The Ever-Present Origin

Translator's Preface xv
In memoriam Jean Gebser by Jean Keckeis xviii
List of Illustrations xxiii
Preface xxvii
From the Preface to the Second Edition xxix
From the Preface to the Paperbound Edition xxx
PART ONE: FOUNDATIONS OF THE APERSPECTIVAL WORLD
A CONTRIBUTION TO THE HISTORY OF THE AWAKENING OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Editorial Note regarding the Annotations xxxii
Chapter One: Fundamental Consideration s 1
Origin and the Present 1—Mutations of Consciousness 2 — Aperspec-
tivity and the Whole 3 — Individualism and Collectivism 3 — The Possi-
bility of a New Awareness 4 — The Example of the Aztecs and the
Spaniards 5 — The Transparency of the World 6 — Methodology and
Diaphaneity 7
Chapter Two: The Three European Worlds 9
1. The Unperspectival World 9
Perspective and Space 9 — Spacelessness Synonymous with Egoless-
ness; Cavern and Dolmen; Egypt and Greece 10
2. The Perspectival World 11
The Development of Perspective since Giotto 11 — Petrarch's Discovery
of Landscape 12 — Petrarch's Letter about his Ascent of Mont
Ventoux 13 — The History of Perspective as an Expression of the Awak-
ening Awareness of Space 16 — Eight and Night 17 — Psychic Chain
Reactions 17 — Positive and Negative Effects of Perspectivation 18 —
The Realization of Perspective in Thought by Leonardo da Vinci 19 —
Space: the Theme of the Renaissance 21 — The Age of Segmentation
after 1500 A.D.; Isolation and Collectivism 22 — Time Anxiety and the
Flight from Time Resulting from the Conquest of Space 22
3. The Aperspectival World
Aperspectivity and Integrality 24 — The Moment and the Present; the
Concretion of Time in the Work of Picasso and Braque as a Temporic
Endeavor 24 — The Inflation of Time in Surrealism 26 — The Integral
Character of the Temporic Portrait 27
Chapter Three: The Four Mutations of Consciousness
1. On Evolution, Development, and Mutation
The "New" invariably "above" the previous Reality 36 — The Idea of
Evolution since Duns Scotus and Vico 37 — Mutation instead of Pro-
gress; Plus and Minus Mutations 38 — The Theme of Mutations in Con-
temporary Research 39 — Mutation and Development 40 — Psychic
Inflation as a Threat to Presentiation 43
2. Origin or the Archaic Structure
Origin and Beginning 43 — Identity and Androgyny; Syncretisms and
Encyclopedias; Wisdom and Knowledge; Man without Dreams 44 —
The Archaic Identity of Man and Universe 45
3. The Magic Structure
The One-dimensionality of the Magic World 45 — Magic pars pro
toto 46 — The Cavern: Magic "Space"; The Five Characteristics of
Magic Man 48 — Magic Merging 49 — The Aura; Mouthlessness 55 —
Magic: Doing without Consciousness 60 — The Ear: the Magic
Organ 60
4. The Mythical Structure
Extrication from Vegetative Nature and the Awakening Awareness of
the Soul 61 — Myth as Silence and Speech 64 — Mythologemes of
Awakening Consciousness 69 — The Role of Wrath in the Bhagavadgita
and the Iliad; "Am Odysseus" 71 — The Great "Nekyia" Accounts 72 —
Life as a Dream (Chuang Tzu, Sophocles, Calderon, Shakespeare,
Novalis, Virginia Woolf); the Mythologeme of the Birth of Athena 72
5. The Mental Structure
Ratio and Menis 74 — Disruption of the Mythic Circle by Directed
Thought 75 — The Etymological Roots of the Mental Structure 76 —
The Archaic Smile; the Direction of Writing as an Expression of Awak-
ening Consciousness 78 — Law, Right, and Direction 79 — On the "Law
of the Earth"; The Simultaneity of the Awakening of Consciousness in
China, India, and Greece 79 — The Dionysia and Drama; Person and
Mask; The Individual and the Chorus 81 — The Orphic Tablets 82 —
