Structures of the Mind: Gebser's Evolutionary Predicament

"There seems, therefore, to be a qualitative reduction of wholeness that corresponds to the quantitative augmentation of consciousness which, by dimensioning, creates its own system of interrelationships. The increasing expansion, extension, or growth of consciousness evident in the mutations is inversely proportional to the reduction of the integral system of interrelationships which it has apparently lost. When viewed in this way, the dimensioned world seems to be one split off from the whole." - Jean Gebser, Ever-Present Origin. pg. 119

Jean Gebser, little known cultural philosopher of the 20th century, had developed over the course of his life a grand hypothesis that human consciousness was in the midst of a profound mutation. This insight came to him in an instant, a "lightning flash," that occurred in the early 1930s. He spent the rest of his life trying to articulate what that meant. It was in the poetry of Rilke that he first caught a glimpse of this new consciousness, which he had called, at the time, a-perspectivity. But it was from this initial study that he came to recognize that this mutation of the mind had occurred before. Gebser would come to be known as a foundational influence on future writers of the "evolution of consciousness." The idea caught on with many contemporaries in the early 20th century, such as Owen Barfield, Rudolf Steiner, Teilhard de Chardin, and the Indian Yogi Sri Aurobindo (these men, in turn, would go on to inspire the human potential movement, transpersonal psychology, Esalen, Ken Wilber, and others). When he wrote Ever-Present Origin in 1949, he would come to be included as one of these evolutionary thinkers.

As the quotation remarks, however, Gebser did not think fondly of the idea of cultural evolution. Earlier in the work, he notes "the apparent succession of our mutations is less a biological evolution than an unfolding." Of what, we might ask? According to Gebser's hypothesis, there are five, discernible mutations in our history: archaic, magic, mythic, mental, and integral. Each of these structures, he tells us, emerge from the primordial Spirit, "origin." Each mutation is marked by a movement away from this Unity. The magic and mythic are marked by their "participation mystique," while the later mental is noted for an increased remoteness from that Wholeness. 

Making things worse, the further mutations we go from Origin, the less intensity and more abstractness the structures begin to take on. This, Gebser believes, is where we are today; the modern, rationalist ego which has removed itself from the lived intensities of past cultures; of myth and imagination, magic and ritual. Carl Jung had a similar criticism: the ego has dissociated from its larger Self, and the reality of the Psyche (1).

With these criticisms, Gebser takes a stand apart from even contemporary evolutionary thinkers, some of whom advocate that evolution happens progressively or in a cleanly understood way (as opposed to a more labyrinthine image, as I am advocating along with Gebser).

Unlike many of his contemporaries, however, Gebser was no pessimist. This is why we can appreciate his works, perhaps uniquely out of all the past century's evolutionary thinkers, for having such keen attention to the nuances in human evolution. 

That "lightning flash" of insight marked the nascent phase of a new, integral structure of consciousness. Unlike previous structures, this one is a move to integrity; in his language, an a-waring of Original consciousness, wholeness, unity.

The dilemma proposed in this article can be solved, he suggests, by "allowing the possibility that man can realize the idea of origin in the process of consciousness development, we can then speak of origin's development toward self realization in man." This, he called the concretion of the Spiritual.

With this understanding, Gebser provides us with a means to mediate between evolutionary and romantic movements. 

The former points to the future while the latter seeks to revive the past. Both are important, and I believe, integral components to the new consciousness. Time itself is experienced in a new way, as a profound time-freedom, the a-chronon: not freedom from our temporal existence, but freedom even within it. 

While acknowledging the intensities – the efficacy of the mythic imagination and the potency of magic – Gebser was able to point out an evolutionary process.

Remoteness from Origin – the eternal – is a way in which to realize the spiritual (2) in our existence that much more deeply, and firmly. It is through human beings that this originary consciousness is able to partake in the temporal world. And so Gebser's philosophy begins to appear Janus-faced. If you look at it one way, it is the classical story of the Fall from paradise, the descent into our mammalian bodies and a move away from the mythological consciousness of the medieval civilizations. On the other hand, it is also a narrative of incremental realization of this original Unity; the alchemical transmutation of the prima-materia of temporal existence, the structures of consciousness which crawl up from the dark oceans, through the labyrinthine cycles of time, only to realize the original spiritual nature in greater and greater waves of intensification. But like the tides recede before a wave, consciousness flows within itself, and so incremental steps might be followed by Dark Ages or Renaissance periods, and in the larger flows of history, modern consciousness might be seen as both a recession of integrity in order to spur on a greater realization of Wholeness. The dissolution and resurrection of the World soul as it meanders through the crucible of the material world. I believe that holding this Janus-Faced perspective, capable of embracing both the language of the soul, and the language of the scientist is necessary in our age. Not only that, but indicative of this new consciousness, which call us to see "through" the world, rendering it transparent without needing to fragment the mind.

