Glad I stumbled on this, Ellie. I've been rereading Alan Garner's The Voice That Thunders, a collection of his talks and non-fiction writings, and in the first few pieces he keeps emphasising the need for a writer to "employ and combine two human qualities not commonly used together in harmony: a sense of the numinous, and a rational mind". Then there's this passage:
"Especially amongst artists (which is why, quite prudently, the Russians have always had the tendency to shoot us), resistance is growing. Consciousness is on the move. Something is at work in the world: a general recognition of a crisis of the spirit, of the banal and the shoddy, in human affairs. It is universal, and it must be met. Recently, an Australian Aboriginal shaman warned me: “The Great Serpent has woken. Jarapiri stirs. The earth shakes. And the warriors are gathering.”"
That's from the closing lines of 'Aback of Beyond', the lecture Garner gave to the annual conference of The Society of Headmasters and Headmistresses of Independent Schools, at Breadsall Priory, 6 March 1996. I find myself wondering what those private school headteachers made of his shamanic warning! And knowing Garner, the significance of the location – a thirteenth century priory, dissolved in 1536 – won't have escaped him.
What strikes me about your argument is that it brings into focus the multidimensional project of colonisation of the early modern period, running along three axes. First, there's the axis we most often think of: the ships going out from Europe to the New World (and elsewhere) in search of plunder and plantations. Then there's a second axis, the home front, as described by Ivan Illich in 'Vernacular Values', where he tells a story of Nebrija's project to create a standardised Spanish grammar, presented to Queen Isabella as (in Illich's words) "a tool to colonize the language spoken by her own subjects". What you're pointing to is a third axis, a colonisation of the unseen (or the differently seen), the interior of consciousness. I like the way you frame this as a double movement, on the one hand "shrinking" consciousness to the waking/rational/material, and on the other hand putting expanded consciousness into service of the interests of the latter. This seems to parallel the treatment of Indigenous peoples: either exterminated (or at least driven off their lands), or enslaved and made "useful" (or a combination: exterminated through being worked to death). The most enlightened achievements of modernity rest on these foundations – this was the trump card that Bolsonaro could play against his international critics, to say "You hypocrites, we're only doing to our Indians and our forests what you already did to yours!" – and I'm not sure I heard a satisfactory response to that, because the cost of addressing the element of truth in his argument would be too high.
All of which to say, keep going – and I look forward to seeing where this takes you.
Thanks so much for this, Dougald. Your analogy about the treatment of Indigenous peoples seems bang-on to me. And yes: I think addressing the truth of Bolsonaro's argument is the thing we who imposed "modernity" on the world are staring in the maw right now. I wonder though if there hasn't been a satisfactory verbal response because there can't be, or at least not yet. I wonder if the response has to be lived first (including paying the cost), and I wonder if that is now beginning to happen.
I love Garner but haven't read The Voice that Thunders. Off to the bookshop to order it immediately.
"I wonder though if there hasn't been a satisfactory verbal response because there can't be, or at least not yet. I wonder if the response has to be lived first (including paying the cost), and I wonder if that is now beginning to happen."
True that. Starting from here, any verbal response is going to fall short – and, unless the shortfall is acknowledged, our words end up sounding cheap. The best we can do, those of us who work with words, is to gesture towards what living the response is going to mean, to make our work into a sign that points beyond itself.
And now I'm thinking of these lines from The Freedom Artist by Ben Okri:
'Why are you doing this?’ Ruslana would ask.
‘In these times, all we can do is be a sign,’ her father replied.
‘But won’t it get you into trouble?’
‘We’re in trouble anyway. No one can live in peace in times like this. We have to help to bring about the end of the world.’
‘The end?’
‘Yes, the end.’
‘Why?’
‘So that a new beginning can begin. But first there must be an end.’
I have so many thoughts and I don't want to keep you clogged up on a Substack comments section all day! But... I don't think I agree that we have to help to bring about the end of the world. From where I'm sitting, it doesn't look like that process needs much help. And I think Bolsonaro's question does require a lived response, but that the lived response and gesturing towards the lived response are only one part of what writers can be doing now. I think even in the most deeply colonized and colonizing countries, there's always been a strand of writing and art and imagination that have existed somewhere apart. And that aside from not shrinking from Bolsonaro's question, and being prepared to pay the lived costs of answering it, the work now is to get curious about how and where imagination has persisted, and how we can bring it back to the centre again.
Thanks, Ellie. Comment threads have their limits – and I suspect we're largely in agreement. I wouldn't want to burden that passage from Okri with more weight than it wants to carry. What took me back to it was the challenge to "be a sign", echoing the thought about language that gestures beyond itself. I certainly agree about that "strand of writing and art and imagination that have existed somewhere apart", and I've often thought of the role of children's literature as a refuge for the imagination, a place where it can go in times when the official story of the culture treats it as childish or unreal, yet where it retains all its unacknowledged power. There are other refuges, too. As for ending the world, I think of this in terms of Vanessa Machado de Oliveira's formulation of the work that is called for: "hospicing modernity", in the sense of giving it a good ending, letting it hand on its gifts and limiting the damage, but also "assisting with the birth of something new, unknown and possible (but not necessarily) wiser". On which note, I'll let you get on with that work of getting curious and bringing the imagination back to the centre, and I'll look forward to reading more. Thanks again!
