Reality

[Dover]

Imagine prisoners who have been chained
since their childhood deep inside a cave:
not only are their arms and legs unmovable
because of chains; their heads are chained
in one direction as well so that their gaze
is fixed on a wall.

Behind the prisoners is an enormous fire,
and between the fire and the prisoners is a
raised walkway, along which puppets of
various animals, plants, and other things
are moved along. The puppets cast shadows on
the wall, and the prisoners watch these shadows.
Behind this cave there is a well-used road, and
upon this road people are walking and talking
and generally making noise. The prisoners, then,
believe that these noises are coming directly
from the shadows they are watching pass by on
the cave wall.
_________________


The prisoners engage in what appears to us to be a game : naming the shapes as they come by. This, however, is the only reality that they know, even though they are seeing merely shadows of objects. They are thus conditioned to judge the quality of one another by their skill in quickly naming the shapes and dislike those who play poorly.

Suppose a prisoner's chains break, and he is able to get up and walk about (a process which takes some time, as he has never done it before). Eventually he will be compelled to explore; he walks up and out of the cave, whereby he is instantly blinded by the sun. He turns then to the shadows on the floor, in the lakes, slowly working his way out of his deluded mind, and he is eventually able to glimpse the sun. In time, he would learn to see it as the object that provides the seasons and the courses of the year, presides over all things in the visible region, and is in some way the cause of all these things that he has seen.

Once enlightened, so to speak, the freed prisoner would not want to return to the cave to free his fellow prisoners, but would be compelled to do so. Another problem lies in the other prisoners not wanting to be freed: descending back into the cave would require that the freed prisoner's eyes adjust again, and for a time, he would be one of the ones identifying shapes on the wall. His eyes would be swamped by the darkness, and would take time to become acclimated. He might stumble, Plato asserts and the prisoners would conclude that his experience had ruined him. He would not be able to identify the shapes on the wall as well as the other prisoners, making it seem as if his being taken to the surface completely ruined his eyesight. (The Republic bk. VII, 516b-c; trans. Paul Shorey)...cont'd

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_cave




Plato
Book VII of The Republic
The Allegory of the Cave

http://www.meditationsight.com/Documents/Cave.htm



Reality
by Peter Kingsley

http://www.amazon.com/Reality-Peter-Kingsley/dp/1890350095/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1216359545&sr=1-1

Book Review:

Peter Kingsley's book "Reality" is that rare kind of book that comes along every once in a while that will kick the legs out from under you and leave you precariously holding onto the thread of the reality that you once took for granted. But do not read it unless you are ready to live without the reassuring substance of the material world and the cozy little circle of thought that we in the West have built for ourselves, cutting off the otherwise disquieting pieces of our experience that cause us to question our surety that we have got it right.

Kingsley, who is a master philologist, takes us on a voyage to rediscover the man Parmenides and the man Empedocles -- not the abstract Pre-Socratic Greek philosophers of crusty old books, but the men who were more than just philosophers. They were participants in, and indeed prophets of, a sacred tradition -- a way of life -- that existed for hundreds of years, perhaps longer, and which, according to evidence presented by Kingsley, was shared across the known world, at that time. In short he presents the human sacred tradition that predated what we now call the "West" and the "East." And he presents it as a story that will sweep you along, if you are open to the truth about these men, and leave you gasping at the treasure that was stolen from us in our march to rationalism.

In the ontology of Parmeneides, uncontrived and elegantly expressed in his poem which Kingsley provides a more accurate, contextual, translation of, is a foundation that has tremendous ethical and practical implications for human society and what it means to live a human life. For over 2,000 years we have stubbornly refused to see the holes in the fabric of Western Materialism. And I think it is fair to say that nothing would survive a reanalysis that took into account reality as Parmeneides presents it to us. Kingsley shows us how this tradition, which Parmenides and Empedocles shared, is in fact the foundation upon which our Western intellectual tradition is built; a fact which has been successfully pushed into the background or glossed over -- until now.

Kingsley's work presents a fundamental challenge to the edifice of Western intellection as it strips the past of its convenient shrouds and lays bare an imperative to once again contemplate the Sacred in Philosophy and in our lives. It is not just the clarity that he brings to the works of Parmeneides and Empedocles that lends a powerful force to this "striping bare," but that he connects disparate cultures in a once-widespread, shared, sacred way of life that existed before the transistor and integrated circuit. But beware: Kingsley is not some latter-day prophet bringing the Good News to us here in the 21st Century. Rather, it is up to us to take what his scholarship offers and find our way forward. The work of Parmenides and Empedocles represent an esoteric tradition which requires committed study, but which provides us all that we need, now that Kingsley has given them back to us.

_____________________________________

[Jim__]

1. Have you read Kingsley's book?

If so, I'm curious as to what you thought of it.

I often think people who live in an industrial or post-industrial society, have no understanding or appreciation for the type of lives our ancestors lived in a more natural setting. While it appears from the review that this book talks about the loss of the sacred, I always think that we also lost the communal. Americans, especially, live isolated lives.

The difficulty is that we can really only live one way. I believe that humans were always curious about the ultimate nature of the universe. Modern science gives us a glimpse of this. I'm not sure I'd want to give up that glimpse. But, I do wish we could return to a more communal way of living.

The question is, who is really viewing a shadow world? Us, with our materialistic, isolated lives, or our ancestors with their more natural, communal, sacred lives that are lived in ignorance of the true nature of the universe. I think the answer is that no matter how we live, a part of our lives are lived in this shadow world.

