2017 - Will you obey your King?

I’m thinking about 2017 and leadership – stimulated by the game being played out by Putin and Obama. This apparent 'tit-for-tat' issue I will address in a future posting. Now on this final day of 2016 I rather want to look at the deeper context of leadership.

There are two scenes from the movie 'Camelot' that I have used over the years in workshops about discovering authentic selfhood. I have used the symbol of the rock from which Arthur drew the sword, as his ability to engage with the bedrock of truth – as the ‘real action’ of existence. I used the holding and employment of the sword as a symbol of his full authentic expression.*

The cybernetician, Gregory Bateson, writes:

“We create the world that we perceive, not because there is no reality outside our heads, but because we select and edit the reality we see to conform to our beliefs about what sort of world we live in..."

The first scene is one where King Arthur, played by the late Richard Harris, seeks revenge on discovering that Queen Geneviève is in love with Sir Lancelot.  He cries out: “I demand a man’s vengeance!” Then after a moment of reflection he reconsiders and says: “But I am not a man – I am a king.”

For me the profound message of this statement is related to which 'part' of ourselves we obey when under severe pressure. Understandably Arthur was aggrieved when confronted with the facts of his wife’s misplaced affection.

Recently on BBC there was a story in which a humane lawyer regrets that the so-called carrying out of justice in the United Kingdom seems to be more about punishment than rehabilitation. Let the victims, or those close to the victims, see retribution. And the sad observation is made by the prosecutor;

‘That is the only way society knows how to restore justice after an injustice’.

Arthur’s dilemma is also that he loves both characters, his wife and his best friend. And so he can consider what pain they too have suffered in their love for each other, in the face of their loyalty and love for him as a person and as a king. He therefore needs to act as a king – he needs to decide on a course of action informed by values that function in the greater interest. And so he is able to opt for reconciliation.

In the second scene towards the end of the movie, Arthur is about to face the final battle. He finds a twelve-year-old boy, Tom, who wants to accompany him to the fight - willing to face death with his king. Arthur instructs him that he would serve a greater good if he were to rather live so that he can carry forward the memory of Camelot and the dream of the kind of Kingdom that Arthur had nurtured and worked for. Then he demands of the boy: “Will you obey your king?” When Tom agrees King Arthur knights him.

Now strangely in watching that scene on so many occasions, each time my soul has cried out in answer with Sir Tom of Warwick: “Oh yes, my Lord!”  

Am I alone in longing for trustworthy and noble leadership? Something strange happened for me whilst conducting brain research for a manuscript (Holism and Consciousness) with a neurosurgeon. We discovered, both from microsomal studies and the literature research, that the brain, in response to activation from its context, generates networks that are representative of wholes. And furthermore those networked neurons themselves represent specific quantum qualities of the entities being represented.

New neuronal clusters become integrated by specific brain cells that function as points of convergence. These points of integration then in turn join further clusters to generate the following hierarchy for further potential integration. In recognising this 'vectoring' direction of synthesis things began to fall into place. Now Gregory Bateson’s ‘neuro-logical levels of integration’ from his book, ‘Steps to and Ecology of Mind’ (1972), became clearer.

But intriguingly Teilhardt de Chardin’s notion of an ‘omega point’, from his book, ‘The Phenomenon of Man’ (1955), suggesting some point of supreme integration - also became comprehensible. This, then at the quantum level, would represent the full landscape of being. Suddenly for me the Christ-being as a concept became at least apprehensible - if not fully comprehensible. Existing in the quantum domain, David Bohm's ‘implicate order’ was a potentiality of 'Being' that the Greeks called ‘cosmos’ – a quality of fully integrated consciousness. From the quantum perspective I could now reconsider de Chardin's comment:

"You are not a human being in search of a spiritual experience. You are a spiritual being immersed in a human experience."

I concluded that to the extent that we individuals continue with our path of personal integration, so too we are carrying forward the work of the actualisation into the world of that cosmic potential. That actualised potential I could now also correlate to David Bohm’s ‘explicate order’. We then become instruments, in our own unique ways, of the explication, or revelation, of Christ-consciousness. And so I gratefully discovered that I do have a 'King' – one who dwells withal and within – and with whom I might joyfully relate and whom I might indeed obey. Of course, this is not a male king – this is the fullest integration of the masculine and the feminine cosmic function - not a static, but as an evolving personhood. 

Which brings us back to leadership. In 2017 we might well see world politics dominated by cavalier male personality cults – the likes of Putin, Trump, Netanyahu, Jinping, etc. These are shrewd politicians who are probably playing out personal ambitions under their guise of resounding populist rhetoric. One trusts that at least the Germans have sufficient wisdom to recognise what they have in the person of Angela Merkel.     

The world surely cries out for leadership – a new nobility. And I'm considering whether the new nobility of the world may be represented by those who, together with King Arthur, commit to living authentically. People who obey those deeper instincts that are informed by universal values. Arthur reflects on who he is, his deeper identity, and what the consequences will be of his decisions on his greater context. And then he acts – in the interest of the Kingdom. 

Leo Tolstoy wrote a book, ‘The Kingdom of God is Within You’ (1894). It was banned in Russia for many years – but it would later serve to inspire Mahatma Gandhi’s great campaign based on satyagraha - truth force. That in turn would inspire both Martin Luther King in the USA, and Albert Luthuli in South Africa. Like Tom of Warwick, Tolstoy was carrying forward the message. Similarly Teilhardt de Chardin, as a Jesuit priest, was forbidden by the church from publishing his book ‘The Phenomenon of Man’. It would only be published posthumously. They lived for a world of possibility beyond their own immediate recognition and gratification - and thereby showed what nobility of spirit truly is. May we rise to that in 2017. 

* A blacksmith forged a sword for me in response to his experience of attending that workshop.