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Jean Gebser THE EVER-PRESENT ORIGIN Power Point Presentation for the Seminar on Psychology of Social Development organized by the University of Human Unity, Auroville – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Jean Gebser


1
Jean Gebser
  • THE EVER-PRESENT
  • ORIGIN

Power Point Presentation for the Seminar on
Psychology of Social Development organized by the
University of Human Unity, Auroville
2
Structures of consciousness
  • Archaic ( Primal man, Protanthropos, Purusha of
    the Rig Veda, Adam Kadmon of the Cabbala, Osiris
    of the Egyptian-Gnostics)
  • Magic (here the primal man becomes the maker,
    vital impulse and instinct thus unfold and
    develop a consciousness in dealing with Nature
    witchcraft and sorcery, totem and taboo are the
    natural means of freeing himself from Nature)
    (appr. before 10 000 BC)
  • Mythical (brings the awareness of the inner life
    of the soul, its history and its origin, the
    primal Myth) (appr. before 2500 BC)
  • Mental (It individualizes man from his
    previously valid world, emphasizing his
    singularity and making his ego possible.(p.76)
    It introduces a perspectival perception of the
    world (1250-1500 AD) by spatializing time
    perception it represents life by conceptualizing
    it, distancing man from his own nature.)
  • Integral (freedom from all the structures by
    their transparent rearrangement into one integral
    oneness of being)

3
The structures of consciousness in the Mandukya
Upanishad
  • Turiya, the original state of identity of the
    pure transcendental consciousness and being,
    which somehow embodies all the three following
    stages and at the same time transcends them all.
  • Prajña, a dream without dreaming, pure
    perception, not marred by the dreams coming from
    the interaction with the outer or inner world.
  • Svapna, a dream like state with dreams being
    dreamed.
  • Jagrata , a wakeful state in the outer
    consciousness.

4
The Integral Structure of Consciousness
5
Difficulties of Integration
  • The new structure cannot be realised by a
    re-activation of those structures underlying it.
  • None of these routes is passable all paths lead
    only to where they have led away from. Either we
    run in a circle, inexorably confined and
    imprisoned, or we run to and fro from one
    opposite to the other in the belief that in this
    compulsive back-and-forth we will find a
    synthesis. What is needed, then, is not a way or
    a path, but a leap. (p. 99)

6
The concretion of Time and Integration of Man
  • The concretion of time is one of the
    preconditions for the integral structure only
    the concrete can be integrated, never merely
    abstract. By Integration we mean a fully
    completed and realized wholeness the bringing
    about of an integrum, i.e., the re-establishment
    of the inviolate and pristine state of origin by
    incorporating the wealth of all subsequent
    achievement. The concretion of everything that
    has unfolded in time and coalesced in a spatial
    array is the integral attempt to reconstitute the
    magnitude of man from his constituent aspects,
    so that he can consciously integrate himself with
    the whole. (p. 99)

7
Man himself is the integrator
  • The integrator, then, is completed to have not
    only concretized the appearances, be they
    material or mental, but also to have been able to
    concretize his own structure.
  • This means that the various structures that
    constitute him must have become transparent and
    conscious to him it also means that he has
    perceived their effect on his life and destiny,
    and mastered the deficient components by his
    insight so that they acquire the degree of
    maturity and equilibrium necessary for any
    concretion.
  • Only those components that are in this way
    themselves balanced, matured, and mastered
    concretions can effect an integration.

8
The illumination of the structures by mental
consciousness
  • A mere conscious illumination of these states
    (deep sleep of the archaic, a sleep-like state of
    the magic, a dream-like state of the mythical,
    and wakefulness of the mental), which are for the
    most part only dimly conscious, does not achieve
    anything in fact, to illuminate these states
    from consciousness is to destroy them. Only when
    they are integrated via a concretion can they
    become transparent in their entirety and present,
    or diaphanous (and are not, of course, merely
    illuminated by the mind).

