in a specific individual and communicate through the ages.
Although this may seem alien to a contemporary, wholly secularized sensibility, hieroglyphic writing, rather than being a supposedly neutral channel of transmission for any kind of information, was conceived as inseparably and structurally related to the profound theocentricity of Egyptian culture. At the center of life was the king, who made it possible. For ancient man, "The purely secular—in so far as it could be granted to exist at all—was the purely trivial. Whatever was significant was imbedded in the life of the cosmos, and it was precisely the king's function to maintain the harmony of that integration." (Frankfort, 2) The function of the hieroglyphs, for the Egyptians, says Breasted, was
essentially to insure the king's felicity in the hereafter. The chief and dominant note throughout is insistent, even passionate, protest against death. . . . the record of humanity's earliest supreme revolt against the great darkness and silence from which none returns. The word death never occurs in the Pyramid Texts except in the negative or applied to a foe. (91)
Whereas this Egyptologist views his subject through the lenses of a desacralized post-Enlightenment humanism, which generates an anguish and a cynicism about the brevity of life that far surpasses anything to be found in the Pyramid Texts or the Book of the Dead, depth psychology provides an alternative, which accords with Breasted's opinion about the purpose of hieroglyphic writing. Thus, the king's life (in this world as well as after death) comes to symbolize the victory of the evolving and developing consciousness over the forces of darkness. In Jungian terminology, the Self or transcendent function is fashioned from the acknowledgement of evil (Seth, the primeval serpent), leading through a series of stages to the divine hieros gamos or alchemical coniunctio. Breasted says, ". . . the supreme subject of the Pyramid Texts is life, eternal life for the king." (92) Such a preoccupation and its manifold expression throughout ancient Egyptian history in architecture, painting, theology, social structure, and literature forms the fuller context needed to understand hieroglyphic writing's significance beyond the level of the merely formalistic. In this sense, then, the ancient Egyptians transcended death, especially through their invention of the dual kings (Horus, of this world, and Osiris, of the afterworld), who were related as father and son and through whose agency the dead king was vouchsafed passage to eternal life.
Indeed, the Pyramid Texts not only symbolically and literally reject death, but they aim themselves towards the realm of Re, the sky: ". . . this distant realm is the sky, and . . . the Pyramid Texts know practically nothing of the hereafter in the Nether World." (99) This latter will be saved for the Osirianism that follows during the Middle Kingdom, when the popular cult of the dying and resurrected god will come to displace that of royal sun-worship. The king's most ardent desire, then, was to live forever as a servant of Re, riding across the sky in his solar boat. "The prospect of a glorious hereafter in the splendor of the Sun-god's presence is the great theme of the Pyramid Texts." (103) Later, under Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV, 1353-36 B.C.), the king elevated himself to a divine status to an unprecedented degree, got rid of anthropomorphic representations of the god, moved towards monotheism, struck evil and suffering from the central preoccupations of state religion, and presented an optimistic view of life (Baines, in Shafer, 190-91). However, these radical changes were rejected under the kings who followed.
If we cannot separate hieroglyphic writing from a theocentric world view, the forms that the Pyramid Texts took also must be understood within a context of the sacred. Breasted identifies six (overlapping) literary forms, all of which are inflected by the sacred. These include
1. A funerary ritual and a ritual of mortuary offerings at the tomb.
2. Magical charms.
3. Very ancient ritual of worship.
4. Ancient religious hymns.
5. Fragments of old myths.
6. Prayers and petitions on behalf of the dead king. (93)
Each of these mediates between the human and the divine. The realms of the dead and the gods are blended and constantly threaten to spill over into daily life. The pressure of the past upon the present was felt much more acutely by the ancient Egyptians than by any people since. Indeed, "The Egyptian living and dead were part of the same community, and the dead could intervene positively or negatively among the living. They were an essential factor in the affairs of the living." (Baines, in Schafer, 147) In addition, dual kingship provided a bridge between the realms. Charms guaranteed the passage of the dead person through his various trials until he was judged and accepted into the company of the gods. Hymns praised the gods and assured them of the king's just and noble qualities. In fact, the hymn is the most ancient literary form.
Among the oldest literary fragments in the collection are the religious hymns, and these exhibit an early poetic form, that of couplets displaying parallelism in arrangement of words and thought—the form which is familiar to all in the Hebrew psalms as "parallelism of members." . . . It is indeed the oldest of all literary forms known to us. (Breasted, 97)
Insofar as contemporary visual poems and this original literary form share an obsession with the links between phonetic and graphic/visual representations of language, then an adequate theory must be able to find points in common (beyond the formalist). Before proposing these commonalities, and extrapolating from them some critical observations about contemporary practice, I would like to introduce a second moment in the dialectical relationship between what Fischer calls "art" and "writing," that is, the related scientific theories of chaos and complexity.
