From Atlantis to the Sphinx (48 page)

Moreover, as students began to talk to one another about their peak experiences, they
began having them all the time
. Like the girl approaching the wood, they ‘knew it was still there’, and knowing it was still there places them in the right state of optimistic expectancy that tends to generate the peak experience. These experiences always produce an overwhelming sense of authenticity, of the
reality
of freedom. In such moments, our usual sense of lack of freedom is seen as an illusion.

So what had happened to Maslow’s students? Why could they have peak experiences all the time? Because they had somehow ‘got the trick’. They knew the freedom was really there, and they simply learned to
see
it. It is like one of those pictures, made up of a tangle of lines, from which, as you stare at it, a face suddenly emerges. And once you have seen it, you can always go back and see it again.

We can be sure that our ancestors of 4000 years ago found it far easier to induce peak experiences, for they were relaxed and close to nature. Then came the ‘Fall’ into left-brain consciousness, which induces a kind of tunnel vision. Yet, as Maslow’s research demonstrated, it is not difficult for healthy human beings to throw off the tunnel vision and regain consciousness of freedom. His students found it perfectly easy, just as Kelly’s audience at the computer conference found it easy to achieve group consciousness.

What is the
lesson
of the peak experience? This is easy to describe. It brings a sense of delight and courage—in fact, we see courage as being of central importance. We also see that the peak experience depends on a high degree of inner pressure—which is the opposite of ‘depression’. And if we wish to live in such a way that we have regular peak experiences, we need to maintain a sense of drive, purpose, optimism.
We
induce ‘depression’ by allowing ourselves to experience a ‘sinking feeling’. It is like letting air out of a tyre. And when we feel cheerful and optimistic—say, on a spring morning, or setting out on a journey—we create a sense of high inner pressure by filling ourselves with a confident feeling of meaning and purpose.
We do it ourselves
. We imagine that the external world causes our problems, and sometimes, indeed, it does present us with real difficulties. But
most
of our problems are self-induced; we
permit
ourselves to become negative, or merely ‘blank’.

I am arguing that it was necessary for human evolution for us to escape from that pleasant collective consciousness that characterised our ancestors. It had enormous advantages, but it was essentially
limited
. It was too pleasant, too relaxed, and its achievements tended to be communal. The new left-brain consciousness was far harder, far more painful and exhausting. In Dostoevsky’s
Possessed
, the character Svidrigailov says that he dreamed of eternity the other night, and that it was like a narrow room full of cobwebs. This is the symbol of left-brain consciousness. And yet when galvanised by courage and optimism, it is capable of a far greater intensity—and sense of
control
—than right-brain consciousness.

Moreover, as Maslow realised, healthy people are always having experiences of right-brain consciousness—for the peak experience
is
right-brain consciousness. In spite of being trapped in the left brain, healthy and optimistic human beings can easily regain access to right-brain consciousness.

In other words, left brainers have the choice.
They
can induce right-brain consciousness. But the typical right brainer finds it very distressing to try to induce left-brain consciousness—the kind of purposeful concentration required, for example, to solve a difficult mathematical or philosophical problem. Which means that, at this point in evolution, left brainers have the advantage.

This is why these insights into past civilisations, to which this book has been devoted, are so important. We have been inclined to see them as less efficient versions of ourselves—superstitious, technologically inadequate, deficient in reason and logic. Now it has become clear that this was a mistake. In some ways, they actually knew more than we do. Compared to their rich collective awareness, modern consciousness seems barren and constricted. They also knew more than we do about the hidden powers of the mind. In some ways they were far
more
efficient than we are. To really understand this comes as something of a revelation, which teaches us a great deal about what it means to be human.

It makes us understand, to begin with, that evolution has actually given us far more than they had. Right-brain awareness tends to be passive; left-brain awareness is active. Right-brain awareness is like a broad, gently flowing river; left-brain awareness is like a powerful jet of water. Above all, left-brain awareness has the power to contemplate itself, as if in a mirror. To understand the men of the remote past is to understand something very important about ourselves—including how much reason we have to be satisfied with the place to which the last 3500 years have brought us. For we have not lost what they have; we still have it—but we also have a great deal more. Our chief disadvantage so far has been that we didn’t
know
that we had it—or, insofar as we did know, failed to understand what could be done with it.

It is difficult to conclude a book like this, for it involves making the reader
see
why man has reached the most interesting point in his evolution so far. The ancient Egyptians would have understood the problem perfectly: they knew that there are certain things that have to be
shown
. The same was true of the Zen teachers, who understood that the flash of insight cannot be achieved by explanation; it has to come spontaneously.

It might help if we try considering again Maslow’s young mother watching her husband and children eating breakfast. She was ‘lucky’ before the beam of sunlight came through the window. But the sunlight made her
aware
that she was lucky, and she went into the peak experience. The peak experience depended upon achieving a kind of bird’s-eye view that made her conscious
of what she already possessed
.

The same is true of the next step in human evolution. It has already happened. It has been happening for the past 3500 years. Now all we have to do is recognise it.