Shift In Consciousness Research Articles

Association between pupil dilation and implicit processing prior to object recognition via insight

Insight refers to the sudden conscious shift in the perception of a situation following a period of unconscious processing. The present study aimed to investigate the implicit neural mechanisms underlying insight-based recognition, and to determine the association between these mechanisms and the extent of pupil dilation. Participants were presented with ambiguous, transforming images comprised of dots, following which they were asked to state whether they recognized the object and their level of confidence in this statement. Changes in pupil dilation were not only characterized by the recognition state into the ambiguous object but were also associated with prior awareness of object recognition, regardless of meta-cognitive confidence. Our findings indicate that pupil dilation may represent the level of implicit integration between memory and visual processing, despite the lack of object awareness, and that this association may involve noradrenergic activity within the locus coeruleus-noradrenergic (LC-NA) system.

“Children in a Terrible State”: Understandings of Trauma and Child Sexual Assault in 1970s and 1980s Australia

ABSTRACTThe Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has shown us the multitude of ways that children were vulnerable to sexual violence. This article explores child sexual abuse outside of institutions, and the development of concepts of trauma in Australia in the 1970s and 1980s. From the mid-1970s, there was increased social, medical and legal focus on child abuse. Driven originally by feminists, there was a new interest in the psychological impacts of abuse, including analysis of the grief, despair, fear and anger experienced by survivors. The explosion of interest in child sexual abuse was mainstreamed in the Royal Commission into Human Relationships (1974–1978) and in discussion leading up to the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child (1989). Across the 1980s, public recognition grew concerning the dangers of sexual violence against children, and, in particular, the increased knowledge and interest in intra-familial assaults. This article will chart the dramatic shifts in public consciousness around sexual abuse, particularly around ideas of harm and trauma. It will also suggest that despite a substantial change in cultural views on sexual assault, improvements for child victims were slow to filter through to the criminal justice system.

“Something Came Over Him”: Narratives on Being “Carried by Witches” and Their Possible Connection to Altered States of Consciousness

ABSTRACT The article discusses the experience of being “carried by witches” narrated to me repeatedly during my field research in rural eastern Slovenia in 2000–2001. The experience, which was ascribed to the agency of witches who “enchanted” their victims and led them astray, typically occurred in the forest at night and implied disorientation, sometimes (but not necessarily) the vision of light(s) that people followed or were drawn to, and a shift of consciousness. The article argues that particular neurological conditions (out-of-body experiences, near-death experiences) may have provided a basis for the experience of at least some of the subjects in the memorates, and that various cultural concepts explaining the experience, and cultural patterns of structuring narratives about it, may have been adopted by people in order to cope with and make sense of what they experienced in a society that does not grant cultural value to altered states of consciousness.

The Poster Child of the “Second” Cultural Revolution: Huang Shuai and Shifts in Age Consciousness, 1973–1979

This article charts fluctuations in age consciousness during the waning years of China’s Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) and its immediate aftermath. It argues that between 1973 and 1979, a dramatic shift occurred in normative perceptions of children and what the experience of childhood should entail. During the Cultural Revolution, the ideal child had a good class background, was anti-intellectual, and challenged authority. After Mao’s death in 1976, however, the new leadership reimagined children along more conservative lines. Their child was naive, studious, and, most importantly, politically disenfranchised. In juxtaposing the prevailing attitudes of these two periods, we witness a reorientation of childhood whereby the post-Mao leadership sought to move children away from revolution toward a more normative understanding of childhood that involved play, study, and growth into economically productive citizens. As a case study in what the ideal child was meant to be, the article examines the public life of Huang Shuai, a twelve-year-old primary school student who rose to national prominence in late 1973.

Трансформация сознания в египетском традиционном мусульманском обществе и проникновение идей европейского просветительства в 70–80-е годы XIX в.

Трансформация сознания в египетском традиционном мусульманском обществе и проникновение идей европейского просветительства в 70–80-е годы XIX в.