The Mythical Connotative Abundance of Words and Initial Ontological
Statements 83 — Mythologeme and Philosopheme 84 — The Rianno-
damento; the Consequential Identification of Right and Correct; Polar-
ity and Duality 85 — Trias and Trinity; Ancestor Worship and Child
Worship 86 — Origin of the Symbol 87 — Symbol, Allegory, and For-
mula 88 — Quantification, Sectorization, and Atomization; the Integra-
tion of the Soul 89 — Buddhism and Christianity; The Northwest Shift
of Centers of Culture 90 — The Theory of Projection in Plutarch;
relegio and religio 91 — St. Augustine 92 — The Riannodamento Com-
pleted 93 — The Immoderation of the ratio 94 — Preconditions for the
Continuance of the Earth; the Three Axioms of Being 96
97
6. The Integral Structure
Traditionalists and Evolutionists 98 — The Concretion of Time 99 —
Temporic Inceptions since Pontormo and Desargues 100
Chapter Four: Mutations as an Integral Phenomenon: an Intermediate
Summary 116
1. Cross-Sections through the Structures 116
The Interdependency of Dimensioning and Consciousness 117 — The
Diaphainon; The Signs and Essence of the Structures 118 — The Pres-
ence of Origin; the Symmetry of the Mutations 120
2. A Digression on the Unity of Primal Words 123
An Integral Examination of Language 123 — The Bivalence of the
Roots; the Root Kinship of Cavern and Brightness 126 — Mirror
Roots 127 — The Root Kinship of Deed and Death 128 — The Word
"All" 129
3. A Provisional Statement of Account: Measure and Mass 129
The Four Symmetries of the Mutations 129 — Transcendence as Mere
Spatial Extension 131 — Technology as a Material-physical Projec-
tion 132 — The Anxiety and Cul-de-Sac of our Day 133 — The Itself 134
— Mystery and Destiny; The "Way" of Mankind 136 — Our Ego-
consciousness 137 — The Realization of Death 138 f. — A Glance at a
New "Landscape" 140 — The Possibilities of a New Bearing and Atti-
tude 140
4. The Unique Character of the Structures (Additional Cross Sections) 143
Method and Diaphany 143 — Magic "Receptivity by the Ear" 145 —The
Mythical Language of the Heart 145 — Irrationality, Rationality, Ara-
tionality 147 — Idols, Gods, God; Ritual, Mysteries, Methods 147 — The
Decline and Fall of Matriarchy 149 — Patriarchy 150
5. Concluding Summary: Man as the Integrality of His Mutations 152
Deliberation and Clarification 152 — The Deficient Effects of the Struc-
tures in our Time 153
Chapter Five: The Space-Time Constitution of the Structures 162
1. The Space-Timelessness of the Magic Structure 162
The Magic Role of Prayer and the Miraculous Healings of Lourdes 163
2. The Temporicity of the Mythical Structure 165
The Polarity Principle 166 — The Movement of Temporicity 166 — The
Circularity of Mythical Imagery 167 — The Mythologeme of Kronos 168
— Kronos as an Image of the Nocturnal World 168 — The Emergence
of Temporicity from Timelessness 170 — The Significance of the Root
Sounds K, L, and R 171 f. — On the Mirror Roots 172
3. The Spatial Emphasis of the Mental Structure 173
The Root of the Words meaning "Time"; Time as a Divider 173 — The
Kronos Sacrifice of Dais: the Emergence of Time from Temporicity 174
— The Perversion of Time (The Divider is itself divided) and the Declas-
sification of Time in Western Philosophy 178 — Thought as a Spatial
Process, and the Spatial Emphasis of the Mental Structure 180 — The
Beginning of Change in Space 181
Chapter Six: On the History of the Phenomena of Soul and Spirit 188
1. Methodological Considerations 188
Soul and Time, Thinking and Space 189 — The Apsychic and Amaterial
Possibility of World 189 — On the "Representationality" of the Un-
fathomable Psyche 189 f.
