A Secret History of Consciousness [Paperback]

Gary Lachman (Author), Colin Wilson (Foreword)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1584200111 | ISBN-13: 978-1584200116 | Publication Date: May 1, 2003

For the last four centuries, science has tried to account for everything in terms of atoms and molecules and the physical laws they adhere to. Recently, this effort was extended to try to include the inner world of human beings. Gary Lachman argues that this view of consciousness is misguided and unfounded. He points to another approach to the study and exploration of consciousness that erupted into public awareness in the late 1800s. In this "secret history of consciousness," consciousness is seen not as a result of neurons and molecules, but as responsible for them; meaning is not imported from the outer world, but rather creates it. In this view, consciousness is a living, evolving presence whose development can be traced through different historical periods, and which evolves along a path to a broader, more expansive state. What that consciousness may be like and how it may be achieved is a major concern of this book . Lachman concentrates on the period since the late 1800s, when Madame Blavatsky first brought the secret history out into the open. As this history unfolds, we encounter the ideas of many modern thinkers, from esotericists like P. D. Ouspensky, Rudolf Steiner, and Colin Wilson to more mainstream philosophers like Henri Bergson, William James, Owen Barfield and the psychologist Andreas Mavromatis. Two little known but important thinkers play a major role in his synthesis-Jurij Moskvitin, who showed how our consciousness relates to the mechanisms of perception and to the external world, and Jean Gebser, who presented perhaps the most impressive case for the evolution of consciousness. An important contribution to the study of consciousness ... a must-read.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'Sophisticated and impressive. Moving from meditations on prehistoric and Neanderthal consciousness to the 'irruptions of time' wrought on us by the pace of life and the 'simultaneities' of digital media and the Internet, Secret History of Consciousness packs a powerful punch. 9 out of 10 -- a white-water ride.' -- Mike Jay, Fortean Times 'In this remarkable book, Lachman has approached the subject from many different angles [and] offers ideas from many thinkers, providing a rich mix. Well worth the effort, and a book to go back to again and again.' -- Pamela Allsop, Light: A Review of Spiritual and Psychic Knowledge, Winter 2004 'What is lucidly and insightfully drawn together in this book is not so much a secret history as a neglected history. It can be read with profit both by those interested in the nature of consciousness and in the history of reflections upon its nature and characteristics. It is well referenced and has a helpful bibliography. This is a book which I would wish to refer to again.' -- Kevin Tingay, Christian Parapsychologist, March 2004 'There is much of interest in this informative work.' -- The Beacon, July 2004 'A useful and thought-provoking book, clearly and enthusiastically written and neatly contextualising many ideas. For those who have read deeply but not widely it will be an excellent overview and introduction to Steiner's antecedents and contemporaries.' -- Pat Cheney, New View, Autumn 2003 'A marvellously exhilarating gallop through every important modern theory of consciousness, from Steiner to Maslow, from Bucke's "cosmic consciousness" to Gebser's "integral consciousness".' -- Colin Wilson, author of The Occult and Mysteries 'Highly readable and interesting.' -- Greenock Telegraph, 10 October 2003 'A must read for those seeking an escape from our contemporary culture's cul-de-sac.' -- Daniel Pinchbeck, author of Breaking Open The Head 'Lachman challenges many contemporary theories by reinserting a sense of the spiritual back into the discussion ... Profoundly erudite, yet easy to read, this book is a provocative mind-stretcher.' -- Leonard Schlain, author of The Alphabet Versus the Goddess 'This book is itself a cultural correction to the overemphasis on the material aspect of life.' -- David Lorimer, Scientific and Medical Network Review, Spring 2007

About the Author

Gary Lachman is the former bass player and composer for Blondie, the guitarist for Iggy Pop, and leader of his own groups The Know and Fire Escape. He has written for the Times Literary Supplement, Literary Review and Mojo. He is the author of Turn Off Your Mind: The Mystic Sixties and the Dark Side of the Age of Aquarius (2000) and New York Rocker (2002). He lives in London.

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Lindisfarne Books (May 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1584200111
• ISBN-13: 978-1584200116
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #738,882 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

42 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Extraordinarily Well-Researched and Insightful, June 26, 2006

By 

Dr. Richard G. Petty (Atlanta) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Secret History of Consciousness (Paperback)

I read a great many books, and most seem to have one or two new ideas or a re-hash of something familiar. So it's easy to get the gist of most of them and to move on.

