3: Transcendence Ecology/singularity of body/singularity of consciousness? So what is transcendence? Transcendence of what? As far as I can see, the essence of religious experience - that which comes before institutionalisation, before rationalisation or corruption - begins in a glimpse or a conceptualisation of that which lies beyond normal awareness, beyond the grasp of the physical senses, or beyond our capacity to assimilate a totality of information. But it is not only this first conceptualisation, but ultimately an IDENTIFICATION with that which lies beyond, as part of a greater Self. That which lies within and beyond the body - that which lies within and beyond the field of the senses,- but to which we are physically and consciously inseparate, inseparable, and which is infinite. The science of our physical inextricability from this greater Self is Ecology. The science of our psychical inextricability is the (pure, primary) stuff of religion itself. While the idea of a singular universal body is not difficult to argue - ie: any detractors should be asked to see how long they can hold their breath before they become conscious of what the connection is - the case for a singular universal mind is more difficult to support. Concepts of a collective unconscious, or a similarity of mind inferring commonality, all invite debate. However, if we consider that the singular universal Self seems multi-conscious rather than uni-conscious, while we do not consider ourselves to be fundamentally telepathic and feel ultimately alone with our thoughts and no one else's in the prison of our heads, we are connected by channels of communication, through a common language and other ways in which we fill each other's senses with information constantly. The universe regards itself, if not with a single eye, then with a compound eye - with the mosaic-like vision of an insect, and with thoughts that interweave via the medium of communication into a singular corporeal mesh, which is our culture. 4: NEUROSIS Growth and Evolution / Facing the Reality Principle Freud described the growth and adaption of the psyche to the external world after expulsion from the womb as the passage from primary to secondary process thinking (or the beginning of the former's subjection to the latter). From the instinctual/unconscious to the rational. He said we may consider these unconscious primary processes to be: Éresidues of a phase of development in which they were the only kind of process. The governing purpose obeyed by these primary processes is easy to recognise; it is described as the pleasure-unpleasure principle, or more shortly the pleasure principle. These processes strive towards gaining pleasure; psychical activity draws back from any event which might arouse displeasureÉ Our dreams at night and our waking tendency to tear ourselves away from distressing impressions are remnants of the dominance of this principle and proofs of its power.1 It was in the infant psyche's first clashes with external reality, when psychical rest was first disturbed by the peremptory demands of physical needs and the absence of satisfaction from the internal, such as hallucination or wish-fulfilling dreams or fantasies - that: Éthe psychical apparatus had to decide to form a conception of the real circumstances in the external world and endeavour to make a real alteration to them. A new principle of mental functioning was thus introduced; what was presented in the mind was no longer what was agreeable but what was real, even if it happened to be disagreeable 1 This new adaption marked the setting up of the REALITY PRINCIPLE. It was not in fact a negation or replacement of the original pleasure principle, but rather formed a protective function as adjunct to it. A momentary pleasure, uncertain in its results, is given up, but only to gain along the new path an assured pleasure at a later time. Or as Shaw said (as quoted by Freud), "To be able to choose the line of greatest advantage instead of yielding in the direction of least resistance" is the function of the reality principle. And of course the first "line of greatest advantage" is to adapt to and do what is necessary to continue to survive. The passage from the internal to external reality for the evolving psyche is by nature a difficult path. Difficulty is it's essence - the assimilation of the "hard truths" of living. Often the journey is too hard to complete. Perhaps it is never fully completed by any of us. Sometimes progress is made and then we fall back. We may turn away from reality because we find it unbearable - either the whole or parts of it. A loss of "the function of reality" is seen as a special characteristic of NEUROSIS2 . Extreme cases may entail hallucinatory psychosis which denies the particular event which occasioned the outbreak of insanity3 . But any neurotic may do the same with some fragment of reality. Freud observed that neurosis has as its result, and probably therefore as it's purpose, a forcing of the patient out of real life, an alienating of him from reality. Freud has used the term "flight into psychosis." Now, to briefly qualify this, the presence of fantasy in consciousness is not indicative of illness or lack of reality sense. It is present and always active in every individual. But the character or health of the individual's psychology depends on the nature of their fantasies and how they are related to external reality 4 - ie: whether the fantasies perform some repressive or unrealistically wish-fulfilling function. So how does all this relate? To bring it back to the science of Ecology (our physical inextricability from the All), I think we can witness some of the above in the planetary crisis we're seeing at this point in history. Our way of life is a threat to the continuance of that life. The pleasure we have sought, the improvement in our material circumstances has been good for many of us in the short term but has avoided a view to repercussions in the long term - the poisonous bi-products of those material gains. Chickens coming home to roost. This is the reality to be faced. However, we are afflicted by the desire to pretend the problem will go away. Or we believe that it can wait. Nothing seems to worsen appreciably one day to the next - the decay of the macro-ecology is measured more in years that in days - though when the years do pass we realise how quickly they have done soÉ Or perhaps our righteous anger and concern at the damage to the planet created by our cities and factories - at the scandalous poverty suffered by the people of the poorest countries of the world, both for itself and that it drives them to strip their hillsides and poison their rivers to earn the dollars to eat - perhaps that anger sits side by side with an unconscious denial of our own responsibilities for these crises, that their desire to improve their lot, with which we claim to sympathise, is strangled by our own. Even if we have sought to know, it is easy to forget - and if we're reminded, to forget again - that, for instance, more than 100 mil. ha of the 3rd world's best land grow mostly luxury crops to export to the rich countries while the people who work in those plantations are among the hungriest in the world; that while 40 mil. tonnes of grain p.a. could totally eliminate the hunger of 730 million people, around 600 mil. tonnes of grain is fed to livestock in rich countries5 and so off they go torching the Amazon and when it all comes back to us in the form of greenhouse effects and so on we don't want to know that we've only ourselves to blame. We can point the finger at our aristocracies and proclaim our innocence, but we must consider what a simple cup of coffee would cost us if the workers on coffee plantations in Africa were paid a decent living wage5. The world has shrunk to a size where we can no longer shit on our neighbours without shitting on ourselves. We are not separate from our surroundings. We are inextricably linked. But we don't want to accept it, because it more than just disturbs us, it forces us to change and re-adapt to external reality, or be changed by the natural backlash from that reality in most unpleasurable ways. But still we fall back. We shrink from the external and seek the comforting fantasies of the internal. Wish-fulfilling delusions swamp the popular psyche through entertainment and advertising. They deny the outward view. They deny the integrative view. They enforce a yearning for comfort not unlike a return to the womb, the cosy townhouse, the sanitised bathroom, the dreadfully unnecessary but pleasantly insulating V-8 sedan. How much of the wealth we are taught it is right to pursue is spent on cushioning, shutting out reality, retreating from the educative knocks and stimuli from our surroundings? But still the Amazon is burning. Yet the more the chickens come home to roost, the more we want to build walls to hide inside, while the more we build the more chickens come home. The only thing more frightening is the assimilation of the long avoided reality. The greatest terror is facing oneself and having to grow - to work the consciousness outward - and adapt to what we learn in order to survive. To adapt, to EVOLVE, to begin to create a non-aquisitive, no-growth, stable state society, functionally integrated with the surrounding universe is no easy task. None such exists except in certain 'primitive' cultures. And we must first accept the sacrifices inherent before we reap the benefits. Where do you start? It's a frightening prospect. Easier not to think about it. Or put it off. We're only neurotic when it's easier than realistic. When it's looking better in than out. But reality is reality. © David Nerlich 1989
