Implicate and Explicate Order
The Implicate Order (also referred to as the “enfolded” order) and the Explicate Order (the “unfolded” order) are ontological concepts for understanding the underlying nature of reality, proposed by theoretical physicist David Bohm in Wholeness and the Implicate Order (1980). Together they constitute one of the most ambitious 20th-century attempts to dissolve the boundary between physics and metaphysics — and to provide a scientific substrate for the perennial claim of esoteric traditions that the visible world is a surface manifestation of a deeper, undivided reality.
The Two Orders
The Implicate Order
Represents a deeper, more fundamental order of reality — an unbroken wholeness in which everything is seamlessly intertwined. In this realm, space and time are not dominant factors; all things, including matter and mind, are enfolded together natively.
As Bohm wrote:
“In the enfolded [or implicate] order, space and time are no longer the dominant factors determining the relationships of dependence or independence of different elements. Rather, an entirely different sort of basic connection of elements is possible, from which our ordinary notions of space and time, along with those of separately existent material particles, are abstracted as forms derived from the deeper order.”
The Explicate Order
This is the manifest reality experienced in everyday life. The concrete, physical universe is “unfolded” out of the implicate order. Things appear separate, distinct, and localized in space and time. According to F. David Peat, Bohm considered that what we take for reality are “surface phenomena, explicate forms that have temporarily unfolded out of an underlying implicate order.”
The notion emphasizes the primacy of structure and process over individual objects. Particles, quantum states, and discrete entities are seen as mere approximations — relatively stable patterns within an underlying process of continuous enfoldment and unfoldment.
The Holomovement
Bohm maintained that the whole is in continuous flux, and referred to this flowing totality as the holomovement (movement of the whole):
“The new form of insight can perhaps best be called Undivided Wholeness in Flowing Movement. This view implies that flow is in some sense prior to that of the ‘things’ that can be seen to form and dissolve in this flow.”
The holomovement is not another explicate entity but the ground from which all explicate forms arise — analogous to the way vortices arise as relatively stable patterns within a continuous stream. Such vortices are real patterns but do not imply any sharp division from the flow itself.
Analogies and Illustrations
Bohm employed several vivid analogies to convey the implicate/explicate distinction:
The Ink Droplet
An ink droplet introduced into highly viscous glycerine and slowly rotated becomes an invisible thread. By rotating in the reverse direction, the droplet can essentially reform. When invisible, the order of the ink droplet as a pattern is implicate within the substance — enfolded into the medium.
The Hologram
Each region of a photographic plate in which a hologram is observable contains within it the whole three-dimensional image, viewable from a range of perspectives:
“There is the germ of a new notion of order here. This order is not to be understood solely in terms of a regular arrangement of objects or events. Rather, a total order is contained, in some implicit sense, in each region of space and time.”
Bohm noted, however, that while the hologram conveys undivided wholeness, it is static — and reality is not. The holomovement is the dynamic version.
The Television
A broadcast signal encodes an entire image in an enfolded form; the television electronics decode (unfold) it into the perceivable picture on screen. The signal represents the implicate order; the image, the explicate.
A Common Ground for Consciousness and Matter
The implicate order represents a general metaphysical concept in which it is claimed that both matter and consciousness can be understood:
- (i) Both enfold the structure of the whole within each region
- (ii) Both involve continuous processes of enfoldment and unfoldment
For matter, entities such as atoms represent continuous enfoldment and unfoldment manifesting as relatively stable and autonomous entities. For consciousness, Bohm pointed toward Karl Pribram’s holographic brain theory — evidence that memories may be enfolded within every region of the brain rather than being localized in specific cells or atoms.
Bohm described consciousness as a process in which, at each moment, content that was previously implicate becomes presently explicate, and vice versa:
“It follows, then, that the explicate and manifest order of consciousness is not ultimately distinct from that of matter in general.”
This position — that mind and matter are two unfoldments of a single implicate order — provides a physical framework for the Psychoid non-duality of Jung and the Unus_Mundus of alchemical tradition.
