The Crack in the Cosmic Egg

by Joseph Chilton Pearce

  At any rate, cracks in the cosmic egg can always be created, and our culture needs one very badly. I recall a conversation several years ago with an Air Force Colonel, a man of education, good breeding, impeccable manners. He was a frustrated man, though, for he had recognized the dangers to our country and knew quite well the immediate steps which had to be taken were our nation to be saved. What he advocated was the "taking out" of the eastern hemisphere of this green earth. We have the capability, he pointed out. We can do it. Unless we remove them they will remove us , and the time is now. It was the only expediency and his logic was clear. His approach was calm, with a dispassionate objectivity, a certain dignified regret, mixed with icy practicality.

  He spoke in Kahn-like reasoned statistics on probable survivors, rebound capability, and so on. When I mentioned that "taking out" a hemisphere meant taking out families like mine he said I exemplified the real threat to America. It was the weak man who could not operate by sane rational thought, but who reacted according to emotions, that caused the grave danger of our time. If only the unemotional, the practical men, the Pentagonians, could just rule, he said, the problem could be met squarely, bravely, and solved.

  I think of the 800 billion dollars in appropriations the Pentagon can anticipate as of my present writing here, and the new levels of energy being imaged up by brilliant minds in fantastic university laboratories sponsored by all that powerful Pentagon money. I think of Teilhard de Chardin's dream of man "seizing the tiller of the world," raching for that energy beyond all atomic and molecular affinities, that mainspring of the universe. I think of David Bohm and his 10^38 ergs -- not available yet, but, as he mused, when conditions change . . . And I think on the frustrated Colonel who would "take out" one lobe of this thinking globe's brain. And I wonder how long before conditions change, and the Pentagon comes into its own, and that strange surgery might work its final lobotomy on this living sphere.

  And I think on that little bit of planet, Ceres, and all its exploded parts lying in neat, Bode's Law orbit. Did Ceres, too, reach for that mainspring of the universe, only to have the thrust seized by "practical men" solving social problems by removing others? And so I wonder as Ceres' fragmentations, Pentagons, Colonels, 10^38 ergs, and takings-out of hemispheres echo like insomniac questions of the night.

  Back in the mid-thirties a German told Tom Wolfe that Germany was caught on a fast train with a madman at the throttle. To jump off seemed suicide, to stay on even worse. The metaphor holds for today as severely and more universally. We, too, are caught on a train, a supercharged one, rolling madly downhill, faster and faster. Though we chart our increases of tempo with fascinated awe, neither our giddy success nor our new "freedoms" can cover our underlying alarm.

  For there is no engineer to our train , not even a madman. And there is no brakeman. For there is no steering mechanism, and there are no brakes. And the terrible rumor from the front of the train is true: there are no tracks out there ahead. The mad machine throws its own down as it thunders murderously along.

  Who can say -- perhaps the brave new optimists are right. Perhaps the hill will last forever, with no sudden curves or precipices along the way. Perhaps it could happen that way. It just never has before.

  The German was right. To stay on the train is madness, to leap from it suicide. But there is still a Way -- a narrow, hard Way, a difficult crack between the worlds where, losing your life, you can find it. Therein might lie the only hope for the train itself, improbable as the notion sounds.

  9 don Juan and Jesus

  All logical systems, East-West, scientific-religious, cyclic or linear, originate in an analysis of the way reality is structured. Then, by various techniques, the system develops as an attempt to use the analysis to obtain some particular product from the process analyzed.

  The idea of eschewing products, and seizing the very process by which reality organizes is the radical departure found in don Juan's Way of Knowledge, and in Jesus' Way of Truth. Don Juan and Jesus consider the world to be an arbitrary construct, not an illusion as in the East or a fated absolute as in the West. Since the world is an arbitrary construct, the means of construction, not a particular construct, or the products of a construct, are the focal point of attention.

  Don Juan and Jesus believe the materials of the world to be subject to dramatic alteration and reorganization by an activity of the mind. Both systems work to lower the threshold between reality-adjusted thinking and autistic thinking, and without loss of identity. Both systems have analyzed the way by which reality events shape, and have then dared to dissolve the structure of a common domain, the selective world agreed upon in ordinary social thinking. Such a dissolution would ordinarily threaten the ego-personality which has been centered and formed by the common domain, and this is a risk assumed.

  Both don Juan and Jesus have as a goal the seizure of the ontological function itself and both attempts hinge on a complete surrender to the function. Through a sacrifice of self and absolute obedience to the way of the system, union with the process of reality is achieved. There is a single underlying way by which all reality forms and "union" with this procedure is possible. However, the system or means of achieving such union determines the kind of reality then shaping as experience for the person involved. There is a single unitary core of reality-functioning, but it is not available in a "pure form." It is , in actuality, according to the method of actualizing it. The subject's approach to the function determines his realization of it.

  Don Juan recognizes the ordinary world to be but one of an endless number of possible constructs. The man of courage and daring in his culture will explore as many possibilities of this as he can, simply because the possibilities are there and that is what life is about. Man can restructure reality in freely-synthesized ways. Though death is the final victor, to live a strong, hard life, in which reality opens its endless possibility, is the mark of a warrior, a man of knowledge, and the only conceivable way to live.