Quantum Empathy An Alternative Narrative for Global Transcendence (WITHDRAWN)

I propose an alternative narrative for global transcendence that has spirituality and religion at the core of reshaping the interface of society. I apply Frederick’s (1998) concept of cosmology that embraces the interdependence of all life, critiquing notions of the organisation ‘at the centre of the universe’. I therefore propose that spiritual and religious practices such as mindfulness, reflexivity and empathy may contribute to closing the gap between self and other. From this, I argue that we have the ability to tap into the harmonic frequency of the universe (quantum empathy) that may bridge across, through and beyond boundaries to link our human experience. At this quantum level, empathy is an interconnected shared existence, and I suggest that it may support the shift in human consciousness to a WE collective. This cosmological view of religion as a macrolevel organising mechanism does not present a tool-kit for organisational change, but rather offers a provocation of a future system-level interfa...

Biased Appointments under Meritocracy The Israeli Model

This paper examines several features of the Civil Service Appointments Law, illustrating the gradual transition from the British influenced meritocratic model Israel sought to emulate to a less meritocratic model under which many appointments are made without tenders, that is - appointments. By reviewing this process, this essay examine the trend of biased appointments, reveal the various regulatory mechanisms and try to determine whether the erosion of the classic meritocratic model constitutes a failure of the regulatory mechanisms or rather a conscious shift in the appointments model. This essay proposes ways to strengthen the civil service appointment system in Israel limiting the amount of appointments without tenders, in terms of type and volume, as well as focusing on quality and skills even if the appointments are warranted on an individual and/or political basis.

“The fowl are in fact our enemy”

The metamorphosis of Jewish identity portrayed by Aharon Appelfeld in his early stories and essays relates closely to the perspective of Jewish society in a process of assimilating, and in the sea change that the “Holocaust that descended suddenly” forced onto the “depleted Jewish consciousness” that characterized it, as Appelfeld describes it in First Person Essays, (1979): “All of their beliefs were as if overturned in a day. Nothing was left but Jewish bareness” (Appelfeld 1979, 10). Exposed with the appearance of the enemy, the “Jewish bareness” became a founding stone of the new Judaism, “reborn” in response to the rage of the oppressor. It is this central intuition that Appelfeld examines in the story “The Fowl.” Appelfeld's “The Fowl” is based on one of the lesser known texts of Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav, which appear together in the book Hayyei Moharan. This story, as portrayed in the essay, symbolizes a decisive shift in consciousness for Rabbi Nahman, a metamorphosis that, as in Appelfeld's story, reveals Jewish bareness symbolized by vultures.

Maker Culture and DiY technologies: re-functioning as a Techno-Animist practice

The emergence of ‘Maker Culture’ and ‘Maker Spaces’ within formal (and informal) learning environments around the world can be seen as part of a wider shift in consciousness regarding the relationship between human and the material environment. This is reflected in theoretical and academic movements such as the ‘material turn’: where concepts such as Jane Bennett’s ‘vibrant matter’ and Karen Barad’s ‘intra-activity’ have begun to displace human intention as the exclusive centre of agency. In this article, an engagement with DiY (Do-it-Yourself) technologies is explored through an observation of the workshop environment of a single practitioner: uncovering strategies which allow material agency to re-function simple technologies into forms which would be difficult to reproduce using exclusively human intention. Deviating from the role of technology as an invisibly functioning tool, material media is defined as an approach to technologies which incorporates materials as active agents in the creative process of making of cultural artefacts. Through the use of redundant and discarded materials, the DiY practitioner examined in this article is seen to follow a Techno-Animist approach to media technologies: acknowledging the qualities of ‘vibrant matter’ as an active component of agency; re-situating the human in relation to the material environment.

