Paper for PHILOSOPHY OF MANAGEMENT- 2015
The 10th Philosophy of Management International Conference
(St Anne's College, Oxford, 9-12 July 2015)
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TITLE: Traditional Metaphysical Foundations of Organization and Strategy
(Submitted for the Track (#3): Ancient Philosophy for Contemporary Management Practice)
AUTHOR: Paul Beaulieu, Professor, School of Management Sciences, University of Quebec in
Montreal, Montreal, Canada. Email: beaulieu.paul@uqam.ca
______________________________________________________________________________
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Abstract
This paper digs inside the civilizational metaphysical heritages and traditions to look at the core
activity of organizations management that is strategy. It discuss the potential contribution of a
series of Ancient Traditions and philosophies in regard of their explanation and their
cosmological interpretation of the human processes of concretization (which comprise
management practices) of human endeavors at generating reality. The main argument of this
paper concern the hypothesis that a shared actualized understanding and an effective conscious
path of relation could be re-established with the Cosmic Intelligence through the processes of
realization (which include human works and organizations dynamic) and that this could open the
way for a re-sacralization of the core functions that are involved in processes of realization and
human collective action.
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Keywords: Realization; Traditional studies; Cosmology; Process.
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Seeing (Imagination), Hearing (Inspiration)
and Being (Intuition) are above all.
Introduction
Ancient traditional wisdoms and metaphysical philosophies have been constantly preoccupied
with the explanation of the processes and finalities of human action, as well as with the
cosmological, ontological and epistemological aspects of human process-activities devoted to
concretization. We can find in the Ancient Traditions metaphysical insights that could be useful
to think anew the management practice and to regenerate our understanding of the management
mandate as a function based on solidarity with human communities and with living ecosystems.
!2
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This paper digs inside the civilizational metaphysical heritages and traditions to look at the core
activity of organizations management that is strategy. We use the term strategy to summarize the
integrated processes of human actions and generation of objects that are embedded evidently in
the ecosystems of the world. This means that strategy is understood as the knowledge,
determination, organization, decision and action processes of an entity for and into its
environment. From the individuals up to large collective organizational entities finalized and
coordinated human actions constituted through history the main object of the process dynamics
that modern times named management. This refers to the general process of transforming ideas
into objective realities.
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Past civilizations generated colossal cultural, social and material realizations and their
knowledge communities developed cleaver bodies of knowledge about the human relation to
concretization and realization processes. As far as the proto-Indian period (around 8 000 to 5 000
BC), following the global food that saw the end of the last ice age, the most advanced part of
humanity was dueling in the southern part of the Indian continent and they already were in
possession of a clear understanding of the processes of realization. The old Indian rishis-seers,
those to whom refer the Vedas, had already solved the enigma of the materialist approach of
human perceived realities on earth. The Vedas are very ‘’recent’’ echoes of their teachings. This
is on the base of these ancient metaphysical knowledge that a certain memory of this
foundational body of knowledge was maintained and transferred from generations to generations
and from civilizations to civilizations and was referred to as the Tradition. The ancient wisdoms
applied through the progression of different civilizations can be used to rediscover the
cosmological foundations of the core management processes that are at the center of
management practice.
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In this paper I will present and discuss the potential contribution of a series of Ancient Traditions
and philosophies in regard of their explanation and their cosmological interpretation of the
human processes of concretization (which comprise management practices) of human endeavors
at generating results inside reality. The particular traditional wisdoms that will be discussed are
the following: the Indian Mahashakti cosmological power; the Egyptian MA-AT; the Babylonian
Fish-Man and his relation to the IA.
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Management sciences are actually entered in a phase of crisis about the pertinence of their
contributions to usual management practices and the saturation of their potential of explanation
given the exploding complexities of actual human enterprises. The performativity of the
prevailing scientific models are constantly decreasing and their clash with reality being more and
more intensively perceived. The phenomenological process perspective has already shaken the
naïve beliefs that used to dominate the management sciences. But the apprehended problems
seem to be more profound and embedded deeper.
