Hypnosis: Panpsychism in Action

Michel Weber i

Hypnosis ranks amongst the most fundamental ideas that made the Victorian age. Together with
progress, creativity, techno-science and industrialization, evolutionism and its by-product
eugenism, and, last but not least, the emergent feminist movement, it gave a peculiar flavor to
its main trait: the faith in the superiority (if not the superior rationality) of Western civilization
and in its colonial duties.1
Although for the vulgus pecum, it was (and to a great respect remained in popular media) at
best a new form of entertainment and at worst a form of dangerous manipulation, it attracted the
attention of major thinkers of that time, who got a clearer grasp of the stakes. For renowned
scientists and philosophers such as J. Ward, W. James and H. Bergson, hypnosis and the so-
called paranormal events were facts of the highest speculative interest. As such, the question of
its nature and of its conditions of possibility deserve to be raised in this Handbook—especially
since hypnotic phenomena bring to the fore conundrums that are unlikely to be settled without a
panpsychism of sorts.
The argument proceeds in four main steps. First, we define the normal state of consciousness,
that we choose to call “zero-state” in order to avoid the derogatoriness of the concept of
“normality” and to suggest straight away the existence of a hierarchy of states. We furthermore
underline, on the one hand, the presupposed non-dualism of common-sense and the consequent
theoretical dualism of substantialism.
Second, we peruse again the same three steps, but this time from a process standpoint.
Consciousness-zero is then relativized with the help of a genetic perspective that is anchored in
the presupposed common-sense through what has been called the “biological theory of
knowledge.” The consequent processism is sketched as a theoretical non-dualism.
Third, the main consequences of this processualization of the concept of consciousness are
specified in three steps: the existence of a field of consciousness, that is structured by the
concept of threshold, and that can be cautiously interpreted with the introduction of a scale of
consciousness and of a spectrum of vigilance.
Fourth, the main consequences of this processualization of the concept of consciousness is
implemented in three steps: Whitehead’s panexperientialism is differentiated from
panpsychism, the nature of hypnosis is envisaged, and socio-political issues are discussed.

i
Centre de philosophie pratique “Chromatiques whiteheadiennes,” Brussels; Visiting Professor at
the New Bulgarian University (Sofia); www.chromatika.org; weber@chromatika.org.
396 Michel Weber

1. Consciousness-zero and Substantialism

Our discussion must, inevitably, start with a heuristic definition of consciousness that will
provisionally collapse all intensities of experiences and shades of meaning displayed by our
everyday interactions with our human and non-human environment.

1.1. Definition of Consciousness-zero

Let consciousness-zero be defined by (solely instantiated in) public debate or conversation. It
thus demands at least two interlocutors, present in person and sharing the same rationality, i.e.,
language. In other words, it is unsurprisingly characterized by two main dimensions: rational
and physical. This is no doubt a very restrictive definition that is likely to be found prima facie
unacceptable: is it not obvious indeed that our conscious experience is far more ambivalent and
rich than the one put up here for interrogation? Far from neglecting this variegatedness, our
argument actually exploits it systematically—but the need for a precise starting point
nevertheless remains, especially in light of the definitional sfumato fostered by most
psychologists, experimental or otherwise.
On the one hand, consciousness-zero per se demands the extensive use of a refined form of
language; on the other, it requires intersubjectivity in a particular environment, the key-concept
being the Agora. A perfect historical exemplification is indeed available: the Greek citizen
debating political issues with his peers in the Market-place. The use of reason is as essential as
the actual presence of the individuals. Neither the public use of irrationalities nor the private use
of reason (for familial—biological?—or rumination purposes) qualify.
The physical requirement is rather straightforward, but the rational one is far more nebulous,
hence the following propositions: what is congruent with a set of given rules of relevance is
rational; what is not thus congruent is irrational, but could become congruent if properly
revised; what is definitely incommensurable with reason is non-rational.2 In other words, there
is always a measure of contingency in all rational systems. The simplest way of exemplifying
this in the case of consciousness-zero is to give a quick look at Aristotelian logic with the help
of the three “principles” or “laws” defined by Boole3 (independently of Leibniz’ conceptual
renovation in terms of principle of sufficient reason and identity of indiscernibles and of
Schopenhauer’s synthesis). The principle of identity states that we come to know all things in so
far as they have some unity and identity.4 It has naturally to be linked with the substance-
attribute ontology granting permanence amid flux. The principle of contradiction is somehow
the negative side of the principle of identity: it claims that the same attribute cannot, at the same
time and in the same respect, belong and not belong to the same subject.5 According to the
principle of excluded middle (or tertium non datur), there cannot be an intermediate between
contradictories: of one subject we must either affirm or deny any one predicate.6 There is no
third possibility: either it rains or it does not. Consequently, any proposition that does belong to
the territory marked out by these three principles is, from an Aristotelian perspective, rational; if
it does not, it is irrational. A contradiction is not irrational, since it possesses a clear status in the
system: it is a statement that is always false and everybody agrees that it is so because some
 Panpsychism in Action 397

