The Space-Time Constitution of the Structures: The Space-Timelessness of the Magic Structure (Part 1 of 3)

Introduction:

The following is a brief excerpt from The Ever-Present Origin (1964) by Jean Gebser.  I have typed it out in full for those who are interested in exploring the oft-neglected role of space and time to human development.  To date, Gebser is the only integral theorist who has attempted to incorporate space and time into his overall theory of the structures.  Thus, it is not Gebser's structures themselves--but rather the co-dimensioning of space and time with these structures--that is Gebser's single greatest contribution to integral theory.  

Gebser's recognition of the co-dimensioning of space and time with consciousness development was not derived by mere happenstance or via conceptual model or tool (i.e., the four quadrant model or AQAL), but provides the skeletal structure for Gebser's integral approach.  Moreover, Gebser's integral approach avoids the pitfalls of many contemporary theorists (i.e., Tulku and TSK) who have identified various time-form recognitions exclusively with states of consciousness while neglecting altogether the important role of space and time dimensioning to stages of development (mutations) over five major epochs of human evolution. 

The essay below, from The Ever Present Origin, Chapter 5, "The Space-Time Constitution of the Structures," describes how space and time manifests in one-dimensional magic.  This chapter is divided into three sections beginning first with "1. The Space-Timelessness of the Magic Structure."  It is followed by section two of chapter five (posted separately), "2. The Temporicity of the Mythic Structure" and then by section 3 (posted separately), "3. The Spatial Emphasis of the Mental Structure." These three sections should provide a basic overview of realizations of space and time within the magic, mythic, and mental structures of consciousness.  All of which--with the exception of the mental structure--are space-time realizations that operate according to their own sets of rules governing reality.  Prior to the mental structure, these realizations did not necessarily operate beyond the laws of physics but below it instead, where space and time manifest differently and as such was capable of bypassing laws of physics to operate according to their own rules.  Yet they are fully valid and effectual within their respective structures of consciousness (but not outside these lower structures).  Later, I will round out chapter five with a brief synopsis of the space-free, time-free world of the integral structure.

 For an excellent overview of Jean Gebser's The Ever-Present Origin, I would recommend the following:

http://www.grailwerk.com/docs/synairetic.htm

The Space-Time Constitution of the Structures (Part 1 of 3)

1. The Space-Timelessness of the Magic Structure

Whenever we speak of space and time we must remember that these are concepts worked out by our consciousness--concepts which are the primary constituents of consciousness and make possible its effectuality.  Yet the point of departure for this achievement was space-timelessness.  And this space-timelessness which we have attempted to render comprehensible as being characteristic of the magic structure--which is, indeed of basic and decisive import for this structure--this space-timelessness is not amenable to depiction or representation.  To represent or depict is to spatialize something; but how are we  to render something spaceless in spatial terms unless we forego its non-spatial character?

We are compelled accordingly to look for another procedure.  We could for example attempt to evoke or invoke or conjure up the prerational events--an approach which we suggested earlier (p. 51).  This would result in our being transported back to the magic state where we could experience it; but it would also mean that upon re-emerging from this state we would be unable to account for what actually happened, not to mention being able to make any kind of judgment on it.

Therefore this avenue too cannot be traversed; but perhaps there is another way to the goal.  If we were able to evince clearly the positive effect resulting from such a submersion into space-timelessness.  For as long as we merely point to the deficient manifestations of this basic phenomenon we have accomplished little towards its clarification.  Let us, then, disregard here the deficient manifestations of today's "machine magic" such as the effects of the radio (with its almost space-timeless functioning and its exclusive tie to the auditive which indicate its magic roots, just as the imagistic effects of the cinema are an indication of its mythical source).  Deficient applications or effects of the magic structure will not furnish us with information about the efficient efficacy of space-timelessness.

To discover this efficacy we must turn to a positive manifestation.  We have noted in an earlier context (1) a phenomenon  which could not be explained on a rational basis by rational means, namely, the miraculous healings of Lourdes.  In that connection we quoted a remark by the physician Alexis Carrel, who observed that "the only condition indispensable to the occurrence of the phonenomenon [of healing] is prayer." (2)  We also pointed out that certain aspects for which we had then no explanation could be designated as being akin to "communion."

