Rethinking mystical presence

Rethinking mystical presence

Michael Glen

'What to do? How to act? Who to be? These are focal questions for everyone living in circumstances of late modernity - and ones which, on some level or another, all of us answer, either discursively or through day-to-day social behaviour.'

- Anthony Giddens

This set of questions lies at the heart of our existentially anxious world. Self itself has become the determining factor of our existential satisfaction, yet at the same time the conditions of late modernity have dislodged ourselves from our physical and social environments. Actions and experience feel distanced from a coherent system of meaning for many.

Outlining the anxiety

We are dis-embedded. In a way this was a bargain struck for the purposes of material comfort and accumulation resulting from industrialization, and a reordering of society based upon production and consumption. This bargain was not without cost, as this process of reordering required a set of separations - a disembedding. A separation of individuals from localized cultures but also within individuals of their physicality from time and space.

Giddens describes the tendency of technology as a catalyst to this process. Such that technology acts to separate our bodies from time and space. The fact that one might project their image across the world, but also record it for another time. In its simplest sense the action being divorced from the body. We might also find that societies themselves suffer from a disembedding as social interactions become mediatized, virtualized and remote.

Consider the following complaints of modernity - engaging in work that seems absent from greater meaning, the consumption of lifestyle as replacement for community, and the performative nature of remote social engagement. They all point to ways of doing and experiencing being lifted from limited local contexts.

As we glue these pieces together the configurations seem uneasy as if there must be another way. However a recreation of the traditional would be a mere simulation of what was, ill-fitting to our current material circumstances. Conversely a dive headlong into the myth of progress offered by modernity comes up short against the hollow offerings of consumerism and capitalism. And so we are left holding the pieces of ourselves, and the glue of our material capacities yet unable to create satisfying configurations.

Interesting reactions against this divorce of doing from purpose, are offered by radical non-empirical constructions of reality such as countercultural or new age movements, yet they are inadequate to the needs of most. The spiritual and metaphysical aspects of 1960s counterculture might seem an obscure starting point for addressing modern self identity but it is emblematic of the ways in which new frameworks of thought were grasped for to orient ourselves towards nature and each other. At times appropriating existing traditions or borrowing from contemporary ideas but always adapting towards an individualized approach towards meaning.

This situation of continuing anxiety and inadequacy creates the following design problem - How can we think about self identity in a way that allows a sense of meaning or cosmology for our life processes in contemporary society?

While an inescapable condition in which we must construct a reality for ourselves, this cannot happen independently of the material world. To live in a reality of our own choosing in this way would produce a cognitive dissonance unbearable for most, or requiring of ever greater mental gymnastics to achieve internal consistency. The ongoing existence of fundamentalists, conspiracy theorists and the like illustrates the ongoing appeal but also the walled nature of their realities. By the other extreme, self identity cannot be a purely empirical proposition. Construction of self is an act of imagination, a story told of past and present conditions indicating the possible horizons of the future. Empiricism demonstrates what is predictively so, rather than that which could be. To reject any imaginative construction of reality would confine one to the limits of existing systems of thought, which in the case of modernity would be the narrative of more, and ever increasing efficiency to unspecified ends.

In order to alter the narrative we must consider the manner in which it is constructed. It operates reflexively in the way that it must be continually retold in the context of interactions and experiences. The modern context includes a shifting set of premises from which this must be drawn is ongoing and at times uncomfortable. Consequently, the agency offered to individuals both opens possibilities but implies an ethical condition, manifesting as a set of uneasy circumstances in which self must be constructed.  

The ethical condition is thus: Self identity now presents itself as choice. Choice represents both anxiety and opportunity, and the stakes of these narratives are high in the material world as individuals become conscious consumers of materiality and producers of lifestyles. We face choices in our lives regarding how to act, and these actions are consequential to the lives of others. Within a modern condition they are unavoidably informed by our self narrative. Whether it be via the work performed or products consumed, social engagements it is inescapable. Imagination has material consequences.

Consider self in terms of the relationship between these two realities - the imaginative contained within the empirical. In 1967, during the height of the 1960s counterculture activist Abbie Hoffman vowed to levitate the pentagon with psychic energy, causing it to change colors. What to make of such an outrageous claim, on one hand so dissonant with observable reality, yet on the other a process engaged in with sincere fervor? Of course the Pentagon stood firmly in place despite the chanting and meditations, but this did by no means imply a foolishness on the part of Hoffman. He understood that this was an engagement with a form of mystical reality for a theatrical purpose. The materiality of the building did not need to move an inch for it to be remade as vulnerable.