A Study on the Aesthetic Consciousness and the Philosophy of Mind of Choi Buk

호생관 최북(1712~?)은 조선 후기를 대표하는 화가였으며 문장과 글씨, 그림이 모두 기이하다고 스스로 자부할 정도로 뛰어난 기량과 자존의식을 갖춘 화가이다. 최북의 교유관계에서 주목되는 것은 당시 정치권력에서 일정하게 소외된 여주 이씨를 비롯한 남인계 지식인들과 함께 시서화를 애호했거나 정서적으로 공감대를 형성했다는 점이다. 조선 후기는 보편적인 가치의 실현을 강조한 성리학이 시대 변화의 요구를 수용하는 데 한계점을 드러내고 양명학의 수용과 파급으로 인간의 욕망과 개성을 추구하는 사유가 확대되었던 시기라고 할 수 있다. 나아가 창작활동에서 미학적 인식의 변화는 필연적이라고 할 수 있다. 心學的 미의식의 사유는 主體心이 핵심이라고 할 수 있는바, 이는 최북의 서화세계에 있어 창작과 예술정신에 근원이 되고 있다. 게다가 최북은 타고난 신분적 차별에 의한 울분과 사회에 대한 날카로운 비판력이 창작을 통해 투철한 자아의식으로 투영되었다. 최북의 행적을 보면 사대부에게 버금가거나 그 이상인 절개와 지조로 묘사되는 奇節을 엿볼 수 있다. 또한 그의 진취적 기상과 체제에 안주하지 않는 의지가 작품에 투영되어 초탈하고 자유분방하며 구속됨이 없어 氣格이 高逸하고 放逸한 畵境을 이루었다. 그는 서체에 있어서도 草書와 行草에 능해 창작을 통해 放逸의 경지를 체현함으로써 당시의 구태의연한 규범과 가치를 초월하고자 했다. 따라서 최북의 서화세계에 있어 심학적 미의식은 주체적이고 자유로운 감정의 표출을 생명으로 하는 미의식을 촉발시켰으며, 새로운 근대지향적 미의식의 단초를 제공하였다.Hosaenggwan Choi-Buk (1712-?) was one of the greatest painters from the late Joseon period. He was born in the family of jungin, but became a painter with skills that were as outstanding as those of any sadaebu (scholar-official). What was remarkable about Choi-Buk’s friendships and companionships was that Choi favored poetry, calligraphy, and paintings along with and formed emotional connections with intellectuals of the Namin factions, including the Yeoju Lee family, who had been constantly alienated and excluded from political power. The late Joseon period was an era in which the essence of subjectivity shifted from “human nature” (性) to “human affection” (情) following the acceptance and spread of Yangmyeonghak (Yangming studies). Therefore, the shift in aesthetic consciousness manifested in creative activity was inevitable. Furthermore, subjectivity (主體心) was essential to reflections on aesthetic consciousness as practical ethics, which formed the basis of creation and artistic mindset in the calligraphic world of Choi-Buk. Moreover, Choi-Buk’s resentment towards discrimination based on class and his sharp criticism of society were reflected in his creations with a clear sense of self-consciousness. Choi-Buk’s creations indicate an incredible “kijeol” (奇節) meaning integrity and fidelity, which matched or even surpassed that of any sadaebu (scholar-official). His works reflected his progressive spirit and determination to never stay content with the establishment, transcending and free from worldly constraints. He created paintings of “heedlessness” (放逸) that showed his extraordinary personality and elegance. As for calligraphy, Choi-Buk was a competent writer of cursive script (草書) and semi-cursive script (行草) and, by representing the stage of “heedlessness” through creative activity, he intended to transcend the obsolete norms and values of that period. Thus, aesthetic consciousness as practical ethics in the calligraphy of Choi-Buk encouraged a subjective and free expression of emotion and provided the foundation for new and modern aesthetic consciousness.