2. The Numinosum, Mana, and the Plurality of Souls 191
Previous Historical Theories 191 — History and the Numinosum 193 —
Mana 194 — The Origin of the Concept of Soul 194 — Souls and the
Soul; Spirits and the Spirit 197 — Life and Death as an Integral
Present 199 — The Numinosum as a Magic Experience 201 f. — The
Relocation of Numinous Provocation 202 — The Ability of Human
Resonance 203 — Consciousness 203 — Erroneous Conclusions of Pos-
tulating the "Unconscious" 204 — Intensification, not Expansion of
Consciousness; Psychic Potencies and the Centering of the Ego 205
3. The Soul's Death-Pole 205
The Symbolism of the Death-Soul 206 — The Egyptian Soul-Bird and
the Angels 207 — Sirens and Muses; Death-Soul and Death Instinct 208
— The Mythologization of Psychology and Physics 209 — The Egyptian
Sail as a Symbol for the Soul; The Lunar Character of the Soul in the
Vedic, Egyptian, and Greek Traditions 210 — The Ambivalence of Each
Pole of the Soul 214
4. The Soul's Life-Pole 215
The Symbolism of the Life-Pole 216 — The Water Symbolism for the
Life Pole 217 — Water as a Trauma of Mankind 219
5. The Symbol of Soul 219
The Chinese T'ai-Ki; the Pre-Tellurian Origin of Primal Symbols;
Estimative and Living Knowledge 220 — Life and Death are not Anti-
thetical 224 — The Winged Dolphin as a Greek Symbol for Soul 225 —
The Journeys to Hades 226 — The Living Knowledge of the Soul 226
6. On the Symbolism of the Spirit 229
Souls and Spirits 229 — Early Concepts of Spirit; the Symbolism of the
Spirit 230 — Spirit and Intellect 231 — Spirits, Spirit, and the
Spiritual 232
Chapter Seven: The Previous Forms of Realization and Thought 248-
1. Dimensioning and Realization 248
The Dependency of Realization on the Dimensioning of the Particular
Structure 249 — The Constitutional Differences of the Individual Forms
of Realization 250
2. Vital Experiencing and Undergone or Psychic Experience 250
Vital Experiencing as a Magic Form of Realization 250 — Undergone
Experience as a Mythical Form of Realization 251
3. Oceanic Thinking 252
Circular Thinking; Oceanos and the World as an Island 252 — Oceanic
Thinking 252
4. Perspectival Thinking 255
The Birth of Mental Thought 255 — The Concept of Perspectivity 255 f.
— The Visual Pyramid and the Conceptual Pyramid 256 — The Spatiality
of Thinking 258
259
5. Paradoxical Thinking
Paradox 259 — The Intersecting Parallels 260 — Left-Right Inversion 261
— The Awakening of the Left 262 — Women's Rights 262 — Left Values
in Contemporary Painting; Diaphany and Verition of the World 263
Chapter Eight: The Foundations of the Aperspectival World 267
1. The Ever-Present Origin (Complementing Cross Sections) 267
The Non-conceptual Nature of the Aperspectival World 267 — The
Perception and Impartation of Truth as Aperspectival Forms of Realiza-
tion 268 — Forms of Bond and Proligio; Praeligio; Origin as Present 271
2. Summation and Prospect 271
The Possibilities for a New Mutation 272 — Superseding psychic and
material Atomization; Mankind's Itself-Consciousness 273 — The Liber-
ation from "Time:" Origin and Present 273
PART TWO: MANIFESTATIONS OF THE APERSPECTIVAL WORLD
AN ATTEMPT AT THE CONCRETION OF THE SPIRITUAL
277
Author's Comment
Interim Word 279
Chapter One: The Irruption of Time 283
1. The Awakening Consciousness of Freedom from Time 283
The Various Time-Forms 284 — The Complexity of "Time" 285 — Time
as an Acategorical Magnitude; System and Systasis 286 — The Revalua-
tion of the Time Concept at the Outset of our Century 286 — Time
Anxiety as a Symptom of our Epoch 288 — Time-Freedom 289
2. The Awakening Consciousness of Integrity or the Whole 289
Purely Spatial Reality 290 — Europe's Decisive Role 290 — Three Exam-
ples 291 — Preconditions for the Awakening Consciousness of the
Whole 292
Chapter Two: The New Mutation 294
1. The Climate of the New Mutation 294
Mutational Periods as Times of Disruption 295 — The Future in us and
in the World 296 — The Mistaken Anthropocentric Belief 299 — Pres-
ence and Efficacy 300
2. The Theme of the New Mutation 301
How did the Steam Engine come to be discovered? 301 — The Consoli-
dation of Spatial Consciousness made possible the New Mutation 302
— Time as an Intensity 304 — Agricultural and Craft Cultures 305 — The
Loss of Nature and Culture 306 — "Time," the Theme of the New
Mutation 306
3. The New Form of Statement 306
Hufeland's "New Strength of Spirit" 307 — The Manifestational Forms
of Time; Temporal Things cannot be Spatially fixed 308 — Philoso-
pheme and Eteologeme; Systasis and Synairesis 309 f.