mistake must have occurred in the chain of reasoning. A paradox, however, is irrational: as its
etymology shows, it is a contradiction that has the appearance of truth, with the result that there
are numerous opinions regarding the way of understanding them; no consensus prevails. The a-
rational is for him matter (the complementary of form in his hylomorphism).
In sum, our prolegomenal argument is somewhat reminiscent of Aristotle’s double definition
of the human being (“anthropos” is gender-neutral like Latin “homo”) qua zoon logôn echon
and zoon politikon: objectifying rationality and political environment circumscribe together
consciousness-zero and its practical dualism. To define consciousness with the help of the
concept of intentionality (cf. Husserl after Brentano and the Scholastics) or with the concept of
contrast between a fact and a possibility (cf. Whitehead in Process and Reality)7 lures us too
quickly towards a sophisticated understanding of consciousness (or even towards an idealist if
not solipsistic one—remember Husserl’s Cartesian Meditations and Whitehead claiming a
proximity with Bradley 8). According to the basically common-sense interpretation developed
here, it is primarily an intersubjective phenomenon. Without intersubjectivity, no
consciousness-zero.

1.2. Common-sensical Non-Dualism

When the conscious interplay of embodied rational citizens is contextualized, we find, in one
direction (uphill) a practical non-dualism and, in the other (downhill), a theoretical dualism.
The threefold meaning of sensus communis is helpful to name and specify the non-dualism
that is presupposed in practice: according to Arendt’s fresh reading of Aquinas, common sense
is made of three threads: the concerted functioning of the five senses (more precisely,
cœnæsthesia); the sharing with other humans of the world qua context; and the sharing with
other living creatures of the world as environment.9
Let us also pin-point a similar attempt in Whiteheadian studies: Griffin speaks of hard-core
common-sense notions10 to qualify the universal and primordial beliefs that human beings do
not question in practice: humans share an “animal faith” of sorts in their fundamental freedom,
in the causal efficacy of their actions, in the existence of values and of a temporal drift. All
these occur in a realistic atmosphere: idealism is not to be found at this pre-rational level. Soft-
core common-sense notions belong for their part to doxa: they are culturally contingent and
philosophically (and scientifically) insignificant.
In conclusion: the dualism at work in consciousness-zero is buttressed on a “world-loyalty”
that is commonly ignored and philosophically obliterated by substantialistic dualism. The goal
of the process ontological renewal is to firmly anchor everyday consciousness in this deep
experiential structure and, thereby, to re-enchant the world (cf. M. Berman and D. R. Griffin).

1.3. Substantialist Theoretical Dualism

Whereas, volens nolens, consciousness-zero springs from a non-dualistic social network (in the
broad, experiential, sense of the word), it brings forth, by the sheer power of its abstractions, a
fully-fledged dualistic theory otherwise known as substantialism. Here also a quick overview of
Aristotle is relevant to specify its applicability.
398 Michel Weber

Most of Aristotle’s categories—starting with the category of substance itself—are based on