We have seen that prayer is a magic form of manifestation in addition to being a communio, that is, a "being one with" (the Latin word is built upon con-, "with," and unio, "unity, oneness").  Genuine prayer, which is an outgrowth of a need (in the case of the mortally ill, a vital need) and is not therefore purpose- or goal-oriented, has the nature and function of communion.  It restores the inceptual unity or oneness; the absorption of the suppliant in prayer is an immersion into the natural unity of everything in this state at that moment.  the individual is, as it were, extinguished and forms a true unity with the hundreds of others who are united with him in prayer.

In this the location itself--Lourdes--where the healing takes place is of decisive importance.  Its mythical configuration, to which we shall return in a moment, makes possible the transition from the diurnal wakeful awareness via the dream-like mythical consciousness to the weakly-conscious somnolent and trance-like state of magic space-timelessness.  The magic-mythical configuration of Lourdes is evident on the one hand in the primordial aspect of the grotto, the sheltering cavern; on the other, in the figure of the saint, the protectress and "Great Mother"; and also in the source from which the living water springs forth.  These are all magic and psychic fundamentals administered by the church in the name of the one God.

The healing process is a descent whereby the believer in the one God descends down to the darkness of the source ruled over by the sheltering mother: a descent to the unity "below," where the individual loses his individuality and is united with everything.  When the diurnal or wakeful consciousness is sufficiently depressed so that the surroundings are no longer present to the suppliant, and he "sinks" even deeper where even the psychic reality of dream and image vanish, his individuality is obliterated in the magic realm (of the grotto or cavern) and he becomes one with the unity to which all differentiation is unknown.  There spatial boundaries and temporal limits are suspended.  One thing affects  the "other" with which it is united; individual organs, even individual afflicted organs, are effaced and are, say, henceforth hand or arm inasmuch as the hundreds of arms and hands are now undifferentiated and unbounded, comprising one arm and one hand.

This power of natural healing--and because of the vital need it is efficient strength, not the deficient might of magic which reponds--which the individual body is unable to summon for the afflicted organ is marshalled by the unity of all organs.  The power which was individually lacking in the afflicted hands flows from the healthy hands with which they are united.  A unifying flux, a communion streams through and equalizes this unity of those united in prayer who recover as a single body.  Of itself nature furnishes the equilibrium to this organism of suppliants which has become a unit, an equilibrium that the individual organism was no longer able to establish.  When the suppliant reemerges from the depths of meditation and returns to his rational wakeful consciousness, he brings along from the magic depths his recovery and health.

Such places as Lourdes are truly religious, for they establish the religio, the bond to the past which in this case extends back to our beginnings in the magic structure.  Let this example suffice to illustrate the efficacy of space-timelessness to those who are able to free themselves from the confines of rational rigidity without necessarily plunging into the depths of irrationality.

This particular example is perhaps successful in "describing" the effect of space-timelessness, and yet it must not be overlooked that the healing processes that take place at Lourdes can also be interpreted in other ways.  But however they are interpreted, their principal character is one of proximity to the "state" of space-timelessness.  It is generally recognized that the irrational and prerational nature of these cures which occur in the non-measurability of space-timelessness has enabled the modern rational sciences to speak of occult or parapsychic phenomena. (3)

Instances of such phenomena are legion; we would mention an instance cited by E. Bozzano because of its relevance to Lourdes.  (4)  In his example there is a transfer of psychic and vital energy: a transer of the vitality from a healthy to a sick person which occurs unconsciously and is fostered by the ambiance of the location.  The attendant--suffers for several days from psychic as well as physical exhaustion.  In this instance an individual accomplishes a transfer of energy which otherwise would take place as an exchange of energy among the "congregation."

The psychic participation inconsciente is indicative of a process which occurs far removed from space and time but which leaves its visible imprint nonethleless in the spatially and temporally-bound body.  This one instance of processes which can be described in parapsychological terms may be sufficient in itself, but here are numerous others.  All such phenomena interpreted along the lines of parapsychology, however, are liable to the danger of a psychologizing misinterpretation, particularly because a mostly misconstrued magic element plays a decisive part in such interpretations, an element which is beyond the grasp of psychic experience.

