The Negative Love Syndrome and the Quadrinity Model©
A Path to Personal Freedom and Love
by Bob Hoffman

The Quadrinity is a Model for Integral Being

The Quadrinity is a framework for understanding human behavior and development. All four aspects of the self, Spiritual Self, Physical Body, Emotional Self and Intellect are interrelated. When they are integrated, there is inner harmony, wholeness and love.

For thousands of years, human beings have attempted to understand and come to terms with the mystery of life and of creation itself. One enduring notion maintains that the "source" of everything is a nonphysical, intelligent, loving spirit, or being and that we are connected to that spirit. Aldous Huxley called this the "Perennial Philosophy." Though the exact manner in which people have viewed this higher intelligence varies from age to age and culture to culture, the knowledge of its existence persists, even with the ascendancy of science and technology.

Ken Wilber described "perennial philosophy" in the following way: "Reality, according to the perennial philosophy, is not one-dimensional; it is not a flatland of uniform substance stretching monotonously before the eye. Rather, reality is composed of several different but continuous dimensions. Manifest reality... consists of different grades or levels... At one end of this continuum of being or spectrum of consciousness is what we in the West would call 'matter'... and at the other end is 'spirit' or 'godhead' or the 'superconscious.'" (Wilber, 39)

Human beings have always searched for ways to connect and have communion with this presence. They have used many names to describe this experience. Some call it God; some call it the "ever present Subject." Many also describe experience with it as ecstasy, joy, clarity, bliss, inner peace, wholeness, and love. Even a moment of such an experience can be life transforming. Here is what Ralph Waldo Emerson said: "Our faith comes in moments; our vice is habitual. Yet there is a depth in those moments which constrains us to ascribe more reality to them than to all other experiences... I am constrained every moment to acknowledge a higher origin than the will I call mine." (The Over-Soul)

The experience is often reported as being in a powerful brilliant, though not blinding, pure light. Fear of death is often obliterated. Much has been written about those who, near death, recall emerging from darkness into a magnificent, loving light, with peace and love awaiting them. Those who have such an experience describe it as though they were in the presence of "God." They also report mental images in which a symbolic, prophet-like figure takes on the role of friend, protector, mentor, spiritual guide, or teacher. Mental communication may occur with this being, bestowing comfort, wisdom, and knowledge.

People have searched for ways to connect and have communion with this presence. Some have succeeded through various forms of spiritual practice. In 1976, I came to understand that because we are of this Light, we should be able to communicate and make contact with it directly and at will, without intermediaries. To facilitate this, I developed the "Light Journey Visualization," through which anyone can enter the Light of peace and compassion. This experience has proven to be deeply moving. If desired, virtually anyone can experience being in the Light, and their Spiritual Self as being of the Light.

In the Light we know that our essence is perfect and that we are not negative, despite the negative programming that shows up in our day-to-day existence. The experience of being in the Light brings our Spiritual Selves to the forefront. Then our physical body, including our brain, can become its ally to help bring peace to the other two aspects of our mind, our troubled emotional aspect and miseducated intellect. This allows us to transcend our negative patterns and opens the door to integration, a more positive, peaceful, and productive way of being. We come to experience ourselves as innately loving and learn to free ourselves from Negative Love. "Whereas love is a disposition to give, born of abundance, "negative love" is wanting to receive, rooted in deficiency..." (Naranjo, 5)

Visualizations can give us access to the underlying truths of our Quadrinity. Ordinarily, we are as unaware of the Light as we are unaware of the sources of our negative emotions. In the Quadrinity Process, we use guided visualizations (guided imagination) to make conscious contact with our unconscious mental processes (and activities) to gain access to our true feelings, either directly, or symbolically, or both. When we gain access to our unconscious, we discover both our non-conditioned self and our conditioned self. As we begin to experience our Spiritual Self, (in our spiritual dimension), we recognize our fundamental goodness and begin the journey toward Integral Being.