Part IV Horses of the Evening
The Throne
Epistemic Authority and Inner Alignment
Part V of the Solomonic Consciousness Series: The seat of decision-making within consciousness. How to reclaim authentic authority and stop betraying yourself.
1. The Deepest Problem: Someone Else Is Sitting on Your Throne
Everything we have discussed so far—the Solomonic Self, the valley of ants, the fields of awareness, the horses of the evening—all of it points toward this single realization:
You are not making the fundamental decisions in your consciousness.
The throne is the seat of decision-making. It is where you determine what matters. Where you establish values. Where you direct attention. Where you interpret reality.
But if you examine your actual consciousness, you'll discover this shocking truth: The throne is empty of you. Someone—or something—else is sitting there.
This is the deepest problem. Not that you have bad habits. Not that you're run by patterns. The deepest problem is this: You have abdicated authority over your own consciousness.
The throne is where you make fundamental decisions. But who is actually sitting there?
2. Who Occupies the Throne When You Don't?
If you're not on your throne, who is? The answer is rarely simple. Usually it's a combination of forces:
- The Pattern/The Horse: The dominant thought pattern that we explored in Part IV runs your consciousness. It decides what matters. It interprets events. It directs your choices.
- The Introjected Voice: The internalized voice of a parent, teacher, cultural authority. You hear it as your own thinking, but it's not. It's your parent's values, your culture's expectations, pretending to be you.
- The Collective Imperative: The unspoken demands of your community, culture, or era. "Success means this." "You should be that." These invisible forces occupy your throne as if they were your own values.
- The Survival Strategy: The part of you that learned early that safety requires a particular way of being. It's still protecting you from dangers that may no longer exist.
- The Body: When consciousness isn't present, reflex and habit take over. Your body's automatic responses operate the throne. You become run by stimulus and response.
The critical insight: These are not evil forces. They arose because they served you. But they've become so automatic that you've lost the capacity to see them as separate from yourself.
The throne is occupied by patterns, voices, and strategies—but not by you.
3. The Body on the Throne: The Lowest Level
There is a hierarchy of throne occupation, from least conscious to most conscious:
- Reflex/Habit: Pure stimulus-response. Something happens, you react automatically. No awareness involved.
- Pattern/Belief: You operate from established patterns and beliefs. There's some consistency but no real awareness.
- Introjected Voice: You operate from internalized external voices. You believe these are your thoughts.
- Authentic Self: You operate from genuine awareness. Your actual values and authentic choice.
Most people oscillate between levels 1-3. They experience moments of authentic presence, but mostly they're being run by habit, pattern, or internalized voices.
The work is to develop the capacity to occupy level 4 consistently. Not occasionally. Not in peak moments. But as your baseline.
From reflex to authenticity: the levels of consciousness occupying the throne.
4. Why It's So Hard to Reclaim the Throne
If the throne is empty of you, why don't you simply sit down and occupy it? Why is it so difficult?
There are several reasons:
- It's Uncomfortable: Sitting on the throne means taking responsibility. It means no longer being able to blame your circumstances. It means accepting that your life is your creation.
- You Don't Have the Capacity Yet: Authentic choice requires capacities many people haven't yet developed—clarity, courage, the ability to hold complexity, the willingness to be alone with your own consciousness.
- Parts of You Are Guarding the Throne: The patterns that occupy the throne are protecting you. They're keeping you safe from what you fear. Part of you doesn't want to let them go because you'd have to face what they're protecting you from.
- You've Forgotten the Path: Most people have never experienced themselves on their own throne. So they don't know what it would feel like. They don't know it's possible.
The work of reclaiming the throne is not dramatic. It's not about suddenly "getting it." It's about incrementally developing the capacity and the willingness.
The throne is guarded by what protects you—which is why reclaiming it is difficult.
5. The Throne Inquiry: Four Moments of Return
Here is the practical work. When you notice you're not on your throne, when you recognize you've been run by a pattern or an introjected voice, what do you do?
The Throne Inquiry has four movements:
- Noticing: You observe that you're not on your throne. A pattern has captured you. An external voice is speaking through you. You're being run by habit. Simply notice this without judgment.
- Recognition: You recognize that this is not you. The impulse to judge yourself or defend yourself—let that go. Just clearly see: "I am not present. I am being run by something else."
- Invitation: You invite yourself back. Not with force or shame. But with genuine invitation: "I can return. I can sit on my own throne. I can be conscious here." This creates the possibility.
- Seeing from the Throne: From the recovered awareness, you look at the situation again. What do you actually choose? What do you actually value? What does conscious decision look like here?
These four moments are the core practice of the Solomonic way. They're simple but profound. When repeated, they transform consciousness.
The four movements of returning: notice, recognize, invite, choose.
6. The Developmental Stages: From Moment to Baseline
Returning to the throne is not a one-time event. It's a developmental process that unfolds in stages:
- Momentary Recognition: You have occasional moments when you wake up and notice you've been captured. These moments are rare and fragile. You might have one every few days or weeks.
- Recognition in the Moment: You begin to notice the capture as it's happening, not hours later. You can catch yourself mid-pattern and pause. These moments increase in frequency.
- Conscious Choice Within the Pattern: You can be run by the pattern but remain aware that it's the pattern, not you. You can choose differently even while the pattern is present.
- Prevention Through Understanding: You understand the pattern so deeply that you prevent the capture before it takes you. You're no longer surprised by when it activates.
- Integration and Natural Alignment: The pattern no longer dominates. Your authentic presence is your baseline. You access the pattern's resources when useful, but it no longer captures you.
The journey from stage 1 to stage 5 can take months or years. But each stage is real progress. Each represents genuine development of consciousness.
The journey from unconscious capture to integrated presence unfolds in stages.
7. The Deepest Barrier: Fear of Authentic Choice
Beneath all the practical obstacles, there is one barrier that runs deepest: the fear of what you'll discover when you actually sit on your throne.
When you stop being run by patterns and introjected voices, you face a terrifying question: What do I actually want?
Many people have no answer to this. They've spent so long being run by external demands that they've lost touch with their own authentic desire.
And sometimes, when they reconnect with their authentic desire, it's different from what they've been pursuing. Perhaps their authentic values don't match their job. Or their authentic direction conflicts with family expectations. Or their genuine desires require capacities they haven't yet developed.
This is terrifying. Because it means sitting on the throne requires accepting responsibility not just for your choices, but for the consequences of becoming authentic.
This is why many people would rather stay captured. The pattern is uncomfortable, but it's familiar. It keeps them safe from the larger uncertainty of genuine choice.
8. The Invitation: Stop Betraying Yourself
This is the central invitation of the Solomonic way: Stop betraying yourself.
Self-betrayal happens when you know what you actually want but you don't pursue it. When you know what's true but you pretend it isn't. When you silence your own voice to please someone else. When you abandon your own values to fit in.
Every time you do this, you're telling yourself a fundamental message: "Your consciousness doesn't matter. Your authenticity isn't important. Your desires are less real than external demands."
The cost of this self-betrayal is immense. It creates a kind of exhaustion that no amount of rest can touch. It creates a despair that no success can lift. Because at the deepest level, you're abandoning yourself.
The Solomonic Self is built on a different foundation: Your consciousness matters. Your authentic values are more real than external demands. Your genuine desire is legitimate.
This doesn't mean being selfish or ignoring others. It means honoring your own consciousness as fundamental. It means making choices from your own throne rather than from someone else's script.
The work is simple: In each moment, ask yourself: Am I being authentic here? Am I honoring my own consciousness? Or am I betraying myself?
Let that question guide you back to the throne.