psychegram
The Living Force
Wow, where to start? Eisenstein's book, The Ascent of Humanity (_http://www.ascentofhumanity.com/) is probably one of the best books I've read all year. He presents a cogent, thoughtful, and biting critique of civilization, right back to the taming of fire; not to repudiate it entirely, but to show how the contradictions inherent in viewing the self as a separate entity have led with crushing inevitability to the world we live in today, one hovering on the brink of several different sorts of catastrophes, all of them of our own making (well, okay, he doesn't discuss alien invasions and comet swarms, which are pretty well beyond our control.) The scope is sweeping: education, economics, politics, science, language, and mysticism; he looks at all, very closely, and shows how our society's need to control everything is, paradoxically, causing everything to spin out of control.
The entire book is online, for free, which is only in keeping with the philosophy Eisenstein espouses in the book: one in which gifts take precedence over the market. So well does he argue for a society based on the logic of the gift that, while going through the Wave material and learning about the STS/STO dichotomy, I couldn't help but think: there's a guy who's guaranteed to pass the exam, and graduate to 4th density STO. And I do not say that lightly.
If a book seems a bit much for you (and the paper version is almost 600 pages), you can find a number of his articles here, on Reality Sandwich: _http://realitysandwich.com/blog/1736
[Moderator note: Deactivated links]
The entire book is online, for free, which is only in keeping with the philosophy Eisenstein espouses in the book: one in which gifts take precedence over the market. So well does he argue for a society based on the logic of the gift that, while going through the Wave material and learning about the STS/STO dichotomy, I couldn't help but think: there's a guy who's guaranteed to pass the exam, and graduate to 4th density STO. And I do not say that lightly.
If a book seems a bit much for you (and the paper version is almost 600 pages), you can find a number of his articles here, on Reality Sandwich: _http://realitysandwich.com/blog/1736
[Moderator note: Deactivated links]