(even wedged to) consciousness-zero. In other words, they are adequate to depict the type of
rationality exploited in everyday life (cf. Piaget), not the Ultimate. If one follows Boole’s
definition again, we obtain an acute depiction of the raw understanding of consciousness
presupposed in most literature. The principle of identity requires that there is only one such
thing as “consciousness;” the principle of contradiction claims that one cannot, at the same time
and in the same respect, be conscious and not-conscious; the principle of excluded middle adds
that there is no third possibility: one has to be either conscious or unconscious. The overall
intuition of consciousness substantialism is a two-states system of the “on/off” type: the subject
is either totally conscious or totally unconscious. It pervades the well-known anecdote of
Russell:
I began to develop a philosophy of my own during the year 1898 […]. It was
Whitehead who was the serpent in this paradise of Mediterranean beauty. He said
to me once: "You think the world is what it looks in fine weather at noon day; I
think it is what it seems like in the early morning when one first wakes from deep
sleep." I thought this remark horrid, but could not see how to prove that my bias
was any better than his. At last he showed me how to apply the technique of
mathematical logic to his vague and higgledy-piggledy world, and dress it up in
Sunday clothes that the mathematician could view without being shocked.11
In conclusion, the virtue of Aristotle’s system has to be reframed. On the one hand, his
ontological pretensions have to be limited to the mesocosmos, that names the world of “middle
dimensions” where humans dwell (i.e., neither the microcosm nor the macrocosm)—and
process thought has thus to provide a way of recovering them; on the other, one can show that
concepts such as Poiesis/Praxis and Dynamis/Energeia possess a broader applicability than
their substantialist cradle, i.e., that they are crucial to all forms of philosophical systematization
and, as such, constitute the true Aristotelian legacy.12

2. Consciousness in Process
The process understanding of consciousness not only aims at doing justice to all the facets
evoked so far (to consciousness-zero as it is empirically available, to its presupposed non-
dualism and to its consequential theoretical dualism): it enlarges the scope of the discussion
with the help of a premise shared with radical empiricism (all experiences—including
relations—have to be taken at face value). By doing so, it enables itself to systematically
analyze all these facets. The focus on the Agora necessarily remains but at the same time it is
relativized with the help of the concept of mesocosm.
In order to understand what is at stake, a short Jamesean digression is needed. James’
insistence on the difference between two basic type of philosophical thinking is well-known: on
the one hand, rationalism and its monistic trend; on the other empiricism and its pluralism. But
the exact significance of his radical empiricism is often taken for granted. A close reading of
rationalists’ and empiricists’ arguments reveals that both philosophical streams share the exact
same presupposed substantialism. Accordingly, James’ radical empiricism is designed to
overcome both rationalism (with its innate general ideas formatted by calculus) and empiricism
 Panpsychism in Action 399

(with its acquired particular ideas put together by association). It claims that primitive
experience is not equivalent to elementary experience: empiricists have mixed up the source or
origin and the element. Experience qua experience—“pure experience” as James calls it—does
not have at all the simplicity, the atomicity, the individuality that is presupposed by rationalists
and empiricists alike: it is vague, confused (neither clear nor distinct), above all relational
(neither subjective nor objective).13 In the same way that Locke has improperly imported in
psychology Boyle’s corpuscular paradigm, Spencer has wrongly used Laplace’s cosmogenetic
model of the solar system to understand psychogenesis. We do not prehend parts but the Whole
in its complex opacity. From that prehended Whole, we discriminate parts that are eventually
organized by a triple genesis (onto-, phylo- and koino-).14 In brief: fragmentary experience is
not amalgamated by calculus or by association from simple to complex, but emerges from
complex to simple. Parts are not given from the beginning because they do not exist
independently of the relations which unite them.

2.1. Re-definition of Consciousness-zero:

Relativization of Practical Dualism
Our heuristic definition of consciousness-zero underlined its intersubjectivity and its rationality:
in a word, its public or political dimension (in the Greek sense). There are two direct correlates
to this very limited view: first, the physical kinship, second the rational one. Consciousness-zero
takes place among individuals for whom reason is a shared faculty. (Typically: the Greek citizen
and his cosmos ruled by one single logos.)
The first move that is required by process radical empiricism is to acknowledge the relativity
of our own conscious standpoint. This requires to substitute the Market-place by Hans
Reichenbach’s (1891–1953) mesocosm. The evolutionary process of adjustment of the cognitive
forms to the general structure of reality is only partial: it is (somewhat) adequate only to the
mesocosm. By doing so, one opens the public sphere: consciousness-zero is a function of the
interaction between emergent rational creatures whose practical dualism has to be
recontextualized. Whitehead inherits from Bruno and Darwin the destruction of the cosmos (i.e.,
the opening of the world, first spatially and second temporally) and the geometrization of space
(i.e., its homogenisation). Helio-cosmo-centrism institutes an infinite mechanical universe, free
from the Aristotelian hierarchy (i.e., topology) of natural laws—Whiteheadian organicism seeks
to re-animate it.
In sum, the process standpoint opens a new perspective that has two main modes. First, the
perspective:
We must get rid of the notion of consciousness as a little box (R 16-17).
or, in the words of James:
To deny plumply that “consciousness” exists seems so absurd on the face of it—for
undeniably “thoughts” do exist—that I fear some readers will follow me no farther.
Let me then immediately explain that I mean only to deny that the word stands for
an entity, but to insist most emphatically that it does stand for a function.15
Second, the functional modes constituting the basic sophistication of our intersubjective
understanding of consciousness-zero: the neutral monism of the pure flux (cf. James’ Principles
of Psychology or Whitehead’s London epoch) and the neutral pluralism of the bud-like
400 Michel Weber

