Pendulum

The Seba library treats Pendulum in 8 passages, across 7 authors (including McGilchrist, Iain, Jung, Carl Gustav, von Franz, Marie-Louise).

In the library 8 passages

In the first, we remain within the realm of homeostasis, of negative feedback, of ‘swings of the pendulum’. There is a natural reaction, resulting in a return to the authenticity of the right-hemisphere world itself.

McGilchrist uses the pendulum as the central figure for cultural homeostasis, contrasting restorative oscillation with the pathological positive feedback that entrenches left-hemispheric dominance when the corrective swing fails.

McGilchrist, Iain, The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World, 2009thesis

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four little men with the pendulums. It is a three-dimensional mandala—a mandala in bodily form signifying realization.

Jung interprets the pendulum-bearing figures of the world-clock vision as components of a three-dimensional mandala, linking the pendulum’s oscillatory rhythm to the Self’s symbolic expression of ‘the most sublime harmony.’

Jung, Carl Gustav, Psychology and Alchemy, 1944thesis

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On it stand four little men with pendulums, and round about it is laid the ring that was once dark and is now golden…. The ‘clock’ has three rhythms or pulses.

Von Franz reproduces Jung’s world-clock vision to demonstrate how the pendulum figures as a time-structuring element within a mandala symbolizing the Self’s tripartite rhythmic order.

von Franz, Marie-Louise, Psyche and Matter, 2014supporting

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The pendulum magnifies imperceptible body impulses into visible movement… the movement of the pendulum as being controlled by your unconscious, which ‘is always answering questions, but normally you are unable to receive this information.’

Greer positions the pendulum as an ideomotor instrument that renders unconscious knowledge accessible by amplifying subliminal somatic impulses into legible directional responses.

Greer, Mary K., Tarot for Your Self: A Workbook for the Inward Journey, 1984thesis

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what has been created is a system allowing for the conversion of one form of potential energy into another form of potential energy via a certain quantity of kinetic energy equivalent to the quantitative difference between these two potential energies.

Simondon uses the pendulum as the paradigm case for understanding mutual energy conversion between potential and kinetic states, foundational to his broader theory of physical individuation.

Simondon, Gilbert, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020supporting

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In the case of a pendulum, on the contrary, where two potential energies bring about a mutual ongoing

Simondon distinguishes the pendulum’s continuous mutual energetic exchange from the discontinuous structural transformations characteristic of other physical systems, making it the exemplar of ongoing oscillatory individuation.

Simondon, Gilbert, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020supporting

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their eyes are like the pendulum of a clock, swinging from one side to the other. As the eyes have never been trained, however, we cannot blame them for thinking their dharma is to be a pendulum.

Easwaran employs the pendulum as a vivid metaphor for the untrained, restlessly oscillating mind and its sensory organs, contrasting compulsive alternation with the stillness achieved through meditative concentration.

Easwaran, Eknath, The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living: A Verse-by-Verse Commentary, 1975supporting

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