Theos-Talk Archives (September 1996 Message tl00099)

Replying to Keith

>Murry Steintiford writes:
>Another factor is, who or what is doing the desiring? Psychogenesis has a
>very powerful explanatory or at least descriptive value, here. Your
>fragment of the universal consciousness is temporarily trapped in states
>such as "I really want a cigarette", while they last. On the other hand,
>the focal point of "your" consciousness can shift and widen immeasurably
>when you are resting in a beautiful natural environment and begin to feel
>at peace, and one with, all that is around you. Likewise with meditation.
>
>Keith
>I am not kidding when I say I have never heard of Psychogenesis except on
>theo-l and roots.  I know I could go to the library or book store, but
>would someone share with me a little history and the major work of this
>movement.  Please e-mail me privately, if you feel it is not a appropriate
>for the group. I know that Richard mentioned it also.  I would really
>appreciate it.

Keith, I hadn't heard of psychogenesis either, until coming across Richard
Ihle's ideas on it. However, I found his general presentation of it to be
such a useful framework on which to hang various observations of my own and
others' consciousness, that I have adopted the term in the meantime to refer
to temporary "ego-formations" in time scales ranging from minutes to millenia.

I have just done a search on the Internet for the single word
"psychogenesis" using the AltaVista engine, and I came up with 42 different
articles or books that contained the word somewhere. From a cursory
examination of two of them, and the fact that it appeared in the title of
only one of the 42, it didn't look as if psychogenesis has reached the
status of a movement but looks more like just a word that has found a use in
certain contexts. Most of the tiles looked pretty much in the psychological
field, excepting for one about Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. That one looked
deeply fascinating and so theosophical in its ideas of unity and brotherhood
(sic), that I shall post some extracts from it in a later message.

This first quote seems to be some kind of study guide. Noogenesis has to do,
I imagine, with Teilhard de Chardin's concept of the noosphere which, from
memory, is the multi-level realm of all life on our planet, seen as being on
a journey of unfoldment towards a consciously interrelated and spiritually
self-aware state he called the omega point. Anyway:

Beginning of quote -------------------------------------------------
 1.Quotes from "The Activation of Energy" by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

 [See] page 39 "to discover which of the various possible forms of
collectivization open to him is the good form, in other words,
 the form that most directly prolongs the psychogenesis (or noogenesis)
 from which he emerged."
End of quote -------------------------------------------------------

        From  http://www.iac.net/~dlature/united/ph2paper/pierretdc.html

The other item I looked at from the search was  "The Psychogenic Theory of
History"  by Lloyd deMause.

I shall quote just a couple of pieces to give you the flavour:

Beginning of quote -------------------------------------------------
In my psychogenic model of historical causation, then, women and children
are not merely passive pawns in men's historical chess game, as other
historical theories portray them. Women and children are, rather, at the
cutting edge of historical change, forming through their interpersonal
relations all meaningful innovations of personality _the new psychoclasses_
which then get translated into new political and economic systems.

[Then, later]

The central point of this psychogenic theory of history is ... that since
psychic structure must always be passed from generation to generation
through the narrow funnel of childhood, a group's childrearing practices are
not just one item in a list of equally important cultural traits. They are
the very conditions for the transmission and development of all other
cultural elements, and they place specific limits upon what can be achieved
in the other areas.
End of quote -------------------------------------------------------

  From  http://cnet.unb.ca/corg/ca/e/pages/prevention_cruelty/theory.htm


Now, who's game to apply the Voice of the Silence to the social and
multi-generational scales?

Keep having fun, Keith  :-)

Murray