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The last phase of global economic disturbances the emerged in 2008 generated throughout
management scientific communities and key educational institutions a wave of questioning1 in
regard of the foundations of the prevailing paradigm in management sciences. Most of the
Presidential addresses at the yearly conference of the Academy of Management tried to raise the
awareness of the vast community involved in management sciences about the symptoms of a
deep crisis being observed. The most dramatic was certainly the call of the 2010’s AOMPresidential Address2 for the recognition of the «sacred nature of our work», that is scholarly
investigation of organizations life and management with its related educational mandate. The
then acting AOM president raised the point that management and enterprises are now the
dominant social institutions and for this they bears an enormous responsibility and obligation of
pertinence as well as valid understanding of the true nature of problems to be solved and solution
to be managed.
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To use the terms of Walsh (2011:215) I think also that management sciences are actually in their
‘’golden age’’ of societal prevalence but we must be aware that descent always follow maximum
expansion period and most of all, it is in ‘’golden period’’ that the seeds of the new era is
generated for the renewal and evolution of forms.
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More than an evident pragmatic turn management sciences need a re-foundation that will get
them closer to the essence of their mandate and less servant of their instrumentalization under the
dominant ideology of competitive materialist human enterprises dedicated to private interests.
This is a civilizational issue that will require a ‘’civilizational turn’’ if management sciences want
to stay in a position supporting the advancement of humanity. Actually, the dominant paradigm
in management is being part of the problematic of our global civilization. This crisis3 should be
an opportunity to question the foundational links between business as a dominant social
institution and its contribution civilizational decline and certainly take care of looking at the
metaphysical root-causes of the profound lack of congruence between the validity of
management sciences and the requirements of a new evolving phase in human enterprises.
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1
Harvard Business School, Wharton Business School and many others organized conferences to debate
the role and responsibilities of business schools in the formation of managers’ behaviors that generated
and/or supported the destructive effects seen in the recent financial crisis. In early 2012 the Indian
School of management Science in Varanasi debated in its conference on the «spiritual dimension of the
global management crisis» to question the spiritual foundations of management practices that goes
beyond the normal ethical considerations (see: Bhattacharjee-2011; Singh and Bhattacharjee-2012 and
Gupta, Bishnoi and Bhattacharjee-2013).
2
‘’Embracing the sacred in our secular scholarly world’’ by the 2010’s Academy of Management
president. See Walsh (2011: 215-217).
3
In the field of civilizational studies there is a growing consensus on the recognition of a global crisis in
the cultural and scientific foundations of actual knowledge systems and their reductionist perspective
that cannot cope with actual problematic complexities. See: Farhat-Holzman and Rienzo (2009);
Targowski (2014); and Redner (2013).
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Such a kind of civilizational agenda implies to question our definition and perception of what we
call reality. Management sciences, as a modern artifact of the XXth Century (Wren and
Bedeian-2009) enabled human organizations with an evolving set of capabilities to cope with the
mass requirements of the expanding capitalist-driven economies. They well functioned under a
shared naïve belief in a substantive and physical senses-based ontology and positivist
epistemology. But they never questioned the essence of the reality from outside the limits of
naïve positivism4.
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The scholar community working on philosophy of management5 already identified a malaise
with the maturity of the last sixty years of managements sciences based on the rationalist
ideology that is the worldview where the manager and the finality of enterprise are based on
conflict and competition and giving the impression as if humanity was only capable to design
competitive market dominated endeavors.
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With this paper I position myself at the margin of the marginal, certainly ‘’out of the box’’, with
the associated risks that such an essay into new frontiers can bear and imply but also with the
hope of contributing to the renewal of the foundations of the mandate devoted to management
and organization’s sciences by pointing in the direction of the cosmological links of the
management activities.
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This paper will present certain limitations that we need to assume with humility, patience and in
respect for discussions that it could raise. Addressing adequately the subject and the agenda of
questions that a ‘’cosmosophical’’ approach bring to the discussion would require at least the
scope of a book. Our actual objective with this paper is to identify the traditional worldview that
prevailed through the path of civilizations in regard of the ontological relations and the
cosmological embeddedness of human productions and organizations in the universal integral
Reality. For these reason, the style of our presentation about the problematics we want to raise to
our attention is more of the kind of the essay. And we should say an exploratory essay to think
about the object of management activity from a metaphysical perspective that position itself from
the ground and memory of the traditional heritages.
