Archaeologies of Consciousness
Having failed to give the excellent Dreamflesh Volume One the glowing review it so richly deserved here on The Quiet Road, Gyrus threatened to “burn down your home, and the homes of everyone you’ve ever met!” unless I at least mentioned his latest tome.
Well, he’s a man of his word. So I shall do more than just mention it. I shall post a big shiny graphic showing the rather striking cover (designed by Andy Hemmingway) and urge y’all to get hold of this fantastic anthology.
Entitled Archaeologies of Consciousness: Essays In Experimental Prehistory, it’s billed as a collection of writing on “ancient monuments, prehistoric rock art, folklore, mythology, and altered states of consciousness”. But don’t let what may sound like a specialist book on a selection of niche subjects put you off. The essays in this book are explorations of consciousness, of what it means to be human, and of the environment and landscapes that shaped our development. It’s a book that drags these “niche subjects” out of the cosy, dusty libraries in which they’ve locked themselves and takes them for a much needed hike across a windswept moor to get their blood flowing again.
But what’s it actually about?
[…] in Freudian language [we say] that the operations of the unconscious are structured in terms of primary process, while the thoughts of consciousness (especially verbalized thoughts) are expressed in secondary process.
Nobody, to my knowledge, knows anything about secondary process. But it is ordinarily assumed that everybody knows all about it, so I shall not attempt to describe secondary process in any detail, assuming that you know as much about it as I.
Gregory Bateson | Style, Grace and Information in Primitive Art
In the space of these five extended essays and a few shorter bits and pieces, Gyrus boldly strides where Bateson fears to tread.
To be honest, that last line is hyberbolic to the point of sheer inaccuracy, but it’s a good pull-quote. In actual fact, the writing of Bateson and Gyrus complement one another in interesting ways. Both are examining the unsettling, blurred region where a number of disparate disciplines intersect; archaeology, anthropology, mythology, psychology (along with psychoanalytic theory) and biology. Both are aware that, for a whole bunch of reasons, traditional academia finds it difficult to comfortably accommodate research in this area, but are equally aware that for their work to be influential within these disparate disciplines (as it damn well should be), it must be accessible to them.
But where they differ is the fact that Bateson is writing from within the establishment; emerging from it as it were; while Gyrus is approaching it from outside. Both approaches have their strengths and both have certain limitations. Thankfully there’s nothing stopping us from reading both and allowing them to, as I say, complement one another.
One thing that strikes me though, is that Gyrus generally overcomes the limitations imposed by his position as a “freelance” / “amateur” researcher (a tendency towards flights of fancy, tangents and a perceived lack on intellectual rigour) better than Bateson overcomes the limitations imposed by his own (conservatism, unimaginativeness and a tendency to obscure meaning with over-complex prose and jargon).
Now Bateson can’t be accused either of conservatism or a lack of imagination, but his writing does occasionally become rather dense and opaque. In Archaeologies of Consciousness however, Gyrus presents his readers with clear, flowing prose that is at turns poetic, at turns scientific, but always comprehensible. And it’s not the patronising comprehensibility of “popular science” books that spoonfeed complex ideas to a mass market by simplifying them to the point of meaninglessness. This is the real deal… exactly as complicated as it needs to be, but no less accessible for it.
The collection opens with The Devil & The Goddess which I recall reading when it was first published over a decade ago. It was around that time that I first met Gyrus, and during the intervening years — in private discussions and through reading subsequent articles — I’ve seen how his ideas and research have evolved. So it’s interesting to revisit The Devil & The Goddess; not the start, but certainly an important early milestone, on a unique intellectual journey; and to find it’s still vital, still relevant and is filled with the questions and themes that would dominate his work for the next ten years.
Culture and civilization are inseparable from material technologies, and things are no less confused in the technophile / Luddite debate. The real dichotomy to be tackled here is that of harmonious / unharmonious technology. Do our tools help us achieve our desires, or do they become our desires?
Gyrus | The Devil & The Goddess
Later…
This spiritual poverty, this rigid division of life into the sacred and profane (in their modern senses), has only been the norm of human experience for several hundred years, if that. And in their historical accounts, modern scientists have been projecting this division back in time for far too long. A re-vision of anthropology and archaeology is overdue, necessary and, I feel, imminent.
Gyrus | The Devil & The Goddess
And concluding with…
For ourselves, living in a culture where the dominant spiritual institutions have insisted not only on separating themselves from everyday life, but directing their spiritual aspirations outside this world, it’s evident that a new vision of spirituality more directly concerned with life, the Earth, our bodies and survival is needed. We cannot live on bread alone, but I don’t want to try to live without it. It’s no coincidence that it took an affluent society like our own, where day-to-day existence is taken for granted, to produce a device capable of utterly destroying the biosphere.
