Channelling

[Ben Iscatus]

I disagree. There is lots of evidence. Compare literature. Could a Greek in Homeric times have made any sense of, say, Waiting for Godot? Why don't we write epics like the Iliad? Or compare Gregorian Chants to punk rock. Anyway, if you want a detailed presentation of the evidence, check out Owen Barfield's Saving the Appearances: A Study in Idolatry.
Yes Scott, Culture and technology are at least to some extent cumulative because we have a global civilisation. I was referring to human behaviour generally -we are as fallible as we always were. Consider the wars in Ukraine or Gaza - our means of killing and maiming large numbers of people are in a different league, though the motives are much as they were.

[ScottRoberts]

"Evolving" is a tricky word. There surely has been evolution but whether or not it's been a progress is controversial. Many would argue that the human species has not evolved toward a better balance with its earthly environment or that rising material production has not resulted in greater happiness. I'm not trying to take a particular side but rather point out that "evolution" is surely change and adaptation but whether or not it's been a progress beyond a process is debatable.

I'm talking about spiritual progress, by which I mean, in the short term (a couple of millennia) increasing individual freedom, in the long term, becoming angels. Since the latter is beyond our understanding, I'll stick to the former. We can't be individually free without becoming individuals, and it is the progress of becoming individuals that we can trace in history. Alas, for this to happen we needed to lose our awareness of the spirit behind all natural phenomena -- three thousand years ago we were what I call naive idealists, perceiving spirit in rivers, mountains, etc. Now we are naive dualists. But as a consequence, we can now think, and think about our thinking. Which is to say that the spirit which, back then was perceived as outside us has now moved within us. This allows us to work on freeing ourselves. See here for a somewhat more detailed explanation of the how and why of all this.

[ScottRoberts]

I disagree. There is lots of evidence. Compare literature. Could a Greek in Homeric times have made any sense of, say, Waiting for Godot? Why don't we write epics like the Iliad? Or compare Gregorian Chants to punk rock. Anyway, if you want a detailed presentation of the evidence, check out Owen Barfield's Saving the Appearances: A Study in Idolatry.
Yes Scott, Culture and technology are at least to some extent cumulative because we have a global civilisation. I was referring to human behaviour generally -we are as fallible as we always were. Consider the wars in Ukraine or Gaza - our means of killing and maiming large numbers of people are in a different league, though the motives are much as they were.

See my response to Lou, and read the essay linked there ( and here) as to why way more than culture and technology has changed. Roughly speaking, one could say that the way we are fallible has very much changed.

[Lou Gold]

"Evolving" is a tricky word. There surely has been evolution but whether or not it's been a progress is controversial. Many would argue that the human species has not evolved toward a better balance with its earthly environment or that rising material production has not resulted in greater happiness. I'm not trying to take a particular side but rather point out that "evolution" is surely change and adaptation but whether or not it's been a progress beyond a process is debatable.

I'm talking about spiritual progress, by which I mean, in the short term (a couple of millennia) increasing individual freedom, in the long term, becoming angels. Since the latter is beyond our understanding, I'll stick to the former. We can't be individually free without becoming individuals, and it is the progress of becoming individuals that we can trace in history. Alas, for this to happen we needed to lose our awareness of the spirit behind all natural phenomena -- three thousand years ago we were what I call naive idealists, perceiving spirit in rivers, mountains, etc. Now we are naive dualists. But as a consequence, we can now think, and think about our thinking. Which is to say that the spirit which, back then was perceived as outside us has now moved within us. This allows us to work on freeing ourselves. See here for a somewhat more detailed explanation of the how and why of all this.

I like your notion "that the way we are fallible has very much changed". I find it similar to Dante's notion that Purgatory is a mountain of awareness rising out of the ignorance of Hell en route toward Paradise. According to these progressive models, there surely has been progress at the individual level. Do you think there might be any limits imposed at the species level?