  Jesus aims to restructure particular events within the world. He aims toward a special consensus concerning the ordinary reality. Non-ordinary reality is used only for the sake of the ordinary world. Achieving a new and different "editorial hierarchy of mind" for the follower of the Way serves as catalyst for new syntheses when our fated and autonomous blindnesses, split from our whole mind as they are, lead us into inescapable dilemmas.

  Don Juan seized the ontological process to construct paths of "breathless wonder." Jesus seizes the process to bridge the modes of mind. Don Juan is in love with eternity. He is a kind of hedonist of the psyche. Jesus is in love with time. He is a pragmatic Hebrew, concerned over his fellow man. The esthetic differences of goals, of techniques and disciplines, give dramatically different results. But the process of attainment is similar.

  Eastern thought viewed the world as a fated illusion and yearned for the 'real' world. This is a proposition denied by both don Juan and Jesus, who know the world to be perfectly real. Greek-Stoic thought viewed the world as a fixed mechanical unit, distinct from the mind of man. This, too, is denied by don Juan and Jesus, who see the world as a matrix for continual resynthesis. Both recognize the world as an agreed upon and practiced construct in a continuum of possible constructs. Both recognize this as true with any and all possible worlds.

  Don Juan created private but equally-real worlds for personal adventure, and accepted as a natural part of his path the isolation within his created point of view. Carlos experienced this as "the aloneness of a single person on a journey." Jesus recognized that no communicable, shared reality is possible except by agreement between the participants of that world. So his system was to carry don Juan's open synthesis into the ordinary world. Jesus will break with the world of common agreement, but only under special circumstances and for special goals.

  The crack in the egg is sought by Jesus to restructure some specific problem area in ordinary reality. His system works only in relationships between people. His non-ordinary states are creat
ed as shared states by the constant focus on the needs of the other. No isolation is engendered. Two or three can gather together and reach a non-ordinary consensus, a point of agreement different from that of the ordinary world. Group agreement gives a mutual feedback of verification, sustaining the non-ordinary even in the ordinary. Carlos might call feeding the five thousand a special consensus of non-ordinary reality, or healing the man with a withered arm a special consensus about ordinary reality. In all cases, filling some need is Jesus' motivation and this proves to be the only way his particular crack is sustained.

  Don Juan spoke of learning by doing as the only way to knowledge. There was no act of grace suddenly bestowing the goal. And yet there was the ally, a helper available once the subject had proved himself and learned to open to and control the technique of bringing about states of special reality.

  Jesus' knowing, too, could only be obtained by doing, a course of action and thinking as rigorous as don Juan's. In conjunction with reality-adjusted thinking went an unambiguous single-minded organization similar to Bruner's "thinking for the left hand." Once this kind of thinking was practiced, the world no longer split against itself, and there was freedom to "intervene in the ontological constitution of the universe," as Eliade put it, since conscious thought then had ready access to that point in the continuum where there was no judgment, no distinction between kinds of organization.

  Neither don Juan nor Jesus could offer intellectual procedures or explanations of their way, since logic and reason are only the surface part of mind, the part splitting a total awareness. Both deny absoluteness of "sanctity" to any particular system, and, eschewing the products of systems, they are equally offensive to all systems. The only thing sacred to don Juan and Jesus is the way in which systems are built. Allegiance can only be given the process if balance of mind is to be achieved and sustained. Unbending intent is don Juan's requirement, a passionate concern. Idolatry, Jesus would say, is considering as absolute or true any product of the reality process. The process is the only truth, the only absolute, and the way to freedom.

  Don Juan would have but one apprentice in his life, as his own benefactor had had but one. Many might be called to Jesus, but few would be chosen. Few would ever find the Narrow Gate. Both systems were esoteric, difficult to attain, and harder to sustain. Both demanded a risk of life -- the world turns and rends its heroes -- and, more seriously, a risk of soul or mind.

  Growth within the way was not automatic or assured. The continuing response of the person gave the context for growth. Peter could be either the Keys to the Kingdom, or Satan, depending on his use of all his faculties and openness to the guide.

  In his evaluation procedures, don Juan had set the expectancies shaping Carlos' future experiences. He did this by strong negative and positive reactions to the contents of Carlos' preliminary ventures. Jesus, too, reacted with quick negatives and positives to his follower's responses, questioning and probing their reactions, attempting to determine their expectancies associated with the Way.

  Both systems required "frugality" or conservation of energy. Every aspect of life had to be reserved for the path. This implies no nonsense of a limited or fixed quantity of "libido" in a Freudian sense, but ultimacy of commitment and unambiguous intent. Extraordinary effort was needed to break with the broad stream that makes up the self-mirroring world of the ordinary. The activity of restructuring in the face of the strength of statistical reality called for extremes of energy and determination in Jesus' Way. And restructuring in the wake of psychedelic dissolution called for the same commitment and strength in don Juan's Way.