Gyrus | The Devil & The Goddess
… via a route that takes in Shamanism, Satanism, the Kundalini experience, anal eroticism, the origins of blood sacrifice, the Knights Templar and the landscape of Avebury…
It’s the least focussed of the essays in the collection, certainly, but it provides a perfect opener to the book by setting up many of the themes that are expanded upon in the later pieces.
My personal favourites (if one can be said to have favourites among essays on abstract and esoteric subjects) are probably the final two of the long pieces; Form & Meaning in Altered States & Rock Art and Aeons Past & Present. The former contains my favourite line of the book, where the author is examining some neolithic rock art while under the influence of 2CB (a synthetic phenethylamine which is known to produce, among other things, visual distortions not unlike the geometrical patterns found in much primitive art) and has the multi-layered revelation that “There’s no ‘blank canvas’ in rock art!” While the latter draws together theories about time and evolution from a remarkably wide range of sources and makes all manner of intriguing and insightful connections between them, eventually concluding with a call to action in the face of the seemingly paralysing desires manufactured by modern culture.
From the upbeat and characteristically enthusiastic preface by Julian Cope, to the meticulous indices, Archaeologies of Consciousness succeeds in being a well-researched, informative; indeed illuminating; collection of essays which is also a pleasure to read. This makes it a very rare item indeed; so I recommend you grab a copy.
Emergence and Synchronicity
In emergence the limits on the possible paths of activity (mechanisms avaialable) are limited, which is part of the development of totally new properties and rules that appear as the system evolves. “Constitutive characteristics are not explainable from the characteristics of the isolated parts. The characteristics of the complex [system], therefore, appear as ‘new’ or ’emergent’…” – Ludwig von Bertalanffy
In synchronicity we have the same type of situation, but the possible paths of activity are not quite as limited so the outcome is unique but singular. The whole system does not render some new properties and rules but some part of the system shows behavior similar to the overall changes in emergence. This points to the probabilistic origin of both synchronicity and emergence. But in both cases, because of the limits on possible paths, the outcome is meaningful even though it can be shown to not be from a functional process (Jung’s definition of sychronicity requires that there is no functional relationship).
Functional is interpreted as association with the rule that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. In emergence, as with any probabilistic process there is no such thing as an equal and opposite reaction. It is often apparent that such a process is recognizable as some kind of information being expressed as distinct from a functional process where the outcome is determined so no information is gained or lost.
The underlying process (of emergence or synchronicity) is not functional and thus is lost to symbolic interpretation as symbols are a quite directly tied to functional interpretation. The symbolizing processes (logical and rational thought) is in effect functional and implies functional relationships. This makes understanding a process that is not functional, as we define emergence and synchronicity, difficult to express fully from a language standpoint, as we use language, since our modern language is particularly functional.
In Zen enlightenment the understanding of the universe lies in understanding that the void behind that universe is real and eternal. Recognizing the void reveals that existence cannot be purely temporal. Now the recognition of the void is related to the recognition of the existence of the not-symbolic (postulating a not-whatever is a common koan methodology for Zen enlightenment), which reveals the context of a meaning (the not-symbolic being the context for the symbolic) as more important, more universal, and more perminent than the defined meaning (which is sybolic rather than not-symbolic and often very reflexive in nature). The not-symbolic makes up the real universe (the context); the symbols only define the objective and subjective universes that we talk about.
Then archetypes are thought holes (or channels of meaning) where we can place ideas, but these archetypes can only be pointed at symbolically. Although we must discuss archetypes by using symbols so they fit into language (the shadow, the child), the archetypes are themselves not a symbol but a not-symbol that can hold some symbol which gives us meaning (through the symbol). Synchronicity then is recognized and understood when these not-symbols line up behind the occurence which has no “scientific” or symbolic explanation. Thus archetypes, which are the not-symbolic, clarify synchronicity by being the background for it. The archetypes are the shadow of the symbol.
The Archetype, expressed as something singular perhaps more general and universal, is the negative region to logical and rational thought. It gives the logical and rational meaning by holding the symbols in some configuration. But the configuration of the Archetype is like the (photographic) negative of the logical and rational process. So it fills the empty space of logical and rational thought. It also fulfills the meaning of such thought as such thought is merely symbols that have either no meaning in themselves or that may have some meaning but not exactly the meaning that is referenced in the logical and rational thought. Then archetypes are a way of logially distinguishing parts of the Archetype or archetypal reagion of thought.