During the last several years, concerns of biologists, paleo-archaeologists, statisticians, those involved in fluid mechanics, population theorists, economists, and others have focused on the behavior of non-linear systems over time. One of the hallmarks of chaos theory is an increased role for uncertainty in such systems. Also, the fact that some of the convenient divisions that had served science well no longer function when scale is changed dramatically has been accorded a new importance. Chaos has been defined as ". . . vastly complex effects arising from simple causes . . . " (Cohen, 20) These effects, as well, remain unpredictable. As Percival points out, ". . . chaos theory has underlined the interdisciplinary nature of frontier research." (Percival, in Hall, 21) The operational term here is "frontier," which in my view must include that between graphic/ visual and phonetic representations.
Quantum physics describes the world of the very small. Classical Newtonian physics describes larger scales. But in the border country between the two, rigorous mathematical descriptions are difficult to find, and chaos rears its head. (Berry, in Hall, 184)
Again, this "border country" echoes Percival's "frontier." Of course, no one would attempt to derive "rigorous mathematical descriptions" from the data of visual poetry. However, the impulse behind such descriptions also informs the many taxonomies of visual poetry that we have witnessed. The delimitation of the object of analysis provides ongoing difficulties for discussion of the subject. The impulse to describe belongs preeminently to a technocratic civilization, whose very successes have lead to the unpredictability of behavior in non-linear systems that is captured in chaos theory.
The "paradoxes" thereby generated have lead some thinkers to circle back into the other half of the dichotomy that their original efforts had sought to transcend. Thus, in Berry's view ". . . chaology is a revival of a term used by theologians two centuries ago to mean the study of what existed before the Creation." (185-86) Chaology arises from attempts to describe that part of the physical universe that exists between the scales of extreme magnification and extreme reduction.
The phenomena of quantum chaology lie in the largely unexplored border country between quantum and classical mechanics; they are part of semiclassical mechanics. (195)
In order to get at these phenomena, a new approach is being devised, which validates or takes into account the role of the perceiver, because "We are the context in which we observe the world" (Cohen and Stewart, 262). There can be little doubt that these thinkers are moving towards something analogous with (or identical to) a foundational creation myth. As Kauffman states explicity in his elaboration of complexity theory, "We seek, in short, our creation myth" (54), and "Ultimately, we will discover in our creation myth that we are expected after all." (112) In this way he is alluding to his argument for an implicit emergent order in the structure of things. We see a similar validation of the shaping influence of point of view in Jung's theory of types, by means of which he hopes to transcend the opposition between two opposed theories of neurosis, Freud's eros theory and Adler's ego theory.
This discovery [of the role of the temperament or psychological attitude of the observer] brought with it the need to rise above the opposition and to create a theory which should do justice not merely to one or the other side, but to both equally. For this purpose a critique of both the aforementioned theoeries is essential. (CW, VII, 44-45)
It is fascinating to follow the chaos theoreticians as they grapple with the dilemmas posed by the application of "rigorous" mathematical methodology to the world. Dimensions of time and space are explored separately, then interrelated. New terms are created to try to do justice to the increasingly strange results of scientific explorations.
Simplexity is the tendency of simple rules to emerge from underlying disorder and complexity, in systems whose large-scale structure is independent of the fine details of their substructure. Complicity is the tendency of interacting systems to coevolve in a manner that changes both, leading to a growth of complexity from simple beginnings—complexity that is unpredictable in detail, but whose general course is comprehensible and foreseeable. (Cohen, 3)
Scale, point of view, and the physical characteristics of the methods of measurement all affect the outcomes of experiments, in such a way that no unitary model seems workable. Strictly speaking, of course, the divisions between domains that we make don't exist.
There is no line [between fractal basins], just a grayish fractal fuzz. Boundaries in real life are often similar; it may not be possible to draw a precise line that distinguishes two obviously different extremes—not even legal/illegal, alive/dead, or male/female. (195)
Nevertheless, the lines are drawn in practice, and the energy released by simultaneously holding the arbitrarily separated domains in awareness is set free for development of the next level of complexity, just as Menes' joining of Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt made available a tremendous net gain in civilizing consciousness that resulted in cultural goods that lasted thousands of years. By the same token, the delineation of different domains of the phonetic and visual/graphic representations, best achieved under highly controlled, very specific micro-circumstances, serves to strengthen subsequent generalizations based on this art form today. That is, one might argue that the conjunction of these two different kinds of representation releases a non-theorizable (i.e., sacred) energy.
New concepts of space have become necessary in order to discuss the findings and theories of chaos and complexity. One such concept is "phase space." "The geometry of dynamical systems takes place in a mental space, known as phase space. . . . It's the space of the possible. . . . What's possible depends on what questions you ask." (200) Clearly, this area of possibility overlaps with that of uncertainty.
