false<![CDATA[The Joyous Cosmology]]>http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1203196574m/903911.jpg9039115 The Joyous Cosmology is a verbal arrangement describing experiences for which our language hasn't vocabulary. To understand this wonderfully difficult book it's useful to make the artificial distinction between external & internal. This is exactly the distinction it wants to transcend. But Watts plays the verbal game in Western language. Readers can be excused for following along with conventional dichotomous models.
External & internal. Behavior & consciousness. Changing the external world is the genius & obsession of our civilization. In the last two centuries Western monotheistic cultures have faced outward & moved objects about with astonishing efficiency. More recently our culture has become aware of a disturbing imbalance. We've become aware of the undiscovered universe within, of uncharted regions of consciousness.
This trend isn't new. The cycle has occurred in many cultures & individuals. Material success is followed by disillusion, basic "why" questions & then by the discovery of the world within—a world infinitely more richly complex than the artifactual structures of the outer world, which are, in origin, projections of human imagination. Eventually, the logical conceptual mind turns on itself, recognizes the foolish inadequacy of the systems it imposes on the world, suspends its control & overthrows the domination of cognitive experience.
We speak about the politics of the nervous system—as complicated & important as external politics. The politics of the nervous system involves mind against brain, the tyrannical verbal brain disassociating itself from the organism & world of which it is a part, censoring, alerting, evaluating.
Thus appears the 5th freedom—freedom from the learned, cultural mind. Freedom to expand consciousness beyond artifactual cultural knowledge. Freedom to move from preoccupation with verbal games—social games, gamed of self—to the joyous unity of what exists beyond.
We're dealing with an issue that has been considered for centuries by mystics, by philosophers of religious experience, by those great scientists who've been able to move in & then out beyond the limits of the science game. It was seen & described clearly by Wm James: "...our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. We may go thru life without suspecting their existence; but apply the requisite stimulus, & at a touch they're there in all their completeness, definite types of mentality which probably somewhere have their field of application & adaptation. No account of the universe in its totality can be final which leaves these other forms of consciousness quite disregarded. How to regard them is the question, for they're so discontinuous with ordinary consciousness. Yet they may determine attitudes tho they cannot furnish formulas & open a region tho they fail to give a map. At any rate, they forbid a premature closing of our accounts with reality. Looking back on my own experiences, they all converge toward a kind of insight to which I cannot help ascribing some metaphysical significance."
What stimuli sre necessary & sufficient to overthrow the domination of the conceptual to open up "potential forms of consciousness"? Indian philosophers describe hundreds as have Japanese Buddhists & Western monastics. Mexican healers & Amerind religious leaders have for centuries utilized sacred plants to trigger off the expansion of consciousness. Recent science has provided chemicals as the most direct techniques for opening new realms of awareness. James used nitrous oxide & ether to "stimulate the mystical consciousness in an extraordinary degree." Today the attention of psychologists, philosophers & theologians centers on the effects of three synthetics: mescaline, lysergic acid & psilocybin.
What are these substances? Medicines or drugs or sacramental foods? It's easier to say what they aren't. They aren't narcotics, intoxicants, energizers, anaesthetics or tranquilizers. They are biochemical keys which unlock experiences shatteringly new to most Westerners.
Harvard's Center for Research in Personality has engaged in systematic experiments with these substances. Our 1st inquiry into biochemical expansion of consciousness has been a study of the reactions of Americans in a supportive, comfortable naturalistic setting. We've participated in over 1000 individual administrations. From observations, interviews, reports, questionnaire data analysis, & from pre-& postexperimental differences in personality test results, certain conclusions have emerged. 1/These substances do alter consciousness. 2/It's meaningless to talk more specifically about drug effects. Set & setting, expectation & atmosphere account for all specificity of reaction. There is no drug reaction but always setting-plus-drug. 3/In talking about potentialities it's useful to consider not just the setting-plus-drug but rather the potentialities of the human cortex to create images & experiences far beyond the narrow limitations of words & concepts. Those of us on this research project spend many working hours listening to people talk about the effect & use of consciousness-altering drugs. If we substitute the words human cortex for drug we can then agree with any statement made about the potentialities—for good or evil, for helping or hurting, for loving or fearing. Potentialities of the cortex, not of the drug. The drug is just an instrument.
In analyzing & interpreting our results we looked 1st to the conventional models of psychology & found these concepts inadequate to map the rich breadth of expanded consciousness. To understand our findings we've been forced back on a language & point of view alien to us trained in the traditions of mechanistic objective psychology. We've had to return to the nondualistic conceptions of Eastern philosophy, a theory of mind made familiar in the West by Bergson, Aldous Huxley & Alan Watts. The 1st part of this book presents this theory of consciousness, which we've seen confirmed in the accounts of our research subjects—philosophers, unlettered convicts, housewives, intellectuals, alcoholics. The leap across entangling thickets of the verbal, to identify with the totality of the experienced, is a phenomenon reported repeatedly.
Watts eloquently details his drug-induced visionary moments. Of course, he's attempting the impossible—to describe in words that which is beyond words. But how well he can do it!
Watts is one of the great reporters of our times. He has an intuitive sensitivity for news, for crucial issues & events of the century. He has along with this the verbal equipment of a poetic philosopher to teach & inform. Here he's given us perhaps the best statement on the subject of space-age mysticism, more daring than the classic works of Huxley because he follows Huxley's lead & pushes beyond. The recognition of the love aspects of the mystical experience & the implications for new forms of social communication are especially important.
You hold in your hand a great human document. Unless you've experienced a mystical minute of expanded awareness, you'll probably not understand all the author is saying. Too bad, but not a cause for surprise. The history of ideas reminds us that new concepts & visions have always been non-understood. We cannot understand that for which we've no words. But Watts is playing the book game, the word game & the reader is his contracted partner.
Be prepared. Listen. There are great lines in this book. Dozens of great ideas. Too many. Too compressed. They glide by too quickly. Watch for them. If you catch even a few of these ideas, you will find yourself asking the questions which we ask ourselves as we look over our research data: Where do we go from here? What is the application of these new wonder medicines? Can they do more than provide memorable moments & books?
The answer will come from two directions. We must provide people with these experiences & have them tell us what they experience. (91% of our subjects are eager to repeat & to share the experience with family & friends). We must also encourage systematic objective research by scientists who've taken the drug themselves & have come to know the difference between inner & outer, between consciousness & behavior. Such research should explore the application of these experiences to the problems of modern living—in education, religion, creative industry, creative arts.
Many believe we stand at a turning point in human power to control & expand awareness. Our research provides tentative grounds for optimism. The Joyous Cosmology is solid testimony for the same happy expectations.--Drs. Timothy Leary & Richard Alpert (edited Foreword)8890681962The Joyous Cosmologytotal:60|5:20|4:29|3:10|2:1|1:0|6024897440truefalseFri Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 1969Sun Jul 05 23:45:51 -0700 2009Sun Jul 05 23:56:17 -0700 20091
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