mass public event” and is now “a museum piece, an antique, not a living, breathing myth” (pp. 99−101). For the remainder of the text, it becomes a metaphor for self-transformation via intuition, creative insight, D. Bohm’s “in-seeing,” inner vision, the right brain, the unconscious, the Higher Self, holism (versus dualism or reductionism), and a proper connection with nature. Thus the only “world” to be destroyed is an individual person’s outworn belief system. We must “unlearn all that has been so assiduously learned—that is what ends our personal world” and what enables, in Monroe’s parlance, a “‘different overview’” (p. 186, 102). Felser is referring to such pernicious assumptions as the following: consciousness is biochemical, imperfect, and untrustworthy; the supernatural is unnecessary; self-knowledge is impossible; and the only reliable knowledge comes from external authority. He should have pushed a step further and stated, as would Jung, that we Next Page 13 TMI JOURNAL 2012 should stop projecting our inner dysfunction in the form of the Great Ending and tend to our own psychic gardens in order to move from the “self,” which Felser has used to refer to individuality, to the “Self,” the archetype of wholeness. (The title
SOURCE CONTEXT
TMI Journal 2012 No. 1 · 1 TMI Journal 2012 No. 1.pdf
The selected passage is highlighted. Adjacent passages preserve the surrounding source text.
of chapter 6, “To thine own self,” borrowed from Shakespeare’s Polonius in Hamlet—“to thine own self be true” [1.3.78; qtd. in Bevington, p. 1072], refers to financial self-interest and material well-being, not individuation, and is taken out of context.) The solution, then, is both Jungian and Taoist: if we plumb the “dark depths” (p. 78) and do our shadow work in order to become more in tune with who we really are, then the outer world will mirror our progress. The greater worldview that may be achieved is akin to the expanded consciousness of the lightning shaman among indigenous peoples. Felser cites a modern American example, Tony Cicoria, and might well have discussed Dannion Brinkley’s (1995) similar experience in Saved by the Light. Just as Cicoria’s lightning-induced NDE unlocked musical ability, so Brinkley—a hard-nosed businessman who had been a sniper in Vietnam—developed psychic abilities that he now uses to help others. Felser believes that Roberts and Monroe, along with Socrates and Black Elk, are in a similar category. In particular, Monroe receives great praise for overcoming his fears and for becoming “a mystic, psychic, and philosopher whose passage through our culture may yet prove to be one of the most creative disturbances witnessed by the 20th century—or any other” (p. 163). Regarding the lightning shaman, Felser wondered what happens when one is struck by lightning. Does a lightning
strike rewire the nervous system, or does it just wipe away the cultural software and return the brain to its default setting? He does not know, but he should have pointed out the obvious analogy to what he says later on about Hemi- Sync®. Like the latter view of lightning, Monroe’s sound technology “is essentially what I would call a blinder-removal tool, an anti-technology technology, or a cultural deprogramming device. Properly speaking, Hemi-Sync isn’t a vehicle that takes you to some other place; it just helps you remove the narrow limits on your natural, wider perception. Then you can see what is—and that you are, in fact, already—There. Which is, of course, right Here” (p. 185). To those who would become psychic or at least more in tune with nature, Felser’s advice would be simply to turn down the cultural noise and to “become aware of what we are already doing and being, of the full range of operations of our consciousness” above and below the level of waking awareness (p. 185). Felser’s treatment of Monroe is a fine reading that draws extensively on his three books and Ronald Russell’s (2007) biography, The Journey of Robert Monroe: From Out-of-Body Explorer to Consciousness Pioneer. Felser acknowledges the value of Bayard Stockton’s (1989) Catapult: The Biography of Robert A. Monroe, despite its dependence on the interview format. One of the differences between these books, however, is highly relevant to Felser’s argument and should have