An Analogy for the Archetypes

[abstrktion]

Last week I went to Louisville to score English exams for the advanced placement program (high school students can take an exam to earn college credit for a high school class). Each student has to write three essays. Teachers are flown in from all over the world to score the essays. About 4000 of us descend on Louisville each year. We sit in the convention center from 8-5 for seven days and read the essays. While I was sitting there, I had the following insight (well, it works for me, but I'm not sure it would for others, but I offer it anyway--just leave it if it doesn't speak to you ).

I read about 1200 essays last week. Each individual essay "taught" me (through the errors the students made) something about performing the task well and badly--but no ONE essay could serve as the model for my students. Instead, as the teacher, I had to synthesize all the "experience" I had from reading the essays and distill that into principles I could then pass it on to my students. They will use the principles, and then, through trial and error, with me assisting (but not taking over and writing the papers for them), they will eventually build up enough understanding to write very well--and then, they will distill their own experience, building upon mine, but now at a higher arc because they were able to start with mine, and then they will one day have students of their own(those who choose to follow the path of teacher).

In like fashion, those that come before us live many lives and the distillation of understanding at the end of an epoch becomes the archetypes that we are given to start with, then we build upon those, adding our own experiences and understandings. From the other side, our teachers seek to impress concepts that can help us upon our psyche, being very careful not to compromise our agency. From this evolution we are now living, we will eventually "graduate" and then, as a unity, generate 'principles--or archetypal understandings--that will inform the next epoch.

[Ruth]

Beautifully said, Abstriktion!

[abstrktion]

Thanks Ruth!

[Shin'Ar]

Last week I went to Louisville to score English exams for the advanced placement program (high school students can take an exam to earn college credit for a high school class). Each student has to write three essays. Teachers are flown in from all over the world to score the essays. About 4000 of us descend on Louisville each year. We sit in the convention center from 8-5 for seven days and read the essays. While I was sitting there, I had the following insight (well, it works for me, but I'm not sure it would for others, but I offer it anyway--just leave it if it doesn't speak to you ).

I read about 1200 essays last week. Each individual essay "taught" me (through the errors the students made) something about performing the task well and badly--but no ONE essay could serve as the model for my students. Instead, as the teacher, I had to synthesize all the "experience" I had from reading the essays and distill that into principles I could then pass it on to my students. They will use the principles, and then, through trial and error, with me assisting (but not taking over and writing the papers for them), they will eventually build up enough understanding to write very well--and then, they will distill their own experience, building upon mine, but now at a higher arc because they were able to start with mine, and then they will one day have students of their own(those who choose to follow the path of teacher).

In like fashion, those that come before us live many lives and the distillation of understanding at the end of an epoch becomes the archetypes that we are given to start with, then we build upon those, adding our own experiences and understandings. From the other side, our teachers seek to impress concepts that can help us upon our psyche, being very careful not to compromise our agency. From this evolution we are now living, we will eventually "graduate" and then, as a unity, generate 'principles--or archetypal understandings--that will inform the next epoch.

Please do not take this as an insult or presumption on my part Abby, but I would like to popi8nt out something that I observe from your post here.

And I am sure that it does not depict your true character, but it might give you something to ponder from someone else's perspective.

From what is written here, taking into consideration that you did have a specific topic you were addressing, and point to make, I hear you subconsciously suggesting that your students would be less evolved, not quite as intellectually able, as you the teacher.

And this is the natural stance for a teacher as they are there to teach children who require educating.

but have you considered, that in your very astute acknowledgement of the evolving state of these 'archetypes' as you call them, and the fact that many have gone on before us to return in a new incarnation, that some of those children may be reincarnating from an evolved state much higher than your own?

So by what you say here, there will be many cases where the archetype of your definition as teacher, will be much less evolved than many of those it will be teaching.

[abstrktion]

[quote='abstrktion' pid='89461' dateline='1340290311']

Please do not take this as an insult or presumption on my part Abby, but I would like to popi8nt out something that I observe from your post here.

And I am sure that it does not depict your true character, but it might give you something to ponder from someone else's perspective.

From what is written here, taking into consideration that you did have a specific topic you were addressing, and point to make, I hear you subconsciously suggesting that your students would be less evolved, not quite as intellectually able, as you the teacher.

And this is the natural stance for a teacher as they are there to teach children who require educating.

but have you considered, that in your very astute acknowledgement of the evolving state of these 'archetypes' as you call them, and the fact that many have gone on before us to return in a new incarnation, that some of those children may be reincarnating from an evolved state much higher than your own?

So by what you say here, there will be many cases where the archetype of your definition as teacher, will be much less evolved than many of those it will be teaching.

@ Shin'Ar - Thank you for your attempt to clarify my thinking, but I was not attempting to define a "teacher" archetype. I was just sharing the "ah-ha" moment I had while scoring that, for me, suddenly clarified a rather abstract process in nice concrete (but limited) terms with which I was familiar. I realize that this is the Ra forum, but the process connected to my analogy is given in part 2 of chapter 30 of Dion Fortune's Cosmic Doctrine. Book IV of the Ra Material mentions that at one point there were only "nine archetypes and many shadows." Then Don asks, "By shadows do you mean the, what I might refer to as, birthing of small archetypal biases?" and Ra states,"we would describe these shadows as the inchoate thoughts of helpful structures not yet fully conceived" (42).

I was just thinking about these "helpful structures."