Naturalistic Paganism

“You are much more than you think you are.”

Winterviews concludes today.  From the Solstice till Imbolc, we’ve brought you non-stop interviews and other goodies from big-name authors:

• Brian Swimme, author of The Hidden Heart of the Cosmos – Winter Solstice, Dec. 21st
• Jason Pitzl-Waters, Pagan journalist of The Wild Hunt – Dec. 23rd
• John Ryan Haule, author of Jung in the 21st Century  – Dec. 30th
• Chet Raymo, author of When God Is Gone, Everything Is Holy – Jan. 6th
• IAO131, author of Naturalistic Occultism – Jan. 13th
• Connie Barlow, author of The Ghosts of Evolution – Jan. 20th
• Jon Cleland Host, creator of the Naturalistic Paganism group and frequent author at EvolutionaryTimes.org – Jan. 27th
• Adrian Harris, author of Wisdom of the Body: Embodied Knowing in Eco-Paganism – Imbolc, Feb. 3rd

Today, Adrian Harris offers a model in which our everyday awareness is but the tip of the iceberg.

Our thinking is like an iceberg, with everyday awareness at the tip and 95% of cognition happening out of sight (Lakoff and Johnson, 1999: 13). Most of the time we identify that tiny 5% as ‘self’, discounting the hidden cognition that actually governs much of our behaviour.

This discovery could lead to a kind of Copernican Revolution in our sense of self: You are much more than you think you are.

The Cognitive Iceberg

The ‘iceberg’ triangle represents the body and the arrows illustrate how the “organism and environment enfold into each other” (Varela et al. 1991: 217). The dotted area just below the apex designates ‘gut feelings’ which are closer to the vast wisdom of what I call the ‘deep body’. At the bottom of the iceberg is the “cognitive unconscious” (Lakoff and Johnson, 1999: 10), which is marked out because it’s normally inaccessible to intentional influence or awareness.

Our everyday ‘tip of the iceberg’ consciousness is quite narrowly focused and tends to heighten our impression that the world is made up of what’s ‘out there’ and what’s ‘in here’. But there are lots of ways to slide our awareness down the iceberg into the deep body, including meditation, ritual, dance and sex. This slide increasingly blurs the distinction between ‘self’ and ‘other’, as illustrated by the gaps appearing in the sides of the triangle. When our awareness is in the deep body there is no separation between ‘self’ and ‘other’ or ‘human’ and ‘nature’.

Cognitive science thus confirms ancient spiritual insights: We are only as separate as we think we are.

• The Cognitive Iceberg in detail
• Brains, bodies and places
• Spirit of place: What lies beneath
• References

Dr. Adrian Harris:  I offer one-to-one Counselling in South East London and run workshops at various venues.

My nature connection walks and workshops which draw on my own research and spiritual practice, are perhaps best described as ecopsychology. Because I ground all my work in the wisdom of the body, I use an embodied approach and Focusing.

You can follow my blog, read my articles and talks, or discover exercises I’ve created. Lost? A click on the labyrinth will always take you to a map of the site.

I have an eclectic background which includes environmental work and a PhD in Religious Studies. You can e-mail me about anything you like!