The Reenchantment of the World Read online

  "WE HAVE, AS DANTE WROTE IN THE DIVINE COMEDY,

  AWOKEN TO FIND OURSELVES IN A DARK WOODS."

  "What will serve to stabilize things today is fairly obscure; but it is a

  major premise of this book that because disenchantment is intrinsic to the

  scientific world view, the modern epoch contained, from its inception, an

  inherent instability that severely limited its ability to sustain itself

  for more than a few centuries. For more than 99 percent of human history,

  the world was enchanted and man saw himself as an integral part of it. The

  complete reversal of this perception in a mere four hundred years or so

  has destroyed the continuity of the human experience and the integrity

  of the human psyche. It has very nearly wrecked the planet as well. The

  only hope, or so it seems to me, lies in a reenchantment of the world."

  --Morris Berman, in the Introduction

  ________________________________________________________________________

  "Morris Berman's book addresses what I consider to be the most important

  topic at our present moment in history. He is searching for the

  underpinnings of a new world view that can give rise to a culture capable

  of relating gently and self-sustainingly to the earth."

  --Frederick Ferré

  Charles A. Dana, Professor of Philosophy,

  Dickinson College

  BANTAM NEW AGE BOOKS

  This important imprint includes books in a variety of fields

  and disciplines and deals with the search for meaning, growth and

  change. They are books that circumscribe our times and our future.

  Ask your bookseller for the books you have missed.