  Shelter, nourishment, companionship, and so on, are the needs ruling the split man. They are the products by which short-circuited demonic power is wielded by one man over another. All these products of the broad way must be ruthlessly cut out, boldly denied. Fasting played a role in both systems. One became a "eunuch" for the sake of the Kingdom. Don Juan kept telling Carlos that he thought about himself too much. Self had to be forgotten. Only the path was important.

  Both don Juan and Jesus were figures for transference, and both provided the clues for the initiating of the way. Both promised a helper or ally who would come and open one to ever-greater levels of growth and power. Power, an automatic result in both systems, was a crucial point of danger. The Temptations in the Wilderness graphically typified the main categories of misuse of power and loss of the Way. In don Juan's system any power once attained was never lost. Unless voluntarily surrendered, however, and given over only for the furtherance of more knowledge, the power became immediately demonic and blocked all further possibility of growth. Double the talents, Jesus promised, and you would be given twice that many more -- for more doubling. If invested. Otherwise all were taken away.

  Any attempt to use power for personal ends destroyed the Way in Jesus' system as well as don Juan's, and a practical, functional reason, not a "spiritually moral" one, was the cause. Desire for freedom from the tensions of reality as found in mystical systems or desire to use the potentials of the whole mind for ego-interests are out-of-balance maneuvers; the point of rapport with the whole mind is simply lost. In the mystical experience the self is dissolved, if only temporarily, into the continuum. In desires of the ego, the imbalance is toward self, breaking the rapport with the whole mind, and further trapping the person in the fixed products of the ordinary world.

  In Jesus' system, concern for others on the one hand, and total allegiance to the autistic "spirit" on the other, achieved the otherwise impossible balance. Clarity of mlnd, a clear understanding of one's own motivations, was necessary in both systems. Single-vision, or non-ambiguity, was the prime criterion. The path had to be chosen freely, as ultimately desirable, having counted the costs of following it.

  There was no free directing of the path itself, however. Personal responsibility was for a surrender to the peculiar qualities of the path. A cultural hierarchy of values helped give the guidelines for action. A continually-renewed commitment was necessary, though, for the only known goal was the process of movement along the path itself. The path was an open structure forming only as one moved along it. The "obligatory acts" in Jesus' system were much more dependent on the context of the moment than were don Juan's.

  Death was a contingency in both systems. In Jesus' system death was the ultimate demonic, accepted and assumed as an unavoidable property of the split mind but not of the integrated one. The demonic was controlled by denying absoluteness to those aspects of life over which the demonic has power. The soul never "sinning," never granting allegiance to the products of a system, and allying only with the function of systems-building itself, would never die. Only when concern for the path was greater than concern for self could the self achieve security.

  In don Juan the capacity for exertion of extraordinary energy had to be effective, quite literally, for survival. Non-survival had to be accepted, however, as the mark of profound belief. No goal could be entertained by mind except the goal of the path itself. And this path was its own end. Don Juan had no prospect of survival. Death was the final victor.

  With Jesus, agreement, if only among two or three, could establish a non-ordinary reality by consensus within the group. This kind of autistic bridge between people is found in don Juan, who brought about non-ordinary events shared, unhappily, by Carlos in non-hallucinogenic ways. It was, in fact, this conscious restructuring by don Juan of ordinary events, right out in the light of day, that finally defeated Carlos by their sheer horror.

  Fear had to be accepted, faced, admitted, and then gone beyond. Until one recognized the reason for fear he was not fully aware of the qualitative distinction between his new Way and the world's Way. The follower was then still double-minded and divided in intent. The real onslaught of fear arose at recognition that the events of ordinary reality were arbitrary. Langer's fear of "collapse into chaos should our ideation fail" is strong. We are a built-in function of delineation, defining, delimiting, constructing by ordina
ry consensus a tight little island in a sea of apparent randomness. This is genetically, psychologically, and inherently, the strongest motivation we have, the skeleton of our minds, egos, ways of being. To threaten it is worse than death. The crack in the egg is no small threat.

  Don Juan exerted all his dramatic abilities and knowledge to maneuver Carlos into just the position where his certainty that the reality of everyday life is implicitly "real" would be undermined. Only the complete collapse of that certainty could remove the last barrier to accepting the existence of separate but equal realities, those realities of "special consensus." The component elements of ordinary reality could be denied and thus open to restructuring. Carlos sensed in this that there was then no guarantee that he could "provide himself indefinitely with consensus," and this abyss of apparent chaos drove him back into the broad stream.

  The break with ordinary consensus is thus profoundly serious. This is what Jesus meant when he said that we must give up our life to find greater life, and that while the animals had a definite place, the Son of Man had none. Such cures for psychic ills are strong medicine, no matter how sick the patient.

  Jesus could exert great sway in an event of the moment, but was frustrated that the import of his maneuvers faded from his followers' awareness. His followers centered their faith in his personality, while his constant aim was to center their faith in the function of faith itself. His problem was similar to that of transference in psychoanalysis. As a transference-agent he could catch his followers up in the restructuring of an event, but they could not see the transference function as itself the crack in the egg. They made the common error of idolatry -- making Jesus into the source of magic. And it was the function of reality formation toward which Jesus pointed, toward which he tried to be "transparent."