The Catholic Church in Ireland Today

Studies • volume 106 • number 421 9 The Catholic Church in Ireland Today The Catholic Church in Ireland Today1 Gerry O’Hanlon SJ In the middle of summer 2016, commenting on a controversy surrounding Ireland’s national seminary, St Patrick’s College Maynooth, the country’s leading broadsheet, The Irish Times, had this to say in an editorial: The Maynooth controversy would once have given rise to major public disquiet. That it no longer does so reflects the Church’s recent history. Many Catholics have long since abandoned the institution – its princes, priests and politics – and are choosing to interpret the faith according to their own conscience.2 Coincidentally, earlier in the same year, an academic study in the field of the sociology of religion was published with the title Transforming PostCatholic Ireland.3 The author, Gladys Ganiel, in explaining her choice of title, refers explicitly to an article written by Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin in 2013 titled ‘A post-Catholic Ireland?: Renewing the Irish Church from within’.4 Ganiel defines a post-Catholic Ireland in terms of ‘a shift in consciousness in which the Catholic Church, as an institution, is no longer held in high esteem by most of the population and can no longer expect to exert a monopoly influence in social and political life’.5 She argues that the future of faith in Ireland will depend on the development of ‘extra-institutional’ forms of religious expression (religion practised outside or in addition to the institutional Catholic Church).6 Her analysis ties in with the frequently observed characteristic of modern Catholicism in Ireland – and indeed further afield – as becoming individualised and de-institutionalised. With the new emphasis on personal conscience as opposed to magisterial teaching, this is sometimes referred to as the ‘Protestantisation’of the Catholic Church in Ireland. Dr Martin himself has spoken and written frequently about the crisis confronting the Irish Catholic Church, warning that it ran the risk of becoming an ‘irrelevant minority culture’.7 I propose in what follows to describe briefly some of the background to this crisis and then to suggest some ways forward. 10 Studies • volume 106 • number 421 Gerry O’Hanlon SJ Background to the crisis ThetraditionalCatholicismwhichisnowbeingsupersededinIrelandhadmany distinguishing features.8 It was a defining characteristic of Irish nationalism and identity, with ‘a monopoly on the Irish religious market’, a strong relationship with state power, elevating the status of cleric to extraordinary heights and emphasising the evils of sexual sin.9 This was Catholicism with high levels of religious practice, a stress on rule-keeping and sin, a strong ethos of sacrifice and delayed gratification, a familiarity with austerity and a hope for fulfilment in the after-life. It was characterised by a deep popular devotion featuring the likes of the rosary, benediction, sodalities, indulgences and processions. It provided comfort and fuelled the spiritual and ethical imaginations of its adherents, and had a deeply committed, global missionary outreach. However, its un- and even anti-intellectual nature meant that it was ill-prepared for the challenges posed by a late-emerging modernity in Ireland. It was a religion in which the voice of the priest, the bishop, and the Pope could rely on its formal authority to get a serious hearing, not just from the faithful, but also from the politician. A paternalistic ethos reigned and was almost universally accepted. Apart from the popular devotion already mentioned, this was Catholicism deeply institutional in form, dependent on a type of clericalism which was vulnerable to a more critical culture. From the 1960s onwards this more critical culture emerged in Ireland. The influence of television and other media, economic development and increased urbanisation, foreign travel, EEC membership and enhanced educational opportunities all conspired to open Ireland up to the waves of critical questioning and secularisation already well advanced in many other parts of Europe. Internally, the Church was at best lukewarm in its reception of the Second Vatican Council – there was liturgical change which was received for the most part positively, some increased lay involvement, not least in various episcopal commissions established in the wake of the Council, and a real energy around some issues of social justice (not least in the establishment of...

Transnational migrant home visits as identity practice: The case of African migrants in South Africa

Focussing on the temporary journeys of transnational migrants in South Africa to their home countries on the continent, this paper explores the motivations, subjective experiences and perceived significance of these home visits for the migrants’ sense of identity and belonging. Based on a qualitative interpretive research approach, the study finds that memories and comparisons invariably underpin the experience of the home country, the encounter with the home and engagement with social relations. This induces new insights and sometimes ‘small epiphanies’ (Pearce, 2012), which can lead to self-reflection, self-transformative experiences and shifts in consciousness, affecting the migrant’s sense of belonging.

