The Ever-Present Origin, Part 1: Foundations of the Aperspectival World (Publications of the International Jean Gebser Society, English Series, No. 1) [Paperback]

Jean Gebser (Author), Noel Barstad (Contributor), Algis Mickunas (Contributor)

Product Details

• Paperback: 646 pages
• Publisher: Ohio University Press (August 31, 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0821407694
• ISBN-13: 978-0821407691
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #200,491 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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68 of 70 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gebser's Magnum Opus, August 26, 2001

By 

Hans W. Gruenig (New Orleans, LA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Ever-Present Origin, Part 1: Foundations of the Aperspectival World (Publications of the International Jean Gebser Society, English Series, No. 1) (Paperback)

This book is not a light read. However it is a fascinating read penned by one of Europe's hidden philosophical treasures: Jean Gebser. The Ever-Present Origin is a translation of _Ursprung und Gegenwart_, a book which was published in German in two parts around 1949 and 1953. The central contribution of this book is Gebser's analysis of the history of culture -- mainly but not exclusively Western culture -- in terms of the predominance of different modes of consciousness. Gebser details five structures of consciousness: the archaic, the magical, the mythical, the mental, and the integral (or aperspectival). His theory seems to be that these structures unfold in a sequential but non-linear fashion (i.e. in quantum increases in the self-transparency of consciousness), and have different kinds of characteristic ways of experiencing self, other, and world. With each leap, the previous structures of consciousness are superceded and yet retained in a subordinate fashion. Meanwhile, the other structures lie largely latent and untapped. VERY briefly, the archaic is instinctual and primitive. The magical is tribal and involves participation mystique. The mythical is imaginative and often involves seeing through complementary polarities (darkness and light, good and evil). The mental is analytical, dualistic, and skeptical of the other structures of consciousness. And the integral structure allows for a re-membering of all of the structures of consciousness without the problematic reification of their respective "worlds". The integral or aperspectival structure additionally involves going beyond the previous four structures in something akin to Buddhist or Christian (a la Meister Eckhart) enlightenment as understood in terms of the perennial philosophy. If you're looking for an easier read, Georg Feuerstein's introduction to Gebser (titled _Structures of Consciousness: The Genius of Jean Gebser_) is a good place to start. If you're looking for a place to continue similar explorations, much of Ken Wilbur's work is largely based on synthesizing Gebser's theory of structures of consciousness with other developmental models. [I give Wilbur and A for effort, but I am very skeptical about a number of his syntheses.]

46 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Addendum to Gruenig review, March 9, 2002

By 

Dr. Gary Seeman (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Ever-Present Origin, Part 1: Foundations of the Aperspectival World (Publications of the International Jean Gebser Society, English Series, No. 1) (Paperback)

Hans Gruenig has given an excellent overview of Gebser's monumental work. My review offers a sort of color commentary to augment Gruenig's words. The Ever-Present Origin, which has a generic-looking cover, is an extraordinarily rich survey of art, science, culture, and symbolism from an author who achieved more than scholarly excellence. In a letter written to Georg Feuerstein, Gebser acknowledged achieving satori (see the Feuerstein book cited by Gruenig). A transcendent consciousness shines through this book. One of its highlights is Gebser's scholarly survey of the evolution of soul. Gebser's vision was formed in part through his friendship and acquaintence with many of the leading people of his time, including Einstein, Picasso, and Jung. Although he taught for awhile at the C. G. Jung Institute in Zurich, he asserts an independent vision. An essential Gebserian contribution is his subsuming of the scientific worldview. That worldview crystallized with the linear perspective geometry of the Italian Renaissance, a drawing technique that artificially separated subject and object. Gebser convincingly demonstrates the emergence of an integral consciousness where the time and space of "objectivity" no longer offer an adequate description of our world or personal experience. This book is a masterpiece, written in simple, somewhat repetitive language. It is quite readable, though a bit awkward in translation.