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4
There is the exception of the followers of Whitehead phenomenological organicist’s process
perspective and the significant contributions, among others, from the scientific community leaded by
Haridimos Tsoukas of the yearly International Symposium on Process Organization Studies. See: Helin,
Hernes, Hjorth and Holt (2014); Hernes (2008 and 2014); Stengers (2011); Ulanowicz (2009); and
Hernes, Maitlis (2010).
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We observed frequently individuals that brought philosophical contributions and debates in the
management domain. We should not forget that many of the initial founding books of management
were in some sense with a philosophical orientation, such as Davis (1905) and Oliver (1023). But most
significant institutionalized contribution is the initiation in early 2000s of a community of scholars
around the journal Philosophy of Management and its yearly summer meeting in Oxford: see their
launching editorial ‘’Wanted: Philosophy of Management’’ (Laurie and Cherry-2001).
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Through this paper I will proceed as follow on a series of key-questions and exploratory
propositions to frame our problematics of the metaphysical foundations of strategy and
management from an integral worldview: first, I will discuss the potential of the Traditions of the
main civilizations and will identify the metaphysical dimensions involved. Second we will look
at the identification of the essence of strategy and the management mandate. Third, I will present
the traditional ontological knowledge about the existence of a cosmic intelligence that governs
all realizations. Will follows a preliminary characterization of the cosmological triad of the core
processes involved in integral realization. Finally, we will discuss the implications of such a
cosmosophy for the evolution of management practice. Our intent is to contribute to the passage
from an instrumental management science orientation to a renewed wisdom of management
practice that would be grounded in a cosmosophical experience. The scale of the issues at stake
and the centrality of the implication on the side of the management’s practices, epistemology and
ideologies worth the long term efforts that this goal will require.
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Such a paper could be of interest for those honestly preoccupied with questioning the
foundations of the management agency and acts. It will be boring for those who are trapped
inside the normal paradigm of management and believing in the only existence of sense-based
knowledge substance and positive empiricism approach of objects to be scientifically
investigated with validity.
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1. Searching for traditional foundations
There is a need for a re-investigation of the foundations of management if we want to open a new
phase of evolution of this thread of disciplines whose mandate is to perform the collective
finalities of human intents and projected actions that are aimed at the transformation of the
world.
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Our actual civilizational period that emerged in the XVth Century with a European focal point
brought forward a development orientation based on individual freedom and selfaccomplishment centered on the rationalist pursuit of material improved conditions of existence
and on senses-based well-being. This generated a massive demand for material goods and
services that are now reaching global scales with an extreme pressure on any kind of resources.
Management as a collective practice and know-how has been deployed for this endeavor in
conjunction with a positivist approach of building shared scientific bodies of knowledge. This
modernist orientation eclipsed drastically the traditional worldviews that prevailed for millennia
and which were mostly preoccupied with cosmological considerations and human evolution in
congruence with the cosmos.
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Even philosophy lost the key of the adequate interpretation of those traditional bodies of
knowledge. Following Hegel disgrace in the XIXth Century and the emergent dominance of the
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Vienna Circle logical positivism and its scientist ideology6 in the first part of the XXth Century,
traditional knowledge became quasi-underground in the scientific conversation. We could say
that only India with its strong capacity to preserve and integrate knowledge paths has been able
to maintain through periodic waves of renewal a significant body of traditional knowledge that
kept the memory of ancient worldviews transferred to future generations7.