In the Roth Archives: The Evolution of Philip Roth's Kepesh Trilogy

As least narratively coherent of Roth's recurrent narrators, David Kepesh is also one of Roth's most enigmatic characters. Perhaps this is excusable; Roth wrote Kepesh novels during vastly different eras, and, as such, they reflect vastly different interests. For all frustration this can induce in readers desiring a clearly-defined trilogy, arguably Kepesh's incongruity and ambiguity helped Dying Animal (2001), third and final novel in Kepesh trilogy, receive a significant amount of scholarly attention in recent years. Velichka Ivanova and Debra Shostak are among critics who convincingly interpret novel as a critique of certain kinds of toxic masculinity. In addition, Shostak evaluates how Kepesh trilogy explore[s] consequences for sexuality and self-concept when gendered perspective of a consciousness shifts position (Countertexts 7)-highlighting ludic skittishness of trilogy as a unit.Scholars have remarked very little on this skittishness and have largely considered first two novels in trilogy to be a faint embarassment. For example, in his monograph Philip Roth, David Brauner makes an indicative argument that The Dying Animal is, along with other Kepesh novels, among [Roth's] weaker (223). Whilst increase in scholarly work done on Dying Animal has mitigated this, little work on previous two novels exists,2 resulting in an absence of scholarship that offers prolonged examinations of construction of books as a trilogy. As such, gap between first Kepesh novel (The Breast, 1972) and second (The Professor of Desire, 1977) is particularly important insofar as it reflects a commitment on Roth's part to avoid a linear narrative of either surreal Kafkan fantasy or Bildungsroman character study.The rise in studies of Kepesh novels (or, at least, figure of Kepesh as represented in Dying Animal) has been coterminous with scholarly usage of Philip Roth Papers in Library of Congress, an archive whose vast collections of Roth-related material remain underutilized in Roth scholarship to date-although it has been deployed in recent works by Shostak, Patrick Hayes, and Josh Lambert, amongst others. These trends are crucial to this article, as is Shostak's notion of the gendered perspective of a consciousness shift[ing] position, a conception of trilogy that accounts for Roth's penchant for abrupt transformation and narrative inconsistency.This article argues that perceived faults of Kepesh novels can mask their more subtle usefulness for Roth scholarship; in particular, by exploring differences in first two Kepesh novels, a sense of their significance within Roth's work can emerge. Beginning with a close reading of unfinished sequels to Breast, this article will first track paths not taken and explore what their absence reveals about text that would become Professor of Desire. Branching into a discussion of unusual publication history of Breast, this article will then explore how Roth came to modify text, positing that such changes evidence an uncertainty over novel's representation of psychoanalysis in particular. Finally, this article will discuss how techniques it has employed can provide a platform for a reexamination not only of value of these works, but of role of psychoanalysis in Roth's career more broadly.1. UNFINISHED SEQUELS TO THE BREASTThe Breast did not remain a static text in Roth's bibliography. Evidence from both Philip Roth Papers and subsequent published versions of text reveal novella to be in a consistently uncertain position; whilst it arguably represents a definable cultural moment (the growing disenchantment with psychoanalysis amongst American intelligentsia), it is also demonstrably a work that Roth agonized over as his career progressed. This instability deepens sense of fundamental unease that is detectable on a contextual, theoretical, and narrative level within novel. …

Deictic transformers: Phenomenological analyses of time-shifts in video art installations

Abstract This article seeks to define a phenomenon in video installations that emerged during the 1990s. It is a type of audio-visual architecture that I call deictic transformer. Deictic transformers are not representations, they are events that trigger a specific type of effect, namely, a shift in time-consciousness, which is characterized as total engagement with the present moment in its impermanence, non-substantiality and self-differentiation. The article unfolds in the form of experiment. As a first step, phenomenological accounts of Christian icons are compared to phenomenological readings of Bill Viola’s ultra slow-motion video art installations. The reader is guided to experience how different media (religious paintings, video) generate different engagements with the present moment. The main subject of this article is ‘the now’. The article suggests that there are various ways of engaging with ‘the now’ and these ways trigger specific shifts in present-time consciousness. These shifts are closely related to the formation of subjectivity and thus demonstrate that temporality is not a given, but could be seen as a technology of the self. Christian icons are representative of a metaphysical approach to the present moment, predominant in the arts and philosophy of the western tradition before the twentieth century. Bill Viola’s video installations The Greeting (1995) and The Passions series (2000–2001) represent a new sensitivity towards time brought by electronic media. The dualist experience of time that is deeply embedded in the Christian tradition is recomposed via video and digital manipulation into a dynamically holistic temporality. The second step addresses other video-based examples of deictic transformers such as Gary Hill’s Viewer (1996) and David Claerbout’s Rocking Chair (2003). The third step examines the aesthetic strategies of these video installations and formulates a definition of their modus operandi. This article does not claim that deictic transformers represent the mainstream of video art installations. Deictic transformers, however, are seen as a growing tendency in new media art praxis that demands intensive engagement with the emerging dynamic of embodied presencing; a tendency that is relatively unprecedented in western culture, and that could be considered an (in)direct result of the technological capacities of video and digital media. In other words, the analyses of Viola, Hill, and Claerbout’s audiovisual experiments demonstrate that video and digital technologies of late twentieth century shift our perception of time from attempts to escape everyday impermanence and the search for permanent metaphysical presence towards an entanglement with the non-substantiality of presencing.

