the Pearce reading

Pearce's notion that our culture and language limit our percepts and thinking by constantly exerting influence on our ability to achieve Eurkea! illumination or inhibit the process of metanoia is fairly interesting. Moreover, his discussion on the dynamic nature of A-thinking is one of the best examples yet presented to illustrate altered states of consciousness. It also exemplifies one of the many ways in which this alleged crack in the cosmic egg can form, eventually break and subsequently generate a new shell with similar processes waiting to take place. He states on page 22 that autistic thinking is an unambiguous, uncontrollable frame of mind which demonstrates that "There is a catalytic quality in A-thinking that gives more than the sum of the parts suggesting and bringing about the new possibility." In the preface Pearce notes that this new prospect "is an open ended possibility that can take us beyond the broad, statistical way of the world (xiv)." I can appreciate that the human mind can acquire and synthesize new, legitimate concepts and notions that stand in oppoistion to scientific protocal or cultural tolerance. This notion does seem to present a dilemma for those persons who cling to the empirical "certainty" of science or the confines of religous doma to explain exery facet of their perceptions of reality. However, I do not wholly share Pearce's disdain for all of the "biogenetically indoctrinated" approaches used to explain our mental processes. Indeed, some of these "approaches" speak volumes, and only after studying and comprehending them can one have a soid foundation from which to hypothesize about the knowledge that we do not know, not the other way around.


While the coherency of his discourse begs the question as to whether or not Pearce really has transended his previous autistic state, and his recurring tendancy to mention parables of Jesus can still apprehension for furhter reading, his discussion of how cracks can form in the cosmic egg is somewhat informative and intersting.