Chapter Three: The Nature of Creativity 313
1. Creativity as an Originary Phenomenon 313
The Inadequacy of the Psychological Explanation 313 — Statements
from the "Book of Changes" 314 — "The Primal Depths of the Uni-
verse" 315
2. The Nature and Transformation of Poetry 316
The Significance of the "Muse" 317 — The Muse, Musing, and
"Must" 317 — The Muse as a Divinity of the Well-springs, a Power of
Life, and a Creative Force 318 — The Siren (an Anti-Muse) and Rilke
320 — The Individualization of Literature in Lyric Poetry 320 — Htilder-
lin's Decisive Step 323 — The "Supersession of Time" by Hofmannsthal,
and the "Taming of the Muses" by Baudelaire 324 — Mallarme's "New
Obligation" 325 — Valery's "Extreme Self-Consciousness" 326 — T. S.
Eliot's Rejection of the Muses and His Freedom from Ego 326 f. — Hux-
ley and "Time Must have a Stop" 328 — Eluard and Hagen 328 —
Today's Altered Creative Relationship as a Demonstration of the New
Structure of Consciousness 330
Chapter Four: The New Concepts 334
1. Inceptions of the New Consciousness 334
The Spiritual Inception; The Physical Inception 335 — Man is Predi-
cated; The New Dogma of Mary 339
2. The Fourth Dimension 340
The Fourth Dimension is Time-Freedom 340 — N. Hartmann's "Dimen-
sional Categories"; The Non-Euclidian Geometry of Gauss 341 — The
History of the Fourth Dimension; Einstein; The Supersensory as a
Fourth Dimension 342 — The Four-Fold Discovery of Non-Euclidian
Geometry; Gauss and Petrarch 343 — Lambert's "Imaginary
Sphere" 345 — The Magic Adaptation of the Fourth Dimension 348 —
The Mythical Adaptation 349 — The Mental Adaptation 351 — The
"Queen of the Sciences" 354 — On the Essence of Time-Freedom 355
3. Temporics 356
Temporics: The Concern With Time 356 — The Non-conceptual Nature
of Time 358 — Today's Time Anxiety 359 — The Overwhelming Effect of
Time Repressed 359 — Key Words of Aperspectivity 361
Chapter Five: Manifestations of the Aperspectival World (I):
The Natural Sciences 367
1. Mathematics and Physics 367
Descartes and Desargues, Galileo and Newton; Speiser's Set Theory
and Hilbert's System of Axioms 368 — The End of the Mechanistic
World-View of Classical Physics 370 — The Theme of Time in Physics;
The Quantum of Action 371 — Heisenberg's Law; the Age of the Uni-
verse 373 — Heisenberg's "Paradoxes of the Time Concept;" The
Supersession of Dualism by the New Physics 374 f. — The (Arational)
Non-Visualizable Nature of the Present-Day World-View in Physics 376
2. Biology 379
Time as a Quality 381 — Vitalism and Totalitarianism 382 — Portmann's
Recognition of the Spatio-Temporal Structure of all Forms of Life 382 —
The Supersession of Dualism in Biology 384 — Its Emphasis on Inter-
connections instead of Divisions; The Arational Perception of Life 385
Chapter Six: Manifestations of the Aperspectival World (II):
The Sciences of the Mind 393
1. Psychology 393
The Announcement of God's Death; Faust's Journey into "The Void"
and the Discovery of the Layers of the Earth and the Soul 393 — En-
deavors to Grasp the Non-Spatial or Psychic Phenomena 394 — Time in
the Course of Dream Events (Freud), and as "Psychic Energy" (Jung) 396
— The Supersession of Dualism by Jung's Theories of Individuation and
Quaternity 397 — The Dangers of a Psychologized Four-dimensionality