eventfulness (James’ Pluralistic Universe and Whitehead’s “epochal theory” during his Harvard
years). In both cases the pure experience thesis holds: we have a direct, indiscriminate
experience of the world (by acquaintance16), i.e., discriminations between perceiving “subject”
and perceived “objects” and between “objects” themselves have yet to be made. The difference
lies in the assessment of the question of novelty: if processes are continuous, no genuine novelty
is possible and we remain in a neutral monism that nevertheless offers the solution to most
epistemological puzzles (such as the mind-body problem).

2.2. Common-sensical Non-Dualism

The process standpoint provides the most adequate tools to understand the threefold meaning of
sensus communis: the triple genesis (discussed supra) that was presupposed—but not
thematized—by substantialism comes now to the fore.
First, the cognitive functions of the human mind are not static operators at all, they are the
transient phylogenetical result of a long adaptive process (Spencer). Under the pressure of
environmental adjustment (better knowledge allows a better chance for survival), the human
intellect has become a master in the logic of solid bodies (linear causality, Euclidean geometry,
etc.). But this is just an evolutionary adjustment to a limited—perceived—segment of a
throbbing and coalescing world. In sum: the categories that are a priori for the individual are a
posteriori for the species.
Second, these functions result from an ontogenetical process: individuals are not born fully
equipped with the rational apparatus embodied in consciousness-zero. Four temporally and
logically sequenced stages can be distinguished (Piaget): the sensorimotor stage (ages 0-2), the
preoperational stage (ages 2-7), the concrete operational stage (ages 7-11), and the formal
operational stage (ages 11-adult).
Third, the evolutionary success of humans also lies in the fortunate oversimplifications the
species has achieved and perpetuates through cultural endeavours (Bateson). Koinogenesis 17 is
the process of convergence of individual consciousnesses through learning. It is a process of
integrative synchronic tuning that can be contrasted with schismogenesis—or progressive
(pathological) differentiation.18 Evolution in the biosphere and education in the ethosphere are
intertwined in individual ontogenesis.

2.3. Process Theoretical Non-Dualism

The theoretical non-dualism enforced by process thought leads straight to the relativization, not
the destruction, of Aristotelian substantialism. Whitehead’s goal is not to revoke the category of
substance, but to reconstruct its limited applicability from an eventful perspective. It basically
amounts to explain mesocosmic substance with the help of societies (or trajectories) of “bud-
like” events. Interestingly enough, the process standpoint can be characterized as the very one
rejected point-blank as unscientific by Aristotle himself: the event or accident (sumbebekos)
comes first, essences, substances and the like are secondary. We are looking for an accidental
science.
 Panpsychism in Action 401

