Incontrovertible Participation Mystique of 1492

Priests traveling across kealakekua bay for first contact rituals by John Webber

PARTICIPATION MYSTIQUE is a term derived from Lévy-Bruhl. It denotes a peculiar kind of psychological connection with objects, and consists in the fact that the subject cannot clearly distinguish himself from the object but is bound to it by a direct relationship which amounts to partial identity. (Jung, [1921] 1971: paragraph 781). Psychological Types, Collected Works, Volume 6, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

Although Levy-Bruhl later went against his own logic and recanted his theory, Jung continued to affirm his theoretical suppositions.

He later retracted this term under pressure of adverse criticism, but I believe that his critics were wrong. It is a well-known psychological fact that an individual may have an unconscious identity with some other person or object (Jung et. al., 1964:24). Man and His Symbols, New York, N.Y.: Anchor Books, Doubleday.

Jung quotes from Wikipedia article, "Participation mystique"

Related article, "Particpation mystique: mythological cosmologies are functions of dreams and visions" on Mythic Dreams

It is wildly fascinating when we apply the logic of "participation mystique" to the impact of the mythic 1492 first contact, as the beginning time when dream and reality were clearly delineated in global history. Dream being the riches of the orient and our pre-contact Eurocentric notions of the world and Reality being another continent inhabited by non-Christian and thriving societies. Both of these two separate European lenses through which the Americas were experienced illustrate the post-virginal spring of absolute earthly delusion, and thus our entire consensual knowledge base, commenced.

Indeed, our "unconscious identity with some other person or object" has moved from the unconscious to the subconscious of our collective national consciousness, and only fully bloomed in the mind of each individual of mindful conscience.

_________

On a concert stage, a fantastically roomy floor for our world fusion quartet, my wife plays on the zheng, and our friend masters the Indian tabla drums, while I gather Middle Eastern style percussion and touches on woodwind. A guest to our homebound trio takes center stage. He is an expert percussionist on the Turkish davul. 

Odalisque with Slave by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres and Paul Flandrin

When the music begins, he takes the lead rhythm by storm, without mind to our accompaniment. He is so overly animated in his egotistical inertia. I become exceedingly frustrated, so much so that I stop playing altogether, and it seems our other percussionist is contemplating the same. As I talk with my wife about the unseemly course of events, he stops playing as well and begins handing out gifts to the audience, smilingly captivating them with an open charisma that effectively portrays our music with underhanded nonsense. For me that’s the last straw. I grab a glass of milk and throw it at him as I walk out in disgust.

Internal view of the O'Neil cylinder by Donal Davis

On the street outside the concert hall, industrial trucking and convenience store culture intermingle in an altogether drab disarray of poverty and addiction. Over-the-hill men glare at me, wondering about their next fix with vampire teeth and screwy eyes. I silently glide past, entering the dismal folly of a culture affixed to the worthless distractions of fame and light personified in an attractive male with the maturity of an anxious adolescent. I won’t return, and the horizon is still empty. 

_________

Morose, pangs stir my subtle breath, walking up the nerves,
To break down with laughter and see ocean’s rise
From the abysmal core of first being,

The naked home of belief,
Cradling Lover’s net
As a down-pressed skeleton, chained with ire

...

Coldly moving from place to place
Like numbers spit into the viral joke of God
Seeing white rice burn to blackish brown on the needy plate of the human universe

Believed so beautifully
In the back of a working man’s mind,
Stepping to the bold indecision of a wakeful conspiring

...

Across pyramids, tunneled to the foot of known reason
Yet, to be detached from an able body
Now roasting at the offering spit and waiting for mass death

To plummet from our towers, piercing heaven with a sufferer’s torment
Across worlds, times and into the imagined memory of the once-respected
Human insanity behind the art of the worldly races

excerpts from "Art of the Worldly Races"

The Rare Beauty & Genuine Inspiration of Hawaii

Shaman by Arman Manookian

"His was the dream of creating in color a great symphony of beauty." writes Arthur Greene, in a eulogy for Arman Manookian, who committed suicide at 31, renowned as the Van Gogh of Hawaiian art

Another contemporary artist from Calgary, inspired by Hawaii, Shane Haltman, featured my comment on a recent blog post where he writes, "I can honestly say that my dreams brought me to this place and thanks to some serendipity and a beautiful community made up of some loving individuals, I am here living my dream...The current is strong here, the energy always present, and this makes for an artists dream." from Engraved memories

_______

The narrow birch forest is consuming at dusk. Spindly cerebral mycelium tangle upwards in a drowning lonesome tank of damp musk and potent swampland, the decomposition is palpable. Rain is on the mind of the sky as the deep gray clouds swarm above with unreasonable drear. As I notice a hobbling duck push into the delicate, unmoving waters, an enormous hawk, silent from its treetop perch, readies to assail. In one deft sweep, massive talons emerge from the underbelly of the raptorial bird, eyeing to snatch its unusual prey. The duck, a female, is raised into the unforgiving sky, its feathers soaked with blood on its side as it surrenders to the predation, paralyzed. Fear evaporates with the humid environment as a cyclical rendering of atmospheric hosts. 

_______

Birds

"To see a wounded bird, is fateful of deep sorrow caused by erring offspring. To see flying birds, is a sign of prosperity to the dreamer. All disagreeable environments will vanish before the wave of prospective good...Carl Jung said that birds represent thoughts while birds in flight symbolize moving and changing thoughts. Birds are generally associated with freedom and abandon. In old dream interpretation books birds are considered lucky omens..." (iDream)

_______

an imaginary depth, dropping my body into death's dream
through naturally engraved aquatic pores,

a doorway into the underworld,
final

...

profoundly empty, yet potent and with sure steps,
a foundation, on which to Love, between the speechless universe,
a mold, created and destroyed, balanced and perfected,
known through a dissemination flown to the ten thousand directions by an anonymous author,
spontaneous mastery, always falling,
multitudes' sinking vessels,
round the last leg,
towards a pathless sojourning,
rare & genuine

- excerpt from "rare & genuine"

Dream Interrogations and Literal Family Torture from Montego Bay

Port-en-Bessin, Entrance to the Harbor by Georges Seurat

Why are waking notions of the word dream a synonym for something to attain…where as in the notion of a subconscious dreaming, the word dream connotes a separate reality. Where is the relationship between these two associations? Is the difference between waking and subconscious perspective or in the idea of dream itself?

I am sitting at my grandmother’s couch in coastal Massachusetts. She shows me a pop can with Chinese characters on it, and mentions something about Hawaii. Next, my mother offers my wife and I a trip to the Caribbean. Through a song of my uncle about Montego Bay, I imagine I am in Montego Bay. The hotel resort is as one would typically imagine an upscale hotel resort in the Caribbean to appear. In my hotel room, however, my toes and fingers and parts of my chest and head are being wired to a torture device that my stepfather is operating. I attempt an escape from the hotel resort, but it turns into a kind of Cretan Labyrinth, where the Taurus is my own family.