Spell of the Sensuous
David Abram’s Spell of the Sensuous, Pantheon
Perception and Language in a More than human world
This book is a must have reference for those interested in a phenomenologically grounded depth psychology that promotes the rooted body in contrast to a flight into disembodied spirit.
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“Merleau Ponty’s work suggests that participation is a defining attribute of perception itself. By asserting that perception, phenomenologically considered, is inherently participatory, we mean that perception always involves, at its most intimate level, the experience of an active interplay, or coupling, between the perceiving body and that which it perceives. Prior to all our verbal reflections, at the level of our spontaneous, sensorial engagement with the world around us, we are all animists.
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As we reacquaint ourselves with our breathing bodies, then the perceived world itself begins to shift and transform. When we begin to consciously frequent the wordless dimension of our sensory participation, certain phenomena that have habitually commanded our focus begin to lose their distinctive fascination and to slip toward the background, while hitherto unnoticed or overlooked presences begin to stand forth from the periphery and to engage our awareness.
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From the magician’s, to the phenomenologist’s, perspective, that which we call imagination is from the first an attribute of the senses themselves; #imagination is not a separate mental faculty (as we so often assume) but is rather the way the senses themselves have of throwing themselves beyond what is immediately given, in order to make tentative contact with the other side of things that we do not sense directly, with the hidden or invisible aspects of the sensible.” -Abram
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See stories for lengthier excerpts on “Matter as Flesh” and why western capitalistic #shamanism is a far cry from the work of indigenous community elders.