Shamanism for the Age of Science: Awakening the Energy Body - Kenneth Smith 2018
States of Consciousness
Expanding the Boundaries
History reveals that consensus reality changes as circumstance gives way to new perceptions. From a flat earth to a geocentric universe to a quantum cosmos, our relationship with the world routinely undergoes upheaval. And yet the changes tend not to be immediately cataclysmic or transformative. It took some time before the ideas of Copernicus took hold, even after Galileo’s validating efforts. Einstein thought aspects of a quantum universe just couldn’t be right. Yet his legacy lives and breathes. And now adherents of the proposition that the world is fundamentally comprised of energy are helping turn the world upside down, or is it right side up?
States of Consciousness
We can make this expansion of worldview function even better by understanding the process behind it. The work of psychologist Charles Tart helps to explain perceptual evolution. In States of Consciousness, a book ahead of its time, Tart puts forth the concepts of a baseline state of consciousness (b-SoC), altered state of consciousness (ASC), and discrete altered state of consciousness (d-ASC).1
In a nutshell, a b-SoC is your normal, waking consciousness, your normal cohesion. An ASC is a state of consciousness that in some way differs from a b-SoC and differs sufficiently to result in awareness outside of the norm; thus, an altered state. A d-ASC is a stable altered state. When you’ve learned how to use an altered state it becomes a discrete state. It is something clearly and consciously separate from your baseline consciousness yet may be returned to time and time again. With an ASC, such as your first OBE, you have minimal connection and coherence to a new area of perception. With a d-ASC, repeated OBEs have established a broader network of what they mean, and the increased coherence produces a cohesion allowing you to gain at least a modicum of control to induce and guide it.
This can be related to the Toltec paradigm, which elucidates the evolution of your energy body through different cohesions. Start with your stable cohesion that you use to get you through the workday, pay the mortgage, and raise a family: the cohesion and model—the baseline—of ordinary life. To change the entire baseline state, you need to experience a number of different cohesions. This is accomplished by plowing as many influences as you can into your energy field: art, literature, music, religion, science, and economics . . . whatever. How you address these, and the skills you develop, are between you and the world. That is the subjective element, the individual component of cohesion. The overriding practice involves exercising consciousness in many different ways. Doing so forms different cohesions, and when these are oriented toward a common goal they result in a profound shift in your baseline.
At the beginning stage of learning, a topic may be outside your daily reference. It may even be completely unrecognizable. An OBE, for instance, is something that is not usually included in daily inventories. If you have an OBE, you may even work hard to forget it because you have no context for it. At this point, the OBE is an altered state. However, if you have repeated, spontaneous OBEs, at some point you will no longer be able to turn your back on them. You might even start researching what they mean. You then continue your study and effort. Over time, you may learn to bring about an OBE whenever you wish. Then it becomes a discrete altered state; your efforts have helped shift, or entrain, your cohesion to express that ability. It is the same for learning any skill, esoteric or mundane.
Susan Blackmore presents another way of looking at this dynamic of innate potential becoming realized. In reviewing studies on the synchronous nature of perception, how bits and pieces of awareness bind into a single recognition, she indicates that “when unconscious information becomes unified it magically ’enters consciousness.’”2 Put yet another way, when you have a sufficient amount of experience with related altered states, they organize to form a coherent discrete altered state.
Perhaps you have concurrently been learning how to solve problems using imagination, as well as how to fly an airplane, speak a foreign language, and conjure up various science-fiction-style cities for a novel. If you develop these to a knowledgeable level, each realm of exploration represents a distinct cohesion. In the beginning, each was an ASC, which developed into a d-ASC. Your b-SoC changes when they all have been integrated into a greater whole. You then participate in life from a new vantage point.
Figure 5.1. States of Consciousness
Altered states directly influence your daily baseline state of consciousness. They are part of developing awareness. The above box represents a complete worldview, with the small boxes representing aspects of that view. When the elements of a baseline are rearranged, you experience an altered state. When this arrangement has meaning, it becomes a discrete altered state. When you command a sufficient number of like-minded discrete states, your baseline changes; you’ve completed the loop.