Mystical constructions of reality appeal to that with which modernity has failed to supply us. Mysticism is not a failure of knowledge nor an attempt to somehow know the unknowable, but a deep desire to approach the material world as a sentient entity. That which could understand us. The horror of nature is its indifference towards us, and we project our sentience upon to remake it such that it should care for us. Nature in this context being used to refer to that which exists prior to or outside of human intervention.

The desire for the mastery of nature has always been driven by social narrative, the collective acts of individuals projecting sentience on to the world via made objects and in turn being remade by them. A key difference within the late modern condition is the replacement of unified social narrative with that of the individual. Not to say that individual narratives are determined externally to society but rather the narrative itself is dealt with on an individual level continually being retold in the context of social engagement. It is human and fundamental to address nature as sentient, whether we recreate it technologically, understand it spiritually or romanticize the cosmos into a position of conspiring for our benefit.

While an understanding of an indifferent nature might not always seem horrific, it has always been unacceptable to regard it as such, for to do so would be to regard our own existence if it were to be meaningful as necessarily divorced from it. An example among many of the application of desire for sentience to mystical thinking -

In September 2006, a survey about belief in various religious and paranormal topics conducted by phone and mail-in questionnaire polled 1,721 Americans on their belief in telekinesis. Of these participants, 28% of male participants and 31% of female participants selected "agree" or "strongly agree" with the statement, "It is possible to influence the world through the mind alone."

Unlike Hoffman, surely this is a case of sincerely held belief in a form of mystical reality. It certainly forms a cognitive dissonance with what is demonstrable regarding the material world. Alongside astrology, self-help or any number of new age interpretations of cosmology these approaches to reality are actual experiences, not implying a self-awareness on the behalf of the adherents.

There is an intuitive understanding amongst those holding beliefs in mystical realities, such that the engagement is sincere yet it is also as method. It’s no mistake that the most common applications of this type of thinking is upon the imagined world of self identity. A conflict arises when these modes of thinking intersect with a contemporary world ever increasingly defined by technological and industrial processes operating from a basis in pure empirical thought.

Technology and industrialization amplify our abilities to intervene within the material world creating the conditions by which the determining factors of our futures become less so the means by which we may act but our abilities to collectively imagine future conditions. One might therefore be tempted to appeal to grand societal narratives as a means to enact change. However the very same forces of modernity have reshaped the relationship of the individual to society such that self identity must continually be created rather than provided.

Rather than a singular narrative to be imposed (this is an impossibility). We propose a new way of reconfiguring the relationship of self narrative, made objects and society by using constructed realities as systems of subjective truth for the purposes of self knowledge.  

A five step method for considering the modern self as mystical

1. Asking questions, not answers

There are no universal methods to be applied across either time or individual contexts.

As borne out by the previous descriptions detailing responses to modern anxieties of the self help or new age variety, it is tempting to provide definitive answers one might apply to their own lifestyle. Their inadequacy in this regard functions almost as a feature - addressing anxiety in a limited fashion but also reinforcing it as a means to its continued existence. The latest exercise or diet regime will never offer true mastery over the body and its desires. Likewise the prospects of self actualization are unlikely to be more than temporarily found within the pages of a book.

A component of this impossibility lies within the reflexive nature of modernity. Not only are the means to self identity individualized for each person, they are constantly under reconstruction due to the changing conditions of society. It stands to reason that a design process (to intervene within the systems of reconstruction) is better suited than the false hope of a design solution for individuals and their relationship to self. Such a process would involve the means by which productive questions might be asked of identity rather than prescriptive answers.

2. Re-embedding

Rejecting the non-empirical confines us to what is - material capitalist society. Identities of self formed either by the consumption of lifestyle, or the status achieved via the production of economic value. This results in a tortuous relationship to authenticity.

Since the uneasy processes of modernity leading to this point have been referred to as dis-embedding, we can term this response of self enquiry as re-embedding. Taking the collection of disparate notions of body, mind, time and space then considering them in configurations towards a meaningful focal point.

