BOUNDARIES OF THE SOUL

279 Pages·2013·2.32 MB·English

BOUNDARIES OF THE SOUL:
The Mythic Imagination, Place and Shamanic Consciousness in Literary Form.

Fra Mauro's Mappamundi, 1459 (Oriented with South at the top)

William Hartley
BA., DipSocSc., MLitt., DipEd., MA.

Dissertation submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the
Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
in the
College of Arts,
University of Western Sydney
June, 2008
CONTENTS

LIST OF FIGURES iv
ABSTRACT v
DECLARATION vii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS viii
PREFACE ix

PART I
IMAGINING THE REAL

CHAPTER 1: IMAGINING THE REAL 4
1.1 Introduction: The Topic 4
1.2 Personal Context 10
1.3 Outline of thesis 18

CHAPTER 2: THE EVOLUTION OF THE NARRATIVE PSYCHE 23
2.1 Introduction 23
2.2 The Cave Painters and Their Paintings: The Dawn of
Mythopoeic Sensibility 28
2.3 A Universal Mythopoeic Consciousness 34
2.4 Shamanism and Shamanic Consciousness 37
2.5 Gnosticism 44
2.6 From Hermeticism through Sufism to Romanticism 46
2.7 The Imaginal Realm and Mythopoeic Thought 48
2.8 The Disenchantment and the New Enchantment 49

PART II
PROSPERO’S BOOKS: EMPIRICAL AND TEXTUAL RESEARCH

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY AND METHODS 54
3.1 Methodology 54
3.2 Research Design 55
3.3 The Research Group 55
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3.4 The Questionnaire 57
3.5 The Questions 58
3.6 Serendipity and Textual Research 63

CHAPTER 4: RESPONSES OF THE SHAMANS, READERS AND WRITERS 65
4.1 The Shamans Responses 65
4.2 The Readers Reponses 71
4.3 The Writers Responses 80
4.4 Discussion 97

CHAPTER 5: THE TEXTUAL RESEARCH 108
5.1 David Malouf: The Shaman 108
5.2 Thomas Keneally: The Chanting Priest 126
5.3 Colleen McCullough: The Alchemist 139
5.4 Discussion 148

PART III
THE NARROW GATE: BRIDGING TWO WORLDS
CHAPTER 6: THE MYTHOPOEIC WRITER 154
6.1 Introduction: The Mythopoeic Writer as Shaman 154
6.2 Neo-shamanism and the West 155
6.3 The Fictive Power of Neo-shamanism 156
6.4 Neo-shamanic Initiation 157
6.5 The Anima-Animus Entelechy 159
6.6 Mythopoeic Writers and Neo-shamanic Knowledge 161
6.7 Mythopoeic Perception 165
6.8 Mythopoeic Lies 169
6.9 The Imaginal Membrane 173

CHAPTER 7: THE IMAGINAL REALM 176
7.1 Introduction 176
7.2 The Scientific View 179
7.3 The Connection between the Imaginal Realm
and the Mundane World 182
CHAPTER 8: CONSCIOUSNESS AND SOUL 185
8.1 Consciousness 185
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8.2 The Human Soul and World Soul (anima mundi) 200

CHAPTER 9: MYTHOPOEIC LITERARY CONSCIOUSNESS 209
9.1 Imagination and Literary Consciousness 209
9.2 Embedded Mythopoeic Literary Consciousness 213
9.3 Receptiveness to Mythopoeic Literary Consciousness 215
9.4 The Mythic Dimension 217

CHAPTER 10: THE MYTHOPOEIC DIMENSIONS OF PLACE-ELSEWHERE-PLACE 222
10.1 Introduction 222
10.2 Place as a Mobius Strip-like Continuum 224
10.3 The Mythopoeic Meaning and Experience of Place 239

CHAPTER 11: CONCLUSION: THE SACRED HERITAGE 242
11.1 An Epistemology 242
11.2 Emergent Themes of the Research 243
11.3 The Mythopoeic Writer as Spiritual Functionary
in the Realm of Place 253

BIBLIOGRAPHY 256
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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1 The Yellow Mare pictograph in the Cave of Lascaux. 28
Figure 2 Hand dots in the Chauvet Cave. 30
Figure 3 Handprint in the Cave at Pech Merle. 30
Figure 4 Australian aboriginal handprint. 31
Figure 5 Drawing of an ancient Greek griffin or therianthrope. 34
Figure 6 Drawing of an ancient Greek siren or therianthrope. 34
Figure 7 William Blake’s Ezekiel’s Vision (1805). 35
Figure 8 Famous pictograph of the therianthrope shaman
or sorcerer in the cave at Lascaux 37

