the threshold

I'm a dweller on the threshold
And I'm waiting at the door
And I'm standing in the darkness
I don't want to wait no more

-- Van Morrison

In a brilliant discourse on human immortality at Harvard in 1898, William James shows the illogic of the belief that human consciousness arises and perishes with the brain, a belief held by many today who consider themselves to be of extreme rational clarity. The brain is born, hello; the brain dies, bye-bye. The belief system in which this belief is embedded is called materialism or scientism. Many of its proponents believe that this belief system is not a belief system, but is reality. Only other folk (outside the materialistic belief system) are deluded by belief systems and hence inferior thinkers. The irony! The irony!

James’ major thesis is that the proponents of human consciousness death at brain death don’t go far enough in their thinking. “My thesis now is this: that, when we think of the law that thought is a function of the brain, we are not required to think of productive function only; we are entitled also to consider permissive or transmissive function. And this the ordinary psycho-physiologist leaves out of his account.”

The permissive or releasing function is like that of a crossbow. When the physical impediment is removed by pulling the trigger, says James, what was held is let fly. The transmissive function is like that of the relationship between the energy of light and a prism. "The energy of light, no matter how produced, is by the glass sifted and limited in color, and by the lens or prism determined to a certain path and shape." When the prism is removed, the light remains.

Though highly appreciative of James’ arguments (much more subtle and extensive than my summary of them), I am more concerned with his idea of thresholds: that there is a higher, wider deeper consciousness that births our ordinal or ordinary one, that we are in tune with it at certain times more than other times, and the level of attunement has to do with the bar at which our threshold is set. When fatigued, for example, our bar is high and attunement is less felt.

My question is: what can we do to lower the bar? Now. In this life now.