Such phenomena remain one-sided whenenver they are explained in a psychologizing manner.  We are, however, interested in the condition and process in their entirety, and for this reason the example of Lourdes can serve for all similar and identical instances.  Moreover, the nature of prayer (5) has furnished a convenient and unquestionable point of departure.  A conscious reversion to the effectivity of the magic structure which in fact occurs hour by hour in us, sustaining us as proof of its power, would make "sense" (for we live in the mental structure) only if it led us to expect a strengthening of the direction of our lives in the mental structure.  But such is rarely the case; to the mental structure the magic appears to be mostly chaotic.  Whenever it breaks into consciousness it subordinates consciousness to its might, thereby not strengthening consciousness so much as confounding it.  For this reason alone the rational defenses vis-a-vis the magical are justified.  Everything depends on the individual's constitutional bent and whether he is able to see through the variegated texture in which he is at once seedling, flower, and fruit.

There is some rishk in speaking of such matters, for at the very least they endanger (Gefahr) the "soul"; and every peril is either a demise (in the oceanic reaches of the psyche) or an enduring experience (Erfahrung).  The experience of where the magic structure begins and how it works must be made by every person individually, and the peril lies "behind" the experience and threatens anyone unprepared with the loss of self.  For unity does not just unify; from the standpoint of the individual (6) it disintegrates; unity is a process and state of dissolution in the spaceless and timeless.

Someone unsure of himself should not approach or be led into these matters.  For this very reason we have referred to the well-known example of Lourdes.  It cannot be treated exhaustively, for within the magic structure we have touched upon here a dense network of associations begins where everything commences to coincide with everything and everyone else--a situation extremely dangerous for the rational consciousness.  Moreover, here we approach that powerful attraction of the earth from which every supplication (Flehen) tries to flee (fliehen). (7) But one can escape a force--and this is the "secret"--only by passing through it.  (Other forms of this "passage" are the alchemistic unificatio, the chymische Hochzeit of the Rosicrucians, and many others, and the decisive role of magic space-timelessness is not limited only to them.)

But now let us leave this spaceless-timeless world which our rational awakened consciousness finds so disquieting and turn to that world characterized by temperament, disposition, and courage; by the pulse of the heart; and by the mute as well as singing mouth, that is, the world of myth and its incipient temporicity.

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1  See Jean Gebser, Abendlandische Wandlung (Zurich: Oprecht, 11943), p. 93 f.; 21945, p. 97; Ullstein ed. no. 107, pp. 77; Gesamtausgabe, 1, p. 234.

2* Alexis Carrel, Man, the Unknown (New York and London: Harper, 1935), pa. 149.

3  It is symptomatic of the psychic prepossession to which even well-known contemporary psychologists are subject that they do not distinguish between "parapsychological" and "parapsychic."  yet only the phenomena can be termed "parapsychic," and only their interpretation called "parapsychological."

4  Eernesto Bozzano, "Popli Primitive e manifestazioni supernormali," in Collana di studi metapsichici, 1 (Verona: Albero, 1941), 239.  see also the German edition: Ubersinnliche Eerscheinungen bei Naturvolkern, Sammlung dalp (Bern: Francke, 1948), p. 201 f.

5  To what measure prayer is related to nature and magic is evident from the actual or unconsciously imagined attitude in prayer: kneeling, folding of the hands, and bowing the head.  The knees--the most intensely radiating vital zone of the body--make contact with the ground, uniting so to speak the body with the earth.  The folding of hands not only expresses a renunciation of activity but completes and unifies, as it were, the circuit of the body.  And the bowing of the head is an expression of self-renunciation, of the suppliant's surrender of self-assertion, and of his submission to those powers that sustain him.

6  The Latin word individuum is composed of in, "non," and dividuus, "separable, divided," which is in turn derived from dividere.  The di- is based on the root da; the stem videre means, of course, to "see."  The meaning of individuum would therefore be "someone divided and dividing by seeing."  In this light it would seem risky to demand "individuation" or "coming-to-self" as is currently done in analytical psychology.  See Gebser (note 1), chapter 29; Gesamtausgabe, 1, p. 291 f.

7  "To implore" (flehen) and "to flee" (fliehen), despite inconclusive etymological derivation, can be considered akin to one another; see Kluge-Gotze, Etymologisches Worterbuch der deutschen Sprache (Berlin: de Gruyter, 111936), pp. 164 and 165.

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Fold-out section, The Ever-Present Origin, Jean Gebser, listing various attributes associated with each of the five structures or dimensions of consciousness from top to bottom, in the following order: archaic (top, zero-dimensional origin), magic (one-dimensional), mythic (two-dimensional), mental-rational (three-dimensional), and integral (bottom, four-dimensional origin). 

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