johannes kreisler
Bluelighter
well [this is very difficult in english], he has this thing with "perinatal matrices" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-_and_perinatal_psychology ). he thinks that the experience of being born is a/the central aspect of psychopathologies as well as (psychedelic) visions.
to make my point I have to reach out:
I'm quite interested in cultural psychology - interactions between culture and individual. fueled by language.
try to see it as an oriental carpet:
"the carpet" is the element you recognize; from a distance it's a motif, a picture. this is "culture".
if you look closer you see that there is a pattern, organized in a strictly organized grid. this is "language". and I do not mean a specific language but the very concept of categorizing and separating reality, to alienate (verfremden) "actual life" (those categories define states - but actual life is a process, not a state), creating dualisms that are more of an (EXTREMELY beneficial) evolutionary artifact than a feature of reality.
and the deepest structure of what we're looking at is the thread. this is consciousness. or ego. still need to elaborate this.
or go deeper.
what's really nice about that idea is the fact that in the history of civilization you can find examples like that:
what has happened here is that the (19th century moroccan) tapestry maker got a motif (by a french businessman looking for easy money with "original handmade morrocan carpets") on plotting paper but did not recognize the difference between the motif an the underlying grid (in black). get it?
the idea might be an opportunity to deconstruct language as a whole...radical as shit but it might be possible - with a lot of work - to make it academically bulletproof. probably needs some empirical neuroshit though. plz don't steal the idea, I might blow it up into a thesis...
back on grof (I didn't explain him all of this^ btw): from my perspective his approach is way too individual. at first it can be falsified by humans delivered by caesarean section. not every child delivered by any other than the natural way is deeply disturbed and so on....the theory is just not consistent. (I was premature and cut out and I can promise you that I had many of the visions grof describes - also some of the pathologies..)
my idea of psychopathology and (some) psychedelic visions is more that of a realization of "the thread", "the grid" and "the motif" - and the inconsistencies between those entities.
this approach is not so much individual but (also) universal.
especially if you take into account the fact that in many cultures there has been the idea of a "golden age" or "eden" - somehow "before things were as they are now". [<-phylogenesis/culture]
and this idea is very similar to ontogenetic/individual concepts - e.g. of paradise. or oceanic feelings.
both - culture and individual - develop(ed) over time form a mystical/numinous state to a state where "something is obviously wrong" (the dualistic state). and the concept of language might be the connector.
-
"dark night
early dawn"
is a nice mantra btw
to make my point I have to reach out:
I'm quite interested in cultural psychology - interactions between culture and individual. fueled by language.
try to see it as an oriental carpet:
"the carpet" is the element you recognize; from a distance it's a motif, a picture. this is "culture".
if you look closer you see that there is a pattern, organized in a strictly organized grid. this is "language". and I do not mean a specific language but the very concept of categorizing and separating reality, to alienate (verfremden) "actual life" (those categories define states - but actual life is a process, not a state), creating dualisms that are more of an (EXTREMELY beneficial) evolutionary artifact than a feature of reality.
and the deepest structure of what we're looking at is the thread. this is consciousness. or ego. still need to elaborate this.
or go deeper. what's really nice about that idea is the fact that in the history of civilization you can find examples like that:
what has happened here is that the (19th century moroccan) tapestry maker got a motif (by a french businessman looking for easy money with "original handmade morrocan carpets") on plotting paper but did not recognize the difference between the motif an the underlying grid (in black). get it?
the idea might be an opportunity to deconstruct language as a whole...radical as shit but it might be possible - with a lot of work - to make it academically bulletproof. probably needs some empirical neuroshit though. plz don't steal the idea, I might blow it up into a thesis...
back on grof (I didn't explain him all of this^ btw): from my perspective his approach is way too individual. at first it can be falsified by humans delivered by caesarean section. not every child delivered by any other than the natural way is deeply disturbed and so on....the theory is just not consistent. (I was premature and cut out and I can promise you that I had many of the visions grof describes - also some of the pathologies..
)my idea of psychopathology and (some) psychedelic visions is more that of a realization of "the thread", "the grid" and "the motif" - and the inconsistencies between those entities.
this approach is not so much individual but (also) universal.
especially if you take into account the fact that in many cultures there has been the idea of a "golden age" or "eden" - somehow "before things were as they are now". [<-phylogenesis/culture]
and this idea is very similar to ontogenetic/individual concepts - e.g. of paradise. or oceanic feelings.
both - culture and individual - develop(ed) over time form a mystical/numinous state to a state where "something is obviously wrong" (the dualistic state). and the concept of language might be the connector.
-
"dark night
early dawn"
is a nice mantra btw
[actually I'd love to disavow academic psychology like wittgenstein tried to disavow philosophy.]
