AFFECTIVITY, MEET EFFICACY

In this essay I compared the spectrum of affectivities that appear within all three phenomenalities of literary narrative to Ernst Cassirer's concept of "efficacy." Since I support a pluralistic phenomenology-- that is, one in which each literary phenomenality has its own valuable modus operandi-- I relate this to Cassirer's appreciation for "the world of subjective emotions" and their ability to form "a sensuous, objective existence." Cassirer compares his concept of objective affectivity with that of "magical efficacy" as he conceives it from anthropological reports on primitive concepts of magic and "mana," or "spiritual energy."

It should go without saying, though, that Cassirer's comparison was purely metaphorical. He wanted to demonstrate that archaic primitives had an appreciation for the sensous, objective side of emotions, as against the tendency of the empircists and positivists to regard emotional states as epiphenomenal.  He was not drawing a comparison between "the world of subjective emotions" and the literal belief in magic, even the sort of passive magic associated, say, with the notion that sacred kings of old could not touch the ground with their feet in order to prevent the loss of kingly "mana."

Of course, there may be no point in making such nice distinctions, since I have also advocated Jung's archetypes as a valid way of analyzing the many permutations of the intersubjective world of shared, often highly structured emotions.  Comics-fans of my acquaintance have often proven astoundingly ignorant of Jung's phenomenology, choosing to believe that if he approached religious subjets with anything but a hard-nosed empirical bias, he could be nothing more than a dreamy-eyed mystic.  Presumably the same ignorant reaction would pertain with regard to Cassirer.

Jung did, to be sure, theorize about synchronicity as an "acausal" principle, and I summarized some aspects of his argument here. Interestingly, Jung does draw upon the psychic experiments of J.B. Rhine to suggest that "under certain conditions space and time can be reduced almost to zero, causality disappears along with them, because causality is bound up with the existence of space and time and physical changes, and consists essentially in the succession of cause and effect."  Thus Jung did suggest the possibility-- though not an outright conviction-- that the mind's possible capacity for psychic phenomena could be connected to the acausal principle of synchronicity, in which the human mind more or less "synchonized" its affectivity with whatever elements mirrored its nature.  Jung's famous story of the scarab is axiomatic:

A young woman I was treating had, at a critical moment, a dream in which she was given a golden scarab. While she was telling me this dream, I sat with my back to the closed window. Suddenly I heard a noise behind me, like a gentle tapping. I turned round and saw a flying insect knocking against the window-pane from the outside. I opened the window and caught the creature in the air as it flew in. It was the nearest analogy to a golden scarab one finds in our latitudes, a scarabaeid beetle, the common rose-chafer (Cetonia aurata), which, contrary to its usual habits had evidently felt the urge to get into a dark room at this particular moment. I must admit that nothing like it ever happened to me before or since.

I would not rule out a possible correlation between psychic phenomenon and the objective phenomenology of emotional unity. But one does not necessarily depend upon the other. 

PSYCHIC, FAIRLY

I'm about to launch into a series of posts prompted by a blogpiece on Curt Purcell's GROOVY AGE, but I'll start by referencing something I said out of that context.

I don't know that I believe in magic as such, but I have seen some evidence for psychic abilities.

In some quarters this would be a fairly innocuous statement. On one forum of my acquaintance, however, I've seen even the most cautious engagement with the idea of psychism excoriated by skeptics who worship at the feet of James Randi. I've seen one comic-book writer equate any degree of psychic-concept acceptance with backsliding into the horrors of organized religion.

It seems obvious to me that the two are not logically related, as there is no necessary association between psychic concepts and concepts of deities. A world in which some psychic talents exist does not automatically imply the existence of gods, ghosts, fairies, selkies, leprechauns, or vampires. Such a world doesn't even imply the existence of Kant's categorical imperative. There are, to be sure, people who believe in both telepathy and fairies. But in contrast to these believers, parapsychologists generally argue that what they study is an aspect of the material world, albeit an aspect subtler than most. It is quite possible that parapsychology will never be validated; that it will never be able to demonstrate the desired repeatability prized by the "hard sciences." But if the discipline does over time fail that test, it won't fail because of some illogical misassociation between telepathy and miracle-making deities.

In lieu of quantifiable evidence, those who claim psychic experiences have only anecdotes. Without question, anecdotes are useless within the sphere of science. I don't decry this exclusionary perspective in the least; there's absolutely nothing science can investigate in an anecdote. However, anecdotes, psychic or otherwise, are not irrelevant to the totality of human experience. The false notion that science *alone* can analyze that totality is nothing more than the posturing of pseudo-intellectuals who have deluded themselves into believing that they are being rigorously "tough-minded" (in the Jamesian sense) to regard telepathy and fairies as co-equal considerations.

And so we come at last to the matter of My Psychic Anecdote (which title I should maybe copyright in case "Scrubs" ever gets revived).

Four years ago, I'm driving home on a street I've driven on a hundred or so times. I'm coming back from my book club, which I've attended more or less monthly since 1993. Never had anything remotely psychic happen to me there before or since.

I pull up to a red light in the middle lane of the three-lane street. There's one car on my left. I remember nothing about the car itself; I don't think I exchanged glances with the driver or anything of the kind. It's early evening, but not dark yet.

As I'm sitting waiting for the light to change, it suddenly occurs to me that even though it's not dark, the two lanes might seem to merge into one into one if one isn't looking carefully. No fairies, no heavenly hosannahs. Just the sense that the guy next to me might *think* that my lane is his lane.

The light changes. I hang back.

Car number two barrels right into my lane, and would've hit me if I'd continued on my merry way.

I've looked at the same intersection many times since. The two lanes never again appeared to be blending into one lane.

I'm familiar with the skeptic's counter-arguments. The apparent "blending" could have been a trick of light that affected both me and Driver Two purely on the visual level, causing the other guy to cross into the wrong lane. If so, then it was a rare trick indeed, not duplicated in the dozens of times I've driven the same route at roughly the same time.

I would hope no sedulous skeptic would try the old "subvocalization" theory to explain away apparent psychic insight. When two drivers are idling in their cars, I think one would have to be Daredevil to pick up on another person's subvocal intentions-- not that the other fellow would be thinking to himself, "I'm going to drive into the wrong lane now."

After that, the skeptic's last defense is always: you're misremembering or lying.

As I said above, my anecdote won't-- and probably shouldn't-- convince anyone but me. I can't make anyone else see as through my eyes, can't communicate to anyone that the impression of blending simply was not a light-distortion, but was rather the other driver's mental image of what he saw ahead of him.

But my anecdote, like many aspects of life, aren't irrelevant to life simply because they can't be reduced to "patients etherized upon a table."

I wouldn't deride who chose not to believe the above anecdote, especially if that person had (or remembers) nothing remotely psychic occur in his own life.

But if that person had a comparable experience, and refused to believe he'd had it because it flew in the face of established science--

That person would be, like the unnamed comics-writer mentioned above, an unmitigated idiot.