Conscious and subconscious

Use in the book

XI locates the rhythmic swing on an unconscious plane while consciousness is said to remain above it. The purpose is to explain how rhythm can continue without governing the master's experienced state. XV repeats this account of neutralization.

XIV begins with several pairs then current in psychological writing: objective and subjective, conscious and subconscious, voluntary and involuntary, active and passive. The author groups them for comparison with masculine and feminine principles, but also says that the different theories are not accepted in every detail.

Places to read

1. XI Rhythm · Block 7… “discovered that there were two general planes of Consciousness, the Lower and the Higher, the understanding of which fact enabled them to rise to the higher plane and thus escape the” …
2. XI Rhythm · Block 8… “and outflows. The Will is superior to the conscious manifestation of this Principle, although the Principle itself can never be destroyed. We may escape its effects, but the Principle operates, nevertheless.” …
3. XIV Mental Gender · Block 1… “almost equal attention by the theories regarding the "conscious and subconscious minds"; the "voluntary and involuntary minds"; "the active and passive minds," etc., etc. The theories of the various writers differ” …
4. XIV Mental Gender · Block 2… “of Mind corresponds to the so-called Objective Mind; Conscious Mind; Voluntary Mind; Active Mind, etc. And the Feminine Principle of Mind corresponds to the so-called Subjective Mind; Sub-conscious Mind; Involuntary Mind;” …
5. XV Hermetic Axioms · Block 11… “extent, to overcome the operation of Rhythm in consciousness. As we have explained, there is a Higher Plane of Consciousness, as well as the ordinary Lower Plane, and the Master by” …

In this edition

Conscious, subconscious, sub-conscious, and unconscious retain the source's variations. They are not replaced by a single modern theory of mind.

Reading the argument

The pairs classify different features. Being conscious is not identical with being voluntary, and receptivity need not mean lack of awareness. The text's correspondence among them is an organizing proposal, rather than an equivalence that can be assumed without examination.

Related texts

Hudson's The Law of Psychic Phenomena, II, distinguishes an objective mind oriented through the senses from a subjective mind approached through suggestion and hypnotic examples. XIV cites the work while also qualifying its agreement with it.⁵

Conscious

“Conscious” — 8 occurrences in 6 text blocks: XI.8; XII.12; XIV.1–2, 6, 8.

subconscious

“subconscious” — 1 occurrence in 1 text block: XIV.1.

Sub-conscious

“Sub-conscious” — 1 occurrence in 1 text block: XIV.2.

Unconscious

“Unconscious” — 3 occurrences in 1 text block: XI.7.

consciousness

“consciousness” — 24 occurrences in 9 text blocks: XI.7; XIV.3, 5–9, 14; XV.11.