Projecting Cracks, Bending Borders: Exploring Gendered Racial Violence in Un/bound

This article engages performance art as a critical intersticiality in which to excavate those necropolitical forces that mobilize human rights for (white) settlers across the same civic spaces in which racialized others are brutalized and die, in Canada, in 2016. Moving with several scholars of antiracism, dance studies and Indigenous theory, I self-reflexively analyze my piece “Un/bound,” that explores gendered racial violence against Indigenous women in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Contextualizing my performance within the larger installation Storying and Unsettling Ourselves,I discuss the powers of art to incite shifts in consciousness, where settlers, as artist-scholars, move from spaces of guilt into spaces of direct action in the struggle against colonial violence in Canada, and across the hemispheres.

Complicated pathways: settler Canadians learning to re/frame themselves and their relationships with Indigenous peoples

ABSTRACT The relationship between Indigenous peoples and settler society in Canada has been profoundly shaped and affected by the ongoing and insidious processes of settler colonialism operating within all spheres of mainstream life. Indigenous peoples, grassroots activists, universities, NGOs, church groups and governments have organized many initiatives to educate and provide information to settler Canadians about colonial histories and the contemporary realities of Indigenous peoples. This paper introduces a research project which draws together many such initiatives in a website Transforming Relations. Through an analysis of the compiled initiatives, the complexities of transforming settler consciousness in Canada are demonstrated and discussed. Shifting settler consciousness has complex layers that must be engaged in order to disrupt the settler colonial status quo. We conclude that many initiatives are focused on changing awareness or consciousness and may not go further to name contemporary manifestations of settler colonialism where settler Canadians are positioned as its beneficiaries. The paper reflects on the need for analysis to understand what kinds of spaces and pedagogies lead to the most substantial shifts in settler consciousness, and how to effectively generate conversations that center Indigenous lands, sovereignties and resurgence.

The Curious Transformation of Boy to Computer

The Curious Transformation of Boy to Computer

Literature: A Step in the Right Direction

Literature offers the opportunity to encounter worlds beyond one’s own circumstances, environment, and situation. As an intercultural phenomenon, literary critique and analysis without borders can only be achieved by recognising cultural borders. Reading the literature of different cultures opens literary discourses to cross-cultural dialogue, but for too long, the lack of Indigenous literature within Australian literary discourses stymied the social potential of this intercultural phenomenon. Pressure from the global literary community has necessitated a vast shift of white consciousness to actively embrace narratives of different cultural dimensions, and novels that highlight cultural borders have become a key feature of Australian literature. Invisible literary borders have become apparent through exposure to the once silent voices that now emphasise messages of difference. Indigenous writers including Alexis Wright, Sally Morgan, Kim Scott, Jackie Huggins, Anita Heiss, Larissa Behrendt and Alice Nannup have opened reader consciousness to a broad scope of Indigenous perspectives. Within the arena of literary theories, the writer, reader and novels themselves have all had moments of glory, and while particular texts or authors have been immortalised, others have slipped into oblivion. Through the first person narrative of a non-Indigenous woman, this paper reveals how an intercultural literary experience revealed the restrictions of standard literary critique practices and inspired the creation of a relational discourse to engage with Indigenous voices as part of a methodological process. This intercultural literary process has the potential to inspire cultural awareness through acceptance and understanding of difference to overcome cultural unconsciousness. Such development has the capacity to destabilise invisible borders embedding lasting change in the consciousness of Australian readers and provide a foundational and fundamental step toward sustainable outcomes for Indigenous people.

Disadapting to the environmental crisis

This paper offers a psychoanalytically informed reflection on how the environmental crisis has been framed and debated. The author draws attention to the ways in which apparently radical responses to the environmental crisis may often only reinforce established sociopolitical positions. By examining various responses to the environmental situation, it is argued that solutions-focused thinking runs counter both to the underlying assumptions of much environmentalist literature, and to basic psychoanalytic insights concerning the nature of change. Emphasis on action and the theme of adaptation is portrayed as being fundamentally opposed to a more substantive shift in consciousness.

Articulation and Concordance: A Dialogue on Civil–Military Relations in Fiji

Articulation and Concordance: A Dialogue on Civil–Military Relations in Fiji