This brings us to the contrast we have already introduced between neutral monism and neutral
pluralism. Process is a very old concept that can take two main guises: weak (trans-formative)
and strong (creative).
The weak concept—that already speaks in terms of event, flux, instability and the like—puts
becoming before being; “being” is understood as the surface effect of ever-changing underlying
relationships. This conceptualisation may occur solely at the phenomenological level, i.e.,
without involving ontological problematization. Whitehead's “London period” is a good
example of such an attitude. It is a continuist concept that sees Nature’s unrest as a “perpetual
transition into novelty.” Change is morphological: new patterns are made of old ones.
With the strong concept, not only is the question raised at the ontological level, but it is now
bolder: there cannot be a continuous stream of events progressively disclosing new cosmic
features. So Process and Reality’s (1929) “creative advance” claims that genuine novelty can
only enter the World in a disruptive, bud-like manner. Its point is to secure true becoming, to
make the emergence of the unexpected possible within the fabric of the universe. “Process and
individuality require each other” (MT 97): change is creation.
Obiter scriptum, let us notice that this brings to the fore two main paths to rethink therapy.
Psychotherapy is, no doubt, in need of new foundations: to start with, dualism and materialistic
reductionism still cripple its efficacy. The question is whether one requires an open universe—
and belief in the possibility of self-creation—in order to make sense of the cure, or not.
According to Whiteheadian processism, there is simply no way to represent, and even less to
actualize, the expected psychological change without epochality. Total consciousness is
liberation. According to transformative processism such as the one advocated by François
Roustang,19 the epochal theory is not needed to bypass the deterministic universe and creation is
too remnant of outdated metaphysics—spontaneity is more than enough. Realizing Emptiness is
liberation.

3. Processism and Spectral Consciousness

Unlike substance psychology, process psychology sees consciousness as a function that accepts
a third option (tertium datur): we can be both conscious and unconscious at the same time,
especially since there is a continuum of levels of awareness possible.
We now have all the elements to show how and why panpsychism appears to be the only
viable (i.e., coherent and applicable) response to the question “what is consciousness”—whether
one accepts the process worldview or not. It should not be forgotten indeed that panspychism
has, until the early twentieth century, always been one among the most respected mainstream
philosophical positions. Its frequent present-day characterization as the fringe position of an
idiosyncratic few is demonstrably false (unless one considers the Scholastics). The best recent
study on that topic is David Skrbina's Panpsychism in the West,20 which is an extremely
scholarly survey of panspychism from the pre-Socratic philosophers up to and including the
present day discussion. The most compelling and relevant part of Skrbina's exposition is his
treatment of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, where he documents panpsychist thinking,
402 Michel Weber

especially among respected natural scientists, with a degree of prevalence so widespread that
even its present supporters will be surprised. Let us resume our argument with three last points.

3.1. The Field of Consciousness

First, radical empiricism claims that all experiences—and only experiences—have to be taken at
face value in philosophical speculation. Doing so brings to the fore a variegated cluster of
experiences that constitutes the field of consciousness. To quote Whitehead:
In order to discover some of the major categories under which we can classify the
infinitely various components of experience, we must appeal to evidence relating
to every variety of occasion. Nothing can be omitted, experience drunk and
experience sober, experience sleeping and experience waking, experience drowsy
and experience wide-awake, experience self-conscious and experience self-
forgetful, experience intellectual and experience physical […].21
Accepting all these experiences is an essential step but by no means the most problematic. Here
is a recent authoritative account of the stakes:
There is such overwhelming evidence of unconscious cognition inferred from its
conscious products that to deny its occurrence is either an admission of ignorance
concerning the origin of conscious thought, or taking the indefensible position that
all thought arises in consciousness. In addition to dream, this includes hypnotic and
mystical states, creativity, myth, non-intentional moods or objectless states, such as
diffuse anxiety or unresolved conflict, drive and motivation, sleepwalking and
other dissociative states, “slips of the tongue,” obsessions, compulsions, not to
mention the whole “storehouse” of grammar, memory, beliefs and values that
account for thought, acts, objects and language. There are also experimental probes
of non-conscious processes, such as masking, tachistoscopic presentation (percept-
genetic and related studies), priming, learning during anesthesia, split-brain cases,
incidental and procedural learning, conditioning, habit and skill formation. To
dismiss the unconscious as physiology avoids the obligation to go beyond negation
to a more exact account of the transition to consciousness, its immediate precursors
and evolutionary ancestry.22
The speculative function of reason requires indeed that we order all these evidences somehow,
i.e., that we make sense of their variety.

