The Consciousness Wars

I think it's significant that while we may be using both sides at all times, people are going to use certain areas moreso than other areas, depending on their level of expertise or focus in life. The book in the OP also mentions how a significant part to all this is the difference in ​how the two brains process the same information. One side, the left, separates and analyzes in a neat and logical fashion, while the right sees more the wholeness of something, and portrays this through intuition, symbols, poetry, art, etc.

I'm just started with reading the book, so the further I read it the more I will post in regards to the OP.

 

From what I am reading, it seems that the modern view by Neuroscience is that the right brain is treated like a "spare" or "minor" brain, and that really, the Left Brain is seen as the boss. So I don't think that the view of no difference between the two is completely correct. I will try to find more sources on this.

 

There is the book I mentioned by the neuoranatomist that suffered a stroke.

 

I don't think anyone has suggested there is "no difference" between the hemispheres, it's the notion that personality is dictated by hemisphere. The corpus callosum which connects to both hemispheres mediates communication between them.

 

Right, and the left is favored to the right by modern society and neuroscience. It's you guys who brought up the whole personality thing. Not me nor my OP. The Right brain is seen as a spare of sorts and the left is favored to handle the "serious stuff" like logic and reason.

 

How so? We just concluded I am not to blame?

 

So returning back to the OP...I think that it all makes a lot of sense. It seems that the modern paradigm of the mental-rational structure is in its deficient mode, as you can see by the trouble that society is in as a whole. There's not much flourishing going on, and a lot of chaos mounting.

This deficient mode is needed in any evolutionary mutation of Consciousness in order to break down and make way for the next stage.

The book cites Jean Gebser's proposal of four stages of Consciousness Evolution in history. These are:

1. Archaic
2. Magical
3. Mythical
4. Mental-Rational

Gebser also proposes that we are beginning to see the first seeds of a 5th, Integral stage, which combines all the past stages. A balance of the Left and Right brain, in other words, which one could begin to see in the 20th Century and onwards. In post-2012, we are right in the thick of the breaking down, aka deficient mode, of stage number 4, in order to make way for number 5.

It also points out that at the very beginning of the Renaissance, there was a short period where a very creative blend happened, only to make way for the complete rising of the Mental-Rational structure, which has been in reign ever since.

The Right-Brain is the older, more imaginative form of the mind that dominated earlier humanity. The Left-Brain has taken hold in the past few centuries, but a balance of bringing back ancient ways of using the mind mixed with modern rational ways is presented as the key to humanity's salvation.

 

Stage 5 has not received a name . 1-4 already exist as a sum , and 1-5 will exist as a sum .
Because we don't forget anything . What's new for you in conciousness ? For me it has been
represented by visualized animated abstractions , like being of the sky watching clouds blown
about with breezy and determined intelligence . And just lately . Maybe that is still only stage 4 ,
but it's an interesting , trippy , and I am not feeling any deficiency nor expecting to .

In theory , stage 5 might not be named until we are in stage 7 .

The trouble in society as a whole ? Well , itsa zit .

 

Faculty X is something that I feel that I encounter a bit and it's something that was given a name by Colin Wilson.

 

So , can you describe the feeling that might relate to that X ? What
does two lines diagonally crossed mean anyway ?

 

Faculty X is the experience of sensing into other times and places and feeling the ISness of it in the present moment. An example would be looking at a really old object and timelessly sensing into other eras of that object"s existence. X just replaces no other current name for this faculty, which can either be dormant or stimulated, in the human mind.

 

Whenever I hold the X , yes , I do think of time and intersected existence . Or
if not the intersected existence then the contemplation is Patience . X is an old
symbol .
:sunny:

The authoritarian humanists will war against the intersected existence . They
employ weaponized language to dictate reality .


With centuries of coming to dominance , these days
they war amongst themselves , eh ? I can see damage
to their minds .
.
.
.

 

Very interesting. I may not agree 100% with the categories----for example, the distinction between 2 and 3, but I haven't read the book. What is the title?

But I wonder if this is more a description of the collective unconscious than individual mental states. It certainly mirrors my own opinion of what is happening.

 

The book is entitled "The Secret Teachers of the Western World" by Gary Lachman.

Yes I would agree that the first 3 states are still within our unconscious, but that the 4th stage has taken dominance on a conscious level.

I can dig the overall categorization, but can also see why one would wonder what the true difference is between the Magical and Mythical states of Consciousness. Overall, it seems like a good enough map of the different states of Consciousness that have dominated in human history. I'm sure it will get more in-depth into this the more I read it.