[Freeman Dyson said that] quantum mechanics describes what a system might do in the future, whereas classical mechanics describes what it has done in the past. The future is indeterminate, but the past is determined because it has been observed; and this asymmetry, this contextual difference, is responsible for the very different characters of quantum and classical mechanics. Moreover, the present, where our consciousness resides, is a moving boundary at which the context changes—a traveling catastrophe in paradigm space. (272)
In the same way, a "phase space" can be proposed for visual poetry whereby its various interpretations are linked in a landscape that includes as an integral part the viewer/reader's horizon of expectations and experiences. By the same token, one might speak of the phase space of a series of visual poems, which are often presented in the form of artists' books or free-standing series. This concept enables us to include the chronological dimension in a discussion of visual poetry.
In Kauffman's formulation, at a certain magnitude of scale phenomena of order become noticeable in the behavior of physical systems. Since this order has nothing to do with the details perceptible at a lesser degree of scale, he claims there is an "emergent" quality to this order.
. . . much of the order seen in development arises almost without regard for how the networks of interacting genes are strung together. Such order is robust and emergent, a kind of collective crystallization of spontaneous structure. Here is order whose origin and character we can hope to explain independently of the details. Here is spontaneous order that selection goes on to mold. (18)
This notion parallels Jung's idea of the archetypes of the collective unconscious, which he holds to be biological patterns of order that come hard-wired into the species in question. The archetypes are structural tendencies that operate irrespective of their individual contents. Interestingly, "The symbolic process is an experience in images and of images." (CW, IX,1, 38). In this same essay Jung goes on to underscore the role of the psyche in the formation of myths, art, religion, and fairy tales. One might add science to the list, as I have suggested. Upon a base of the archetypes, the individuation process works itself out, much as in Kauffman's complexity model Darwinian natural selection works in tandem with the impulses towards emergent order or "self-organization." He says, "the sources of order in the biosphere will now include both selection and self-organization" (25), and "The best exploration of an evolutionary space occurs at a kind of phase transition between order and disorder." (27) By "best," he means most suitable for survival.
But this standard introduces another aspect of this theory worth pursuing here, namely, the relative claims of the individual and the group that was mentioned above.
. . . the origin of the individual is problematic. Natural selection favors fitter individuals. If the world consists of dividing single-celled eukaryotic organisms,* and I am one of them, why is it to my benefit to form part of a multicelled organism where my fate is to die? . . . [Because] membership in a multicelled critter affords an enhanced chance to invade new niches and leave lots of offspring. (158)
Again, we see a close parallel among the ancient Egyptians, where one increased one's chances for eternal survival to the degree that one subsumed oneself in the "group" that had its source, life, and meaning in the person of the god-king, without whose agency in this life and from beyond the grave the forces of disorder (Seth) would engulf man, society, and nature in chaos. At the same time, this dualism of individual/group is reflected in analytical psychology's notion of the dynamic relationship between the ego and the unconscious, leading through the complicated processes of individuation towards the creation of the transcendent function, or Self, itself a still point whereby the "traveling catastrophe of phase space" of the flux of human experience takes on a central significance in all human cultures.
Because of hieroglyphic writing's representational ("naturalistic") images and its great antiquity, Egyptologists claim that ancient Egyptians thought in "concrete" terms. In their thinking, such as we can deduce its qualities from looking at their monuments, sculpture, and writing, they placed value on a proximity to the data of physical sensation; that is, they used relatively less of what we would call abstract language. Their reliance especially on visual/graphic representational images has its analogue in the sensuous qualities of mythological narratives and of dreams, foregrounding the visual although under the rubric of the complete psyche, not some isolated single aspect of it, such as the thinking function.
However, as I tried to indicate above, at the same time one must take into consideration the full context of what these people were writing about, and why. This touches on the dimension of the sacred that any examination of hieroglyphic writing or almost any other aspect of ancient Egyptian civilization comes up against. Similarly, analytical psychology acknowledges the reality of the sacred as one of mankind's most basic needs.
This is the reason why men have always needed demons and cannot live without gods, except for a few particularly clever specimens of homo occidentalis who lived yesterday or the day before, supermen for whom "God is dead" because they themselves have become gods—but tin-gods with thick skulls and cold hearts. The idea of God is an absolutely necessary psychological function of an irrational nature, which has nothing whatever to do with the question of God's existence. . . . the idea of all all-powerful divine Being is present everywhere, unconsciously if not consciously, because it is an archetype. (Jung, CW, VII, 71)
The dimension of the sacred requires that we rethink the tired old dichotomy between "concrete" and "abstract" thought. The way I have proposed to begin this rethinking is through a reconsideration of the relationship of phonetic to visual/graphic representation, linking them afresh with the help of concepts from depth psychology, chaos theory, and complexity theory. In the absence of some such reformulation, discussions of visual poetry must of necessity focus inadequately either on the two-dimensional formal level of the physical page space (usually the typographic poem printed in black ink on a single sheet of white paper, that is, without color, the evidence of the individual hand of the poet/artist, or the chronology implicit in the series or sequence), or on an antiquated and stiff conception of the relationship of form to content. "Criticism" then becomes fatuous and superficial, whereas what we need is a much broader vision of the significance of visual poetry as a basic cultural form pursued avidly throughout human history.