9
The definition of Consciousness
  • There are two important consequences that
    indirectly result from these observations.
  • One is that consciousness is not identical with
    intelligence or rational acuity.
  • The other is that the completion of integration
    is never an expansion of consciousness as spoken
    of today particularly by psychoanalysis and
    certain spiritual societies of a quasi-occult
    kind. The expansion of consciousness is merely a
    spatially conceived quantification of
    consciousness and consequently an illusion.
    Rather we are dealing here throughout with an
    intensification of consciousness not because of
    any qualitative character which might be ascribed
    to it, but because it is by nature outside of
    any purely qualitative valuation or quantitative
    devaluation. (p.100)

10
The fifth structure
  • Just as magic structure cannot be represented
    but only lived, the mythical structure not
    represented but only experienced, and the
    rational structure neither lived nor experienced
    but only represented and conceptualized, so the
    integral structure cannot be represented but only
    awared-in-truth. This perception or verition
    is, then, not an impossibility if the
    fourth-dimensional coordinate system receives a
    consciousness character. the aperspectival
    world, which is arational, does not represent a
    synthesis. To be a synthesis it would have to
    attempt to unite two worlds for instance, the
    rational and the irrational an attempt which
    paradoxical thinking undertakes. But here we are
    concerned with at least four worlds or
    structures, each of which is valid as well as
    necessary and the fifth is absolutely required.
  • In the face of these four structures and the fact
    that not only originality but also lived events,
    experience, conceptions, and thinking or
    cognition must be achieved in and through us, a
    fifth cannot be attained by synthesis but only by
    integration.
  • Perception-in-truth or verition is not bound to
    our capacity of sight, which primarily shapes the
    mental structure but without in any way going
    beyond the senses, it presentiates forms of
    appearance or manifestation and is thus able to
    perceive diaphaneity, which cannot be realised by
    simple seeing, hearing, or sensing. (p. 268)

11
Integration through concretion
  • Again it should be emphasised that perception is
    not a super-sensory process. Concepts such as
    intuition and the like are definitely out of
    place when characterizing it. It is an integral
    event and, if you will, an integral state of the
    itself. It is presential and itself renders
    diaphonous and this diaphoneity can neither be
    heard, intuited, nor seen. That is to say
    through perception or verition the merely
    audible, intuitable, and visible world will be
    present in its entirety or wholeness. What is
    necessary is that this integrity and integrality
    be actualized.
  • The actualization of this entirety or wholeness
    is possible only when the parts which form
    together merely an aggregate can, by the decisive
    act of perception and impartation of truth,
    become a whole. For this to happen there is one
    basic prerequisite the parts must be heard or
    experienced, intuited or endured, seen or thought
    in accord with their very essence. Only
    concretized parts can be integrated the
    abstract, and especially the absolute, always
    remain separated parts. (p. 268)

12
The unknown landscapes of the Integral structure
of consciousness
  • Whatever the nature of this landscape, it cannot
    be a repetition of what has been. At the very
    outset (or the conclusion) of this new
    landscape four major and encompassing modalities
    of the world from which we have come forth,
    lived, experienced, and thought, and from which
    we continue to go forth, live, experience, and
    think four encompassing and intensifying realms
    of possible and actual forms of manifestation are
    eliminated. This surely does not simplify our
    task, but it does serve to clarify it.
  • The mutations as presented also make clear that
    something not experience-able did come to be
    experienced something inconceivable did come to
    be conceived of something unthinkable did come
    to be thought. For magic man cannot realise the
    experience or thought of the mental structure.
    For merely mental man the perceptibility of the
    integral structure will not be conceivable
    nevertheless we are already in the inception of
    this integral structure a circumstance that
    provides support for events which still seem
    unrealizable. (p. 272)

