Shamanism for the Age of Science: Awakening the Energy Body - Kenneth Smith 2018

Group Consensus
The Formation of Reality

Imagine all of the elements that go into designing and building a bridge, let alone all of the pieces that go into creating an entire culture. Take all the interlocking concepts of the energy body model and then expand that to include each and every aspect of your life. Then imagine what happens when a group of people validate and thus magnify the value of all these elements. The consensual worldview ends up becoming a version of reality that is almost impossible to break free of let alone see beyond.

Soap, hairspray, ships, automobiles, carpentry, education, medicine, the notion that the world is comprised of physical objects or of waveforms, God, and whatever else is part of individual or group consciousness are all parts of an inventory. The beauty of an inventory is that it provides meaning and relationship so you can engage the world. But inventories also constrict awareness by inhibiting the recognition that other inventories, other cohesions, and other worlds also exist. An inventory gives you things to look for, and if you see something that is not in your inventory you may not even recognize it.

Pieces of an inventory are established and connected through selective cueing, or deliberate focus on specific features of the world. Repetitive selective cueing builds and maintains inventories. Subject matter governs the inventory of an educational curriculum, for instance. An inventory can help you direct your attention by letting you know what options you have: yet at the same time it can limit your options. Imagination, though, allows new glimpses, pieces, and chunks of information to enter consciousness. How these are arranged and used is a matter of learning.

Group consensus is not necessarily born of objectivity. It is an aspect of collective consciousness; it is an effect of shared consciousness and subject to shared influence. There’s great power when a group of people hold something to be true, but often the individual gives away autonomy to the group. At the same time, individuation not only requires finding and expressing a personal relationship with the world, it also hinges on finding meaning within the group and being able to constructively contribute to it. As social organisms, individuals are parts of the group. Not taking stock of this alienates you from yourself as well as limits the capabilities of the group.

According to Jung, a person who does not break out of group consensus will never realize individuation. This makes sense: how can you find yourself if you only relate to the group? At the same time, he argues that individuation “aims at a living cooperation of all factors.” This falls in line with Maslow’s concept of a hierarchy of needs, which indicates that basic personal and social needs must be met first in order for a person to progress to the higher needs of learning, knowledge, and selfactualization.¹³ Please refer to the next chapter for a fuller explanation of Maslow’s hierarchy.

On the other hand, the binding power of groups—from peer pressure to ethics to worldviews—entrains perception along preestablished lines and restricts inquiry from novel areas. This is the downside of social development. In terms of the energy body, the more you lock yourself into social considerations such as class standing, the less you actualize your own awareness. While there is great power in the collective, there is also immense power found in stretching into avenues not yet touched by it. You therefore need a balance of being simultaneously open and closed to all areas of life, while developing the art of knowing when to throw the switch in either direction.

This binary (open-close) requirement of learning reveals that new awareness requires openness, and consolidating the gains derived from awareness necessitates at least some degree of closing off. Both positions are necessary for growth, although the closed position tends to get more attention. While there is a natural drive toward forming the world into what is known, recognizable, and usable through enculturation, this tends to be overdone, causing us to step away from openness, to be less inclined to let go of one model in order to start fresh with another or to let more of the unconscious within self and society rise to a conscious level.

New social orders arise all the time. But if a new order is to be truly revolutionary, it must come from a deeper place within individuals who share a common bond. Otherwise, it is a rehash of what already exists. People need to be moved beyond the confines of collective reason and emotion by a greater force that offers enhancement of reason and emotion. Again, though, we have a blessing and curse, since a new movement can either liberate or ensnare.

The guideline for whether a revolution can become a blessing is that of maintaining positive individual governance—the opposite of any form of dominance—within a societal model that encourages flourishing. Collective consciousness—the heart of the group—would hold that authority is found at the core of each and every person. This value is synonymous with individuation and therefore serves to lead both the person and the group to higher states of actualization. Your life is not only a conceptual relationship between individual and society but extends beyond this, as it is also an energetic relationship between self and an all-encompassing environment.

Understanding these types of influences and relationships fosters better understanding of the mechanics of the energy body. Cohesion forms through the effects of the inventory, learning, imagination, and all other entraining influences within and without. As you develop the energy body, mental logic shifts to energetic considerations. In the interim, the world may turn topsy-turvy, meaning that constant vigilance is required to remain open or closed at any given turn in your path in order to maintain balance and harmony with yourself and the world.