Quantum Entanglement and Nonlocality
Central to Bohm’s schema are correlations between observables of entities separated by great distances in the explicate order — manifestations of the implicate order. Within quantum theory, this is entanglement: acausal correlations between spatially separated particles that cannot be explained by classical signal transmission.
This view necessarily departs from signalling and therefore from classical causality. The correlation of observables does not imply causal influence; rather, both correlated events emerge from the same underlying implicate ground. This provides a physical analogue to Synchronicity — meaningful coincidences without mechanical cause.
Quantum Theory vs. Relativity
A key motivation for Bohm was the well-known incompatibility of quantum theory with general relativity:
“In relativity, movement is continuous, causally determinate and well defined, while in quantum mechanics it is discontinuous, not causally determinate and not well-defined. Each theory is committed to its own notions of essentially static and fragmentary modes of existence.”
Bohm argued that both theories point toward undivided wholeness as the more fundamental reality. Neither relativity’s spacetime Events nor quantum mechanics’ well-defined states are ultimate — both are explicate patterns unfolded from the implicate order.
Challenges to Prevailing Assumptions
In proposing the implicate order, Bohm explicitly challenged several foundational tenets of conventional science:
- That phenomena are reducible to fundamental particles and fixed laws
- That human knowledge is most fundamentally concerned with mathematical prediction of statistical aggregates
- That any analysis of reality can be unlimited in its domain of relevance
- That the Cartesian coordinate system is the deepest conception of underlying order
- That there is ultimately a sustainable distinction between reality and thought, or between observer and observed
- That a final “Theory of Everything” is possible
His paradigm opposes reductionism in favor of ontological holism: nothing is fundamentally separate or independent. All parts are “sub-totalities” of the undivided whole.
Esoteric Parallels
Bohm’s model directly maps to several mystical traditions studied across this archive:
| Tradition | Corresponding Concept | Shared Structure |
|---|---|---|
| Alchemy / Jung | Unus_Mundus | The underlying “one world” — the implicate — from which psyche and matter unfold as explicate aspects |
| Kabbalah | Ein_Sof → Tree_of_Life | The infinite unmanifest (implicate) emanating into the sefirot (explicate) |
| Neoplatonism | The One → Nous → Soul → Matter | Cascading unfoldments from undivided unity |
| Gnosticism | Pleroma → phenomenal world | The divine fullness (implicate) degrading into the Demiurge’s creation (explicate) |
| Hermeticism | As_Above_So_Below | The principle that each part enfolds the pattern of the whole |
| Hinduism | Brahman behind the Veil_of_Maya | Unbroken wholeness perceived as multiplicity through illusion |
| Analytical_Psychology | Collective_Unconscious → conscious experience | Archetypal patterns (implicate) erupting into personal consciousness (explicate) |
The implication across all these parallels is identical: consciousness and matter are simply two different unfoldments of the exact same underlying implicate substance, providing a scientific framework for Psychoid non-duality and Synchronicity.
Implicate Order in Art
In Science, Order, and Creativity (1987), Bohm and Peat laid out examples of implicate orders in painting, poetry, and music — noting that earlier notes reverberate when listening to music, and various resonances of words and images are perceived when reading poetry. The implicate order is not confined to physics; it is accessible to direct human experience through aesthetic perception.
See Also
- Unus_Mundus — the Jungian/alchemical equivalent of the implicate order
- Synchronicity — acausal meaningful coincidences explained through the implicate order
- Psychoid — the mind-matter bridging function of archetypes in the implicate domain
- Quantum_Mechanics — the physical framework underlying Bohm’s model
- ER_EPR_Conjecture — the Susskind-Maldacena conjecture connecting entanglement to spacetime geometry
- Ein_Sof — the Kabbalistic infinite from which the sefirot emanate
- Pleroma — the Gnostic divine fullness structurally equivalent to the implicate order
- Collective_Unconscious — the Jungian transpersonal substrate paralleling the implicate order
- As_Above_So_Below — the Hermetic principle of holographic correspondence
- Veil_of_Maya — the Hindu doctrine paralleling the explicate order as illusory surface
- Emergence — complex phenomena arising from underlying simple rules, a related but distinct concept
- Unified_Esoteric_Synthesis — the broader theoretical framework uniting these mechanisms