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With the epistemic crisis questionings8 that shake the actual scientific epistemology and
dominant paradigm there is a renewal of interest for the investigation of the traditional bodies of
knowledge that were inherited from the ancient knowledge centers of the antiquity and even for
those that prevailed during the civilizational Egypto-Akkadian-Sumerian period as well as before
during the proto-Aryan civilizational waves of culture. The encoding of their core knowledge on
stoned-media through symbolic images and mythological narratives permitted the preservation of
their teachings about the key metaphysical questions related to human existence and its relation
to the cosmos. With the meticulous comparative investigation of these symbolic the field of
traditional studies has been able to observe recurrent metaphysical explanation of the world
congruent across time and civilizations. The Tradition is an outcome of the previous civilizations
centers of higher knowledge9 which assumed for their epoch the same kind of role as our higher
education and scientific institutions play today for our civilization. As already mentioned in
Beaulieu (2014: 176):
« There is an extensive scientific literature that investigated the higher
institution of knowledge and learning of the antiquity that goes deeper
than the naïve investigation of ritual practices prevailing in Temple
complexes in Orient, in the Crescent Fertile and in Occident. Interesting
on that subject are the Hornung (2001), Scott (2014), Uzdavinys (2010
and 2011), Jacob (2007), Lyons (2009), and Green (1992). The
Pythagorean Centre in Crotone, Platonic Academy in Athens, the
6
It was propagated through its manifesto of August 1929, The Scientific Conception of the World.
7
Nevertheless we must recognize at the same time that this Indian proficiency for the conservation of
the Tradition suffered from series of excesses and deviations. Not far from half a Century ago, the
president of India was a renowned philosopher deeply informed of the metaphysical foundations of the
cultural developments that passed through millennia on the sub-continent of India; I refer here to the
President Sarvepelli Radhakrisnan (1888-1975) well-known as the ‘’philosopher-king’’, ex-professor of
philosophy at Oxford University and author of the magisterial Indian Philosophy (1923), and The Hindu
View of Life (1927).
8
See: Kauffman (2008); Sloterdijk (2012); Yanofsky (2013); Baggott (2013); and Unzicker and Jones
(2013).
9
See: Meyer (1999).
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Ptolemaic Alexandrian Museum, the Academy of Gundishapur in
Persian 6th Century, and the House of Wisdom implemented by Caliph
Harun al-Rashid in Baghdad in the late 8th Century were all laterdescendants institutions in filiation with the ancient Mystery Schools
(like the Egyptian House of Life) but adapted to the Axial Age Period
(Eisenstadt-1986) of civilizational evolution. »
The field of traditional studies investigates the primordial teachings (Gangadean-1997;
Pieper-2010; Bamford-2003; Schuon-1998; Lakhani-2001 and 2002; Upton-2006; and
Curnow-2010) inherited from different currents and filiations of transmission of metaphysical
knowledge through civilizational periods, by the Indian Smriti10, the Sufism, the Egyptians and
Sumerians, the Middle-East Gnosis and the others underground knowledge communities
repressed in Occidental by the dominant Churches through the radical eradication of any forms
of ancient wisdom (or paganisms). There are common structures of knowledge and universal
unity between the culturally contextualized traditions. As an example, the seven Rishi-seers
correspond to the seven ‘’fish-men’’ of Babylon and to the seven Sages of Delphi. All of these
were recognized to be capable to access and know inside of the etheric cosmos of Earth (the
‘’watery’’ Heaven or the ‘’Great Ocean’’ of the world).
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What important subject that traditional studies are looking for and could be useful for the
understanding of the foundations and processes11 of management practice and strategic collective
action is the metaphysical explanation of the core constituents of the Reality. A foundational
problematic addressed by the Tradition is the explanation of the manifestation/concretization
processes inside the living Reality and the existence of a cosmic Intelligence that realizes its
manifestation through human beings and nature. Human being with their projected intents and
intelligence would be in close relation and cosmic symbiosis with the First Cause of the World
(Nasr-1987:85). This is part of a worldview that is radically in opposite to the actual materialistpositivist dominant believes of the actual management and scientific paradigm. The comparative
study of traditions is done with the goal of discerning the universal understandings that transcend
cultural specificities and that prevail across all humanity. This is an example of the metaphysical
approach that is central to traditional bodies of knowledge.
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10
The Indian Tradition has been extensively studied and explained by Sri Aurobindo. See: Sri Aurobindo
Complete Writings. 20 Volumes. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram; Sri Aurobindo (1974, 1990 and
2004); and McDermott (2012). Also of interest on Indian tradition is Malhotra (2013).
11
As mentioned by Griseri (2011:1) in his editorial as being the key-objects to investigate for keeping
our distance from the «tyranny of instrumental mechanics» in management.
