Archaic Consciousness

[Aletheia]

 

This original type of awareness, in Gebser's phenomenological unfolding of conscious structures, corresponds with the San Bushmen or perhaps even something more primordial  -- The Ever-Present Origin, the name of his book. Which I'm going to read!

 

I haven't read the book, but I think Ebert is good with Gebser and then there's William Irvin Thompson who's a kind of Platonic yogi but with McLuhan undertones and then there's Wilber who's not very good at all.

 

Edited October 20, 2017 by Aletheia

[Aletheia]

I was going to post the video on drew's blog and ask him if he's actually read Ever-Present Origin, but I can't login to gmail and I don't like posting on his blog anyway because I can't edit my posts. Maybe he'll see the video if I post his blog url!

 

http://ecoechoinvasives.blogspot.com/

[Aletheia]

I saw drew posted this on his blog -

 

"The universe and I came into being together; I and everything therein are One.""If then all things are One, what room is there for speech? On the other hand, since I can say the word 'one' how can speech not exist? If it does exist, we have One and speech -- two; and two and one -- three(14) from which point onwards even the best mathematicians will fail to reach (the ultimate); how much more then should ordinary people fail?"

 

I was reading something the other day about how dreamless sleep is prior to the idea of soul completely, but I can't remember where I was reading that.

 

I know Ebert has something about cultural manifestations of soul, there's some good stuff in the video and some other stuff where he gets side-tracked with his own issues. But I really like how traditional mythic memory forms are simmering up into the awareness of American culture with batman and spiderman etc.

 

 

 

Edited October 20, 2017 by Aletheia

[Aletheia]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fb-5VMpZ0Yg

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwf5KJFdxpk

[Aletheia]

Wow those videos are better than I remembered.

 

Faustian/Western culture is our culture coming out of the Middle Ages with the Gothic cathedrals and infinite space etc.

[Marblehead]

4 hours ago, Aletheia said:

 

Faustian/Western culture is our culture coming out of the Middle Ages with the Gothic cathedrals and infinite space etc.

Not mine.  I have gone way back further than that.

 

[Aletheia]

The Faustian Ur-symbol -

 

 

 

[Nungali]

18 hours ago, Aletheia said:

 

This original type of awareness, in Gebser's phenomenological unfolding of conscious structures, corresponds with the San Bushmen or perhaps even something more primordial  -- The Ever-Present Origin, the name of his book. Which I'm going to read!

 

I haven't read the book, but I think Ebert is good with Gebser and then there's William Irvin Thompson who's a kind of Platonic yogi but with McLuhan undertones and then there's Wilber who's not very good at all.

 

 

 

Thing is though.  If you spend time with 'archaic people'  like San Bushmen or  Australian Aboriginals  ... its not at all like this video says .     I'd  recommend the experience .   You would learn a lot   about 'archaic consciousness' 

 

Even just reading 'Uncle Bill's ' book , you would learn more about it than from that  vid .  

 

 

 

[Aletheia]

Here's a "snippet" from the page (44)

 

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=m6kYAAAAYAAJ&q=ever-present+origin+"we+have+found+only+two"&dq=ever-present+origin+"we+have+found+only+two"&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwitrcvFqIDXAhUDmrQKHcNMCh8Q6AEIFDAA

 

he goes on to say -

 

Two especially revealing words in Chuang-tzu's statement deserve particular attention. It is significant that one of the greatest sages of China does not demean early men with the words "primitive men" (as would a contemporary European, caught up in scientific hubris), but rather calls them "true men," which the commentator designates as the "holy men of calling." We emphasize this wording since the archaic structure in our sense is by no means "primitive." Anyone who regards contemporary "primitives" as representatives of this structure denies the essential basis of his own humanity. The contemporary "primitives" no longer live in the archaic, but in a more or less deficient magic structure. Their predominantly magic attunement has become to a great extent devitalized, and their magic comportment becomes deficient the moment they come into contact with Europeans.

 

The structures of consciousness are Archaic, Magical, Mythical, Mental, and Integral respectively.

 

Obviously I haven't read the book so I'm not sure how he frames his thinking and I'm most interested in the original inception -- Archaic. I like that video I posted in the first post too! I'll have to see what he says as I read the book, generally I'm a really slow reader.

 

McLuhan used to read only the odd numbered pages. I tend to just open a page and read a paragraph then find something which leads me all over the internet. Such is the way of books in our post-literate society, then when you re-read what you first read the ideas have transformed into something new!

Edited October 20, 2017 by Aletheia

[Aletheia]

 

 

[Aletheia]

Here are some podcasts by the McLuhan scholar -- Bob Dobbs.

 

http://www.fivebodied.com/archives/audio/phatic_communion/16_Cash_Flow/

 

The second one goes over the ideas of Freud, Jung, Maslow, Foucault, Bateson and McLuhan.