13
Towards the Spiritual Consciousness
  • When the Mexicans in their deficient
    mythical-magic structure encountered the
    mentally-oriented Spaniards, the magic-mythical
    power failed in the face of mental strength clan
    consciousness failed in the face of the
    individualized ego-consciousness. If the integral
    man were to encounter a deficient mental man,
    would not deficient mental power fail in the face
    of integral strength? Would not the individual
    ego-consciousness falter in the face of the
    Itself-consciousness of mankind? the mental
    rational in the face of the spiritual?
    fragmentation in the face of integrality? (p.
    273)

14
Truth as a criterion of the spiritual present
  • It is today no longer a question as to whether
    reforms are of use this is evident from the
    course of our discussion.
  • Yet one question remains what can man do to
    bring about this mutation? To this we have
    already hazarded an answer we must know where we
    are to effect events, or to let them take their
    course where we are merely to be aware of
    truth, and where we may impart the truth. For
    we too presentiate the whole by realizing that we
    are to the same degree active as well as enduring
    and passive, past as well as future.
  • Man is in the world to sustain it as well as
    himself in truth, not for his or its own sake,
    but for the sake of the spiritual present.
  • It is this spiritual present which elevates
    wholeness to transparency and frees us from our
    transient age, for this age of ours is not the
    present but partiality and flight, indeed, almost
    a conclusion. Only someone who knows of origin
    has present living and dying in the whole, in
    integrity. ( p. 273)

15
The awakening Consciousness of Freedom from Time
  • The irruption of time into our consciousness
    this is the profound and unique event of our
    historical moment.
  • Our present consciousness is one of transition, a
    consciousness in the process of mutation which is
    beginning to unfold new forms of realization. At
    the moment when consciousness became able to
    account for the essence of time, time irrupted.
    The sense of irruption is ambiguous just as the
    moments of transition are ambiguous and
    Janus-faced. The term irruption signifies both
    the intrusion as well as the collapse of time for
    our consciousness.
  • But what is time? It is more than a mere clock
    time which was previously considered to be
    reliable and constant. The three dimensional
    conceptual world of our fathers had not sensorium
    for the phenomenon of time. Living in a spatially
    frozen world, they considered the temporal world
    to be a disturbing factor which was repressed,
    either by being ignored, or by being falsified by
    measurement into a spatial component. For
    perspectival-thinking man time lacked all
    quality. This is the decisive factor he employed
    time only in a materialized and quantitative
    sense. He lived by Galileos maxim To measure
    everything measurable, and to make everything
    measurable that is not yet measurable. (p. 284)

16
Aperspectival perception of Time
  • To the perception of the aperspectival world
    time appears to be the very fundamental function,
    and to be of a most complex nature. It manifests
    itself in accordance with a given consciousness
    structure and the appropriate possibility of
    manifestation in its various aspects as clock
    time, natural time, cosmic or sidereal time as
    biological duration, rhythm, meter as mutation,
    discontinuity, relativity as vital dynamics,
    psychic energy (and thus in a certain sense in
    the form we call soul and the unconscious),
    and as mental dividing. It manifests itself as
    the unity of past, present and future as a
    certain principle, the power of imagination, as
    work, and even as motoricity. And along with
    the vital, psychic, biological, cosmic, rational,
    creative, sociological, and technical aspects of
    time, we must include - last but not least
    physical-geometrical time which is designated as
    the forth dimension. (p. 285)

17
  • Time and Space are that one Conscious-Being
    viewing itself in extension, subjectively as
    Time, objectively as Space. Our mental view of
    these two categories is determined by the idea of
    measure which is inherent in the action of the
    analytical dividing movement of Mind. Time is for
    the Mind a mobile extension measured out by the
    succession of the past, present and future in
    which Mind places itself at a certain standpoint
    whence it looks before and after. Space is a
    stable extension measured out by divisibility of
    substance at a certain point in that divisible
    extension Mind places itself and regards the
    disposition of substance around it.
  • The Life
    Divine (p. 133)