This call to action is something i’ve been hoping to see for some time! i’m the kind of person you’re calling for, someone who can bring intellectual rigor to the mystery. i’ve been engrossed in studying quantum theory for the last year because of a sudden push into expanded consciousness. i’m driven by purpose, a need to create, and a hope for change. Each person who answers this call will have a unique chance at changing the consciousness contract (i’ve also heard it called consensus reality). i can’t wait to see what comes of this push, and how the world will change because of it. Thank you for sharing this work! i’m feeling very seen and hopeful. ♥️⚛️
Kelly! Thanks so much for stopping by -- it's so good to meet the other people, like you, who are out there pushing the boundaries of the known world. Looking forward to reading what you've been discovering about quantum physics. Just subscribed to your Substack!
Your work is so healing for me. A simple woman now in my 70s, I read and began to understand my own life against the backdrop of what you speak of. My life, its conflicts, find resolution in your writing. Thank you.
Oh Kathleen. This message meant so much to me. Thank you so much for posting. I'm not sure of the specifics of your life and the conflicts you mention, but I know from experience that it can feel extraordinarily difficult to live a life that's somehow at odds with the mainstream culture—and I also know that humanity can't survive without its "outsiders". Your experience matters deeply. Thanks for reading and responding.
This is one of the most exciting things I’ve read in forever! It has got me vibrating on a whole new level!!!
It fully aligns with and expands on the personal journey of soul-discovery that I have been on for a little while.
Thank you so much for this highly insightful, intelligent and uplifting piece of writing.
“Ultimately, then, the history of colonialism is a history of shrunken consciousness, and even more dangerously, of the enslavement of expanded consciousness to the rationalizing will.”
Ahh Andy, that made me smile. So glad this hit the spot for you, and thank you so much for writing. Sounds like the revolution in consciousness is very much playing out inside you too. Thank you for stopping by!
Deepest weirdness and intellectual tenacity present, accounted for, and up to all kinds of stuff! What an expansive and promising time to be alive. I’m excited to be participating in it with you.
What a lovely comment — thanks, Faith. The best part of this week has been finding so many others exploring similar ideas. Very glad to be sharing this time with you too.
Nice essay Ellie! My Mother's name as well! I agree with your perspective about the unwritten but obvious contact of a limited part of the spectrum of consciousness in the West and spreading everywhere like an viral material secular sensation over the last few hundred years. In my first book Sto-ology, I wrote a similar idea of Europeans and specifically the UK going backwards with our earth/nature conscious connection after the Enlightenment with thinkers like Hobbes saying nasty and brutish it was - something to be tamed and was expendable. Of course most then had no clue about the basics of ecology, but some must have known all the trees had been chopped down in the UK - thus one of reasons to colonize and plunder other countries. Another consideration for this negative view of nature was the fact that these people of 16-17th century Europe were coming on the heals of the great plague (13th) that wiped out two thirds of the population - therefore seeing nature as brutal makes sense I guess. Nonetheless this materiel science vibe rules all and throwing out the spiritual baby with the bathwater as far as pagan and religious beliefs was myopic. One thing I enjoy about visiting Europe are the beautiful Churches and Cathedrals - especially because they are empty quiet spaces most of the time (the not so famous ones). Again, based on the creepy indulgences and power hungry Catholic Church and later civil wars between Protestants and the Catholics all over Europe along with the evil Inquisition, which was a genocide on women and minorities - I get the reactionary rejection of religion. Unfortunately the song remains the same but as you say there is a growing awareness that there are unexplainable forces at work and it is up to we open minded intuitive folks to explore these cosmic terrains and try to figure out how to prove they exist via some clever gadgets yet to be invented. Then the naysayers will finally have to accept these other parallel realities. God bless this human made mess! Only we can fix it! Let's get to work with a higher consciousness level as a righteous goal for humanity! Peace and Harmony!
Thanks so much for this, Christopher, and for sharing the piece. So glad you stopped by! That idea about dawning modernity coming on the heels of the plague is interesting; I've thought about that a lot. Obviously lots of people did react to the plague by becoming even more frightened of the living/unpredictable world. But it had the opposite effect on some people. I'm thinking especially of Julian of Norwich, who seems to have lost her infant and husband but who reacted to the grief and shock by opening to the great spirit even more, and loving the living world even more—not closing down to them. I think these parallel options are always available, and the work is to remember that they're both available and do whatever we can to make sure that as many people as possible see that they're both available. I think often when people are shut down to the numinous, it's a result of grave (but perhaps forgotten) trauma and an ingrained sense of fear and scarcity, and the way forward might be deep care rather than stridency.
