[Laurence Burrow]

Finally I found someone who could “square the circle” of a philosophy that is both spiritual AND embodied! I was both into the Phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty AND mystical philosophy but couldn’t put the two together as he presents as being a Marxist and doesn’t mention spirituality in general. Spiritual philosophies, on the other (?right hand), tend to be suspicious of embodied experience and gravitate toward Decartes’ dualism, while neurology points out the fact that parts of the “soul” disappear when parts of the brian get damaged.

Yet it seems that Merleau-Ponty’s is very similar to “non-dual” Vedanta and other mystical “monist” views; indeed his is a “technique” that I would argue is a “therapy” for shifting hemisphere’s from left to right. His is a “both and” philosophy: one that embraces paradox and ambiguity (and there’s plenty of that in our “life world”!) Iain has diagnosed our predicament and now we need to look for ideas, experiences and techniques that can shift our perception and help to balance our cognitive faculties. Merleau-Ponty’s practice of Phenomenology seems like a good place to begin and his work is explained clearly and simply in David Abram’s: “the Spell of the Sensuous”. Abram also describes how he spent time with indigenous cultures and noticed a definite change in consciousness when he returned to NY that sounds exactly like a shift back into habitualised left-hemisphere style.

Incidentally I also recently read the work of Geraldo Reichel-Dolmatoff and his study of the Desana native South Americans in Columbia. They actually had quite a sophisticated understanding of hemispheric lateralisation but were wanting to shift in the opposite direction: towards the left hemisphere! But of course hunter gatherer situation may well benefit from such a shift: maybe they were on there way towards becoming more like the city dwelling Aztecs, who resembled our situation far more closely: like us they were paranoid of cosmic forces and preoccupied with how to appease them.

I am a rock musician (though I love all types of music); I used to be a psychiatric nurse (until 12 hour shifts did for me!), and i studied Art Psychotherapy (which could be another way to shift perspectives but that hasn’t caught on as much as it should considering it’s been around for some decades now.!) I hope to connect with others who respond to Iain’s work and share similar interests and concerns.

Laurence Burrow (Monty Oxymoron of the Damned)