18
Major criteria of the new mutation in terms of
causality, time and space
  1. Origin is not identical with the beginning
    since it is not spatially and temporally bound,
    whereas the beginning is always temporally
    determined.
  2. The Present is not identical with the moment
    but is the undivided presence of yesterday,
    today, and tomorrow which in a consciously
    realized actualization can lead to that
    presentiation which encompasses origin as an
    ineradicable present.
  3. The aperspectival world is a world whose
    structure is not only jointly based in the
    pre-perspectival, unperspectival, and
    perspectival worlds, but also mutates out of them
    in its essential properties and possibilities
    while integrating these worlds and liberating
    itself from their exclusive validity. (p. 294)

19
Three principle criteria for the mode of
manifestation and expression of the aperspectival
world.
  1. Temporics, under which term are subsumed all
    endeavors to concretize time
  2. Diaphaneity, that which is pellucid and
    transparent, which we can perceive as the form of
    spiritual manifestation. It is perceptible only
    in a world where the concretion of time
    transforms time into time freedom and thus makes
    possible the concretion of the spiritual
  3. Verition, which as the integral a-waring or
    perception and impartation of truth, is the
    realization form of the integral consciousness
    structure which lends to the aperspectival world
    a transparent reality. (p. 300)

20
The New Concepts The Fourth Dimension (amension)
  • The fourth dimension is freedom from time, i.e.,
    the Achronon. The fourth dimension is not the
    concept of merely measurable time but the form
    of the temporal or temporistic principle which we
    have defined as time freedom. This is of decisive
    importance. (p. 340)
  • The magic component recognizable in the
    postulates of space-time unity and relativity.
    The mythical component is visible in the
    correlated complementarity principle which
    equates mass and energy, particle and wave as
    (polar) phenomena. The mental component is
    expressed by the spatialization of time and its
    fixed geometrical form as the fourth dimension.
  • Only the space-free, time-free component is
    lacking and it will remain so until the error is
    perceived of mistakenly treating the fourth
    dimension as measurable rather than integrative
    and transparent time. (p.353)

21
What is time-freedom? To what extent can it be
realized? And in what sense is it the fourth
dimension?
  1. Time-freedom is the conscious form of archaic,
    original pre-temporality.
  2. Time-freedom can be realized by achieving each of
    the previous time-mutations from archaic
    pre-temporality. By granting to magic
    timelessness, mythical temporicity, and
    mental-conceptual temporality their integral
    efficacy, and by living them in accord with the
    strength of their degree of consciousness, we are
    able to bring about this realisation. This
    concretion of the previous three exfoliations of
    original pre-temporality instantaneously opens
    for us pre-conscious timelessness. This also
    means that we perceive the world in its
    foundations and are not exclusively bound to its
    vital, experiential, and conceptual forms. We
    perceive it as aperspectival and unfixed. Anyone
    able to realize and thus concretize the three
    previously basic temporal forms already
    consciously stands in four-dimensionality.
  3. Time-freedom is the fourth dimension because it
    constitutes and unlocks the four-dimensionality.
    it is an integrative dimension, or, more
    exactly, it is the amension and not just an
    expanding or destructive spatial dimension. (p.
    356)

22
The temporal boundaries of the Word in the
Integral Structure
  • This temporal aspect resides in the primordial
    meaning of the word-root which even today gives
    the word in latent and potential form its
    distinct stamp. It is the original meaning that
    is still luminous throughout the unfolding
    changes of meaning taken on or attributed over
    the years. Every word, after all, is not only a
    concept or a fixed equivalent in writing it is
    also an image and thus mythical, or sound and
    thus magic, a root and thus archaic, and thus, by
    virtue of this root meaning, still present from
    origin.
  • We must go back to the word-roots, as we have
    been doing, and listen to those words that belong
    together we must complement these with others
    that seem to correspond to each other until an
    image appears, and we must allow ourselves to be
    directed by the criteria imposed on us by our
    thinking, or which we impose on it. Then we can
    be certain that we remain within the respective
    framework of the data of each individual
    structure, and that these data, viewed from our
    present mental standpoint, are effectual.
  • But merely avoiding the danger of overemphasizing
    one aspect magic, mythical, or rational in
    our interpretation of a given world is not
    enough we must guard against a greater danger of
    not recognizing the temporal boundaries of even
    the integral approach. These boundaries or more
    precisely, limits are found in the
    furthermost or deepest past where a beginning
    starts to mutate from origin, and they are also
    found in the present, since it too has the
    character of origin. (p.124)