45 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Neglected Masterpiece of Western Philosophy, April 9, 2007

By 

John David Ebert (United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Ever-Present Origin, Part 1: Foundations of the Aperspectival World (Publications of the International Jean Gebser Society, English Series, No. 1) (Paperback)

Jean Gebser does not get the same kind of exposure as Heidegger or Jung, but his thinking belongs to, and organically evolves out of, the tradition of German thinking that began with Goethe and Kant and continues right down through Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Rudolf Steiner, Oswald Spengler and others. And what this tradition of thought has common to it is the notion that there is no such thing as an object that is not conditioned by the phenomenological faculties of the subject. Kant, Schopenhauer, Husserl and Heidegger resolve this problem in various ways, but with each of them, it is the subject, not the object, that is of overriding philosophical importance in our experience of the world around us.

What Gebser tried to do in this book was to give a kind of phenomenological grounding to the human being's experience of the world not in terms of Kantian categories, but in terms of various evolutionarily derived structures of conscious which the human bears within itself. That is to say, earlier consciousness structures, such as those of tribal man or literate man of the high Bronze Age civilizations, do not just disappear, but sleep latently within the psyche as valid experiential modes unto themselves. Certain life experiences will activate and call forth these modalities, and once the consciousness structure has been activated, it actually changes the very physics of the experiences which the subject has. In the Magical consciousness structure, for example, space and time are a point-like unity in which there are no dimensions, since the world is intricately interconnected through magical pathways like the songlines of aboriginal Australia. Magic actually, really does work when this consciousness is activated (hence the reality of synchronicities and the like). The rational consciousness structure has its own laws, too, and the structure of its interior is that of a three dimensional world in which time and space are radically distinct from one another, and in which the subject and the object are locked into a fierce opposition. Magic is invalidated within this highly differentiated structure, which is evolutionarily late, since this consciousness is something that always evolves in late phases of culture or in the history of civilization generally speaking, just as the intellect does not function fully in accordance with its own powers until one reaches maturity.

Gebser's philosophy is a wonderful antidote to Jungian typology and formulae, since he creates a kind of philosophical architecture out of the collective unconscious, while leaving the theory of archetypes behind. Gebser, however, is no Jungian, and despite his having taught at the Jung Institute in Switzerland, never was one.

Gebser's philosophy also evolved as a kind of antidote to the pessimism of Spengler's vision in The Decline of the West. What Spengler missed was the advent of the aperspectival epoch that began to emerge during the latter half of the nineteenth century. Whereas Spengler experienced the decline of European culture forms--such as the abolishment of perspective in painting, or the leaving behind of Newtonian physics in Einstein--Gebser realized that what was really going on was the transcendence of the Rational consciousness structure and the emergence of a supra- (not ir- or non-) rational consciousness in which the laws of the Mental structure were in process of being relativized to a specific experiential domain, just as Einstein's physics relativized the applicability of Newtonian laws to a specific domain of validity. Thus, the Decline of the West is really about the Decline of the perspectival (i.e. late rational) consciousness structure, and this is where Gebser's philosophy begins. (Perhaps not coincidentally, it is also where Marshall McLuhan saw a shift into the electric modality of culture; indeed, McLuhan and Gebser have a great deal in common when one looks closely at their ideas.)

In short, if you are interested in the development of Western, and particularly Germanic philosophy, then you cannot afford to ignore Gebser. Academics may do so for some time to come, since the spiritual implications of his Integral structure makes them uneasy. And what also repels academics about Gebser is the fact that he has been taken up by New Agers like Ken Wilber (who, as is so often the case with Wilber, thoroughly misunderstands him) and Richard Tarnas, with whom academics want absolutely nothing to do. And who can blame them? The New Age kitsch of such "thinkers" is a mediocratization of philosophy and all it does is sully the image of such true geniuses as Rudolf Steiner and Jean Gebser in the public's perception.

Try Gebser. You'll like him. But you shouldn't try reading around him with "substitute" works by Georg Feurstein or Ken Wilber. These thinkers are not good representatives of Gebser's thought, since they bring their own private agendas to bear upon him, and end up distorting his ideas. To really experience the dazzling brilliance of this man's mind, you must read his dense prose for yourself. Preferably with a strong cup of coffee in hand.
(SEE ALSO MY LECTURE ON JEAN GEBSER ON YOU TUBE)
--John David Ebert,
author of "The New Media Invasion: Digital Technologies and the World They Unmake" (McFarland Books, 2011)