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ABSTRACT

In the Western cultural tradition there is a particular aspect of consciousness
discernable in certain fictive literature; mythopoeic literary consciousness (MLC), the
evolution of which may be traced back to its earliest manifestation in the cave
paintings of the Upper Palaeolithic period in Europe. Researchers agree that those
cave paintings are indicative of shamanic activity, which suggests an interesting
relationship between shamanic consciousness and MLC. This research investigates
contemporary experiences of this relationship in the context of place and the
Imaginal Realm using a combination of empirical and textual methods.
The evolution of the narrative psyche is described; beginning with recent
interpretations of the aetiology and meaning of the European Upper Palaeolithic cave
paintings. Shamanism is then examined and linkages are made with subsequent
esoteric traditions such as Gnosticism, Hermeticism, the Imaginal Realm of the Sufi
mystics, and the Romantic Movement in European literature. The Imaginal Realm,
as a metaphysical construct, is posited in relationship to de Chardin’s Noosphere,
Sheldrake’s Morphic Resonance, the Celtic Web of Wyrd and Jung’s Collective
Unconscious.
Empirical research is presented on contemporary expressions of this tradition.
Three internationally recognised Australian authors, David Malouf, Thomas Keneally
and Colleen McCullough, were either interviewed or completed a questionnaire on
their backgrounds, the role of place relationships, states of consciousness when
writing and reading, the role of literature and related questions. Five dedicated
readers and two professionally credentialed practicing shamans completed similar
questionnaires on their experiences and views on literature, the act of reading, and
shamanic and creative consciousness. The responses are accompanied by textual
analysis of the work of the three authors, drawing out themes of importance.
Further discussion of the empirical and textual material in the context of
broader literature establishes the epistemological dimensions of both mythopoeic
literary consciousness and shamanic consciousness. The nature and relationship of
consciousness and soul are examined from a perspective that unites them with the
anima mundi and posits them in relationship with place and elsewhere-place.
The concluding section revisits core themes to posit the mythopoeic writer
and MLC within the heritage of a metaphysical tradition that delineates the
existential boundaries of the psyche. It is argued that MLC is a manifestation of the
narrative imperative of the psyche or soul to orientate itself along a place-elsewhere-
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place continuum, a continuum that parallels states of consciousness from the
participation mystique to the de-centred self.

~~~

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DECLARATION

This thesis contains no work which has not been accepted for the award of
any other degree or diploma in the University or any other tertiary institution and, to
the best of my knowledge and belief, contains no material published or written by
any other person, except where reference has been made in the text.
I give my consent to this copy of my thesis, when deposited in the
University’s Library, being available for loan or photocopying.

William Hartley
June 2008.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I could not have completed this dissertation without the help and
encouragement I received during these many years of research work from my
supervisor Dr. John Cameron at the University of Western Sydney.
There are those too, in my elsewhere-place, whom I have met, imaginally,
who have assisted me and to whom great appreciation is due; to Carl Jung, to
Professor Harold Bloom at Yale University, to the Sufi poet, Rumi, D. H. Lawrence,
Primo Levi and Jorge Luis Borges and to Walt Whitman; all my calamus teachers.
In the realm of place, my special thanks to my dear friend, John Love, who
all those years ago handed me a book on shamanism with the inscrutable comment,
“ … You might like to read this”, and changed my life forever. My special thanks also
to Tom Keneally not only for allowing me to make him the subject of two studies but
also for his insight, warmth and kindness. Thanks also to David Malouf for
participating in my research and for his literally enchanting stories, especially An
Imaginary Life. To Colleen McCullough for her valuable insights, her humour and
spontaneity. Then too there has been James Cowan, a writer of extraordinary
beautiful stories whom I one day hope to meet and to thank.
There are those also who, through their friendship and guidance, have had a
formative effect on me. During my early undergraduate years at the University of
New England, there was Sister Maureen Purcell and Ian Grenfell. More recently the
shamans, Rabbi Yonassan Gershom and Maureen Roberts have taught me to see
beyond the realm of appearances. Thanks are also due to the late Rev Fr Austin Day
of Christ Church St Lawrence who, during his life was a guiding influence and also
Rev Fr Paul Hannah who taught me as a young social worker that the most
impoverished place “ … may not be the Ritz, but for many it is home”. I owe much
to Professor James Tulip of Sydney University for his wisdom, patience and
friendship. To my former chief at WHO in Geneva, long-time friend and provider of
great encouragement, Professor Dr Manuel Carballo now Head of the International
Centre for Migration and Health in Geneva.
It is to my foster son Riza, to whom special thanks is due, not only for putting
up with a sometimes very tense and cranky father but for teaching me much about a
place called home. Finally, to the memory of my parents who taught me how to
listen for the magic in the words, “ … once upon a time, in a place far, far away …”.
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PREFACE
I experience a recurring dream in which I am moving upwards, aware of a
vast open landscape; a copse of trees stands to the right and stretching before me a
grassy plain. In the distance a depression in the landscape marks the course of an
ancient narrow river and beyond that a mountain range. The place is lush and green
and primordial; it is still and quiet yet I sense intensity. In a succeeding episode of
that dream sequence I have crossed over the crude wooden bridge that spans the
river and leads to the foot of the mountains and in the most recent episode, I have
begun my climb up the craggy but richly forested face of that mountainside.
Some tell me that my dream is Jungian and suggests the individuation
process or perhaps represents, metaphorically, an ascension further up my own
Mount Kaf, the movement of my life to its inevitable ending, to the summit to
confront whatever it is that is there. I ponder over the connection and significance it
may have to me now and in the many past stages of my life, from boyhood on, since
when I experience that dream, I am aware also that it is not just for the immediate
past and present but encompasses all stages of my life. I muse over where or what
this place might be and why the idyllic setting?
The possibilities arising from these questions are, essentially, what have
brought me to this thesis; the need to examine the way that the story or narrative of
each individual soul or psyche is bounded, distinguished and formed, often with
mythic dimensions, by place or the places, real or imagined, that it occupies. How
does the soul or psyche generate narratives or stories that connect it with place and
what do they tell us about our deepest selves? Do place and soul have a symbiotic
relationship and might not that relationship then manufacture something narrative in
form so that it may be known? Thus, I am interested in examining the way that
story emerges from place. Some may wish to argue that story or narrative emerges
or is created out of individual experiences, an experience that will be given different
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