[TZ]

2. Wait. Why would anyone want to return to the ways of our ancestors?

See..this kind of thing irritates the hell out of me..There is an implication that it was better..I want to know what the hell was better about living in filth worrying about how you are going to eat tomorrow, dying early from all sorts of horrible diseases (black plague anybody?), worrying about what predator might eat you, or what tribe might want to kill you for some obscure reasons.
Philosophers..BAH. There is a reason so many killed themselves.

[Jim__]

3. Where did you see someone wanting to return to the ways of our ancestors?

Did you read the review? Specifically, did you see: it is up to us to take what his scholarship offers and find our way forward. That's talking about going forward. Kingsley's point seems at least partially to be: For over 2,000 years we have stubbornly refused to see the holes in the fabric of Western Materialism. I believe the implication is that some things were better.

I haven't read the book, so, I can't say whether or not I agree with Kingsley's view. However, I have spoken to people who have lived in more communal societies and I do believe there are a number of advantages there.

Kingsley seems to be pointing out that there are important aspects to human life that we are not realizing in our modern world. BAH? Better to not think about it? That is expressing a desire to live in blissful ignorance, to remain in the comfortable shadow world. I'd prefer to strive for the light.

[Dover]

4. Yes I've read the book and recommend reading some of the other reviews at that link.

They are surprisingly good and cover many aspects of the book that might answer some of your questions. As one reviewer says, the very fact that the contents of this book is being so well received is perhaps a very good indication that many in our western society are indeed ripe for the experience it describes, and have been laying the groundwork within themselves to receive "enlightenment". And while it might be difficult for those who have had significant doses of this 'glimpsed enlightenment' or heightened consciousness to essentially return and exist in a sort of 'no man's land' between materiality, rationality, dualism and the holistic realm that opens up naturally with the new reality, there is no going back really.

I am unclear why you perceive this 'new reality' as noncommunal? In fact it intimately binds and connects everything and everyone through a transcendent love and can be argued to be THE purpose and path that our souls relentlessly pursue, whether we recognize it or not. As our soul's purpose becomes illuminated more and more through increasing consciousness and more deeply integrated into our reality the more expansive, open, loving and enlighteded we become. It's how we grow our souls, so to speak.

The problem for those who have had this 'glimpse' is that there is no way to communicate it other than through simply being it and various forms of creative expression. No one still chained up in the cave can comprehend the experience within the limits of their 'reality', although they might recognize it in others who have. I believe this book speaks to those who have been opening to this new reality, reaching them not through direct and traditional means, but through revisiting the experiences described in the poetry of two ancients who chose that medium to express an inner experience.

The book follows some poems/writings by Parmenides and Empedocles that have traditionally been interpreted from a very narrow, rationalistic western perspective. The experience these men describe was not accessible to everyone even in the ancient, more naturalistic world, which Socrates also indicates in his description of the cave. Ignorance was and is a condition that mankind must experience, and yet is always invited to lift the veil. There were rituals and initiations and mystery schools created to help people to contact that portal within themselves, as it was not easily accessible. While the materiality of our modern world seems much denser and further from that of the reality of the ancients, perhaps in the cave of our inner beings, not in the light of day but in the dark and cavernous realms of our being, we have been nurturing and tending a new consciousness. And perhaps the 'isolation', separation and autonomy we've experienced in this long cycle, was essential to developing an integration (or as Jung might call it "individuation") that would further us on our path. An autonomy that might be foreign to the ancients but an important step in a larger cycle of expanding consciousness.

---------------------------


Carl Jung and Individuation:

http://www.soul-guidance.com/houseofthesun/individuationprocess.htm


Individuation

Individuation means that one becomes a person, an individual, a totally integrated personality. It is a process of self realization during which one integrates those contents of the psyche that have the ability to become conscious. It is a search for totality. It is an experience that could be formulated as the discovery of the divine in yourself, or the discovery of the totality of your Self. This does not always happen without pain, but it is necessary to accept many things that normally we would shy away from. Once a person has accepted the contents of his unconsciousness and has reached the goal of the individuation process, he is conscious of his relationships with everything that lives, with the entire cosmos.

Individuation is a natural, inherent process in man. It cannot be stimulated by something external, but it grows from the inside. Just as the body can become deformed or sick by lack of nutrition or movement, the personality can be deformed by lack of experience or education. Jung stresses that our modern world does not give enough opportunity to experience the archetype of the Shadow. When a child expresses his animal instincts, generally it is punished by its parents. Punishment does not lead to the extinction of the Shadow (repressed tendencies, more about this later on), which is impossible, but it leads to the suppression of this archetype. The Shadow retreats to an unconscious state, primitive and undifferentiated. Then, when the Shadow breaks through the repressive barrier, and this does happen once in a while, it manifests itself in a sinister, pathological way.



Transcendence


The first step of integration is individuation of all aspects of the personality, which is called the individuation process.

There is a second phase that Jung called the transcendental function. This function has the capacity to unify the opposite tendencies of the personality. The goal of transcendence is the realization of all aspects of the personality as they were originally concealed in the one’s center, and the development of the potential unity. The transcendence is the means to realize the unity of the archetype of the Self.



The Individuation Process


The individuation process begins with becoming conscious of the Persona, the mask we take on in our every day life. After this we become conscious of the Shadow, the repressed characteristics of the ego. Then we become conscious of the Anima, the inner woman in each man, or the Animus, the inner man in each woman. Then the image of the old wise man, or the old wise mother appears, after which the experience of the Self happens.

These phases are not necessarily chronological in order or separated from each other. They can overlap each other or run parallel.

[cosmik debris]

5. I remember that allegory from Psych 101 40 yrs ago

It made a big impression because of the way modern psychology related to it. My Prof concluded that when you torture people to the point of inducing psychosis, their behavior is neither predictable nor enlightening. Your mileage may vary.