Consciousness Change

Consciousness change

Is some form of consciousness change a viable and new source of rapid change in the metacrisis? The metacrisis is a product of our consciousness after all. In the modern scientific age we are at the culmination of a long historical process we all bought into 100%. The Enlightenment Project. The Age of Reason. The creation of modern White Men and Women. We are an enthusiastic part of this tradition. We are its climax and catastrophe.

It seems we have all forgotten the deal that we made to attain this kind of intellectual power. We all agreed to a social contract that would shape us all into engineers and scientists and good citizens and rational thinkers. To do this we agreed to the sacrifice of our body and to the earth to some extent because we believed they were obstacles to our goal of becoming rational and developing our intellectual powers.

We sacrificed our bodies and the earth but we also sacrifice our myth and tradition, our heart and faith and what is sacred.

Don’t you remember the old social contract we made that is the same one we are struggling with now? The earth we believed was primitive and dirty, chaotic and dangerous, ruled by the survival of the fittest in a constant struggle for survival. We all moved to the cities and then we brought the cities back to where we came from. We lost the earth.

We agreed that our bodies were shameful and sinful and would make us do bad things. Sex was shameful and secret and dirty. Mathematics was pure. The physics of thermonuclear explosion was a form of purity and truth.

What we didn’t realize was that we were giving up our animal intelligence in the bargain. A history of hierarchy and power-over dulled our instinctive but embodied sense of harmony’s cooperation and power-with. We ended up sacrificing our animal intelligence to the point that we now deny it was ever there.

However we now know scientifically and palpably that it is there and moreover we know exactly where it is located in the body. We know moreover that this core system of the body that is so fundamental to our identity must always be there as a necessary part of the function of our body. It is as central as our axial line—and this is where it is located.

If you deny the possibility of consciousness change as a significant solution to our problems then what does this say about you as a person? What makes you think that you understand enough about the metacrisis and about human nature to rule out the possibility? Why do you think that your opinion matters when so many people in so many different disciplines from scientific research and neuroscience, philosophy, psychology the arts and literature, writers and teachers and religious thinkers are looking for just this thing?

Where is the compassion and curiosity and respect in your constant reactive veto? Wasn’t the climate crisis itself treated this way? Aren’t you making the same mistake? Do you think that because you became collapse aware that somehow that itself was not a consciousness change or that was the only possible consciousness change? Do you see how ridiculous and presumptuous and arrogant that is?

Remember we are all in this together. You are not the person in charge of the truth. Instead be the humble person who’s experience of coming to awareness inspires you to seek further growth.

Consciousness change can be very practical. It is a very human way of being adaptive and resilient. We can change our consciousness in a moment, on the fly, and we do it intentionally all the time. We decide to be nice, to listen, to be quiet, or fierce or hopeful or closed off. Consciousness change is what it means to be human.

Consciousness change is important and is now something we can activate anatomically and practically within our body at a level of metastability sufficient to address the metacrisis. If you don’t know how this happens or if it is possible then don’t assume that your ignorance proves your point.