Your piece sings Ellie! This recording is a document, don't ever replace it for something unimportant as sound quality. Of course it is 'messy' but that is a left hemisphere label. As Iain says the right hemisphere has no arguments, how can it when dealing with the stuff that lies outside the brains capacity. Don't we need a consciousness contract that acknowledges and accepts our limitations to explain? Isn't our need to explain to others part of left hemisphere dominance? That only when we 'win' the argument we have a right to contribute? For me the rigor lies not with providing proof first, but with that deep acceptance and respect for 'knowing' first and only then to find ways of sharing that knowing. Within the current contract that is not possible.
I would love to find some form of collaboration on this, because we seem to be on such a similar track, while also having nuanced differences that could lead to beautiful insights.
Thanks so much for your generous read, Bertus. I've just subscribed to your page; looks like you're doing some very interesting things. I'd definitely go to jelly if I tried to speak to McGilchrist!
The other thing that strikes me about the Reformation is that it marks the moment when greed became good and society began to blame the poor for being poor as opposed to (however imperfectly) understanding that it had a duty to support those worse off. Of course, the idea that people were born to belong to a specific social caste has its own problems…
This comment is really interesting; thanks for posting it. I definitely see your point, and agree that Protestant ideas about work and worthiness have caused a whole lot of trouble. And it seems clear that when the monasteries were dissolved and stopped feeding people, many people went hungry. But in England, the enclosure of the commons was already well underway by then, so the wealthy were already dispossessing everyone else and washing their hands of responsibility for them -- and that had begun way before the Reformation. Though maybe I'm misreading and you're saying that the Reformation justified the greed that was already going on.
In any case -- thank you so much for reading and for this super interesting comment.
So right about the enclosures - and I’d go one step further and argue that things REALLY started going wrong when the Normans arrived and introduced true feudalism…
Ha, well, I mean... I don't think things were a barrel of laughs for Anglo-Saxon or Roman slaves either, and archaeological evidence suggests some pretty rough outcomes for certain Celts too. I think looked at one way, it might be turtles all the way down. Thank you for the chat! Excited to dig in to your posts about tarot.
Thank you for this! I'm with you on the Greeks -- I can never get past outlawing lament and then later bringing the Furies on stage to tame them !!?? Astonishing. But then I studied Greek lit with Alice Oswald and some of her passion for them was a little contagious. My sense is that they gave us the architecture of our own destruction; I think Alice would say that they gave us the architecture but stayed alert within it, and it's our own fault if we've let ourselves go to sleep and be crushed by the architecture. But I am badly paraphrasing her now, and that is probably not very cool of me.
there’s much to this in some realms—particularly gender. Norman ways put an end to a more egalitarian system of gender divisions—not perfect at all, but it was far more misogynistic and roles for women owning land for instance changed. Same for the dissolution of the monasteries—and notable Abbeys. Women had no place for community away from marriage after the Reformation and it was a huge blow—and a blow to women’s roles for power as well, with many strong women Abbesses, both good and bad as always, having places to exert considerable community power.
Thanks so much for this comment. I was at Whitby Abbey a few months ago and it was amazing to think of Hilda presiding over it when she did.
I find it really hard to feel into what the shift would really have been like for women, post-Norman conquest. Because though the gender roles definitely seem to have changed after 1066, whenever I read the Anglo-Saxons I can't help but be struck by how fearful they were of the living world on this island, and how difficult and often unpleasant life seems to have been in their world. My gut sense is that things were just so hard for pretty much everyone, including women. Not saying feudalism and new restrictions on women's rights were better! I'm just still trying to understand the texture of the shift.
Hi Ellie, Great to find your collection of offerings! The Great Consciousness is indeed seeking conduits into the the world of we humans, and with no small urgency. See my version from a few weeks back on Towards Eudaemonia 'The Reenchantment'. Pete
I'm thrilled that you emphasize the blessed marriage of Dreams and Discipline (e.g. rigor). I, too, love to share the gospel of Being as Weird as You are (very brave!). I often quote "The Master and His Emissary," and just last week chatted this work with my beloved step-mom who's deep in it right now. Other deep thinker/feelers to explore: Rupert Sheldrake and Arnold Mindell. I've met both and their work with resonance and quantum dreamtime has utterly changed my world view (recent post on dreaming and Mindell: https://heartsquest.substack.com/p/dream-on-how-to-awaken-a-lucid-life).
I also love your reckoning that the time is ripe for the rebirth of Right Hemisphere. Our survival depends on this. More to come!
Thank you so much for this, and for reading. I know Rupert Sheldrake's work fairly well but hadn't come across Arnold Mindell -- I'll check him out. Sounds like you're ploughing a really interesting furrow. I will check out your Substack. Thanks for stopping by!