3.2. Subliminal Consciousness

The key that Whiteheadian process thought promotes in consciousness studies is
straightforward: consciousness-zero has to be profiled against a scale that embodies the various
degrees of awareness, value and complexity that human experience can reach. There is little
doubt that the complete systematization of such a scale is a tricky business: there are serious
theoretical problems involved, such as focus, typology and adequacy. Should we focus on the
state itself, i.e., on intrinsic value (cf. James’ “immediate delight” and “enormous sense of inner
authority and illumination”) or on its consequences, i.e., extrinsic value (cf. “good consequential
fruits for life”: spiritual riches, bodily strength, actual dispositions)?23 Typologically speaking,
should we proceed a posteriori (this would require an experimental protocol) or a priori (only
with speculative categories)? With regard to adequacy of the scale: should it have an individual
or an universal scope? (In such a case, how to treat Laing’s metanoia or Plato’s theoria?).
Moreover, the issue of measurement is, as usual in psychological matters, highly problematic.24
 Panpsychism in Action 403

Nevertheless, all this does not imply that the definition of the scale’s general appearance is
useless. In order to screen the issue, we need to sketch the concept of threshold that has been
introduced to operationalize the nucleus/fringe contrast which James used as early as his 1890
Principles. Until the eighteenth century, Western philosophy and psychology have totally
insulated the so-called normal state of consciousness from its roots, its lures, its complex
variations and its pathologies. From that perspective, consciousness-zero constitutes yet another
example of the fallacy of misplaced concreteness. Instead of understanding consciousness-zero
as being part of a continuum, it has been severed from it and although a pure abstraction has
been seen as the sole reality.
Things have changed gradually, but a double inflection point is noticeable: Leibniz (Nouveaux
Essais sur l'Entendement Humain, 1704) for theory and Mesmer (Schreiben über die
Magnetkur, 1775) for practice. Leibniz introduced the contrast between sense-perception and
apperception, which will have an important conceptual legacy in Kant, Herbart, Weber,
Helmholtz, Fechner, Wundt, Lotze and Münsterberg. Its correlate—Herbart’s threshold of
consciousness (Bewussteinschwelle)—is directly responsible for the theoretical discovery of the
unconscious realm. For his part, Mesmer developed a new therapeutical practice inspired by a
Newtonian speculation on animal “magnetism.” The two conceptual legacies coalesce in
Puységur (Du magnétisme animal, 1807) and later in the Salpêtrière school, which saw the
completion of its program in Janet’s work.
The understanding of the unconscious realm(s), however, remained limited by the
complementary premises of two streams: positivistic and nosological. On the one hand, the
German scholars of the Psychologie als Wissenschaft type were basically concerned with Kant’s
injunction: since psychology does not work with any objective data (measurements), it is not a
science (a status that Comte still refused to her in 1870). On the other hand, the French scholars
of the psychologie expérimentale sur les formes inférieures de l'activité humaine type (Richet,
Charcot, Binet, Janet) were basically focused on the pathological (hysterical) dimension of
corrupted or abnormal forms of consciousness. According to Charcot, hypnotism is abnormal,
fundamentally related to hysteria, and consequently useless for therapy. Although the three
stages of lethargy, catalepsy and somnambulism were soon undermined by Bernheim’s
criticisms, consciousness is still understood as substantial.
The need for a holistic approach promoting a hygiology manifested itself in two waves. The
first is represented by the Nancy school (Liébault, Bernheim, Forel, Liégeois), which
normalized hypnotic phenomena and allowed for the existence of a nebulae of states of
consciousness centred on the zero-state, and actually in constructive interplay with it. The other
is represented by the work of F. W. H. Myers (1841–1901), that recapitulates and supersedes all
previous conceptual trajectories with the help of the vertiginous wealth of data disclosed by the
works of London’s Society for Psychical Research (founded in 1882).
Myers is, in other words, one of the main forgotten actors in the emergence of radical
empiricism in psychology; as such, his influence on Bergson and on William James should not
be underestimated. According to Taylor, James's attraction to Myers' work lay in his emphasis
on growth-oriented aspects of the subconscious—not in psychic phenomena themselves.25 Nor
should one forget James Ward (1843–1925), who coined the term “subliminal” in 1886 in the
404 Michel Weber

course of a discussion of Herbart 26 and who also had a tremendous influence on James. Not
insignificant is perhaps the fact that Ward had one very important friend in common with
Myers: Henry Sidgwick (1838–1900), the prominent Cambridge Apostle who co-founded the
Society for Psychical Research.

3.3. Scale of Consciousness and Spectrum of Vigilance

The concept of threshold allows the representation of the levels of awareness and of their
lability. Although the speculative definition of a meta-criteriology granting the systematization
of an univocal spectrum of consciousness is no easy task, it remains reasonable to sketch a
rough scale.27 Whiteheadian processism is here in the good company of Plato, Plotinus, