THE THREE DISCOVERIES: THE SEMANTIC FIELD

The unsolved problem: how nature speaks

“I am being attacked by two opposing sects – scientists and the ignorant. They both laugh at me calling me “master of frog dance”. And yet I know I have discovered one of the greatest forces of nature”.
Galvani, who discovered electricity.

Man has searched for energy since ancient times. Recent history has been marked by the discovery of two important types of energy that have changed the world: electric and nuclear energy, yet many maintain that another type of energy exists, which is present in the universe and affects every life form.
Even Descartes spoke of this universal energy, defined “virtual hyperfield” by Tom Bearden, “morphogenetic field” by Sheldrake, “orgon” by William Reich, “Spiritus Universalis” by alchemists, CHI by the Chinese and KI by the Japanese.
Many speak of this basic form of universal energy that is present everywhere. Many scholars have identified a similar form of energy in man. Two fifteenth century philosophers, Agrippa and Ficino, individuated a force in man that derives from the soul or the spirit and is capable of acting “not only on one’s body but also on those nearby”.
In the eighteen hundreds William Crookes defined this force as “psychic force”. The English scientist noted that this force or power was extremely variable and at times completely absent; it required patient and conscientious research. The Freudian revolution involved overthrowing the Ego and recognizing the true voice of the individual in the unconscious: the voice within the individual is not his ego but his unconscious. Lacan also maintained that the unconscious was structured like a language, a language which we should learn to read. Some analysts, such as Jaspers, Stein and Binswanger felt that empathy with the patient was necessary in order to understand it. Even though they speak of the language of the unconscious no-one is able to codify it in a “dictionary” that is valid for everyone. There is a universal energy and psychic force which even if it cannot be measured by physics, produces concrete effects, as revealed by the scholars cited above. Are they two independent forces or are they related in some way?
Several theories affirm that psychic forces, like physical forces, are different moments of the same universally acting energy. This is a thesis which forms the basis of many oriental schools of thought. Advaita philosophy and other yoga traditions speak of “Kundalini”. By “Kundalini” they mean an energy which resides in the human body, as a manifestation of the universal energy called sakti. The “Kundalini” is used by Schopenhauer to indicate the will, inherent in the soul, which when exercised allows one to reach higher states of consciousness. Freud’s Id also reminds us of the oriental Kundalini. So, there is a universal energy and psychic forces are a part of it.
Some speak of energy, others speak of existing but immeasurable forms of communication. Is there a link between energy and communication? If there is a universal intelligence at the basis of this energy or communication, would it be possible to understand its language? The Professor has found a scientific answer to these questions.

The discovery of the semantic field

It cannot be measured because “it is not energy but it is with the energy”. It is information that varies the energy of the receiver. For this reason it is more correctly defined as a language, the language that nature uses through her individuations. Antonio Meneghetti defines this language as “semantic field” and it was his earliest discovery.
“The semantic field is the proportion that nature arranges within its individuations. (…) Everything in life moves forward through relationships, force fields: plants, insects, birds, eagles all have preferential rapports and they are attracted. This is the game through which nature maintains her unity of discourse, aim, project; in creating her forms she also maintains their possibility to communicate”.
The ontic In-itself and the deflection monitor can neither see nor touch the five senses. And yet they represent the fundamental discoveries in Ontopsychology. The medium that made these discoveries possible was the semantic field. The semantic field represents Meneghetti’s earliest discovery. During his years as a therapist he noticed that while his patients talked he averted sensations, saw images in his mind that did not have a logic that could be directly connected to what the patient was saying. Yet Meneghetti perceived that this too was transmitted by the client. Transmitted but at an unconscious level: the client did not realize what he/she was transmitting but it was a much higher level of information compared to what the patient was saying. This was how Meneghetti realized that there was an unconscious communication that transmitted information without considering the conscious will of the subject. Meneghetti noticed that this language transmitted all the elements of the unconscious, in particular the ontic In-itself and the deflection monitor. In short he managed to distinguish between these two pulsions and the images originating from each. Putting the information he received into practice during therapy he was able to verify in the effects that if the client acted on the intentionality of the ontic In-itself they obtained the solution of the problem and became healthy. If instead they followed what was expressed by the deflection monitor the result was that the illness continued. Meneghetti also noticed that while what the deflection monitor communicated was consistent with social values, the super Ego, the “norm”, the ontic In-itself was instead much more creative, acquiring an originality in each individual and changing on the basis of the situation. He noticed that following the In-itself always meant success for the subject.
All this communication occurred through a language that Meneghetti could not find in any of the texts he had studied. The only affinity he found was in some research which spoke of the child as outside of the adult, Meneghetti more properly defined this as “phenomenology of the psychic causality of the adult of reference”, all this occurred through the unconscious communication of the semantic field.
Starting from clinical research, Antonio Meneghetti realized that this type of unconscious communication occurring between human beings is a widespread reality, or rather it is reality, and it is the basic communication that occurs in nature. This is where Meneghetti’s path coincides with humanity’s great writings which speak of the existence of a way of communication in nature that leads the insect to find the flower, the migratory bird to find its way; there is continual interaction between every creature, between plants, animals and every element of nature. Meneghetti called each space of interaction “semantic field”, seen as an interaction that has meaning, from the Greek term sema that means sign. “There is therefore a constant symbiosis, men are also connected, they continually breathe, and they are continually in and out, in osmosis. The semantic field transports something, both the deflection monitor and the ontic In-itself, which can be distinguished through the results. Semantic field is negative when it reduces man’s work, his potential, his activity, his intelligence”. Antonio Meneghetti also dedicated a text to the Semantic Field, which thoroughly describes its characteristics and effects. As a language Meneghetti codifies it in his writings and through his explanations it becomes a potential tool for knowledge of human beings.