Three Men in a Boat

“Tradition indicates that three levels of consciousness are available to us: simple consciousness, not often seen in our modern technological world; complex consciousness, the usual state of educated Western man; and an enlightened state of consciousness, known only to a very few individuals, which is the culmination of human evolution and can be attained only by highly motivated people after much work and training.”

So says Robert Johnson in the first words of his book Transformations and he goes on to explore Don Quixote (literally Sir Codpiece) as an example of simple consciousness and Hamlet (a text penned within a few years of the Cervantes marvel) as the entrance into the dilemma of modern consciousness. The possibility of an enlightened view is represented for him in Goethe’s Faust. Don Quixote literalizes his own perception and imagination and his resultant magical thinking is his joy and his exuberant downfall. Hamlet receives the message from the unconscious, from the archetype, the ghost speaks to him of hidden truth and yet this information sends him into the crisis of how to act to return the natural and correct order of things. He is crippled by the terror of the rotten state being also his family, the lingering smell of death on the family bedspread, the trauma of the primal scene conceived of by the sensitive and absurd youthful Freud.


Just with these two drawn into being so closely we can identify something perhaps of the modern dilemma. For every Bush denying Kyoto (a Quixotic stance of a far less charming kind that the venerable knight of la Mancha) there is a friend of mine agonizing over the global crisis, the threat of mass extinction, the emerging energy crisis and our incapacity to stop killing each other… "what can we do?" - we angst over together in our shared communities, our fragile temporary autonomous zones (thank you Hakim Bey!). For every china man caught in the big dam pot of gold there is an environmentalist grappling over whether it can be ethical to blow up dams or whether peaceful action can prevail. Is it Martin or Malcolm folks? Gandhi was a beautiful man who changed his world, his probably beautiful letter to Hitler to stop what he was doing did not do the deed, the fat man with the cigar was needed there… (a product of the very system Gandhi was bringing down around him…). Are we Hamlet or Quixote when we buy our dream catcher from its mass production line and sit in waiting for the wisdom of an ancient lineage to speak to us, whilst the blood of said lineage backs up in the drains of our cities?

I could go on… but instead to move onto the third man in the life boat – Faust, as realised by Goethe - is a man who makes a pact with the devil to experience his every desire but ultimately, and receptively (Johnson argues) rejects this pact for a more hard won truth. The subtleties of this text are worthy of a post in themselves and maybe that is what they will get on my return from the USA (where I will have added to my carbon footprint considerably to raise certain issues about the world crisis/transformation that it feels like to me, and let it be said, many others, we are entering deeply into). We can say though, that the Faustian pact is in thinking we can have it all: we simply cannot sell this lifestyle to everyone, there is not enough planet and resources to go around. Somewhere we have to get off the rollercoaster, press stop on the holo-deck and stop thinking we can download Helen of Troy in a cheerleader outfit… We will be forced to reconsider: our holidays; our commute; the whole nature of the 'burbs; not to mention our endless warmongering and state sponsored terrorisms. In this way we are like Faust…we have experimented with the highest level of human decadence and comfort and we have realized that we are still not satisfied, that the ultimate goal – real happiness - has still alluded us. For real happiness takes work and worth and honour, as the toltec teacher Miguel Ruiz teaches - it takes impeccability of word – not lying to ourselves or others, not lying to ourselves folks… so much harder than it sounds – to stop the inner voice, to stop the I am great/I am crap dialogue… wow the relief would create near atomic energy levels in this confused entity! Is this part of the new energy resource we are seeking – not a techno saviour to lead us into ever more fecund consumerism but an inner shift into a more direct awareness of ourselves as dwelling, as participating in this world?


Our self-consciousness can cripple us (like Hamlet) or through genuine awareness, honesty and effort to stay with our own integrity it can liberate us(as in the end of Faust). Which is it to be? For no amount of yearning is going to see us go back to a romantic idyll and whatever kind of world the generations that follow us end up living with this is no simple return to Eden… nor will it be the Hell of the End timers… What it will be is what we make it… hand in hand with the Soul of the World.

Mark Jones


IMAGES: Don Quichote (1970) , Hamlet Stabs Polonius (1973) (from the Hamlet Suite), Le Vieux Faust (1969) (from the series Faust - La Nuit de Walpurgis) all by Salvador Dali.