The psychologist James Hillman, in his famous book The Soul's Code, called this process "growing down." Jung called it individuation, a marriage or unity between our temporal and eternal natures.  Gebser's concretion of the Spiritual provides a potent mediation to the Jungians, evolutionaries, mythologists and romantics alike. 

Perhaps most of all, these insights provide us with a profound inspiration for our nascent future, which can only be realized presently.

Sources:

Jean Gebser, Ever-Present Origin (1949).

1. The image used for this article is Blake's Newton, which pictures the man making scientific measurements upon a scroll that appears to also be his robes. Behind him, he sits upon an explosion of colors. I believe this piece notes that even the scientific worldview is embraced within the Mundus Imaginalis.

2. Aside from "the Spiritual," or the "concretion of the Spiritual," Gebser referred to primordial consciousness more abstractly as "Itself," or "the Itself."

Techno-Mystical Scholarship

This is a personal blog, and an outlet for my writings on consciousness, mythology, art, mysticism, technology, and cultural evolution. I'm a graduate student at Goddard College in the Consciousness Studies program, intrigued by the mythical and spiritual dimensions of the digital age.

I'm an advocate for bridging the arts and sciences, as well as the unusual combination of mysticism and scholarship. The unusual and eccentric fascinate me. I love science fiction, fantasy genres, the supernatural and esoteric. Most of all, I believe this is an age of convergence. In an age of planetary crisis, it is important to give voice to the many dimensions of human experience.

In case you're wondering, the term lapis means stone. It's a reference to the philosopher's stone in alchemy, which was believed to symbolize the Great Work. In general, the Great Work represents a transformation of matter into its true, divine nature. The "Stone of the Wise" is thus an important symbol for the sublimation of prima materia, or the dirt and mud, into something entirely luminous. Rather than seeing this as a hidden, inner, or secretive meaning, we can interpret the Stone of the Wise to be a call for further sublimation; akin, perhaps to the Bodhisattva's vow of compassion towards all sentient beings. Walking the mystical path in the modern age is facing the challenge of seeing the sacred behind everything, and, perhaps bringing out that potential.

William Gibson's Neuromancer

In the digital age, where mind and matter seem to blur, we are doubly challenged to see the spiritual and not literalize it with technology. Rather, technology gets turned on its head. The depths of human imagination and consciousness can illuminate the digital age, revealing the mythological and sometimes mystical dimensions behind technocratic culture. No wonder video games are full of magic, elves, goblins and supernatural beings. This leads me to another key interest informing this blog.

As a graduate student, I've been searching (and admittedly struggling) for an approach to scholarship that straddles the tight-rope between worldly context and the ineffable and mysterious. As a start, mythopoeic and mythological studies, in conjunction with science, can help keep our worldview somewhere between materialism and mysticism. Most scholarship is materialist in the sense that our ideas, even when they aren't rooted in science, are talking about the known world. Our values, our truth claims, are based within worldly context. This includes sociology, anthropology, economics, etc. As I took undergraduate courses, and as my girlfriend introduced me to political and philosophical thinkers in feminism, embodiment studies, critical theory, etc. – there's no debating this kind of knowledge is essential. In my scholarship I am seeking to bring it into conjunction with a kind of claim that might turn a normal academic's head. Not to mention give me an odd look. A form of knowledge not built upon the construction of ideas but upon an "inner" sight, a form of gnosis. Postmodern thought has certainly helped us understand that there are limits to human knowledge. Rationality alone is not adequate for a whole-hearted response to our existence, let alone our humanity. At the fringe of thought comes the possibility for another kind of knowledge that pre-modern societies recognized, and often came in contact with through their imaginative participation (now known as myth, often with a negative connotation). Many still do today. These mystical experiences are often cultivated through acts of meditation, altered states of consciousness, or what Thomas Merton called contemplation.

Some scholars might recognize this attitude as an act of abandoning critical thinking in favor of mysticism and myth in their negative sense (connotation as fantasy). But this is simply not the case. It is a willing practice of inner disengagement from identifying with a particular worldview in order to seek, or establish a more living connection with the world. A contemplative-mystical-scholarship, if you will. Merton describes the act of withdrawing from the world in this way:

"For the monk searches not only his own heart: he plunges deep into the heart of that world of which he remains a part although he seems to have "left" it. In reality the monk abandons the world only in order to listen more intently to the deepest and most neglected voices that proceed from its inner depth."

In many ways, this blog is an attempt to seek a more living connection in our increasingly digital and technological culture. The days, however, of literal withdrawal from the world don't resonate with me. I believe that our spiritual disposition has to evolve, in some sense, with the times we live in. Can we live as monastics in a world of cell phones and emails? The hermitage has to be something inward now, as our externalized environment has become an ever-increasing network of connection, immersion, and communication.

Here is to cultivating that digital-contemplative-mystical scholarship. Hopefully I'll come up with a better name for it.

Thanks for reading, welcome to the Lapis Electric.