23
Words manifesting integrity
  • Let us than keep in mind that the presence of
    origin manifest in the inceptual unity and in
    the successive mutations to polarity and then
    duality is still recognizable in the principle
    words. If we remain cognizant of the origin and
    employ the words in a manner that manifests their
    integrity, they will at least lend the lustre of
    wholeness to those phenomena which they denote.
    Then, too, our sense of hearing, our heart, and
    our mind must be equally awake within the
    natural measure of things none of these faculties
    must dominate to a degree greater than that
    commensurate with our given state of
    consciousness.
  • For the world at least to us - is not just a
    concept but at the same time always a sound and
    an image. Behind these the presence of origin
    resides, and can be diaphanously present for us
    only when we presentiate these aspects of our
    world as a whole. (p.127)

24
Creativity as an Originary Phenomenon
  • In creativity, origin is present. Creativity is
    not bound to space and time, and its truest
    effect can be found in mutation, the course of
    which is not continuation in time but rather
    sponteneous, acausal, and discontinuous.
    Creativity is a visibly emerging impulse of
    origin which is in turn timeless, or more
    accurately, before or above time and
    timelessness. And creativity is something that
    happens to us, that fully effects or fulfills
    itself in us. (p. 313)

25
Space and Time Relationship
Structure a) Dimensioning b) Perspectivity c) Emphasis
Archaic Zero-dimensional None Identity (Integrality)
Magic One-dimensional Point Unity (Oneness)
Mythical Two-dimensional Circle Polarity (Ambivalence)
Mental Three-dimensional Triangle Duality (Opposition)
Integral Four-dimensional Sphere Diaphaneity (Transparency)
26
Space and Time Properties
Structure 2. Sign 3. Essence 4. Properties 5. Potentiality
Archaic Integral Integrality None Prespatial Pretemporal
Magic Non-directional unitary, interwoven-ness or fusion Unity by Unification, Hearing/Hearkening Pre- perspectival Spaceless Timeless
Mythical Circular and polar Complementarity Unification by Complementarity and Correspondence Unperspectival Spaceless Natural temporicity
Mental Directed dual oppositionality Unification by Synthesis and Reconciliation Perspectival Spatial Abstractly temporal
Integral Presentiating, Diaphanous rendering whole" Integrality by Integration and Presentiation Aperspectival Space-free Time-free
27
Properties of Consciousness
Structure 6. Emphasis a) Objective (external) b) Subjective (internal) 6. Emphasis a) Objective (external) b) Subjective (internal) 7. Consciousness a) Degree b) Relation 7. Consciousness a) Degree b) Relation
Archaic Unconscious Spirit None or Latency Deep sleep Universe-related Breathing-spell
Magic Nature Emotion Sleep Outer-related (Nature) Exhaling
Mythical Soul/Psyche Imagination Dream Inner-related (Psyche) Inhaling
Mental Space World Abstraction Wakefulness Outer-related (Spatial world) Exhaling
Integral (Conscious Spirit) (Concretion) (Transparency) (Inward-related Inhaling? or Breathing-Spell?)
28
Properties of Forms and Attitudes
Structure 8. Forms of Manifestation a) efficient b) deficient 8. Forms of Manifestation a) efficient b) deficient 9. Basic attitude and agency of energy 10. Organ emphasis
Archaic None Presentiment, foreboding Origin Wisdom -
Magic Spell-casting Witchcraft Instinct Vital Drive Emotion Viscera - Ear
Mythical Primal myth (envisioned myth) Mythology (spoken myth) Imagination Psychic Sensibility Disposition Heart Mouth
