David Abram begins "The Spell of the Sensuous"
with an account of his experiences as a slight-of-hand magician in Bali. During
his time there, he discovered a profound similarity between himself and the
indigenous shaman/sorcerers: a shared ability to alter consciousness and
perception at will. In Bali, this ability is employed to shift out of the
common state of consciousness to connect with other forms of sensitivity and
awareness entwined with human existence. Abram learned to open his body and
mind to the deliberate communicative signals from the other-than-human world,
which is alive with meaningful messages conveyed through cries, calls, songs,
coloration, posture, and gesture. The shaman's communication with spirits is
actually an engagement with the myriad other-than-human consciousnesses present
in the actual world, as opposed to an imaginary transcendent realm.
Upon returning to the United States, Abram noticed that his
heightened awareness of these communicative signals grew dimmer. He attributed this
decline to the transition from an oral culture in Bali to a literate one in the
United States. In an oral culture, the richness of direct, sensory experience
is paramount, while in a literate culture, written language and abstract
thinking take precedence, dulling the immediacy of sensory perception and
connection with the natural world.
Abram then transitions to a discussion of phenomenology, a
branch of twentieth-century academic philosophy that is central to his project.
Phenomenology emphasizes the primacy of immediate experience over unexperienced
theoretical entities such as molecules and atoms proposed by Greco-modern
science. It highlights the intersubjectivity and reciprocity of perception,
challenging the solipsistic and passive views of Cartesian consciousness.
Phenomenology also underscores the embodied nature of consciousness,
acknowledging our animality rather than viewing consciousness as disembodied.
Language, from a phenomenological perspective, is a
whole-bodied activity rather than a mere relationship between a sign and its
signified, as analytic philosophers suggest. It is a holistic, systematic
phenomenon where words derive meaning within the context of the entire language
system, as demonstrated by Ferdinand de Saussure. With this enriched
understanding of language, we can begin to perceive that the world in which we
are embedded is constantly communicating with us. This world speaks to us and
through us continuously, but we have lost the ability to listen. The primary
reason for this loss is our literacy.
Abram argues that learning to read and write has distanced
us from the direct, sensory engagement with the world that oral cultures
maintain. In literate cultures, the focus shifts to abstract, theoretical
knowledge, and the immediacy of sensory experience diminishes. This shift has
profound implications for our connection with the natural world and the
other-than-human forms of consciousness that inhabit it. To regain this
connection, Abram suggests that we need to cultivate a phenomenological
appreciation of language and perception, recognizing the world as an active
participant in a continuous dialogue with us. By doing so, we can restore our
capacity to listen to the myriad voices of the natural world and reestablish a
deeper, more meaningful relationship with the environment.
After a digression into phenomenology, he returns to
storytelling and the history of literacy. Literacy, he notes, has constrained
communication to the human voice emanating from printed pages. We now hear voices
and see visions through books—stacks of paper adorned with small, intricately
inscribed black squiggles—allowing us to journey through space and time as we
read. For instance, reading Thucydides's The History of the Peloponnesian War
becomes a magical, shamanic journey we can undertake at will. However, this
"spellbinding logomancy" comes at a cost: we abandon our bodies to
live in our heads, engaging exclusively with human interlocutors. This fosters
anthropocentrism and creates dichotomies such as subject/object, mind/body, and
nature/culture, a hallmark of Greco-modern Western thought. Moreover, literacy
enables abstract thought by separating the meaning (form) of a word from its
audible and visible embodiments (matter).
Abram traces the evolution of literacy, culminating in the
Greek alphabet. Paleolithic humans read natural signs, while Neolithic
ancestors used pictographs, hieroglyphs, and ideograms. Reading pre-alphabetic
scripts, like Hebrew—which lacks vowel representation—requires active interpretation,
thus engaging with the world to co-create meaning. The breath that produces
vowel sounds animates the text, reflecting an ancient belief where breath (air)
is synonymous with soul, a notion echoed in early Greek philosophy and the
etymology of the word "spirit."
As the Hebrew script evolved into the Greek alphabet,
letters became so stylized they lost their pictorial meanings, becoming mere
vehicles for inscribed human speech. Abram also explores alternatives to
literate consciousness found in largely oral cultures, such as those of North
American Indians and Australian Aborigines, where the land itself communicates.
However, he argues that while we cannot appropriate these cultures, we need to
address how to "break the spell of spelling."
Abram suggests that historiography and phenomenological
self-discipline might break this spell, but these solutions seem limited in
reach. He overlooks a significant contemporary development: the transformation
of communication through television and the internet. This new electronic mode
of communication is supplanting literacy, yet it does not signal a return to
orality. The pertinent questions concern the state of the emerging electronic
human mind: Will it further alienate us from the more-than-human world or help
restore our relationship with it?
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