Library of Congress CCN 67-10417

CHAPTER 07
Consideration of the Spiritual Side

I was brought up and educated in a certain kind of con158


sciousness. I am writing in that kind now in this book Only through monurnettt.tl effort can one move out of this powetful contrcjl of the current mode of cognition We are assureti of heing kept in this mocTe of cognition by the constant feedback with members of our ov n speeics. This feedback is valued (practically) above anything else. This feedback with others is a precious commodity, precious to one's mind and to one's spirit.


This kind of explorcr is a lonely one, at least temporarily. He must step out of this social arena which we all value so highly, this intraspccics arena. He must Icam to step alone into new arenas. Althottgh he knows that he will meet his "cognitional lions" and the other "camivores" of his mind's deeper spaces, he must step out away from his own species.


Onc loves his wife and his children, Hc loves his parents. He respects his colleagues and looks forward to those sympathetic ones of the future and the sharers of the present. tlowtvcr into these new rcatities he must move esscntially alone.


I use the term "new" advisedly, I mcan new to one's self, not neces.sarily to others. Some of these ncalities have been experienced by others in the past. .Some of thc underlying universes within ourselves have been described_ some of thc descriptions are quite far from our prcsent scientific purposes


The spectrum of inner realities is hure, it ntns from the Gnostics, the Cntholies. the Protestants, 'flte I ibetaits, the Budelhists, to rhose of Sir James Jeans Alhert Einstein, Sveclenhorg. tu those of spiritualistic n;culiunts quantottt mechanikers, rocket pioneers astronomers, and extrasensory percepthsnisrs, and the persons lockecl tip in the hospitals and prisons. Some of these htnetetniverse.s arc current dognta, some arc cur cutly outmoded. sotne ate considcrcd dangerous, some arc proscribed, and rome are prescribed.


If one watches the way hc treats his own children's thinking and doing, he can leam much about the shapes of the prescriptions and the proscriptions hc is passing on to them. 12iis insistence on the lines Or cognition is hardly conscious, Hc is hardly aware of what he does to them. A four-year-old talks to an unseen playmate that she has created. How do you react to this situation?

 

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