A Secret History of Consciousness

For the last four centuries, science has tried to account for everything in terms of atoms and molecules and the physical laws they adhere to. Recently, this effort was extended to try to include the inner world of human beings. Gary Lachman argues that this view of consciousness is misguided and unfounded. He points to another approach to the study and exploration of consciousness that erupted into public awareness in the late 1800s.

In this "secret history of consciousness," consciousness is seen not as a result of neurons and molecules, but as responsible for them; meaning is not imported from the outer world, but rather creates it. In this view, consciousness is a living, evolving presence whose development can be traced through different historical periods, and which evolves along a path to a broader, more expansive state. What that consciousness may be like and how it may be achieved is a major concern of this book.

Lachman concentrates on the period since the late 1800s, when Madame Blavatsky first brought the secret history out into the open. As this history unfolds, we encounter the ideas of many modern thinkers, from esotericists like P. D. Ouspensky, Rudolf Steiner, and Colin Wilson to more mainstream philosophers like Henri Bergson, William James, Owen Barfield and the psychologist Andreas Mavromatis. Two little known but important thinkers play a major role in his synthesis--Jurij Moskvitin, who showed how our consciousness relates to the mechanisms of perception and to the external world, and Jean Gebser, who presented perhaps the most impressive case for the evolution of consciousness.

An important contribution to the study of consciousness ... a must-read.

C O N T E N T S

Foreword by Colin Wilson
Introduction: "Consciousness Explained"

PART ONE: THE SEARCH FOR COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS
1. R. M. Bucke and the Future of Humanity
2. William James and the Aesthetic Revelation
3. Henri Bergson and the Élan Vital
4. The Superman
5. A. R. Orage and the New Age
6. Ouspensky's Fourth Dimension

PART TWO: ESOTERIC EVOLUTION
7. The Bishop of the Bulldog
8. Enter the Madame
9. Doctor Steiner, I Presume?
10. From Goethean Science to the Wisdom of the Human Being
11. Cosmic Evolution
12. Hypnagogia

PART THREE: THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF CONSCIOUSNESS
13. The Invisible Mind
14. Cracking the Egg
15. The Lost World
16. Noncerebral Consciousness
17. The Split

PART FOUR: PARTICIPATORY EPISTEMOLOGY
18. The Shock of Metaphor
19. The Participating Mind
20. The Tapestry of Nature
21. Thinking about Thinking
22. The Black Hole of Consciousness
23. Other Times and Places
24. Faculty X

PART FIVE: THE PRESENCE OF ORIGIN
25. The Ascent of Mount Ventoux
26. Structures of Consciousness
27. The Mental-Rational Structure
28. The Integral Structure

LAST WORDS: PLAYING FOR TIME