As the practical value of altering consciousness becomes recognized, procedures to effect these alterations will become increasingly ordinary and unremarkable. The whole concept of changing states of consciousness will cease to have a threatening or exotic aspect.
In conscious life, we achieve some sense of ourselves as reasonably unified, coherent selves, and without this action would be impossible. But all this is merely at the __maginary_ level of the ego, which is no more than the tip of the iceberg of the human subject known to psychoanalysis. The ego is function or effect of a subject which is always dispersed, never identical with itself, strung out along the chains of the discourses which constitute it. There is a radical split between these two levels of being _ a gap most dramatically exemplified by the act of referring to myself in a sentence. When I say __omorrow I will mow the lawn,_ the ___ which I pronounce is an immediately intelligible, fairly stable point of reference which belies the murky depths of the ___ which does the pronouncing. The former ___ is known to linguistic theory as the __ubject of the enunciation_, the topic designated by my sentence; the latter ___, the one who speaks the sentence, is the __ubject of the enunciating_, the subject of the actual act of speaking. In the process of speaking and writing, these two _____ seem to achieve a rough sort of unity; but this unity is of an imaginary kind. The __ubject of the enunciating_, the actual speaking, writing human person, can never represent himself or herself fully in what is said: there is no sign which will, so to speak, sum up my entire being. I can only designate myself in language by a convenient pronoun. The pronoun ___ stands in for the ever-elusive subject, which will always slip through the nets of any particular piece of language; and this is equivalent to saying that I cannot __ean_ and __e_ simultaneously. To make this point, Lacan boldly rewrites Descartes__ __ think, therefore I am_ as: __ am not where I think, and I think where I am not.
Literary Theory: An Introduction
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In conscious life, we achieve some sense of ourselves as reasonably unified, coherent selves, and without this action would be impossible. But all this is merely at the __maginary_ level of the ego, which is no more than the tip of the iceberg of the human subject known to psychoanalysis. The ego is function or effect of a subject which is always dispersed, never identical with itself, strung out along the chains of the discourses which constitute it. There is a radical split between these two levels of being _ a gap most dramatically exemplified by the act of referring to myself in a sentence. When I say __omorrow I will mow the lawn,_ the ___ which I pronounce is an immediately intelligible, fairly stable point of reference which belies the murky depths of the ___ which does the pronouncing. The former ___ is known to linguistic theory as the __ubject of the enunciation_, the topic designated by my sentence; the latter ___, the one who speaks the sentence, is the __ubject of the enunciating_, the subject of the actual act of speaking. In the process of speaking and writing, these two _____ seem to achieve a rough sort of unity; but this unity is of an imaginary kind. The __ubject of the enunciating_, the actual speaking, writing human person, can never represent himself or herself fully in what is said: there is no sign which will, so to speak, sum up my entire being. I can only designate myself in language by a convenient pronoun. The pronoun ___ stands in for the ever-elusive subject, which will always slip through the nets of any particular piece of language; and this is equivalent to saying that I cannot __ean_ and __e_ simultaneously. To make this point, Lacan boldly rewrites Descartes__ __ think, therefore I am_ as: __ am not where I think, and I think where I am not.
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There is a species of primate in South America more gregarious than most other mammals, with a curious behavior.The members of this species often gather in groups, large and small, and in the course of their mutual chattering , under a wide variety of circumstances, they are induced to engage in bouts of involuntary, convulsive respiration, a sort of loud, helpless, mutually reinforcing group panting that sometimes is so severe as to incapacitate them. Far from being aversive,however, these attacks seem to be sought out by most members of the species, some of whom even appear to be addicted to them....the species in Homo sapiens (which does indeed inhabit South America, among other places), and the behavior is laughter.
There is nothing like fear to complicate one's consciousness, inducing previously unknown levels of reflection
People can not be separated from their environment. Living consciousness is not an isolated unit. Human consciousness is increasing the order of the rest of the world and has an incredible power to heal ourselves and the world: in a certain sense we make the world as such, as we wish.
Real joy means immediate expansion. If we experience pure joy, immediately our heart expands. We feel that we are flying in the divine freedom-sky. The entire length and breadth of the world becomes ours, not for us to rule over, but as an expansion of our consciousness. We become reality and vastness.
A group experience takes place on a lower level of consciousness than the experience of an individual. This is due to the fact that, when many people gather together to share one common emotion, the total psyche emerging from the group is below the level of the individual psyche. If it is a very large group, the collective psyche will be more like the psyche of an animal, which is the reason why the ethical attitude of large organizations is always doubtful. The psychology of a large crowd inevitably sinks to the level of mob psychology. If, therefore, I have a so-called collective experience as a member of a group, it takes place on a lower level of consciousness than if I had the experience by myself alone.