Also, explaining what you said about feeling like it mirrors your opinion of what is happening, perhaps that is part of the 5th stage, which will re-integrate the earlier stages with the 4th stage.

 

Actually I would see the first three stages as all being much the same thing (not having read the book and still not fully understanding his reasoning). Our hunter-gatherer ancestors (I assume, our archaic level) did not live as semi-intelligent apes, tasting everything they could reach and put into their mouths. Archeology demonstrates that our hunter gatherer ancestors (I assume representing the archaic portion, unless he is talking about the animal portions of our brain), both early homo sapiens and neanderthal, had very advanced concepts and understandings of ceremony and ritual, the cosmos, hunting and survival, and even surgery.

For example, there is the idea that early humans learned about medicinal plants by tasting and testing. That is the dumbest thing I have ever heard, and goes along the same mentality as, if you put a chimpanzee or chimpanzees in a room with typewriters then, given enough time, they will eventually compose the complete play of Hamlet. Yet this idiocy about our ancestors is accepted as fact. For example, there are about 28 ingredients required to create the ritual hallucinogen, ayahuasca, and as I recall, some of these plants require long travel from the regions where ayahuasca originated. Not all the plants grow in the same region.

I even heard this bullshit about our ancestors tasting and experimenting with plants in a documentary about Native American healing. Then of course there are the rationalizations about color and shapes, and the idea of mimickry as a magic... Such rationalizations are really not that much better.

Anyone who has spent much time in Native ceremony should be able to tell you that spirit teaches such things. There are contemporary examples of herbs and plants used in native healing today that have not been used for very many years. No one was tasting it or testing it----spirit told them what to use in ceremony.

 

I was just kidding.

Besides, ( according to Castenedas teacher/ sorcery benefactor) it's not really your conclusion because It's not your mind, your mind is a foreign installation... it is the predator/ parasites mind. It always agrees with itself and will of course find a way to rationalize it's way out of being discovered. Deep down in every persons real mind, we know there is another reality, another perception of the world. This accounts for the propensity of humans to seek altered states, be it through ingesting psychedelic plants, alcohol, trans-hypnotic states through ritual, or even just the adrenalin of things like sports or high adventure. Humans are always seeking escape from their normal, boring, everyday mind in an attempt to gain respite from the foreign installation, if even for only a few moments.

[edit;spelling]

 

Not to argue with your conclusion----I just wanted to point out that Casteneda was a fake. What he wrote started out as his post-graduate thesis in Anthropology. He was supposed to go down and contact the natives and what not, but in the end he spent his grant fooling around and getting high. He fabricated everything building off of his own knowledge of indigenous people in Northern Mexico/South Western US. His work was good enough to fool his professor who suggested that he publish it. He then went on to expand the story and write all those books. There never was a Don Juan, and the teachings are all fabricated. From what I remember of the few books I have read (the first two books), there is hardly any actual Yaqui ceremony or belief even included in them which would be very strange for a Yaqui teacher.

I remember that I read Tales of Power while camping out at Chaco Canyon as a teenager. Back then, if you kicked the dirt, you would turn up pottery shards. I remember I was camping near a canyon wall. I forget what part I was reading but it was late at night, and all of a sudden an owl started calling outside of my tent. My hairs rose up all along my back. I decided I had read enough for that night. I don't get spooked easily. Though I must say, Castenada out in the Desert in the evening and at night, especially around all those pueblo ruins, that gets creepy for a young teenager.

 

Gentleness is the discoverer of the real mind , which is not an alternate mind , but
is the wholeness of mind .

 

It's not my conclusion. You didn't notice the little disclaimer " According to..."



I know all about Carlos Casteneda, all the discrediting, his cult of followers, yadda yadda.
It doesn't effect me one way or the other.

The first two books? Yeah, if you had read further you would have seen where most of the stuff in those books were virtual meaningless for anyone except carlos, but did a lot to warp the minds of gullible young " vision seekers"

I've said it before, I'm an Atheist/ Lao Tsu Taoist. I don't entertain any particular spiritual or supernatural beliefs.

 

There are different concotions to make Ayahuasca but it can be made with as few as 2 ingredients, usually Banisteriosis Caapi which is a MAOI containing vine and a DMT containing plant such as Chacruna. I've read about tobacco and a few other ingredients being included into certain mixtures but I've never heard of there being more than few ingredients added.

Also, I don't know what to think about the taste and test theory of early humans finding medicinal plants, but it is not an equivalent analogy at all to the absurdity of a different species like chimps getting together and turning out Hamlet.