[AshvinP]

I disagree. There is lots of evidence. Compare literature. Could a Greek in Homeric times have made any sense of, say, Waiting for Godot? Why don't we write epics like the Iliad? Or compare Gregorian Chants to punk rock. Anyway, if you want a detailed presentation of the evidence, check out Owen Barfield's Saving the Appearances: A Study in Idolatry.
Yes Scott, Culture and technology are at least to some extent cumulative because we have a global civilisation. I was referring to human behaviour generally -we are as fallible as we always were. Consider the wars in Ukraine or Gaza - our means of killing and maiming large numbers of people are in a different league, though the motives are much as they were.

On this topic, along with Scott's linked essay, Max Leyf's new short essay is also apropos. Since it's short, I'll paste it here in full (to be read with the following in the background ):





***

It fills me with a sort of awe to imagine, in the primeval past, the gradual concrescence of individuality or “who-ness” out of the sea of collective consciousness; an ocean of which the lives of our distant ancestors rose and fell as the crests and troughs of its glimmering surface. I-hood, or self-consciousnesses, precipitates out of this sea like salt-crystals out of a solution of natural, instinctual wisdom.

Do you think “Adam” refers to the first “who”? In other words, when we read the Genesis Creation story, do we imagine that it recounts, foremost, the succession of the biological progenitors of the human race? Or do we imagine that the sequences conveyed in the Genesis narrative depict foremost the progressive evolution of the self, which is to say, the progenitors not of our “what-ness” but of our “who-ness”?

The expulsion from the Garden of Eden, in this light, must represent the awakening of self-consciousness through the knowledge of good and evil:

And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil…1

For other creatures, the moral question is foregone because decisions are predetermined by instinct, which, paraphrased, “the general and impersonal wisdom of Nature.” For Man, by contrast, this capacity for decision, which is to say, “morality,” represents the existential crux of his psychic existence. The friction wrought by the decision between competing volitional impulses generates a spark that may serve to kindle the light of self-consciousness in the substance of soul. The body and all inheritance from Nature sustains this spark, and represents a sort of temple for his soul, or wax and wick to nourish this flame of wakefulness. Scientific inquiry can disclose the parameters and dimensions, both spatial and diachronic, of this temple, and the chemistry of incandescence. But to answer questions about the god who makes his dwelling therein, it must give way to contemplation—

He alone is immortal and dwells in unapproachable light2

For Eve to consent to the Serpent’s proposition that she pluck the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge is to act from an impulse whose origin lies deep in the unconscious and instinctive strata of the soul; an impulse that did not arise as a free and conscious decision of the I but as a prompting from without it. When Adam consents to Eve’s proposition, seeded in her through the Serpent’s inception, it is a picture of the spirit that consents to being led into temptation by an impulse extraneous to the I, and whose origins are unconscious to it. The consent to this prompting entails the soul indenturing itself to carry out the mandates of one of its adventitious desires. This is consistent with how Christians have interpreted “Original Sin” in that it is said to be an inheritance from Adam and not from Eve. There is much more to this, because we can imagine that Eve represents the part of our souls that we “repress” or lose connection with in exchange for self-consciousness, but that is a story for another day.

Most importantly, Mary the Mother of God represents the counter-image of Eve in the Garden. The Ave Maria prayer has a line, originally found in Deuteronomy 28:4, “benedictus fructus ventris tui,” which is “blessed be the fruit of your womb.” The image of Mary receiving the fruit inwardly is a clear reversal of the image of Eve seizing the fruit from without. Eve’s action brought about the fall into duality while Mary’s passion gave birth to the one who resolves it. Eva is an anagram, reversal, and “turning”3 of Ave.