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The core of the traditional heritage, especially preserved in Orient, can be synthesized through
the following metaphysical assumptions:
a) The essence of the integral reality is made of spirit and the cosmos is constituted of entities.
b) Human beings are spiritual entities, existing in their higher-self and embodied in a series of
envelops (bodies) of which the physical body is the one that gives perceptions of the materiality
of appearances.
c) The matter is an illusion created through human physical senses-based perceptions. The
development of supra-sensible perceptions that are not dependent of physical cognition gives
access to the truth of the spiritual essence of the reality.
d) All individualized human entities are linked in a collective self that form the self of an
integrated cosmic entity, that the Humanity.
e) The human entities as spiritual beings are linked to a Cosmic Intelligence that infuses their
thinking and orients human evolution.
f) Human being can develop and evolve knowing capabilities to become aware of the existence
of that Cosmic Intelligence and interact with her in the realization processes of the world.
g) Love is a path of knowledge for experiencing the relation with the Cosmic Intelligence and to
know from the interior (through intuition) the other entities.
h) The essence and the mission of the state of human being on Earth are to develop selfconsciousness and to transform Earth-based realities into spiritual existence.
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These elements that constitute the core of the traditional worldview represent a cosmological
perspective totally out of the actual prevailing scientific paradigm. Since many centuries we lost
the conviction that these metaphysical teachings have been developed by ancient communities of
researchers from a collective process of observation and validation that was based on different
knowing capabilities than the actual conceptual and reflexive cognition actually in practice in our
scientific paradigm. There is a growing number of researchers, from a broader range of scientific
disciplines who consider valuable for the advancement of human knowledge the systematic
investigation of the Tradition(s) and the exploration of new paths of knowing. They are not
motivated by a desire to restore traditional bodies of knowledge. Instead, they want to use these
has a working hypothesis to reorient the scientific quest from the experimentation and
deployment of knowledge capabilities in order to test and access new levels of the Reality and its
spiritual essence. The Tradition and its path of knowing have always been alive in the past
millennium but by a thin marginal group of true metaphysical researchers. A large collectivity of
researchers12 emerged in the last two decades and tried their effort on this radically different path
12
As a selection of their actual contributions see the followings: Chetland (2013); DeWiel (2013);
Gangadean (2008); Lorimer and Robinson (2010); Loy (1997); Martin (2010); Nagel (2012); Tarnas
(2006); Thomas (1999).
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of knowledge but very few succeeded to validly access to the observation of the full spectrum of
the cosmic Reality. Nevertheless, now we can notice a significant mobilization to tackle the new
frontiers of the reality from a scientific validation perspective which has nothing to do with usual
mystical religious impulses anchored in subjective feelings and cognition.
Because the existence of a Cosmic Intelligence is central and foundational to the metaphysical
understanding of the dynamics of the realization processes in the perspective of the Tradition we
will concentrate on its characterization and on its relation to human enterprises.
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In the next section we will identify the metaphysical systematics that is involved in this
hypothesis of the existence of a Cosmic Intelligence that would integrate human beings higherself, intelligence and actions.
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2. A metaphysical approach
As mentioned earlier, metaphysics is actually relatively in disgrace inside normal science’s ethos
and academic professional philosophers lost the way and the knowledge path to the objective
knowledge of the cosmic entity of the Sophia. The French philosopher Pierre Hadot (2002) and
his followers (Chase, Clark and McGhee-2013) raised the attention of the philosophical
community that philosophy is fundamentally a path of knowledge where the knower goes
through a quest centered on the transformation of his self and his knowing capabilities far
beyond sophisticated reasoning. Except for traditional metaphysics and traditional Indian or
Oriental philosophies the domain of metaphysical studies have been kept prisoner of the Kantian
refusal to proceed on a knowing path outside the phenomenological perspective. In doing so
normal metaphysical studies13 stay inside the limited knowledge frontiers of the reflexive
conceptual reasoning and can’t access to the intuitive knowledge of entities that constitute the
integral Reality, of what exist.
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An integral metaphysical perspective14 is characterized by the triangulation of three ranges of
foundational questions related to the explanation of the reality.