  ANIMAL DREAMING by Jim Nollman

  THE ART OF BREATHING by Nancy Zi

  BEYOND EINSTEIN: THE COSMIC QUEST FOR THE THEORY

  OF THE UNIVERSE by Dr. Michio Kaku and Jennifer Trainer

  BEYOND THE QUANTUM by Michael Talbot

  BEYOND SUPERNATURE by Lyall Watson

  THE CASE FOR REINCARNATION by Joe Fisher

  THE COMPLETE CRYSTAL GUIDEBOOK by Uma Silbey

  THE COSMIC CODE by Heinz R. Pagels

  CREATIVE VISUALIZATION by Shakti Gawain

  THE DANCING WU LI MASTERS by Gary Zukav

  DON'T SHOOT THE DOG: HOW TO IMPROVE YOURSELF

  AND OTHERS THROUGH BEHAVIORAL TRAINING by Karen Pryor

  ECOTOPIA by Ernest Callenbach

  EMMANUEL'S BOOK by Pat Rodegast and Judith Startton

  AN END TO INNOCENCE by Sheldon Kopp

  ENTROPY by Jeremy Rifkin with Ted Howard

  FOCUSING by Dr. Eugene T. Gendlin

  HANDS OF LIGHT by Barbara Ann Brennan

  THE HEART OF HEALING by Brace Davis and Genny Wright Davis

  THE HOLE IN THE SKY by John Gribbin

  I CHING: A NEW INTERPRETATION FOR MODERN TIMES by Sam Reifler

  IF YOU MEET THE BUDDHA ON THE ROAD, KILL HIM! by Sheldon Kopp

  IN SEARCH OF SCHRODINGER'S CAT by John Gribbin

  IN SEARCH OF THE BIG BANG: QUANTUM PHYSICS AND COSMOLOGY

  by John Gribbin

  IN SEARCH OF THE DOUBLE HELIX: QUANTUM PHYSICS AND LIFE by John Gribbin

  INFINITY AND THE MIND by Rudy Rucker

  KUNDALINI FOR THE NEW AGE / Editor Gene Keiffer

  THE LIVES OF A CELL by Lewis Thomas

  MAGICAL CHILD by Joseph Chilton Pearce

  MAGICAL CHILD MATURES by Joseph Chilton Pearoe

  THE MEDUSA AND THE SNAIL by Lewis Thomas

  METAMAGICAL THEMAS: QUESTING FOR THE ESSENCE

  OF MIND AND PATFERN by Douglas R. Hofstadter

  MIND AND NATURE by Gregory Bateson

  THE MIND'S I by Douglas R. Hofstadter and Daniel C. Dennett

  NATURAL ESP: THE ESP CORE AND ITS RAW CHARACTERISTICS by Ingo Swann

  ORDER OUT OF CHAOS by Ilya Prigogine and Isabelle Stengers

  ORIGINS: A SKEPTIC'S GUIDE TO THE CREATION OF LIFE ON EARTH

  by Robert Shapiro

  PERFECT SYMMETRY by Heinz R. Pagels

  PROSPERING WOMAN by Ruth Ross

  THE REENCHANTMENT OF THE WORLD by Morris Berman

  SCIENCE, ORDER AND CREATIVITY by David Bohm and F. David Peat

  SHAMBHALA: THE SACRED PATH OF THE WARRIOR by Chogyam Trungpa

  SPACE-TIME AND BEYOND (THE NEW EDITION) by Bob Toben and Fred Alan Wolf

  STAYING SUPPLE by John Jerome

  SYMPATHETIC VIBRATIONS: REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICS AS A WAY OF LIFE

  by K.C. Cole

  SYNCHRONICITY: THE BRIDGE BETWEEN MATTER AND MIND by F. David Peat

  THE TAO OF LEADERSHIP by John Heider

  THE TAO OF PHYSICS, Revised Edition, by Fritjof Capra

  TO HAVE OR TO BE? by Erich Fromm

  THE TURNING POINT by Fritjof Capra

  THE WAY OF THE SHAMAN: A GUIDE TO POWER AND HEALING by Michael Harner

  ZEN AND THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE by Robert M. Pirsig

  The Reenchantment

  of the World

  MORRIS BERMAN

  BANTAM BOOKS

  TORONTO * NEW YORK * LONDON * SYDNEY * AUCKLAND

  Cornell University Press gratefully acknowledges a grant from the Andrew W.

  Mellon Foundation that aided in bringing this book to publication.

  This edition contains the complete text

  of the original hardcover edition.

  NOT ONE WORD HAS BEEN OMITTED

  THE REENCHANTMENT OF THE WORLD

  A Bantam Book / published by arrangement with

  Cornell University Press

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Cornell University Press edition published November 1981

  Bantam edition / May 1984

  2nd printing . . . July 1988

  Acknowledgment is made to:

  The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., for excerpts from René Descartes,

  Discourse on Method, translated by Laurence I. Lafleur; copyright ©

  1950, 1956, by the Liberal Arts Press, Inc.; reprinted by permission of

  the Liberal Arts Press Division of the Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc.

  Doubleday & Company, Inc., for permission to quote excerpts from The

  Poetry and Prose of William Blake, edited by David V. Erdman; copyright

  © 1965 by David V. Erdman and Harold Bloom; and an excerpt from The Birth

  of Tragedy and the Genealogy of Morals by Friedrich Nietzsche, translated

  by Francis Golffing; copyright © 1956 by Doubleday & Company, Inc.

  Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc., for permission to quote specified

  brief excerpts from Steps to an Ecology of Mind by Gregory Bateson

  (T.Y. Crowell); copyright © 1972 by Harper & Row, Publishers Inc.

  Charles Scribner's Sons for permission to use an illustration by Fons

  van Woerkom from The Tender Carnivore and the Sacred Game by Paul

  Shepard illustrated by Fons van Woerkom; text copyright © 1973 by Paul

  Shepard, illustrations copyright © 1973 by Fons van Woerkom.

  New Age and the accompanying figure design as well as the statement "the

  search for meaning, growth and change" are trademarks of Bantam Books.

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © by Morris Berman

  Cover art copyright © 1984 by Leo and Diane Dillon.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

  in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,

  including photocopying, recording, or by any information

  storage and
retrieval system without permission in

  writing from the publisher.

