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Subtle Agroecologies
REFLECTIONS ON REPRESENTATIVE PERCEPTION
On learning how reps spontaneously experience body sensations, emotions or just ‘know things’
relevant to their roles, people often question if it is really happening. The best way to answer
this question is to directly experience it. While case studies can describe it, and the entire
Constellations feld attests to it, any written account of representative perception falls short of
the actual experience. A participant at a NC workshop in 2012 described representing for the frst
time: ‘I found it amazing how easy it was to tune into non-human consciousness in a whole-body
experience and for it to be so obvious that I was not making up or imagining the experiences I
was having’.
The next question is usually to ask how it could be happening. In 2006, the author identifed a
number of potential scientifc explanations (Roussopoulos, 2006) and since then advances in consciousness studies, science and cosmology have led to more integrated and complete explanations
(Laszlo et al., 2016). However, representative perception has successfully underpinned Systemic
Constellations for decades without practitioners knowing how it works.
The author holds that the most important question for agricultural applications of NCs is to ask
where the information is coming from. If the data about the human/ecological system in question
originates, consciously or unconsciously, solely from the client or holding group, it is merely someone’s belief, or at best second-hand information. Two phenomena have been observed in all forms
of Systemic Constellations which indicate that reps may be picking up their data directly from the
beings they are representing. The frst is when information emerges in a Constellation which no-one
present knows about and which is subsequently proven to be accurate. The second is when something spontaneously changes in the system being represented, in line with what happened within the
Constellation, but where there has been no contact between the people present at the Constellation
and the beings in the actual system. The next two case studies illustrate these phenomena taking
place in NCs.
Case Study 2: Struggling Cabbages
Laura wanted to know what she could add to the soil to support the health of her cabbages. A female
rep for the cabbages (C) initially reported that her roots needed to be stronger and that she felt
vulnerable to being nibbled. C’s body was leaning over, her top half moving in circles around her
torso as if her head were very heavy. She would go down, then just about manage to pull herself up.
Laura, watching from the sidelines, commented that perhaps the cabbages had not had time to grow
good roots and she was concerned that the rep, C, would fall over. Laura could have added manure,
lime or biodynamic preparations to the soil, so reps were brought in for each of these options. C
experienced a jolt when the biodynamic preparations came in, and then found that the manure felt
better to her. However, only the presence of lime stabilised her movement.
Not long after the NC Laura contacted the author, very excited – she had just uncovered her
cabbages, which had been under feece for the previous 4–5 months. They were a type of cabbage
that would usually stand upright with their heads on stalks about six inches high. She had been
expecting to fnd small, under developed heads, instead of which: ‘to my utter amazement… they
had actually grown so enormous that they couldn’t hold their own weight on the stalks… they had
toppled… I’ve never seen them fall over before… so it completely refected what the representative
was doing’.
Neither Laura, nor anyone else in the group, had known the state of her cabbages when she did the
NC. The behaviour of rep C – leaning over with a heavy head – accurately mirrored the heavy heads
of the actual cabbages. Also, as such big heads were unusual, Laura had not anticipated them. The
Subtle Agroecologies
REFLECTIONS ON REPRESENTATIVE PERCEPTION
On learning how reps spontaneously experience body sensations, emotions or just ‘know things’
relevant to their roles, people often question if it is really happening. The best way to answer
this question is to directly experience it. While case studies can describe it, and the entire
Constellations feld attests to it, any written account of representative perception falls short of
the actual experience. A participant at a NC workshop in 2012 described representing for the frst
time: ‘I found it amazing how easy it was to tune into non-human consciousness in a whole-body
experience and for it to be so obvious that I was not making up or imagining the experiences I
was having’.
The next question is usually to ask how it could be happening. In 2006, the author identifed a
number of potential scientifc explanations (Roussopoulos, 2006) and since then advances in consciousness studies, science and cosmology have led to more integrated and complete explanations
(Laszlo et al., 2016). However, representative perception has successfully underpinned Systemic
Constellations for decades without practitioners knowing how it works.
The author holds that the most important question for agricultural applications of NCs is to ask
where the information is coming from. If the data about the human/ecological system in question
originates, consciously or unconsciously, solely from the client or holding group, it is merely someone’s belief, or at best second-hand information. Two phenomena have been observed in all forms
of Systemic Constellations which indicate that reps may be picking up their data directly from the
beings they are representing. The frst is when information emerges in a Constellation which no-one
present knows about and which is subsequently proven to be accurate. The second is when something spontaneously changes in the system being represented, in line with what happened within the
Constellation, but where there has been no contact between the people present at the Constellation
and the beings in the actual system. The next two case studies illustrate these phenomena taking
place in NCs.
Case Study 2: Struggling Cabbages
Laura wanted to know what she could add to the soil to support the health of her cabbages. A female
rep for the cabbages (C) initially reported that her roots needed to be stronger and that she felt
vulnerable to being nibbled. C’s body was leaning over, her top half moving in circles around her
torso as if her head were very heavy. She would go down, then just about manage to pull herself up.
Laura, watching from the sidelines, commented that perhaps the cabbages had not had time to grow
good roots and she was concerned that the rep, C, would fall over. Laura could have added manure,
lime or biodynamic preparations to the soil, so reps were brought in for each of these options. C
experienced a jolt when the biodynamic preparations came in, and then found that the manure felt
better to her. However, only the presence of lime stabilised her movement.
Not long after the NC Laura contacted the author, very excited – she had just uncovered her
cabbages, which had been under feece for the previous 4–5 months. They were a type of cabbage
that would usually stand upright with their heads on stalks about six inches high. She had been
expecting to fnd small, under developed heads, instead of which: ‘to my utter amazement… they
had actually grown so enormous that they couldn’t hold their own weight on the stalks… they had
toppled… I’ve never seen them fall over before… so it completely refected what the representative
was doing’.
Neither Laura, nor anyone else in the group, had known the state of her cabbages when she did the
NC. The behaviour of rep C – leaning over with a heavy head – accurately mirrored the heavy heads
of the actual cabbages. Also, as such big heads were unusual, Laura had not anticipated them. The