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ONTOLOGY
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COSMOLOGY
EPISTEMOLOGY
13
As we can find in Loux (2006); Van Inwagen (2015 and 2014).
14
See Geddar (2007); Kornblatt (2009); Laos (2015); and Laszlo-2014).
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The core mandate of metaphysical studies15 is to question the nature and dynamics of the reality
in which human beings are embedded. The ontology focuses at the entities and beings that are
embedded inside the dynamics of the reality. The cosmology questions the genesis, the finalities,
the categories, the organization and the dynamic order of the constituents of the reality. And the
epistemology (or we could say the gnoseology) concentrates on the knowledge paths and
conditions of human investigation of the reality.
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With the emergence of the Greco-Roman civilizational period, the axial-age, the metaphysics
became conceptual and turned progressively to the physical aspects and to the senses-based
appearances and their derived conceptualizations. Following an idealist transition it evolved into
a positivist reductionist paradigm as we experience today.
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The Tradition preserved the memory that in previous civilizational periods, like the one of the
Egypto-Mesopotamian, the ways of metaphysical knowledge were based on supra-sensorial
perceptions of the spiritual entities that constitute the reality. That knowledge was not
communicated via intellectual reasoning because this was not the prevalent way of knowing.
Instead the results of their research were elaborated and communicated through symbolic
dramatized naturalistic allegories (mythologies) to be understood through feelings, emotional
intelligence and self-identifications. A highly qualified researcher of that ancient period was
capable to see and move his perception through the supra-sensorial knowledge of the spirit-based
essence of the reality where he was also capable to investigate the ontological diversity of
entities and their formative-forces as well as the cosmological living dynamics and evolving
order.
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We consider as simplistic the notion that metaphysics refers to the set of subjects contains in
Aristotle’s writings that were assembled by Andronicus of Rhodes following the publication of those
related to the Physics. Even if the Aristotle’s teachings related to the knower transformational quest
were totally eradicated in the early Christian era evidences are that Aristotle wanted to translate into
rational individualized conceptual thinking the ancient Wisdom inherited from the Babylonian and
Assyrian traditions. In that sense Aristotle was following the research path of the new epistemology
opened earlier by Thales of Miletus and Pythagoras. As Hadot (2002:10) mentioned so pertinently «what
was the philosophy before philosophy?». Aristotle refers frequently to this ‘’first philosophy’’ that
came from the teaching of the temples priesthoods of the Egypto-Mesopotamian civilizational period.
Plato also visited the last survivals of these ancient knowledge centers in the early part of his life.
There is continuity in the object but under a totally different epistemology between the pre and the
post Socratics.
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This means that for each civilizational period a different metaphysics emerges and correspond to
the requirements of the evolutionary path of human cognition16. Our actual civilizational period
which started with the first wave of globalization in the XVth Century and will normally evolve
up to the year 3 500s (1/12 of a Platonic year) is characterized by the development of human
consciousness based on the acquired rational objective conceptual thinking capabilities that
emerged during the previous civilizational period. Humanity is now pointing in the direction of
extending its intelligence and cognition capabilities of the reality to a deeper apprehension of its
essence and its spiritual nature. This is where the Tradition may be useful for the orientation of
this new evolutionary endeavor. This is also in that direction that ‘’fertile’’ new foundations for
the renewal of human praxis may be discovered.
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3. The essence of Strategy with-or-without design
Periodically we saw emerging some debates about the essence of strategy and organization. A
very early one was the stratification of finalities between administration and management
proposed by Hodgkinson (1978). More recently Martinet (1990), Martinet and Pesqueux (2013)
and Powell (2001; 2002; 2003) raised again the issue about the essence of strategy. All these
efforts stayed inside the context of the competitive market driven enterprise perspective and
focused on the notion of competitive collective action.
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The management field saw also the recent emergence of the notion of ‘’strategy without design’’.
This new approach of organization’s strategy and leadership’s embodiment constitutes a major
re-thinking of the role and the activity of agents and about the process of concretization of
strategic realities. The key-contributors of this new approach, from Chia and Holt (2009), come
from the process school of thought on organizational dynamics. As for Nonaka and Zhu (2012)
and Nonaka and alter (2008), they embedded this notion of strategy without design into a
phenomenological paradigm for the purpose of thinking organizational realities.