Rupert is a big ole sweetie pie 🥧 who’s been persecuted for his wide ranging scientific curiosity. Mindell’s books feature short exercises that teach us HOW to engage the lucid realms for helpful insights and guidance. 🙏🏽 Thanks for checking out my stack, too!
I loved reading this! We are definitely thinking about the same stuff. I just finished reading Graham Hancock's writing about David Lewis-Williams and you inspired me to dig into The Mind in the Cave and The Master and his Emissary next! I look forward to reading more soon.
Thanks so much for reading! Going to have a little mosey on over to your page now. I'm so happy to be meeting so many likeminded folk through this piece. Thanks for stopping by.
This is brilliant and I so heartily agree with you. What else can we do for the human species at this stage? The physical world is incapable of stopping the descent into chaos that we are experiencing, but the Greater Consciousness has all the tools we need, if we can grow up enough to make ourselves available to access them. Much as I care, I cannot stop the bloodbaths single-handedly that are occurring as we speak. But plugging into the consciousness of All can effectively achieve anything. After all, its spawned the physical world in the first place. Out of it we came, but are always part of it. Well done you for so clearly outlining the history of the mess we are in. I had my own go at it with my own recent book, The Infinite Compass- A Journey into Wisdom. Every bit helps. I also try with my own Substacks. We cannot have enough people infecting the group consciousness with this understanding. I shall follow up with your reading list. Thank you and Bless you.
Thank you so much for this, Jay. I love the sound of the work you've been doing and am excited to take a look at your Substack. Yes -- reconnecting to the great consciousness seems absolutely imperative at this point, not least because we've actually left ourselves nowhere else to go. Thank you so much for writing.
Don't confuse turning points and tipping points, folks! Elllie, it's a brilliant piece of writing: many thanks for sharing it with us. I guess the clarification needs to be around turning points in history and tipping points in earth systems and the planetary entanglement and interaction of these two different dynamics.
For further reading may I suggest: How to Think Impossibly by Jeffery Kripal; Urgency by Jeremy Vaeni and his podcast Ourundoing Radio; and Hellenic Tantra by Gregory Shaw. If you're feeling strong, then there's Jean Gebser's "The Ever-Present Origin" as a context to cave art and everything else in terms of "the stages of consciousness". Gary Lachman, of course, on Imagination and then Mark Vernon on Owen Barfield's "Saving the Appearances". Jeremy Johnson is really trying hard to communicate Gebser through the lens of Integral Consciousness. Illich's "In the Vineyard of the Text" traces an important 12th century shift in consciousness, what Gebser would read as the shift from mythic to mental stages.
It's important to distinguish between the Experiencers and the Scholars: Jeffery Kripal and his work at Esalen tackles this, I think. Shaw on Iamblichus's theurgy is really relevant to your observations about ritual as a techgnosis for accessing the mundus imaginalis. Nancy Pearson's translation of Henri Corbin's essay "Towards a Chart of the Imaginal" is include as a prelude to the "Spiritual Body and the Celestial Earth". Jeffery Kripal handles the nuances of meaning between the Imaginal, the Supernormal and the Paranormal very well in "Thinking Impossibly".
I've absorbed myself in the North American approach a bit too much, so it's good to get an English angle and connect with John Dee, the Dissolution and English colonial plantations on the eastern coast of America.
Dougald Hine keeps my feet on the ground and like him: keep going!
WOW. Rob, thank you so much for these recommendations. What a treasure trove. I've read the Illich and some Barfield but none of the rest of this and I cannot WAIT to dig in. Truly, a million thanks. Are you writing anywhere that you could share?
I am n sitting in my car weeping having listened to this. This like hearing the manifesto for my entire life. I will be responding in detail but for now some bibliography, not so much recommendations - I wouldn’t presume— but as possible points of convergence: Gilchrist of course . David Bentley Hart, Roland in Moonlight. Isabelle Stengers, Another Science is Possible. Anything and all things Dougald, also of course.
Oh Cleo, thank you so much for posting this. I'm so moved to know that it was meaningful for you. It sounds like you've been deeply in the effort to broaden the consciousness contract for some time. Thank you, thank you for that. And for these recommendations -- I haven't read David Bentley Hart or Isabelle Stengers and now I can't wait to. Really pleased you stop by, and hope to hear more from you!
Glad I stumbled on this, Ellie. I've been rereading Alan Garner's The Voice That Thunders, a collection of his talks and non-fiction writings, and in the first few pieces he keeps emphasising the need for a writer to "employ and combine two human qualities not commonly used together in harmony: a sense of the numinous, and a rational mind". Then there's this passage:
"Especially amongst artists (which is why, quite prudently, the Russians have always had the tendency to shoot us), resistance is growing. Consciousness is on the move. Something is at work in the world: a general recognition of a crisis of the spirit, of the banal and the shoddy, in human affairs. It is universal, and it must be met. Recently, an Australian Aboriginal shaman warned me: “The Great Serpent has woken. Jarapiri stirs. The earth shakes. And the warriors are gathering.”"
