19 December 2007
Unity versus the Frontal Lobes
Posted by Carleton Schade under: Philosophy .
This entry is the first of three from Neal Goldsmith, philosopher and psychotherapist, at http://www.nealgoldsmith.com/philosophy.html.
“It was a devil’s bargain: Thought, ideation, intent, objectification, ego, the finger-eye-frontal lobe complex. A devil’s bargain, yes, but supremely adaptive, as we now dominate nature and occupy every corner of the globe. And the devil’s bargain was the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil: The first division, like light and darkness, soul vs. body, humans vs. nature, Christians vs. animists.
“Of course, it’s an old story by now how life started natural-yet-brutish and how we evolved adaptations to protect us and how now, the very traits and brain functions that enabled us to excel thus far, are proving counter-adaptive in the form of pollution, extinctions, cancer, obesity, overcrowding, competition, mechanization and social alienation.
“So how do we heal that rift? Transcend the duality? Not by sliding back down the spiral, as Kaczynski and bin Laden would have it, but by powering-through today’s modern alienation from nature, all the way up and around the spiral to an integral, post-modern world view, co-existent with the animist tradition, but full-circle and “one level up” on the spiral. This is a world view that can accommodate shamanic states and quantum mechanics into one truly natural science.
“In moving forward, first you have to know where you want to go and then you have to have a vehicle to get there. Many people have noticed that there is a consistent world view that visionaries see and report back: unitive, transcendent, accepting, transphysical, indescribable, infinite, whole. And the visionaries, seers and gurus have pointed to the many ways to consistently get there: meditation, spontaneous religious experience, drugs, fasting, mortification of the flesh, other rituals, trance, focusing incantations, spells or directed logos, and so on.
“The idea, of course, is to see the unitary brain, get back to it, fully experience and incorporate it, but this time to do so with one’s eyes open, fully conscious, Buddhist-style, for a post modern integration of animism and higher awareness. But how do we leave the dualistic struggle behind and just be one, in our lives, in nature, in the Universe?”