The diagram illustrates the interpenetration of the sacred and the profane, according to Roszak. I would also add that it shows the succession of the ideational and sensate ages according to Sorokin. Scientists like E.O. Wilson, who in “consilience” wants to derive everything ultimately from physics via biology, would prefer one triangle, while spiritually inclined people would prefer the other. Roszak himself is evenly balanced, arguing only that we have over-emphasized reason and technology and need to also incorporate elements from the spiritual triangle to restore mental and cultural balance.

Perhaps there are two entities intertwining in the world, mind and matter, like the two chains of Fibonacci numbers in Alcock’s book “The Trumpets of Angels”, or like the two complementary strands of DNA. The metaphor of two sides of a coin is too static; it suggests the rule of chance in flipping the coin. The image of the two sides being really one side in a Moebius strip is better.

The superposed triangles form a Star of David pattern, and the beginning of the fractal Koch snowflake. The opposite vertices illustrate the polar pairs Reason – Mystery, Myth – History, and Magic – Technology. The first pair deals with understanding the physical world, the second with understanding the human world, and the third with acting on the world. Another polar pair elsewhere in Roszak’s book is Ethics – Ecstasy, referring to two aspects of religion.

The idea of consciousness dimming from human to animal to plant to mineral may also be false, if God is immanent in all of nature. The divine ousis may crystallize anywhere as the spirit of a lake or of a mountain, especially in sacred places along the global ley lines of Alcock or the core cities of the Global Peace pioneers (1) in the book I lost.

And beneath matter in the quantum realm may be mindlike stuff, as in David Boehm’s intelligent electron, or his enfoldment idea.

References.

Theodore Roszak, “Unfinished Animal: the Aquarian Frontier and the Evolution of consciousness”, Harper Colophon Books, New York, 1975, 271 pp.
Norman Alcock, “Trumpets of Angels: A Scientific Inquiry Into the Growth of the Human Soul”, private printing, Miller Lake, Ont., June 1997, 277 pp.
Pitirm Sorokin, “Social and cultural Dynamics”, Sargent, Boston, 1957, 718 pp.
Edward O. Wilson, “Consilience: the unity of Knowledge”, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1998, 332 pp.