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The term "Uroboric stage" is misleading, as this early psychogenic stage has nothing to do with the meanings associated with the Uroboros symbol of Gnosticism and Alchemy. The term in this context comes from the Jungian psychologist Erich Neumann, who, like all Jungians, tends to confuse the occult and the involutionary planes and stages of cosmic psychogeneis with the quite different strata of human psychic ontology.
I would tend to associate Wilber's "Uroboric" stage with the Anthroposophical Hyperborean stage. The fact that one is psychological and the other esoteric-occult need not distract us from the fact that each is tapping into the same psycho-mythic reality. Each therefore is equally objective/subjective, & equally valid or invalid (depending on how you want to see it). Wilber associates this stage with the infant under 4 months of age (this is certainly incorrect, as any mother would tell him. But theoretical psychologists in their ivory tower unfortunately do have much contact with the wisdom and common sense of the average person). He also seems to associate this stage (see "mode of self" in box, above) with.MacLean's "Reptilian brain". I consider this an involutionary stage of psychogenesis, or rather a confusion between the involutionary state and genuine psychic ontogeny, so I would not put biological associations on it, but I had to I would associate the non-magical-mythical (non-involutionary) stages with the lower to middle invertebrate level of intelligence.
| The Hyperborean age according to Dr Rudolph Steiner | The Hyperborean age as the Early/Mid Paleozoic era, according to Dr Hermann Poppelbaum | Paul McLean's triune brain
theory:
Reptilian brain |
In more recent formulations, the Uroboric self, along with the Pleromatic, is included as the Sensory-Motor level or stage, but as far as I know this confusion of mythopoeic involution and developmental ontogeny is still retained (if I am mistaken here, please contact me, as I want this material to be as accurate as possible)
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