Mental Menos (directive, discursive thought) Ratio (divisive, immoderate hair-splitting) Reflection Cerebral Abstraction Will/Volition Brain - Eye
Integral Diaphainon (open, spiritual "verition") Void (atomizing dissolution) (Concretion) Integral (Rendering diaphanous) ("Verition") (Vertex)
29
Forms of Realisation and Thought I
Structure 11. Forms of realization and thought a) Basis b) Mode c) Process d) Expression 11. Forms of realization and thought a) Basis b) Mode c) Process d) Expression 11. Forms of realization and thought a) Basis b) Mode c) Process d) Expression 11. Forms of realization and thought a) Basis b) Mode c) Process d) Expression
Archaic Originary Presentiment Presentiment
Magic Empathy and Identification, Hearing Pre-rational, pre-causal, analogical Associative, analogizing, sympathetic interweaving Vital experience
Mythical Imagination and Utterance, Contemplation and Voicing Irrational non-causal, polar Internalized recollection, contemplation externalized utterance, expression Undergone experience
Mental Conceptualization and Reflection, Seeing and Measuring Rational causal, directed Projective speculation oceanic, paradoxical, then perspectival thinking Representation Conception, Ideation
Integral (Concretion and Integration, "Verition and Transparency) (Arational acausal, integral) Integrating, rendering diaphanous Verition
30
Forms of Realisation and Thought II
Structure 11. Forms of realization and thought e) Formulation f) Limits g) Valence 11. Forms of realization and thought e) Formulation f) Limits g) Valence 11. Forms of realization and thought e) Formulation f) Limits g) Valence
Archaic World-origin
Magic World-knowledge, the "recognized" world Conditioned Univalent
Mythical World-image the contemplated and interpreted world Temporally bound Ambivalent
Mental World-conception the thought and conceptualized world Limited Trivalent
Integral World-Verition the world perceived and imparted in truth Open, free Multivalent
31
Forms of Expression and Articulation
Structure 12. Forms of Expression 13. Forms of Assertion or Articulation
Archaic - -
Magic Magic Graven images Idol Ritual Petition (Prayer) being heard
Mythical Mythologeme Gods Symbol Mysteries Wishes (Ideals Fulfillment "wish dreams")
Mental Philosopheme God Dogma (Allegory, Creed) Method Volition attainment
Integral (Eteologeme) (Divinity) (Synairesis) (Diaphany) (Verition Present)
32
Forms of Relationships
Structure 14. Relationships a) temporal b) social c) general 14. Relationships a) temporal b) social c) general 14. Relationships a) temporal b) social c) general
Archaic _ _ Universal or ("cosmic)
Magic Undifferentiated Tribal world clan/kith and kin natural Egoless terrestrial
Mythical Predominantly past-oriented recollection, muse Parental world Ancestor-worship predominantly matriarchal Egoless "we"-oriented psychic
Mental Predominantly future-oriented purpose and goal World of the first-born son, individuality child-adulation predominantly patriarchal Egocentric materialistic
Integral (Presentiating) Mankind, neither matriarchy nor patriarchy but integrum Ego-free, amaterial, apsychic
33
Forms of Bond and Motto
Structure 15.Localization of the soul 16. Forms of bond or tie 17. Motto
Archaic (Universe) _ (All)
Magic Semen and blood Proligio (prolegere) emotive and point-like Pars pro toto
Mythical Diaphragm and heart Relegio (relegere) observing, internalizing (recollecting) and externalizing (expressing) Soul is identical to life (and death)
Mental Spinal cord and brain Religion religare) believing, knowing and deducing Thinking is Being
Integral Cerebral cortex, humoral Praeligio (praeligare) presentiating, concretizing, integrating Origin Present Perceiving and Imparting Truth
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