In part 1 of this review, I brought out some of the main points in this book; but let us now work through it more methodically. He sets his study in the tradition of the esoteric schools, among which he numbers Gurdjieff’s teachings. Of this he says that the practical nature of the teaching is the critical point: “They show that an increased awareness is not separate from, but embraces the ordinary pattern of existence …” (6) Time has an irreducible personal aspect (I would note that Gurdjieff said that: “in the whole of the Universe, it alone can be called and extolled as the ‘Ideally-Unique-Subjective-Phenomenon.’ A&E 124). If the effects of time are seen as external, then they appear to be arbitrary, but “if they are interpreted as responses by the (individual) mechanisms which relate us to the real world they become recognised as part of a meaningful pattern.” (7) That is, there is a meaning in the way in which we react or respond to time – whether we are aware of it – and those reactions and responses form a pattern. This, I think, is deep.

The patterns of our life form in accord with many influences, not least environment, upbringing, education, society, and conventions: “with the result that one’s awareness of life is never pure, but is adulterated by stereotyped and unconscious translations.” (9) These “translations” of our impressions are, to a degree, necessary to be able to live; however, we become the slaves of mechanical and conventional interpretations: some of which are harmful. But, by conscious intervention, we can produce new ideas and understandings. (9)

Reyner distinguishes three types of time: cosmic time, this is passing time, measured by clocks, and is what we usually mean by “time,”; individual time, our subjective and ever-changing sense of the passage of time; and basic time, that eternal aspect and stable aspect of time. (9-10)

Then, within the creation, which is composed of various levels (he has in mind the Ray of Creation) there is a “special creation rather like a thread running through a succession of levels” – man. Our body is at the level of the earth, but parts of our being are connected with higher levels of the universe. (11) For example, our ideas are forms from a higher level; they just happen to manifest in our consciousness. (12) From this, I would say with some certainty, that Reyner had had experience of real or higher thought.

At another level, we have our associations of thought. These form networks which structure the connections between thought and feeling and body. These associative chains are based upon meaning. What is meaningless to us is likely forgotten, and what is most meaningful – whether for good or for ill – dominates our reactions. But these chains of meaning are narrow, and in order to obtain new associations and ways of thinking, we must expand our perception of meaning. (28) I would add that if we wish to ever be free of harmful associations we must add new meanings to what we see.

When we remember, we do not re-experience anything, but the initial impression is interpreted through the medium of our associations and “cross-linkages,” which colour the memory, so that, as Mr Adie often said, our memory is unreliable. Some people suffer terribly from a memory and cross-linkages which select and highlight the negative and painful; others from the opposite.

There is an esoteric understanding that the higher levels of the mind are not so bound by these chains of associations, and are more open to perceiving new and truer meanings and “translations.” Dr Nicoll told him that there are higher parts of the mind which “are designed to respond to direction by what are virtually Divine levels of the mind.” (32) The ability to remember and thus to learn becomes more pronounced in higher forms of life; hence the larger size of the brain in man and primates. In simpler organisms, mind is not individually expressed – at least not in the same way – the biological mechanisms are better suited to a “group mind,” most notably but not only in insect colonies. Yet, this reflection serves to remind us that even in man there is still a certain group mind. (33) I would add that we see this group mind in the elemental madness and panics we see in times of war and epidemic (e.g. the recent Covid madness). Bennett saw this group mind in nature, and thought it was the natural destiny of humanity. But I have always thought he was wrong on this – human cooperation must be the result of individual wills with a similar level of understanding, and can only be in the other direction from group mind.

I like the fact that, despite his theoretical ability, Reyner’s feet are firmly on the ground. Hence, he says that although our sensory impressions must have an element of illusion in being limited to what we can sense, “Yet to suggest that the world does not exist is plainly nonsense.” There are degrees of illusion. The “phenomenal world” is not a “meaningless deception” but the manifestation to our limited consciousness of a “supremely ordered and intelligent pattern.” And those limitations seem to have been set by a higher intelligence than our own.  (40) I think this is a serious point: it does seem that the mind is capable of proceeding through the world along a very good path, and our views of the world seriously coincide in many basic ways: we all agree, for example, that fire burns, and that suffocating is bad. The realist view of the world is clearly the most sensible, and that is due, on this interpretation, to the higher intelligences which have ensured that our minds are to some degree capable of attaining to objectivity.

Our minds have remarkable capacities for imagination – the forming of images – and for visualisation, imaginatively recalling and adapting memories, impressions. (53) Visualisation is an almost astonishing phenomenon: it consists in the “re-establishment by the brain of millions of associative connections in imitation of those which are set up by an actual scene.” (54)

Note: Reyner seems to have a good but not uncritical knowledge of Swedenborg’s philosophy, probably following Nicoll in this regard (34 and 70).