[Lou Gold]

I disagree. There is lots of evidence. Compare literature. Could a Greek in Homeric times have made any sense of, say, Waiting for Godot? Why don't we write epics like the Iliad? Or compare Gregorian Chants to punk rock. Anyway, if you want a detailed presentation of the evidence, check out Owen Barfield's Saving the Appearances: A Study in Idolatry.
Yes Scott, Culture and technology are at least to some extent cumulative because we have a global civilisation. I was referring to human behaviour generally -we are as fallible as we always were. Consider the wars in Ukraine or Gaza - our means of killing and maiming large numbers of people are in a different league, though the motives are much as they were.

On this topic, along with Scott's linked essay, Max Leyf's new short essay is also apropos. Since it's short, I'll paste it here in full (to be read with the following in the background ):





***

It fills me with a sort of awe to imagine, in the primeval past, the gradual concrescence of individuality or “who-ness” out of the sea of collective consciousness; an ocean of which the lives of our distant ancestors rose and fell as the crests and troughs of its glimmering surface. I-hood, or self-consciousnesses, precipitates out of this sea like salt-crystals out of a solution of natural, instinctual wisdom.

Do you think “Adam” refers to the first “who”? In other words, when we read the Genesis Creation story, do we imagine that it recounts, foremost, the succession of the biological progenitors of the human race? Or do we imagine that the sequences conveyed in the Genesis narrative depict foremost the progressive evolution of the self, which is to say, the progenitors not of our “what-ness” but of our “who-ness”?

The expulsion from the Garden of Eden, in this light, must represent the awakening of self-consciousness through the knowledge of good and evil:

And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil…1

For other creatures, the moral question is foregone because decisions are predetermined by instinct, which, paraphrased, “the general and impersonal wisdom of Nature.” For Man, by contrast, this capacity for decision, which is to say, “morality,” represents the existential crux of his psychic existence. The friction wrought by the decision between competing volitional impulses generates a spark that may serve to kindle the light of self-consciousness in the substance of soul. The body and all inheritance from Nature sustains this spark, and represents a sort of temple for his soul, or wax and wick to nourish this flame of wakefulness. Scientific inquiry can disclose the parameters and dimensions, both spatial and diachronic, of this temple, and the chemistry of incandescence. But to answer questions about the god who makes his dwelling therein, it must give way to contemplation—

He alone is immortal and dwells in unapproachable light2

For Eve to consent to the Serpent’s proposition that she pluck the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge is to act from an impulse whose origin lies deep in the unconscious and instinctive strata of the soul; an impulse that did not arise as a free and conscious decision of the I but as a prompting from without it. When Adam consents to Eve’s proposition, seeded in her through the Serpent’s inception, it is a picture of the spirit that consents to being led into temptation by an impulse extraneous to the I, and whose origins are unconscious to it. The consent to this prompting entails the soul indenturing itself to carry out the mandates of one of its adventitious desires. This is consistent with how Christians have interpreted “Original Sin” in that it is said to be an inheritance from Adam and not from Eve. There is much more to this, because we can imagine that Eve represents the part of our souls that we “repress” or lose connection with in exchange for self-consciousness, but that is a story for another day.

Most importantly, Mary the Mother of God represents the counter-image of Eve in the Garden. The Ave Maria prayer has a line, originally found in Deuteronomy 28:4, “benedictus fructus ventris tui,” which is “blessed be the fruit of your womb.” The image of Mary receiving the fruit inwardly is a clear reversal of the image of Eve seizing the fruit from without. Eve’s action brought about the fall into duality while Mary’s passion gave birth to the one who resolves it. Eva is an anagram, reversal, and “turning”3 of Ave.

Ashvin,

Thanks for the Max Leyf text. Somehow, it instantly reminded me of Joseph Campbell's assertion that God wanted Adam and Eve to eat the apple because the way to guarantee that kids will do something is to tell them there's one special thing they must never do. Perhaps the story worth contemplating is that God introduced individual choice via the Serpent thus plunging humans into the burdens of duality and the purgatorial motivations to find a higher awareness resulting in Eve evolving toward the ideal of Holy Mary, Mother of Divinity. Do you think Dante might have offered a deep insight about "The Mountain of Purgatory"?