But this archetypal region of thought is tied to the world that our physical senses encounter. Thus we only understand the world from our senses as it is carried to our rational thought through the archetypal region. The Archetype, and when distinctified, the archetypes, mediate our understanding of the physical universe.
The scientific universe is tied entirely to symbols and rests on symbols and their relationships. The emergent and synchronistic universe is tied to the not-symbolic. These considerations limit the usefullnes of an analysis of an emergent or synchronistic process if the analysis is entirely on the symbolic level. Understanding synchronicity and emergence requires recognizing the importance of the not-symbolic. Symbolism cannot fully logically carry us through an emergence as the process of emergence is not functional and thus not ammenable to functional, symbolic, logic.
To the Zen enlightened the true meaning can only be arrived at through the void. The void underlies true meaning. The context of this discussion is, more general, in that we seek to develop that the not-symbolic underlies true meaning. This is a more general understanding of enlightenment and emergent meaning. The not-symbolic provides the soil in which meaning can grow…in our thoughts. The symbols are nothing and mean nothing without the not-symbolic. Archetypes are the form of the not-symbolic.
The edge of language is meta-language but it is more distinctly the world of not-symbol. We recognize the meaning of the symbol or group of symbols from the world of not-symbol that surrounds the expression. The symbols in an expression fit into holes or channels of meaning that define what the symbols are in the expression and thus what the expression means. Without the holes or channels from the archetypal world of the not-symbol the letters on the page would be meaningless nonsense.
Jerry Heath
February 21st, 2008 | 1:51pm
by Jerry Heath
I have to second the suggestion that Gyrus’s book is a great read. I just reviewed it on my blog as well, so I thought I’d pop by.
There is a slow movement in archaeology/science to include the subjective dreams and experiences of researchers in the design of a study, and Gyrus’s work is a brave and honest example of this growing trend. Highly recommended for anyone interested in how altered states of consciousness can compliment our rational worldview without gettin carried away into never never land.
February 26th, 2008 | 3:13am
by Lucid Dream Er
Many thanks for that, Jerry. I don’t have an insightful response, I’m afraid, but I do appreciate you posting here.
I’ve only got a few weeks before I need to nail down a final thesis topic and nominate a supervisor (I’m studying for an M.Phil in psychoanalytic studies at the moment) and I’m edging towards something post-Jungian. James Hillman has been recommended — by Gyrus, no less, the author of the book reviewed above; so your posting here would seem to be quite synchronous in itself!
The other option I’m considering is to go the Lacanian route (i.e. post-Freudian rather than post-Jungian). Lacan has far less resonance with me than Jung, but there’s something about him that I find very intriguing; like there’s a mystery there waiting to be solved — or at least experienced.
If I have a problem with Lacan, though, it’s the fact that there appears no room for “humour”. Poke fun at Lacan (as I did when I described him as “Sartre with Venn Diagrams”) and it elicits stern and pained expressions on the faces of Lacanians. On the other hand, poke fun at Jung’s obvious messianic complex, and Jungians will laugh along with you. That seems a far more healthy approach to oneself and one’s belief-system.
February 28th, 2008 | 5:04pm
by Jim Bliss
I see Jung, and many others that had unique new messages at that time, as trying to say things carefully so they did not get blackballed by a very narrow minded scientific group. So he said many things cryptically so he could get accross some idea of what he was saying. I think he got blackballed anyway.
My studies have been in communication and culture. In those studies, strucuralism indicates that meaning is in the foreground. There are these neat triangles of the sign, the signified, and the signifier. Each can be tied to other triangles that build the meaning reflexively in monster piles of triangles. But Mead points to a relationship between all that “has” been said and all that can “be” said which has the same reflexivity but here it is the behind the scenes linkage that defines who we are and what we mean. Wittgenstien continually refers to what something said appears to mean (to him) as you think about it (and that appears to be wordless thinking). He avoids the dialectic methodology so such thoughts can be considered.
When we understand what Wittgenstien and Mead are saying we see that the words themselves are not really the meaning. They are just symbols; we make the meaning. But how? I think that Jung answers this: Meaning is in the archetypes if we really understand that the archetypes are not the symbols we use to talk about them (such as “The Shadow”) but the “mental” space those symbols fit into that provides meaning to the symbols (Jung did try to say this). Particularly I see depression as the death of myth, whether that is because we loose confidence in myth or we turn myth into dogma and ritual. And the death of myth is the “death of meaning” = depression.
“To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, … a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury but signifying nothing.”
I am also extending Jung into “all meaning” not just psychological meaning. When we loose all our myth (all our archetypes) we loose all our meaning.
Jerry Heath
March 3rd, 2008 | 4:49pm
by Jerry Heath