But then there are some books to savor. Books that demand care and focus. Most of these demanding books soon become covered in notes, comments and annotations, and if I feel that people might be helped by a review, it is these that make the cut. I have now read three of Gary Lachman's books: this one, The Dedalus Book of the Occult: A Dark Muse, and Turn off Your Mind. All three have been excellent and demanding.

Gary is evidently an interesting person. A former musician and composer with the band Blondie, he first began his explorations of consciousness between gigs. But unlike so many of his generation, he decided to do something less ephemeral than soak himself in psychedelics.

This book is an exploration of the possibility and the potential that we have to transform our consciousness, not just personally but also as a society. This is not an idle preoccupation: many of us feel that we must transform if we are to survive as a species. Yet there is also another piece to this: if and when we transform, that transformation is associated with its own parcel of challenges. Over the last few centuries, we have already begun to change physically and psychologically, and these changes help explain the rapid emergence and evolution of new laws of life and of healing.

Gary Lachman has something in common with Colin Wilson, who contributed a deeply insightful forward to the book. Both have felt feelings of boredom and dissatisfaction with the world as it is, and these feelings have propelled them to see what else is out there. Like many people before him, Gary went off on a round of pilgrimages and retreats before re-discovering that the answers are always in the same place: within the human heart and mind.

This book reviews most of the major theories of consciousness from Helena Blavatsky, to Rudolf Steiner, to Gurdjieff and Jean Gebser. It is extremely well written: Gary Lachman is remarkably erudite, yet I managed to read the whole thing for the first time during a flight across the Pacific. It was enthralling from start to finish. I was particularly pleased to see him give a lot of space to a discussion of the work of Andreas Mavromatis, which is not as well known as it should be. Mavromatis has done a lot of work on hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucination: those strange phenomena that most of us have experienced as we are falling asleep or waking. They appear to be a unique state of consciousness that give us important clues about the structure of perception and of conscious experiences.

For anyone interested in consciousness and where we may be headed as a species this book is highly recommended.

24 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exceptional Access To The Unconscious, January 12, 2005

By 

Robert S. Robbins (Williamsport, PA USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: A Secret History of Consciousness (Paperback)

I don't believe consciousness evolved but this book is a good overview of various theories as to how it could have evolved. I suspect that if you could experience another's mind, you would find significant differences in consciousness even within our present time. The mind of somebody else would seem like an alien world to you. Anyone who possesses exceptional access to their unconscious mind is aware of how alien and distorted its perception can be and this distortion of perception is even present, in a very subtle manner, during full consciousness.

The author does explore an interesting concept, duo-consciousness, the hypnagogic state between sleep and consciousness in which it is possible to dream while being partially awake. He even speculates about consciously induced hypnogogia, the first reference to this secret ability I've seen in print. But he does not go far enough in his speculation. Given exceptional access to the unconscious it is possible to enter the hypnagogic state at will. It is possible to awaken the unconscious into activity by consciously recalling dream imagery, even snatches of long forgotten dreams, and thereby bring it into a near conscious state to the point of experiencing irrational fears. More interesting, it is possible to acquire some of the imaginative capabilities of the dream state and create highly unexpected mental imagery as random, mild hallucinations which are nevertheless subject to some conscious direction towards specific images. This is day dreaming empowered with the faculty of true dreaming! Baudelaire once described this as the poet's gift to dream exceptionally well.

While some occultists believe that exceptional access to the unconscious means peering into other dimensions, and gaining the faculty of the true dreamer would be real magic, there is little experiential evidence that supports such an interpretation. Rather it is the degree of the dissociative state that creates the sense of other dimensions or alien thoughts. The conscious mind cannot associate mental imagery from the unconscious with the self because it is too unfamiliar. However, long familiarity with the unconscious and its mental imagery can create a sense of familiarity which overcomes the dissociative state.

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Consummate Survey, September 24, 2003

By 

Neil Bishop (PETALUMA, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Secret History of Consciousness (Paperback)

Gary Lachman, the author of the highly engaging Turn Off Your Mind, has, with this new work, again written a very lively account of a part of modern intellectual history. This book traces the development, from the late 19th century up to our own time, of the idea of the collective transformation of human consciousness, both the evidence of such evolution in the past, and speculation about future evolution. A fascinating array of thinkers is presented, at a pace that is fast but not superficial. Even readers who are already familiar with these thinkers will find much to engage their minds and send them off into profound reflections of their own. One important measure of this book's success is that it has inspired this reader to go directly to the works of the authors covered.