The Spell-Caster

If you have read Jean Gebser’s The Ever-Present Origin, and followed his observations about the “magical” structure of consciousness in its evolutionary relation to the “mental-rational” structure, you may recall his concern about the convergence of “deficient modes” of the magical with the mental-rational through a common concern with power. Even the word “magic” is related to words for power, especially the power to make happen. In fact, the word “make” is related to the word for magic (as is the German “Macht” meaning force or power, while the verb machen means “to make”). This confusion of the magical with the mental-rational then results in the corruption of both. This convergence is what Algis Mikunas described as “technocratic shamanism” in his essay “Magic and Technological Culture”.

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The Grand Convergence

The great emergence and convergence on the path to the new integral consciousness I see in many places today through the fog and darkness of the madness that seems to have presently gripped the human mind.

Here is another example of this dynamic in our time.

The Ecology of Politics: Towards an Integral Politics

Political battles these days are pretty ferocious, much of it incoherent but attesting to the fragmentation of self and society. Hyper-partisan politics tends to make people mendacious, so I thought we would today revisit an older theme of how we can correct for that mendacity and fragmentation by insights into an “ecology of politics”.