That's from the closing lines of 'Aback of Beyond', the lecture Garner gave to the annual conference of The Society of Headmasters and Headmistresses of Independent Schools, at Breadsall Priory, 6 March 1996. I find myself wondering what those private school headteachers made of his shamanic warning! And knowing Garner, the significance of the location – a thirteenth century priory, dissolved in 1536 – won't have escaped him.
What strikes me about your argument is that it brings into focus the multidimensional project of colonisation of the early modern period, running along three axes. First, there's the axis we most often think of: the ships going out from Europe to the New World (and elsewhere) in search of plunder and plantations. Then there's a second axis, the home front, as described by Ivan Illich in 'Vernacular Values', where he tells a story of Nebrija's project to create a standardised Spanish grammar, presented to Queen Isabella as (in Illich's words) "a tool to colonize the language spoken by her own subjects". What you're pointing to is a third axis, a colonisation of the unseen (or the differently seen), the interior of consciousness. I like the way you frame this as a double movement, on the one hand "shrinking" consciousness to the waking/rational/material, and on the other hand putting expanded consciousness into service of the interests of the latter. This seems to parallel the treatment of Indigenous peoples: either exterminated (or at least driven off their lands), or enslaved and made "useful" (or a combination: exterminated through being worked to death). The most enlightened achievements of modernity rest on these foundations – this was the trump card that Bolsonaro could play against his international critics, to say "You hypocrites, we're only doing to our Indians and our forests what you already did to yours!" – and I'm not sure I heard a satisfactory response to that, because the cost of addressing the element of truth in his argument would be too high.
All of which to say, keep going – and I look forward to seeing where this takes you.
Thanks so much for this, Dougald. Your analogy about the treatment of Indigenous peoples seems bang-on to me. And yes: I think addressing the truth of Bolsonaro's argument is the thing we who imposed "modernity" on the world are staring in the maw right now. I wonder though if there hasn't been a satisfactory verbal response because there can't be, or at least not yet. I wonder if the response has to be lived first (including paying the cost), and I wonder if that is now beginning to happen.
I love Garner but haven't read The Voice that Thunders. Off to the bookshop to order it immediately.
Thanks so much for stopping by.
"I wonder though if there hasn't been a satisfactory verbal response because there can't be, or at least not yet. I wonder if the response has to be lived first (including paying the cost), and I wonder if that is now beginning to happen."
True that. Starting from here, any verbal response is going to fall short – and, unless the shortfall is acknowledged, our words end up sounding cheap. The best we can do, those of us who work with words, is to gesture towards what living the response is going to mean, to make our work into a sign that points beyond itself.
And now I'm thinking of these lines from The Freedom Artist by Ben Okri:
'Why are you doing this?’ Ruslana would ask.
‘In these times, all we can do is be a sign,’ her father replied.
‘But won’t it get you into trouble?’
‘We’re in trouble anyway. No one can live in peace in times like this. We have to help to bring about the end of the world.’
‘The end?’
‘Yes, the end.’
‘Why?’
‘So that a new beginning can begin. But first there must be an end.’
I have so many thoughts and I don't want to keep you clogged up on a Substack comments section all day! But... I don't think I agree that we have to help to bring about the end of the world. From where I'm sitting, it doesn't look like that process needs much help. And I think Bolsonaro's question does require a lived response, but that the lived response and gesturing towards the lived response are only one part of what writers can be doing now. I think even in the most deeply colonized and colonizing countries, there's always been a strand of writing and art and imagination that have existed somewhere apart. And that aside from not shrinking from Bolsonaro's question, and being prepared to pay the lived costs of answering it, the work now is to get curious about how and where imagination has persisted, and how we can bring it back to the centre again.
Thanks, Ellie. Comment threads have their limits – and I suspect we're largely in agreement. I wouldn't want to burden that passage from Okri with more weight than it wants to carry. What took me back to it was the challenge to "be a sign", echoing the thought about language that gestures beyond itself. I certainly agree about that "strand of writing and art and imagination that have existed somewhere apart", and I've often thought of the role of children's literature as a refuge for the imagination, a place where it can go in times when the official story of the culture treats it as childish or unreal, yet where it retains all its unacknowledged power. There are other refuges, too. As for ending the world, I think of this in terms of Vanessa Machado de Oliveira's formulation of the work that is called for: "hospicing modernity", in the sense of giving it a good ending, letting it hand on its gifts and limiting the damage, but also "assisting with the birth of something new, unknown and possible (but not necessarily) wiser". On which note, I'll let you get on with that work of getting curious and bringing the imagination back to the centre, and I'll look forward to reading more. Thanks again!
Such a good point about children's literature. Thanks so much for this chat today -- it's been a lovely way to start a Monday.
