Tuesday, October 2, 2012

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."

6 comments:

  1. Jeremy,

    I love this! Good work! The idea of Time-Freedom, the Achronon, is excellent. I need to read Gebser. Sounds like it's right up my alley. :)

    Mark

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  2. Hi Mark! So glad to hear from you, even more excited that Gebser sparked intrigue. Gary Lachman has an article up here: Jean Gebser: Cartographer of Consciousness: http://magazine.enlightennext.org/2011/01/26/jean-gebser-cartographer-of-consciousness/ – If you're interested in further reading.

    Jer

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  3. I read "The Ever-Present Origin" earlier this year and it was like a light going on...a must read!

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    1. Yes anechoic! So great to meet another reader of Gebser's work. As Bill Thompson said, it's the kind of book that can change one's life.

      I can attest for a few personal "flashes" of insight while reading!

      Stay in touch, and thanks for reading.

      Jer

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    2. agreed - it felt like reading someone who put all my intuitive fleeting thoughts together in one place - an amazing soul mirror! :)

      Bill Thompson? point me to his work?

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    3. Best place to start is probably his main text on cultural evolution: Coming into Being: Artifacts and Texts in the Evolution of Consciousness. He covers Gebser pretty extensively in the opening chapters.

      http://www.amazon.com/Coming-Into-Being-Artifacts-Consciousness/dp/0312176929

      Next best book is his most well known: The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light, a truly classic work of mythology and evolution.

      Here's a video he did back when he taught for a while at CIIS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4ejVZWcZsA

      A good article I've come across about his Lindisfarne Association, and some of his major ideas:

      http://www.earthlight.org/2002/essay47_peters.html

      Finally, an article I did as an introduction to his work for Beams and Struts, an integral e-mag:

      http://beamsandstruts.com/articles/item/663-william-irwin-thompson

      Hope this was helpful!

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