______
*[They go back more than 550 million years] (158)
*[They go back more than 550 million years] (158)
References
Baines, John. "Society, Morality, and Religious Practice," in Shafer.
Barthel, Gustav. Konnte Adam Schreiben? Weltgeschichte der Schrift von der Keilschrift zum Komputersatz. Cologne: DuMont, 1972.
Berry, Michael. "Quantum Physics on the Edge of Chaos," in Hall.
Breasted, James Henry. Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1912.
Cohen, Jack, and Ian Stewart. The Collapse of Chaos: Discovering Simplicity in a Complex World. New York: Viking Press, 1994.
Fischer, Henry George. "The Origin of Egyptian Hieroglyphs," in Senner.
Frankfort, Henri. Kingship and the Gods: A Study of Ancient Near Eastern Religion as the Integration of Society & Nature. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948.
Freud, Sigmund. Moses and Monotheism. Trans. Katherine Jones. New York: Vintage Books, 1967.
Hall, Nina, ed. Exploring Chaos: A Guide to the New Science of Disorder. New York: Norton, 1991.
Jung, C. G. "Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious," in The Collected Works of C. G. Jung. Vol. IX, I. Trans. R. F. C. Hull. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1959, 1980.
_____"The Personal and the Collective Unconscious," in The Collected Works, Vol. VII. Trans. R. F. C. Hull. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1953, 1977.
_____."The Problem of the Attitude-Types," in The Collected Works, Vol. VII.
_____. "The Relations between the Ego and the Unconscious," in The Collected Works, Vol. VII.
Kauffman, Stuart. At Home in the Universe: The Search for Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.
Meeks, Dimitri, and Christine Favard-Meeks. Daily Life of the Egyptian Gods. Trans. G. M. Goshgarian. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996.
Percival, Ian. "Chaos: A Science for the Real World," in Hall.
Senner, Wayne, M., ed. The Origins of Writing. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989.
Shafer, Byron, ed. Religions in Ancient Egypt: Gods, Myths, and Personal Practice (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991).
Silverman, David P. "Divinity and Deities in Ancient Egypt," in Shafer.
Stewart, Desmond. The Pyramids and Sphinx. New York: Newsweek Book Division, 1971.
Baines, John. "Society, Morality, and Religious Practice," in Shafer.
Barthel, Gustav. Konnte Adam Schreiben? Weltgeschichte der Schrift von der Keilschrift zum Komputersatz. Cologne: DuMont, 1972.
Berry, Michael. "Quantum Physics on the Edge of Chaos," in Hall.
Breasted, James Henry. Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1912.
Cohen, Jack, and Ian Stewart. The Collapse of Chaos: Discovering Simplicity in a Complex World. New York: Viking Press, 1994.
Fischer, Henry George. "The Origin of Egyptian Hieroglyphs," in Senner.
Frankfort, Henri. Kingship and the Gods: A Study of Ancient Near Eastern Religion as the Integration of Society & Nature. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948.
Freud, Sigmund. Moses and Monotheism. Trans. Katherine Jones. New York: Vintage Books, 1967.
Hall, Nina, ed. Exploring Chaos: A Guide to the New Science of Disorder. New York: Norton, 1991.
Jung, C. G. "Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious," in The Collected Works of C. G. Jung. Vol. IX, I. Trans. R. F. C. Hull. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1959, 1980.
_____"The Personal and the Collective Unconscious," in The Collected Works, Vol. VII. Trans. R. F. C. Hull. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1953, 1977.
_____."The Problem of the Attitude-Types," in The Collected Works, Vol. VII.
_____. "The Relations between the Ego and the Unconscious," in The Collected Works, Vol. VII.
Kauffman, Stuart. At Home in the Universe: The Search for Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.
Meeks, Dimitri, and Christine Favard-Meeks. Daily Life of the Egyptian Gods. Trans. G. M. Goshgarian. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996.
Percival, Ian. "Chaos: A Science for the Real World," in Hall.
Senner, Wayne, M., ed. The Origins of Writing. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989.
Shafer, Byron, ed. Religions in Ancient Egypt: Gods, Myths, and Personal Practice (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991).
Silverman, David P. "Divinity and Deities in Ancient Egypt," in Shafer.
Stewart, Desmond. The Pyramids and Sphinx. New York: Newsweek Book Division, 1971.
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