Thanks for the intro to the concept of *hospicing modernity*.
Such a great quote 👏
This call to action is something i’ve been hoping to see for some time! i’m the kind of person you’re calling for, someone who can bring intellectual rigor to the mystery. i’ve been engrossed in studying quantum theory for the last year because of a sudden push into expanded consciousness. i’m driven by purpose, a need to create, and a hope for change. Each person who answers this call will have a unique chance at changing the consciousness contract (i’ve also heard it called consensus reality). i can’t wait to see what comes of this push, and how the world will change because of it. Thank you for sharing this work! i’m feeling very seen and hopeful. ♥️⚛️
Kelly! Thanks so much for stopping by -- it's so good to meet the other people, like you, who are out there pushing the boundaries of the known world. Looking forward to reading what you've been discovering about quantum physics. Just subscribed to your Substack!
Your work is so healing for me. A simple woman now in my 70s, I read and began to understand my own life against the backdrop of what you speak of. My life, its conflicts, find resolution in your writing. Thank you.
Oh Kathleen. This message meant so much to me. Thank you so much for posting. I'm not sure of the specifics of your life and the conflicts you mention, but I know from experience that it can feel extraordinarily difficult to live a life that's somehow at odds with the mainstream culture—and I also know that humanity can't survive without its "outsiders". Your experience matters deeply. Thanks for reading and responding.
This is one of the most exciting things I’ve read in forever! It has got me vibrating on a whole new level!!!
It fully aligns with and expands on the personal journey of soul-discovery that I have been on for a little while.
Thank you so much for this highly insightful, intelligent and uplifting piece of writing.
“Ultimately, then, the history of colonialism is a history of shrunken consciousness, and even more dangerously, of the enslavement of expanded consciousness to the rationalizing will.”
BOOM!!!
Ahh Andy, that made me smile. So glad this hit the spot for you, and thank you so much for writing. Sounds like the revolution in consciousness is very much playing out inside you too. Thank you for stopping by!
came here to say exactly this! in this one brief essay you’ve made so many connections for me that i felt but hadn’t fully formulated.
Oh Rick, thank you! That makes me so happy! Thanks for letting me know.
Deepest weirdness and intellectual tenacity present, accounted for, and up to all kinds of stuff! What an expansive and promising time to be alive. I’m excited to be participating in it with you.
What a lovely comment — thanks, Faith. The best part of this week has been finding so many others exploring similar ideas. Very glad to be sharing this time with you too.
Nice essay Ellie! My Mother's name as well! I agree with your perspective about the unwritten but obvious contact of a limited part of the spectrum of consciousness in the West and spreading everywhere like an viral material secular sensation over the last few hundred years. In my first book Sto-ology, I wrote a similar idea of Europeans and specifically the UK going backwards with our earth/nature conscious connection after the Enlightenment with thinkers like Hobbes saying nasty and brutish it was - something to be tamed and was expendable. Of course most then had no clue about the basics of ecology, but some must have known all the trees had been chopped down in the UK - thus one of reasons to colonize and plunder other countries. Another consideration for this negative view of nature was the fact that these people of 16-17th century Europe were coming on the heals of the great plague (13th) that wiped out two thirds of the population - therefore seeing nature as brutal makes sense I guess. Nonetheless this materiel science vibe rules all and throwing out the spiritual baby with the bathwater as far as pagan and religious beliefs was myopic. One thing I enjoy about visiting Europe are the beautiful Churches and Cathedrals - especially because they are empty quiet spaces most of the time (the not so famous ones). Again, based on the creepy indulgences and power hungry Catholic Church and later civil wars between Protestants and the Catholics all over Europe along with the evil Inquisition, which was a genocide on women and minorities - I get the reactionary rejection of religion. Unfortunately the song remains the same but as you say there is a growing awareness that there are unexplainable forces at work and it is up to we open minded intuitive folks to explore these cosmic terrains and try to figure out how to prove they exist via some clever gadgets yet to be invented. Then the naysayers will finally have to accept these other parallel realities. God bless this human made mess! Only we can fix it! Let's get to work with a higher consciousness level as a righteous goal for humanity! Peace and Harmony!
Thanks so much for this, Christopher, and for sharing the piece. So glad you stopped by! That idea about dawning modernity coming on the heels of the plague is interesting; I've thought about that a lot. Obviously lots of people did react to the plague by becoming even more frightened of the living/unpredictable world. But it had the opposite effect on some people. I'm thinking especially of Julian of Norwich, who seems to have lost her infant and husband but who reacted to the grief and shock by opening to the great spirit even more, and loving the living world even more—not closing down to them. I think these parallel options are always available, and the work is to remember that they're both available and do whatever we can to make sure that as many people as possible see that they're both available. I think often when people are shut down to the numinous, it's a result of grave (but perhaps forgotten) trauma and an ingrained sense of fear and scarcity, and the way forward might be deep care rather than stridency.