  For information address: Cornell University Press,

  124 Roberts Place, Ithaca, New York 14850.

  ISBN 0-553-24171-0

  Published simultaneously in the United States and Canada

  __________________________________________________________________________

  Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Bantam Doubleday

  Dell Publishing Group, Inc. Its trademark consisting of the words "Bantam

  Books" and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and

  Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam Books,

  666 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10103.

  __________________________________________________________________________

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  0 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

  For three friends:

  Michael Crisp

  David Kubrin

  John Trotter

  God and philosophy could not live together peacefully; can philosophy survive without God? Once its adversary has disappeared, metaphysics ceases to be the science of sciences and becomes logic, psychology, anthropology, history, economics, linguistics. What was once the great realm of philosophy has today become the ever-shrinking territory not yet explored by the experimental sciences. If we are to believe the logicians, all that remains of metaphysics is no more than the nonscientific residuum of thought -- a few errors of language. Perhaps tomorrows metaphysics, should man feel a need to think metaphysically, will begin as a critique of science, just as in classical antiquity it began as a critique of the gods. This metaphysics would ask itself the same questions as in classical philosophy, but the starting point of the interrogation would not be the traditional one before all science but one after the sciences.

  --Octavio Paz, Alternating Current

  Contents

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS XIII

  INTRODUCTION: THE MODERN LANDSCAPE 1

  1. The Birth of Modern Scientific Consciousness 13

  2. Consciousness and Society in Early Modern Europe 37

  3. The Disenchantment of the World (1) 57

  4. The Disenchantment of the World (2) 107

  5. Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics 127

  6. Eros Regained 147

  7. Tomorrow's Metaphysics (1) 187

  8. Tomorrow's Metaphysics (2) 235

  9. The Politics of Consciousness 267

  NOTES 305

  GLOSSARY 351

  INDEX 359

  lllustrations

  PLATES

  1. The Aristotelian theory of projectile motion 53

  2. The Ourobouros, symbol of integration 68

  3. The alchemical androgyne 69

  4. The green lion swallowing the sun 70

  5. Sol niger: the nigredo 71

  6. The sun and his shadow complete the work 72

  7. René Magritte, "The Explanation" (1952) 88

  8. Salvador Dali, "The Persistence of Memory" (1931) 89

  9. The Ptolemaic universe 91

  10. Engineering illustration from "Elim: (1629) 92

  11. Separating gold from silver 96

  12. Isaac Newton, 1689 118

  13. Isaac Newton, 1702 119

  14. Isaac Newton, ca. 1710 120

  15. Isaac Newton, 1726 121

  16. Wtlliam Blake, Newton (1795) 122

  17. Luis Jimenez; Jr., "The American Dream" (1969/76) 165

  18. Donald Brodeur, "Eros Regained" (1975) 184

  19. M. C. Escher, "Three Worlds" (1955) 259

  20. Fons van Woerkom, Illustration for

  Chapter 6 of Paul Shepard's "The Tender Carnivore

  and the Sacred Game" (1973) 268-69

  FIGURES

  1. R. D. Laing's schematic drawing of healthy interaction 5

  2. R. D. Laing's schematic drawing of schizoid interaction 6

  3. Descartes' conception of mind-body interaction 22

  4. Galileo's experiment for showing that

  motion does not require a mover 25

  5. Galileo's experiment for deriving the law of free-fall 26

  6. Newton's subdivision of white light into monochromatic rays 32

  7. Newton's recombination of

  monochromatic light rays into white light 33

  8. The new cycle of economic/scientific life

  in early modern Europe 45

  9. Aristotelian conception of projectile motion 52

  10. N. R. Hanson's illustration of gestalt perception 129

  11. N. R. Hanson's illustration of gestalt perception 129

  12. Wilhelm Reich's schema of the neurotic personality 171

  13. Wilhelm Reich's schema of the healthy personality 172

  14. Gregory Bateson's illustration of Epimenides' Paradox 217

  Acknowledgments