398 — The Visible Manifestation of Arational Time-Freedom; Jung's
"Archetypes" 399
2. Philosophy 402
Heidegger's Eschatological Mood 402 — The Incorporation of
"Time" as a Proper Element into Philosophical Thought; Pascal and
Guardini 404 — Work and Property: Time and Space; Bergson's "Time
and Freedom" 405 — Husserl's "Time Constitution" 406 — Rationality's
Admission of Inadequacy; Reichenbach's "Three Valued Logic" 406 —
"Open Philosophy" 407 — The Supersession of Immanence and
Transcendence by Simmel and Szilasi 408 — The Turn Toward the
Whole and Toward Diaphaneity 409 — The "Sphere of Being" 411 —
The Self-Supersession of Philosophy 411
Chapter Seven: Manifestations of the Aperspectival World (III):
The Social Sciences 418
1. Jurisprudence 418
Custom and Law 418 — Montesquieu's Maxim for Mankind; The Con-
sideration of the Time Factor in the New Jurisprudence 419 — The Mas-
tery of Prerational and Irrational Components of Justice (H. Marti) 420
— The New Right to Work at the Expense of Property 421 — The Super-
session of Dualism in Jurisprudence (W. F. Bargi and Adolf Arndt) 423
— Tendencies toward Arationality in "Open Justice" 424
424
2. Sociology and Economics
Mankind's Descent to Hell? 424 — The Consideration of the Time Fac-
tor; Marxism on a Sidetrack 426 — The New Qualitative Estimation of
Work (L. Preller and A. Lisowsky) 428 — Time and Structure in Sociol-
ogy (W. Tritsch) 429 — The Supersession of Dualism by an Acceptance
of Indeterminism: Marbach (Political Economics), Guardini and Brod
(Sociology), and Lecomte du Noity (Anthropology) 429 — The
Supersession of the Alternative: Individual vs. Collective 430 — The
Supersession of the Idea of a Linear Course of History by Toynbee and
von Salis 432 — The Role of Frobenius' Theory of Cultural Spheres 432
— The Consideration of Contexts instead of Systematization 433 —
Dempf's "Integral Humanism" 434 — The World's Openness 435 —
Alfred Weber's Indication of an "Extraspatio-temporal Understanding"
436 — Indications of new Possibilities of Consciousness in Brain
Research (Lecomte du Noay and H. Spatz) 437
Chapter Eight: Manifestations of the Aperspectival World (IV):
The Dual Sciences 445
The Existence of the Dual Sciences as an Aperspectival Manifestation;
Quantum Biology 445 — Psychosomatic Medicine 446 — Para-
psychology 448
Chapter Nine: Manifestations of the Aperspectival World (V): The Arts 454
1. Music 454
Temporic Attempts in Music; Stravinsky's Coming-to-Terms with
Time 455 — Busoni; Krenek's New Valuation of Time 456 — The Super-
session of the Major-Minor Dualism 458 — Liszt, Debussy and "Open
Music" 459 — Music's Attempt to Realize Arationality 460 — Pfrogner's
Conception of a Four-dimensional Music 461 — The "Spiritualization of
Music" 462 — Debussy's "Spherical Tonality" 463
2. Architecture 464
Architecture: The sociological Art 464 — The Solution of the Time Prob-
lem by the New Architecture; "Fluid Space;" Wright's "Organic Archi-
tecture" 465 — The "Free Plan" and the "Free Curve;" "Open Space"
and the Supersession of the Dualism of Inside and Outside 467 — The
Arationality and Diaphaneity of the New Architecture 468
3. Painting 470
Precursors of the New Mode of Perception: Hissli, Gericault,
Delacroix; Cezanne's Spherical Representational Space 471 — The