Yes - well said!
You drew me in! My own spirit says yes. There is much more to this life…. Please keep sharing!
Thank you so much for reading and subscribing! It's so lovely to have you here.
Your piece sings Ellie! This recording is a document, don't ever replace it for something unimportant as sound quality. Of course it is 'messy' but that is a left hemisphere label. As Iain says the right hemisphere has no arguments, how can it when dealing with the stuff that lies outside the brains capacity. Don't we need a consciousness contract that acknowledges and accepts our limitations to explain? Isn't our need to explain to others part of left hemisphere dominance? That only when we 'win' the argument we have a right to contribute? For me the rigor lies not with providing proof first, but with that deep acceptance and respect for 'knowing' first and only then to find ways of sharing that knowing. Within the current contract that is not possible.
I would love to find some form of collaboration on this, because we seem to be on such a similar track, while also having nuanced differences that could lead to beautiful insights.
Here's one of my attempts at wording this: https://bertus.substack.com/p/a-brain-roughly-sliced-in-half
Thanks so much for your generous read, Bertus. I've just subscribed to your page; looks like you're doing some very interesting things. I'd definitely go to jelly if I tried to speak to McGilchrist!
The other thing that strikes me about the Reformation is that it marks the moment when greed became good and society began to blame the poor for being poor as opposed to (however imperfectly) understanding that it had a duty to support those worse off. Of course, the idea that people were born to belong to a specific social caste has its own problems…
This comment is really interesting; thanks for posting it. I definitely see your point, and agree that Protestant ideas about work and worthiness have caused a whole lot of trouble. And it seems clear that when the monasteries were dissolved and stopped feeding people, many people went hungry. But in England, the enclosure of the commons was already well underway by then, so the wealthy were already dispossessing everyone else and washing their hands of responsibility for them -- and that had begun way before the Reformation. Though maybe I'm misreading and you're saying that the Reformation justified the greed that was already going on.
In any case -- thank you so much for reading and for this super interesting comment.
So right about the enclosures - and I’d go one step further and argue that things REALLY started going wrong when the Normans arrived and introduced true feudalism…
Ha, well, I mean... I don't think things were a barrel of laughs for Anglo-Saxon or Roman slaves either, and archaeological evidence suggests some pretty rough outcomes for certain Celts too. I think looked at one way, it might be turtles all the way down. Thank you for the chat! Excited to dig in to your posts about tarot.
I always end up going back to the Greeks. That sodding kyriarchy. And the roots of modernist rationality.
Thank you for this! I'm with you on the Greeks -- I can never get past outlawing lament and then later bringing the Furies on stage to tame them !!?? Astonishing. But then I studied Greek lit with Alice Oswald and some of her passion for them was a little contagious. My sense is that they gave us the architecture of our own destruction; I think Alice would say that they gave us the architecture but stayed alert within it, and it's our own fault if we've let ourselves go to sleep and be crushed by the architecture. But I am badly paraphrasing her now, and that is probably not very cool of me.
there’s much to this in some realms—particularly gender. Norman ways put an end to a more egalitarian system of gender divisions—not perfect at all, but it was far more misogynistic and roles for women owning land for instance changed. Same for the dissolution of the monasteries—and notable Abbeys. Women had no place for community away from marriage after the Reformation and it was a huge blow—and a blow to women’s roles for power as well, with many strong women Abbesses, both good and bad as always, having places to exert considerable community power.
Thanks so much for this comment. I was at Whitby Abbey a few months ago and it was amazing to think of Hilda presiding over it when she did.
I find it really hard to feel into what the shift would really have been like for women, post-Norman conquest. Because though the gender roles definitely seem to have changed after 1066, whenever I read the Anglo-Saxons I can't help but be struck by how fearful they were of the living world on this island, and how difficult and often unpleasant life seems to have been in their world. My gut sense is that things were just so hard for pretty much everyone, including women. Not saying feudalism and new restrictions on women's rights were better! I'm just still trying to understand the texture of the shift.
Hi Ellie, Great to find your collection of offerings! The Great Consciousness is indeed seeking conduits into the the world of we humans, and with no small urgency. See my version from a few weeks back on Towards Eudaemonia 'The Reenchantment'. Pete
Thanks, Pete — it’s such a joy to meet others who are exploring these ideas. Can’t wait to read your piece. Thank you!
AGE OF AQUARIUS?
I'm thrilled that you emphasize the blessed marriage of Dreams and Discipline (e.g. rigor). I, too, love to share the gospel of Being as Weird as You are (very brave!). I often quote "The Master and His Emissary," and just last week chatted this work with my beloved step-mom who's deep in it right now. Other deep thinker/feelers to explore: Rupert Sheldrake and Arnold Mindell. I've met both and their work with resonance and quantum dreamtime has utterly changed my world view (recent post on dreaming and Mindell: https://heartsquest.substack.com/p/dream-on-how-to-awaken-a-lucid-life).