Questions of consumption, experience and the interactions with the material world are now rethought in terms of ritual process. Conversely, questions of production, work and actions performed upon the material world are rethought under the reclaimed notion of poetic making. Finally we consider how both these configurations can serve to enhance social intimacy and mutuality at the expense of exclusion and false authenticity.

3. Outlining Ritual

It may seem counterintuitive to consider ritual process to be the converse or antidote to identities based within consumption or lifestyle. However, if we compare the common function of ritual processes within traditional societies - to encode symbolic narratives within designated times and places with specified objects. This describes the very opposite suggestions of dis-embedding (as defined per Giddens). Within a ritual process time, space, body and mind are brought towards a limited local context. This provides the opportunity for meaning to be performed amongst our selves, our artifacts and social milieu.

Made objects, and our interactions with them form the basis of this type of ritual. Elaine Scarry, when describing “The Interior Structure of the Artifact” seeks to show that made objects are attempts to make the world “sentient” and that they are projections of those who make them which have a reciprocal effect, “remaking” those who make them. The mass production of artifact as a means of imposition upon nature also requires the mass consumption of artifact as a means of maintenance of self. At the point at which we interact with these made objects the process is already ritualized if not consciously so.

This unconscious participation in the ritual of consumption will continue if unchecked and will contain consequences, especially considering the likelihood that ritual based consumption will be determined by the increasing capacities of technology and their likely adaptation. Rather than a sentience in nature that we seek, an ersatz version in the form of technology that will not strictly be sentient but rather will ‘know’ us via its functions and abilities to address our needs and desires. This increasing sentience will no doubt be adequate to continued consumption but will only heighten the hollow sensations on offer.

We can see this borne out within the postmodern desire for authenticity within the conception of lifestyle. The idea that some symbolic acts of consumption are more ‘real’ than others. That the artifacts of modernity are so many un-signed objects. Objects without discernible authors or histories resulting in unsatisfyingly plastic interactions (of course the term plastic itself as mass material has come to mean inauthentic in language). As proof of this tendency we can look towards the multitude of products termed artisanal, bespoke, custom. The search for signed artifacts however is no substitute the anxieties of self identity as the mass production of ‘authenticity’ itself leads to the sensation of this new authenticity being performed for social status and thus itself an imitation of some other realness.

4. Reclaiming Poetic Making

The alternate side of this set of relationships concerns the manner in which we act upon artifacts, whether it be the direct manufacture of objects or the more abstract intervention in systems and surrounding them. If consumption can be rethought in terms of its ritual components, then production also.

A key complaint of the disembodied is the apparent meaninglessness of many forms of ‘work’. We can use work in this context as a stand in as the most common conception of making and doing in an industrialized world but these descriptions operate more generally. Since work is deemed to be at least economically valuable, the efficient market dictates that if work is exchanged for value it must contain some purpose to someone somewhere. Why does it so often feel this way?

The answer lies within two angles - Firstly, ever narrowing specializations and the virtualization presented by technology create layers of abstraction. This creates an emotional separation from the cause and effects of making. Secondly, the generation of economic value is at times separated from personal value. Work may be performed for economic expediency in the absence of greater purpose.

The former describes the impact of modernity upon process. A worker may describe a lack of fulfillment in terms of engaging in a process with a faceless entity performing generic tasks.  This is the other side of the unsigned artifact. The actions, making or services performed are non-specific to the individual and therefore feel disconnected. The disconnection is further exacerbated since the worker in question cannot emotionally experience the outcomes of the actions even if they understand cognitively that their actions do have outcomes in aggregate as part of their organization.

For actions to be reconnected we return to self identity. Considering the narrative aspects of the action in question - Are these actions expressive of self identity via process, and additionally do they align with the ongoing narrative of our lives?

5. Social intimacy and authenticity

Finally, if the following have been established - Actions and experiences might better be approached by considering self identity using signed objects in a ritual context. In a pre-modern context, this would happen within local communities. Since we are lifted out of these via modernity it is necessary to actively create the social context for these processes. Telling these stories in a social context enshrines them with value. When we create worlds in which we are ‘known’ we value ourselves and allow others to do the same.

Since we have stated that this storytelling is unavoidable, in the absence of some other conception we would be reduced to valuing people based purely upon their economic capacities or upon their performative consumption. Solutions to meaning cannot be simply fashionable and contingent upon the exclusion of others.