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Even if this new approach of organization dynamics is based on a concept of immanence of
reality with strong inspirations from Eastern philosophies it stays ‘’trapped’’ inside the pure
abstractions of the phenomenological perspective. A deeper understanding of the richness of nonpurposiveness of action and organizational processes would require the investigation of ancient
16
The most scientific and systematic explanation available for the characterization of that evolution of
worldviews and the traditional ways of knowing through the progressive unfolding of the succeeding
civilizational periods has been elaborated in the early XXth Century by the Austrian philosopher and
spiritual researcher Rudolf Steiner. In his Riddle of Philosophy (1914b) and many of his conferences
throughout Europe (they have been archived and made available from: The Rudolf Steiner Archive, at
http://www7.rsarchive.org/ ). Complementary to his Riddle of Philosophy are also Steiner (1891;
1914a; and 1918).
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traditions that explained extensively the foundations of indirect action and the cosmological
immanence of collective processes and their embodiment in the ecosystems of the reality.
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I propose that the core essence of human’s organization and strategy is the collective
concretization of the spirit into the physical range of the reality and the transformational
spiritualization of the human environment. Humans and their collective actions through
organizations devoted to the embedding of the spiritual intelligence of the world into the material
plan of reality serve as the intermediary between spiritual entities and entities of the manifested
nature.
Collective actions are projected intents dedicated to the transformation of ideational entities or
intelligences into integral forms embedded in matter17. In this sense the essence of an
organization is the projection of an intent that means an action for the concretization of a living
intelligence.
The core activity of an organization is made of the processes of concretization. For this to happen
an entanglement of functionalities is performed where ideation and intelligence are generated,
technicalities are created and applied (engineering), form is created through design, and
projected dynamics is created and directed (orchestrated) through management. The same as for
pure human thinking, organizations and human actions into their environment (cosmological
ecosystem[s]) are made of intents18 for realization/concretization.
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From this cosmological assumption the traditional knowledge about the existence of a Cosmic
Intelligence that embrace all the ranges of the integral Reality deserve all the attention from
those who are preoccupied by the processes of concretization through human actions.
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4. The Ultimate-Agent: the IA
It is known that the traditional paths of knowing observed and validated the existence of a
Cosmic Intelligence from who occur (or supervene) all the manifestations and processes of
projected concretizations.
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Nearly three thousand years ago, the cultural pioneers of the philosophical stream of human
knowledge learned from the Akkadian, Sumerian and Babylonian teachings about the existence
of this cosmic Unitarian Intelligence that intuits, empowers, regulates and harmonizes all the
spectrum of the cosmic Reality and who nurtures the evolution of the creation and human beings.
17
This necessarily raises the corollary question of the essence of what is matter, in the cosmogenesis
sense.
18
Even a radical positivist as John R. Searle recognizes the intentional nature of pure thinking. See his
recent Seeing Things as They Are. A Theory of Perception. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2015.
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This cosmic Intelligence was recognized as what we could call ‘’the ultimate agent’’ from whom
all living entity receive its power to exist, to know and to act.
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In Mesopotamia this Cosmic Intelligence, because of the recognized nature of its unitary essence
and dynamics through all realities, she was the root-cause for the development of the
monotheism religious orientation. During that civilizational period her name evolved from
culture to following culture. Originally known as ENKI, her name became EA in Akkad and took
finally the spelling of IA from the West-Semitic Canaanites).
