![]() ![]() She came to such profound understanding by becoming “part of the system” and developing an intimate “feel for the organism” (Keller). McClintock won a Nobel Prize for her pioneering research on the genetics of maize. The pioneering work of Barbara McClintock is a classic example. Weber claimed that meaning and value must also be relinquished in such a scientific worldview: “the belief that there is such a thing as the ‘meaning’ of the universe” must inevitably “die out at its very roots” (1962 ).Īnimism and science seem to be in opposition, but if we step back from an ‘either/or’ approach, there’s space for both. Science tends to describe the world through a “process of disenchantment” that banishes “mysterious incalculable forces”. But Max Weber suggests that such progress comes at a cost. We’ve benefited enormously from such rationalistic objectivity: Thanks to a vaccine, I barely noticed a recent close encounter with Covid. It takes “sustained, prolonged and pervasive formal education to ‘overwrite’ animistic thinking with the rationalistic objectivity typical of the modern world” (2002). Evolutionary psychologist Bruce Charlton suggests that animism is “spontaneous, the ‘natural’ way of thinking for humans”. ![]() I didn’t deliberately try the Waking Dream Walk on the way to the supermarket it just slipped in. ‘It’s working then!’īack home, what struck me was how quickly and dramatically my awareness can shift. The trees were unquestionably watching my progress. ![]() It started as I was walking to the supermarket the clouds loomed, dark and mysterious over the roof of the nearby University building, which had a distinctly mythic look. I decided it was a good moment to take a break from studying and get some shopping in. I’d just finished his chapter about the Waking Dream Walk and remembered that I needed to get some groceries. While the theoretical chapters were helpful for the presentation, it’s the practical exercises that prompted this post. I explored my usual themes, but from a different angle and concluded that imagination can open the Western mind to a deeper awareness of the animated world.Īs part of my preparation, I read Allan Frater’s Waking Dreams: Imagination in Psychotherapy and Everyday Life, which combines theoretical chapters with practical exercises. I recently gave a presentation on ‘Embodied Imagination and New Animism’. ![]()
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