Fourth Dimension and the Cubists 476 — Simultaneity is not Time-
Freedom 477 — The Supersession of Dualism Initiated by the Use of
Complementary Colors 478 — Its Continuation by Cezanne; Klee and
Gris; The Loss of the Middle not a Loss but a Gain of the Whole 479 —
The Arationality of the New Painting: Picasso's Lack of Intent and the
"Open Figures" of Lhote 480 — The "Hidden Structure" of Things
(Picasso); The "World without Opposites" a Gain of Being Together,
not a Loss 481 — Impressionism, Pointillism, Primitivism, Fauvism,
Expressionism, Futurism, Cubism, and Surrealism as Temporic
Attempts 481 — "In the Origin of Creation" (Klee); The "Roots of the
World" (Cezanne) 483 —Diaphaneity in the Works of Leger, Matisse,
and Picasso 486
4. Literature 487
Literature as the History of the Date-less 487 — An Aphorism of
HOlderlin 489 — The Theme of Time in Poetry 490 — The New
Estimation of the Word since Hdlderlin and Leopardi 491 — And in
French, Spanish, English, and German Poetry 491 — The Psychic
Element from Romanticism to James Joyce; Expressionists, Dadaists,
Surrealists, Nihilists, Infantilists, and Pseudo-Myth-Makers as Destroyers
of Rigidified Forms 492 — Proust's Struggle for Time-Freedom 494 —
The Spatio-temporal Mode of Writing in the Work of Joyce and Musil;
Virginia Woolf, Thomas Mann, and Herman Hesse and the Time-
Problem 495 — The Recent Americans and Hermann Broch; Musil's
Maxim and the Post-War Generation 496 — Hopkins and Eliot 497 —
Inversions and Stylistic Fractures as an Expression of the Revaluation of
Time (Rilke and Mallarme) 497 — The Aperspectival Use of the
Adjective 498 — The Rejection of "Because" and Simile: a Rejection of
Perspectival Fixity 499 — The New Use of the Comparative as an
Aperspectival Relation; the New Beginnings with "And" 499 — The
New, Aperspectival Rhyme in European Poetry 501 — The Supersession
of Dualism and the New Attitude toward Death 502 — The Arationality
of the New Poetry; the Diaphaneity of Guillen, Eliot, and Valery 503 —
Aperspectival Poetry and Aperspectival Physics 504
Chapter Ten: Manifestations of the Aperspectival World (VI): Summary 528
1. The Aperspectival Theme 528
The Necessity of a New Awakening of Consciousness 528 — The Apers-
pectival Themata; Praeligio 529 — Aperspectival Reality 529
2. Daily Life 530
The Completion of the Mutation in the Public Consciousness 530 —
Factory and Office as our Self-imposed Falsifications of Time; Free
Time and Time-Freedom 531—Necessary Achievements for the
Individual 532
Chapter Eleven: The Two-Fold Task 535
Spengler's Self-Relinquishment and Our Task 535 — The Perils in the
Various Areas of our Thinking and Action during our Transitional
Age 536
Chapter Twelve: The Concretion of the Spiritual 541
Mental Thought and Spiritual Verition ("Awaring"); The Spiritual is not
Spirit but Diaphaneiw ( Transparency); Concrescere, the Coalescence
of the Spiritual with our Consciousness as the Concretion of the Spiri-
tual 542 — Integrity or the Whole 543
Postscript 545
Remarks on Etymology 548
Prefatory Note 548
1. The Root "kel" 549
2. The Root Group "qer:ger (gher):ker" 550
3. The Root Group "kel:gel:qel" 555
4. The Mirror Roots "regh" and "leg" 557
5. The Root "da:di" 558
Index of Names 563
Index of Subjects 577
Synoptic Table