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With the transformation of human’s thinking and cognitive capabilities that occurred in the
transition to the early Geek civilization (around 700 BC) the cosmic intelligence was to be
individualized and the intellect capacity of human beings was to be developed through individual
embodiment of reasoning in order to generate an objective knowledge of the world. A new way
of knowing was developed where love, seen as the intuition of oneself into another being, will
become the core process of the new knowing. The approach was to incorporate into oneself the
knowledge from this Cosmic Intelligence through an intuitive love-relation and ‘’encapsulate
this knowledge into the individual new capacity to think rationally. By this philosophy was
born19: the Cosmic Intelligence (the IA) was to be accessed through an intuition-based love
relation (PHILO) and contained (SOPH in Akkadian means ‘’to contain’’) in human
individualized reason’s capabilities for their introduction into human affairs, that is PHILOSOPH-IA; the Cosmic Intelligence supporting human realizations. This is why this cosmic entity
was renowned through all major cultures as the mother that infused the civilizational impulse to
human beings via the mediation of the searchers-seers that were able to ‘swim’’ into its ‘’cosmic
waters’’ (ethereal cosmic Intelligence). These instructors, known and symbolized as ‘’Fish-men’’
were the Apkallu of Akkad, the Abgal of Sumer, the Hamsas of the Indian tradition and the swans
of the Western secret traditions20.
!
Throughout the different cultures the Cosmic Intelligence was venerated and recognized as being
mother formative-power that is the root-cause of all realities and cosmic support of all
19
These etymological and historical considerations come from the field of Sumerian studies
enlightened from the Steinerian history of the philosophical quest. Of interest also for this history is of
the emergence of philosophy is Geldard (2007).
20
The ancient cultures of the Middle-East and Orient have been investigated extensively for at least a
Century of multidisciplinary research. There exist good synthesis and consolidations of the state of
knowledge. A high level of recognition is given to the works of Kramer (1972 and 1981) concerning the
Sumerian civilization and to Assman (2001) for deep-Egyptology as well as to Black and Green (1992) for
their integrative studies of Mesopotamia.
!14
intelligence and activities inside the real of the Reality. She is known around the world under the
following names:
Mahasakti in India
Guanyin in China
Gwanneum in Korea
Avalokiteshvara for Buddhists
Chen ye zi for Tibetans
Tara in Nepal
Kannon in Japan
Hockmah in Semitic traditions
Enki and EA in Akkad
Ma-at and SIA in ancient Egypt
Coatlicue for the Meso-Americans
Anu for the Celts
Sophia for Christians
!
This Cosmic creative Intelligence is personified as being feminine because she corresponds to
the formative-forces that created the world through a process of gestation. The French notion of
‘’gestion’’ refers also to this process of gestation and necessary actions (la geste) that serve to
bring to concretization. This is a more profound notion than the Fayol French term of
‘’management’’ which refers to the direction of a complex affairs as a six-horses carriage (un
manège) and to the doing through the five fingers five logical phases of the process school) of a
hand (la main) that transform the reality.
!
5. A new phase in evolution of management: the integral sciences of Realization
The argument for change that comes in regard of what is argued in this paper means that an
intelligent audacious and experience-based re-interpretation/re-discovery of this civilizational
and foundational root-entity, that is the Cosmic Intelligence, could become again a unifying force
of humanity. If a shared actualized understanding and an effective conscious path of relation
could be re-established with the Cosmic Intelligence through the processes of realization (which
include human works and organizations dynamic) we could open the way for a re-sacralization
of the core functions that are involved in processes of realization and human collective action.
What we could call the cosmological turn of management sciences could represent the
emergence of a civilizational contribution to the responsibilization of human affairs and
collective realizations through an enlargement of humans’ consciousness for the holistic and
spiritual consequences of their acts or strategies. This would pave the way for an effective
!15
individual intuitionism (Huemer-2005) and cultural engagement toward the re-unification of
humanity through conscious collective realizations and solidarities.
!
The effective investigation and conscious knowledge of the Cosmic Intelligence by managers
would generate the emergence of real spiritual pragmatism that goes far beyond conceptual
values-based management. Such a gnoseological quest and scientific new epistemological
orientation would presume a radical transformation in the ways of knowing on the side of the
managers and their partners involved in the new sciences of realization.
!
Conclusion
In conclusion it is assumed that the participants to the debates for the renewal of the foundations
of the management sciences are not afraid of thinking ‘’out of the box’’ and that they stay
respectful for the past cultural conquest of humanity.
!
As mentioned in the first lines of this paper Seeing, Hearing and Being the Cosmic Intelligence
that is immanent in the integral Reality are above all actual predominant paths of knowledge and
practice.
!
____________________
!
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