Thursday, November 7, 2013

Goddard and Levin on the Fold

Further information on recent posts regarding the transformal fold. From Goddard, chapter 16:

"Evolution on the Outward arc is an assertive and agentic process of building, building an ever more complex and stratified self/world structure through the first six stage-structures. But beyond this, transcendence does not consist in building further and ever greater superstructures on the basis of the ordinary self/world structure; it is not an accessing of new and hierarchically ordered mental-social structures beyond those of the Outward arc. Rather, as we move into more subtle and rarefied levels of consciousness, we are called to deconstruct and transform, within the higher space of transpersonal awareness, the self/world structures of the Outward arc. Transcendence is an accessing of higher ontological domains through a radical re-organization, a deep transformation involving a total deconstruction of self and its experienced world(s) thereby revealing higher and more subtle levels of consciousness.

 "Since the ego cannot develop except in distinction from the non-ego (individual distinct from society, psyche distinct from nature), the development of egoic consciousness necessarily occurs over against unconsciousness. A stable transcendence is not possible without our 'going back' and awakening to all the marginalized levels of both the individual's buried history and complexes (the personal unconscious) and the collective unconscious. The difference between, on the one hand, the transpersonal domains and, on the other, the pre-personal and personal domains is that the transpersonal is an integrative joining, a flowing together of the conscious and the unconscious once the divisive structures begin to be deconstructed. As we negotiate the curve and enter the Return arc, it is through a transpersonal embrace that all deeply rooted dualisms and divisions of the Outward arc can begin to be reconciled."

And to reiterate Levin from this post, pp. 47-8 of The Opening of Vision, on the various bodies:

5, the ontological body: This is a hermeneutical body because i) it is accessible only through hermeneutical phenomenology and ii) it is itself hermeneutical, i.e., disclosive of the presencing of being.

4, the transpersonal body: This is our ancestral body, the ancient body of our collective unconscious, that dimension of our bodily being through which we experience our connectedness with all sentient beings, our participation in nature's organic processes, and the cessation of our total identification with the conventional time and space of our socialized ego. Religions use ceremonies and rituals to schematize and bring forth such a body.

3, the ego-logical body: This is the civil body, socially constituted in the economy of a body politic. It is personal and interpersonal, and consists in masks, roles, habits, routines, and social practices. It is formed through child-rearing practices, education and participation in social structures.

2, the pre-personal body: This body is pre-civil and pre-egological. It is the body of the infant and child: a body adults still carry with them, however split off it might be; a body which adults can retrieve through memory or a relaxation of defenses, letting it take part in life involuntarily and spontaneously.

1, the primordial body: This is the wild body, the dreambody, the animal body, the body of nature, the vegetative body rooted in the earth. This body can only be invoked with the language of metaphors, symbols, stories, legends, fairy tales, myths, poetry and dreams. This body is both pre-egological and pre-ontologial. It carries around with it a dark, implicate pre-understanding of Being: a subsidiary guardian awareness of the meaningfulness of Being.

Development from stage 1 to 3 is normal and typically completed when the child becomes an adult. Stages 4 and 5, however, represent stages of individual development that require special effort, commitment, and maturity. Stages 1 and 2 are basically biological. Stage 3 is distinctively cultural.... The ego-logical body is the body shaped according to the ego's image of itself. But stages 4 and 5 go beyond what society requires. We might call them 'spiritual' stages.

Normal development (stages 1-3) is always, more or less, a linear progression, but the progression beyond 3 is not; it is essentially hermeneutical, involving a return, a turning into the body of experience, to retrieve a present sense of the earlier stages. Beyond 3 it is necessary to go 'backwards' in order to go 'forwards.' Stage 3 is the moment when, for the first time, this return and retrieval is possible."

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.