I also love your reckoning that the time is ripe for the rebirth of Right Hemisphere. Our survival depends on this. More to come!
Thank you so much for this, and for reading. I know Rupert Sheldrake's work fairly well but hadn't come across Arnold Mindell -- I'll check him out. Sounds like you're ploughing a really interesting furrow. I will check out your Substack. Thanks for stopping by!
Rupert is a big ole sweetie pie 🥧 who’s been persecuted for his wide ranging scientific curiosity. Mindell’s books feature short exercises that teach us HOW to engage the lucid realms for helpful insights and guidance. 🙏🏽 Thanks for checking out my stack, too!
I loved reading this! We are definitely thinking about the same stuff. I just finished reading Graham Hancock's writing about David Lewis-Williams and you inspired me to dig into The Mind in the Cave and The Master and his Emissary next! I look forward to reading more soon.
Thanks so much for reading! Going to have a little mosey on over to your page now. I'm so happy to be meeting so many likeminded folk through this piece. Thanks for stopping by.
This is brilliant and I so heartily agree with you. What else can we do for the human species at this stage? The physical world is incapable of stopping the descent into chaos that we are experiencing, but the Greater Consciousness has all the tools we need, if we can grow up enough to make ourselves available to access them. Much as I care, I cannot stop the bloodbaths single-handedly that are occurring as we speak. But plugging into the consciousness of All can effectively achieve anything. After all, its spawned the physical world in the first place. Out of it we came, but are always part of it. Well done you for so clearly outlining the history of the mess we are in. I had my own go at it with my own recent book, The Infinite Compass- A Journey into Wisdom. Every bit helps. I also try with my own Substacks. We cannot have enough people infecting the group consciousness with this understanding. I shall follow up with your reading list. Thank you and Bless you.
Thank you so much for this, Jay. I love the sound of the work you've been doing and am excited to take a look at your Substack. Yes -- reconnecting to the great consciousness seems absolutely imperative at this point, not least because we've actually left ourselves nowhere else to go. Thank you so much for writing.
Don't confuse turning points and tipping points, folks! Elllie, it's a brilliant piece of writing: many thanks for sharing it with us. I guess the clarification needs to be around turning points in history and tipping points in earth systems and the planetary entanglement and interaction of these two different dynamics.
For further reading may I suggest: How to Think Impossibly by Jeffery Kripal; Urgency by Jeremy Vaeni and his podcast Ourundoing Radio; and Hellenic Tantra by Gregory Shaw. If you're feeling strong, then there's Jean Gebser's "The Ever-Present Origin" as a context to cave art and everything else in terms of "the stages of consciousness". Gary Lachman, of course, on Imagination and then Mark Vernon on Owen Barfield's "Saving the Appearances". Jeremy Johnson is really trying hard to communicate Gebser through the lens of Integral Consciousness. Illich's "In the Vineyard of the Text" traces an important 12th century shift in consciousness, what Gebser would read as the shift from mythic to mental stages.
It's important to distinguish between the Experiencers and the Scholars: Jeffery Kripal and his work at Esalen tackles this, I think. Shaw on Iamblichus's theurgy is really relevant to your observations about ritual as a techgnosis for accessing the mundus imaginalis. Nancy Pearson's translation of Henri Corbin's essay "Towards a Chart of the Imaginal" is include as a prelude to the "Spiritual Body and the Celestial Earth". Jeffery Kripal handles the nuances of meaning between the Imaginal, the Supernormal and the Paranormal very well in "Thinking Impossibly".
I've absorbed myself in the North American approach a bit too much, so it's good to get an English angle and connect with John Dee, the Dissolution and English colonial plantations on the eastern coast of America.
Dougald Hine keeps my feet on the ground and like him: keep going!
WOW. Rob, thank you so much for these recommendations. What a treasure trove. I've read the Illich and some Barfield but none of the rest of this and I cannot WAIT to dig in. Truly, a million thanks. Are you writing anywhere that you could share?
I am n sitting in my car weeping having listened to this. This like hearing the manifesto for my entire life. I will be responding in detail but for now some bibliography, not so much recommendations - I wouldn’t presume— but as possible points of convergence: Gilchrist of course . David Bentley Hart, Roland in Moonlight. Isabelle Stengers, Another Science is Possible. Anything and all things Dougald, also of course.
Oh Cleo, thank you so much for posting this. I'm so moved to know that it was meaningful for you. It sounds like you've been deeply in the effort to broaden the consciousness contract for some time. Thank you, thank you for that. And for these recommendations -- I haven't read David Bentley Hart or Isabelle Stengers and now I can't wait to. Really pleased you stop by, and hope to hear more from you!
Love this! Have been working on a little post about the moon and this articulates what i have been wanting to say
I'm so glad you enjoyed it. Thank you for stopping by. Good luck with the moon!