  Several people read all or part of the manuscript version of this book and offered significant criticisms and suggestions, and I am particularly grateful to Paul Ryan, Carolyn Merchant of the University of California, Berkeley, Frederick Ferré of Dickinson College, and W. David Lewis of Auburn University. There is, of course, no unanimous agreement on the final content of the work, and as is usually the case, errors of fact or interpretation are strictly my own. There are also a number of other friends who, although they did not read the manuscript, exerted an important influence on my life through the example of their own, making it possible for me to clarify certain issues that ultimately came to be reflected in this book. Bill Williams, Jack London, David Kubrin, and Deirdre Rand have, over the years, profoundly touched me and even altered my definition of reality, and it is a pleasure for me to acknowledge my debt to them at this time.

  I doubt there is any way I can adequately thank my critic and dear friend Michael Crisp, who acted as an astute and untiring reader and who significantly influenced my thinking, particularly in the case of Chapter 3, much of which grew out of discussions we had on the magical tradition. On more than one occasion, Mr. Crisp helped me to resolve some problem of logic or exposition, andI can only hope that his inclusion in the dedication to my book will repay him in some small measure for his great interest and generous assistance.

  I wish, finally, to acknowledge my very large debt to John Ackerman at Cornell University Press, whose ruthless editing did much to improve the final form of my manuscript.

  This book draws on, and often explicates, the work of Carl Jung, Wilhelm Reich, and Gregory Bateson, among others, but I am not aware of having followed the conceptual framework of any particular philosophical school. It is, nevertheless, a product of its times and reflects a holistic world view that is very much "in the air." Although I have not read all or even most of their work, my outlook has much in. common with such writers as R.D. Laing, Theodore Roszak, and Philip Slater, and in many ways we seem to inhabit the same mental universe. In particular, their hope for a humanized culture in which science would play a very different role than it has hitherto is my hope as well.

  M.B.

  San Francisco

  Grateful acknowledgment is also extended to the following for permission to reprint copyright material:

  Robert Bly for permission to reprint Poem Number 16 of The Kabir Book, version by Robert Bly, published by Beacon Press; copyright © 1971 by Robert Bly.

  Cambridge University Press for two diagrams from Patterns of Discovery by Norwood Russell Hanson; copyright © 1958, 1965 by Cambridge University Press.

  Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, Inc., for two diagrams reprinted by permission of Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, Inc., from Depression and the Body by Alexander Lowen, MD; copyright © 1972 by Alexander Lowen, MD.

  Grove Press, Inc., for excerpt from The Labyrinth of Solitude by Octavio Paz; reprinted by permission of Grove Press, Inc.; copyright & 1961 by Grove Press, Inc.

  Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., and Faber and Faber Ltd., for lines
from "Little Gidding" by T. S. Eliot, from Four Quartets in T. S. Eliot, The Complete Poems and Plays, 1909-1950; copyright © 1952 by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.; and in Collected Poems, 1909-1962; copyright © 1963 by Faber and Faber Ltd.

  Humanities Press, New Jersey, for an excerpt from The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science by E.A. Burtt; copyright © 1932 by Doubleday & Company, Inc.

  Maclen Music, Inc.; for lyrics from "When I'm Sixty Four" (John Lennon and Paul McCartney); copyright © 1967 by Northern Songs Limited. All rights for the USA, Mexico and the Philippines controlled by Maclen Music, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

  W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., for lines from Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part I," edited by James L. Sanderson; copyright © 1969 by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

  Oxford University Press for an excerpt from Micrographia, by Robert Hooke, in vol. XIII of Early Science in Oxford, edited by R.T. Gunther.

  Penguin Books Ltd., for an excerpt from The Politics of Experience and the Bird of Paradise by R.D. Laing; reprinted by permission of Penguin Books Ltd.; copyright © 1967 by R.D. Laing.

  Random House, Inc., for two diagrams and specified excerpts from The Divided Self by R.D. Laing; copyright © 1962 by Pantheon Books Inc., a Division of Random House, Inc.; and Associated Book Publishers Ltd.; copyright © Tavistock Publications (1959) Ltd. 1960.