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Discussion

Gebser’s Temporics in Relation to Evolution of Consciousness

Jennifer Gidley:

"Temporics is an expression of . . . endeavors to bring to consciousness the abundance and freedom concealed “behind” the concept of time as they relate to all structures and all areas of our entire reality. (Gebser, 1949/1985, p. 359)Diverse notions of time, and their relationship to structures of consciousness form a major theme in Gebser’s seminal work— The Ever-Present Origin. Because of his in-depth focus on the significance of this relationship, I am using his temporics to provide the overarching conceptual structure for my analysis of Steiner’s and Wilber’s notions of time. This analysis should assist in uncovering any tacit assumptions about time in the interwoven narratives comprising the main body of this paper, thus increasing their transparency. In the next section, I will primarily illustrate with brief quotes from Gebser’s own text to retain the nuanced flavor of his conceptualizations.

Archaic Pre-Temporality

Gebser says very little about this earliest structure of consciousness. He refers to it as “a ‘non-dimensional’ structure ‘behind’ the physical and biological data and phenomena of the different structures, a structure which is pre-magic, pre-temporal, and pre-conscious” (p. 388). This original pre-temporality (p. 356) of the archaic deep-sleep consciousness, is the structure from which a gradual awareness of time exfoliates through the three subsequent structures of consciousness—magic, mythic and mental.

Magic Timelessness

Gebser primarily uses the phrase magic timelessness (pp. 289, 358) when referring to the notions of time in this second consciousness structure. He illustrates this sense with the following quote. “[The] . . . timeless phenomena . . . arise from the vegetative intertwining of all living things and are realities in the egoless magic sphere of every human being” (p. 49). He relates the magic structure with the auditory experiencing of tone, noting that timelessness can be integrally re-awakened through music.

Mythical Temporicity

In relation to mythical consciousness, Gebser primarily speaks of “mythical temporicity” (p.358), and “rhythmic time” (p. 176). He describes a gradual transition from the remote magic timelessness, to a more tangible sense of periodicity, particularly in relation to the seasonal rhythms of nature. He again points to some of the important cultural sites that have been discussed in the main paper, in relation to the transition between magic and mythical consciousness. Whenever we encounter seasonal rituals in the later periods of the magic structure, and particularly in astronomical deliberations and various forms of the calendar, as for example among the Babylonians and later Egyptians and Mexican civilization, we find anticipations of the mythical structure. (p. 61)Gebser also notes that in mythic consciousness there is a reciprocal interplay between the internalization of memory, as recollection, and the externalization of utterance, particularly through poetry (p. 192). This is consistent with Steiner’s characterization of the shift from localized memory to rhythmic memory (see below).

Mental-Conceptual Temporality

According to Gebser, the birth of linear time occurred with Parmenides’ (b. 540 BCE)tripartition of time into past, present and future (p. 178). He claimed that mental-conceptual time first arose in Greece with notions of measurement, quantity and partitioning of space. He regards the purpose of linear time as facilitating the shift from mythical to mental consciousness. “Time, that is, our mentally oriented conception of time, the divider of mythical movement and the partitioner of the circle, severs its two-dimensionality and thereby creates the possibility of three-dimensional space” (p. 177). Gebser expressed concern about the problems arising from the deficient mental notions of time as illustrated in contemporary time anxiety and addiction to time. He believed this arose from the overextension of the dividing function, which has reduced time to a spatial function.

Dividing time, which is itself a divider leads to atomization . . . Here we would only note once again that the phenomenon of “lack of time” is characteristic of our material, spatially accentuated world: How is anyone to have time if he tears it apart? (p. 180)However, he also indicates that this predictable, mechanical, conception of time began to change especially with the elaboration of Einstein’s theory of special relativity in 1905 (p. 341).Referring to his notion of concretion of time, Gebser notes. Wherever time is able to become “the present,” it is able to render transparent “simultaneously” the timelessness of magic, the temporicity of myth, and the temporality of mind. There are already signs of this inceptual mutation that can be demonstrated. (p.181)

Integral-Atemporal Time-Freedom

Time-freedom as the quintessence of time. (p. 356)

This brief quote from Gebser encapsulates the inherently paradoxical nature of his integral-atemporal notion. He uses several different expressions to attempt to communicate what he sees as a central aspect of the emergent integral-aperspectival consciousness. It is as if he is trying to “describe the elephant” from all sides to enter into the complexity of concepts that represent his notion. The terms he primarily uses are: “arational,” “time-freedom,” “open time,” “achronon”(pp. 289, 358); “concretion of time,” “temporic concretion” (p. 26); “fourth dimension” (p. 340).Expanding on his frequent use of concretion of time he linked it with two other terms, presentiation, and latency, distilling how the new consciousness experiences a simultaneous sense of past, present and future. Presentiation is “more” than a tie to the past; it is also an incorporation of the future. (p.271)Latency—what is concealed—is the demonstrable presence of the future. (p. 299)Gebser’s nuanced concretion of time does not represent a linear developmental endpoint like that of the modernity project, nor is it endlessly recursive in non-directional cyclical space as in Eliade’s “myth of the eternal return” (Eliade, 1954/1989). Integral consciousness as understood by Gebser does not place mythic and modern constructions of time in opposition to each other, as both modern and traditional approaches tend to do. Alternatively, Gebser’s temporic concretion is an intensification of consciousness that enables re-integration of previous structures of consciousness — with their different time senses—honoring them all. It opens to new understanding through atemporal translucence whereby all times are present to the intensified consciousness in the same fully conscious moment.

In Summary

Gebser proposed that the intellectual realization that time was more than mere clock time began with Einstein’s theory of relativity. “Time first irrupted into our consciousness as a reality or world constituent with Einstein’s formulation of the four-dimensional space time continuum”(p. 286). Gebser also noted the implications of this for philosophical notions of time. He discussed the gradual displacement of fixed concepts of linear time, particularly through the philosophies of Bergson, Heidegger, Husserl and Whitehead (p. 402-410)."

(https://www.academia.edu/197841/The_Evolution_of_Consciousness_as_a_Planetary_Imperative_An_Integration_of_Integral_Views)

Wilber’s Temporics in Relation to Evolution of Consciousness