If we embrace how Life in the Subtle Realm affects our physical structures we may develop a more complete Integral culture. Perhaps the origins of “autopoiesis” (the intelligent subjectivity in exteriorities) lie in the interpenetration of the subjective and objective quadrants, something which is possible due to their connections in the Subtle Realm. While quadrants arise as well-defined structures more representative of an “either-or” logic in physical patterns (which can only emerge in a distinct but correlated manner), the Subtle Realm allows for equally valid interpenetrating relations seen in the pre-quadratic so-called “dimensions”: Interior-Exterior-Single-Plural. These “dimensions” represent a mutually dependent relation better described by a “both-and” logic. It is a logic more naturally appreciated in an intuitive way by many pre-modern cultures operating closer to nature with a lower level of technology.
The non-local energy patterns of the Subtle Realm provide for the phenomena of “autopoiesis” but remain in a potential or invisible state for the physical senses. However, their effects can be felt in complex, self-organizing phenomena especially in the “inside of exteriors.” To move Integral Theory forward and to meet the challenges posed by a physical science that is gradually becoming more “mental” and which recognizes the importance of information as prior to physical structuring, we’ll need a genuinely “Integral” appreciation of the role of the Subtle Realm. We’ll need not to delve into a wildly speculative Metaphysics but to a careful rational one accompanied by empirical ways to disclose (perhaps through the “Integral Learning Cycle” of injunction, experience and communal verification) the workings of the Subtle Realm. Only then, will Integral Theory become more useful to the emerging space-free and time-free information physics behind autopoiesis and we’ll learn to be non-dually at peace with a realm which already exists in us and which has traditionally posed a tense relationship with us across cultural stages (including tribal magic-mythic stages in which we recognized but often feared Subtle Realm deities and forces).
Embracing the Life and Science of the Subtle Realm (whose causal relations are equal between its Subjective and Objective aspects rather than predominantly Objective as in the Gross Realm or predominantly Subjective as in the Causal Realm) would be healing for human society. It would help us to advance knowledge of our own (pre-physical birth and post-physical death) reality already participating in that realm; would make Integral Theory more useful and inclusive (generating a more mature form of Metaphysics which includes the basis inter-realm interaction and Integral disclosure) and would help us to heal an apparent trans-stage uneasiness, “shadow” or blockage we may have been carrying for eons as spiritual beings born into physicality.
The New Integral Civilization would require extending the Integral Model to embrace the Subtle Realm to develop a compatible Integral Science and Metaphysics more suitable for an empathic dialogue with all of Living Nature/Kosmos and even with space-faring civilizations currently making use of trans-dimensional technologies to interact with us (still mostly in a surreptitious manner).