10 Reader Responses

1. zacharius Says:
   July 22nd, 2005 at 5:12 pm

   well the classic definition would be you’re conscious to the extent you are fully aware of the operations of your consciousness. in practice you don’t need to be aware of your heartbeat or blood pressure or the ph balance of your blood, but the ability to disengage from previously automatic behaviors, beliefs, viewpoints, defintions etc… at a certain point it dovetails into the unspeakable because you’ve disengaged from the structures of language sufficently to traverse the trans linguistc modalities of mind, but obviously there isn’t much to say about that.

2. Occult Investigator Says:
   July 22nd, 2005 at 5:17 pm

   Those are pretty much the two points I want to explore:

   (1) “Automatic” behavior
   (2) The connection between consciousness and language

   Would you say that raising consciousness then correlates to diminishing automatic behavior? As far as I understand the taoist “wu wei”, it seems like you actually reach the point where your behavior is once again automatic… or rather you exist fully in the moment, acting without thinking

3. J. Puma Says:
   July 22nd, 2005 at 5:42 pm

   in some ways i’ve always thought the idea of ‘raising consciousness’ is just bs newage jargon. it means pretty much nothing at all, because there’s no generally agreed-upon definition of consciousness. do we go with jaynes, and declare consciousness a result of the bicameral split? if so, ‘raised consciousness’ is greater communication between the left & right sides of the brain. or, do we go with ‘awake’ in the sense the newagers do? ‘hey, man, if we all take enough lsd we’ll be able to raise our consciousnesses!’ or, does it mean what a lot of the lipstick liberals think it does, a state where everyone’s nicer to everyone else?

   for that matter, how about *lowering* one’s consciousness– can that happen? eh, i don’t think there’s any reason to focus on ‘raising consciousness.’ it seems like too empty a concept.

4. zacharius Says:
   July 22nd, 2005 at 5:52 pm

   undoubtedly the words’ raising’ and ‘consciousness’ are two of the most debased usages in the common currency. but i think it’s a mistake to discard them simply because we can’t sort out the semantic confusion around them.

   it’s like all that bullshit with foucalt. yeah sure some things are relative and arbitrarily imposed by sources of power. but not everything.

   if i had to choose between an unjust authority and a shapeless flatland where everyone is equally useless just the way they are, and all views are equally meaningless, then i’ll take my cigarrette and blindfold with the archons thanks very much…

5. Occult Investigator Says:
   July 22nd, 2005 at 6:37 pm

   but i think it’s a mistake to discard them simply because we can’t sort out the semantic confusion around them.

   Well, if you think it’s a mistake to discard them, then let’s try and sort out the confusion!

   I also feel like Ken Wilber’s pre/post conventional distinction is another disguise for the “raising consciousness” question. I know he talks a lot about how certain “waves” of development don’t recognize value-laden hierarchies and levels, but in a way, it seems like that’s an effort to diffuse criticism and constructive conversation. If I were to say that a “raised” consciousness is no better than a regular or even a debased consciousness, then I’d merely be pegged as representative of a certain wave, and thereby proven wrong or at least incomplete compared to somebody else at a “higher wave”, ie with higher consciousness.

   There’s a really good Jungian analysis of all this that I ought to go back through and mine for information. I’ll come back with it later…

6. J. Puma Says:
   July 22nd, 2005 at 7:04 pm

   i guess that’s one of the things that turns me off to it: the inherent hierachical values it opens you up to when you start using the term. like, my consciousness is ‘higher’ than yours, ergo i am more spiritually developed/stronger/better looking than you. i don’t really dig on terminology that sets up hierarchies (tho’ i’m sure i’m just as guilty as anyone else)– it’s too easy to exploit.

7. alistair Says:
   July 22nd, 2005 at 10:01 pm

   imagine if you could develop a system where people could be nicer to each other. what better way to live life than that? it takes guts though…………letting go of issues and just allowing the peace to remain. i`m talking about a catastrophic change in the way people approach things. minding one`s own fucking business for a whole month. just for an experiment. let people ahead of you in line. let people pass you on the highway. let people have thier position in an arguement. smile anyway and go on with you life. just for a month and if you don`t like it, you can go back to criticism. i think that was what alan watts was talking about in the essay posted earlier. the reason why he left the ministry.
   we create our reality by looking at pictures, in our minds and talking to ourselves like editors in a newspaper. our own critics. this causes us to have feelings as a response. then we go and interact with others based on these simple procedures, repeated over and over in our day. imagine if we could control this process in a precise way?

8. alistair Says:
   July 22nd, 2005 at 11:49 pm

   what are the the trans linguistic modalities of mind? or meta-linguistic modalities of mind,if you will? we live in a linguistic tunnel reality. be it that it`s a byproduct of the bicameral function of our cerebral archetecture ( which could be considered unnatural if it was engineered) or some other developement of language, ala terence mckenna`s mushroom model. the fact remains that we have this reflexive mechanism of internal dialog that imprints onto an external reality in a pretty convincing way. i believe that we should be riding the horse in the direction he wants to go here and say that everything is linguistic and find the answers through language, seeing as it`s taken us this far.
   that`s what nlp does. no presuppositions about hierarchies of spiritual developement or the inherent evil of technology. just seeing how language actually is the driving force of reality and using that as the metric for predicting the future. the logos of the mystics………

9. alistair Says:
   July 24th, 2005 at 4:04 pm

   techniques…………….i notice that i have sharper, more coherent ideas when i am in the process of riding my bike. ideas seem to come in ways that i don`t find by actively thinking about problems. my rides vary in length from 5-6k to 150k+. it is the shorter rides, generally local, that give me the meditative access in need. mobile yoga?
   choosing good moods, in precise ways, via nlp practice gives me the focus to do my life in a purposeful way. it helps me in business, sport, relationships and anything else that requires clear thinking. it`s the opposite of how stressed out,cranky people do thier life. i can`t explain it any more clearly than that. we simply make better decisions when we feel good. do a self test now.

10. Feeding the Macrobrain - Pop Occulture Says:
    March 12th, 2006 at 7:17 pm

    […] hat we call “The Logos.” Counter-culturalists are always talking about “raising consciousness,” and this understanding would cast that into a w […]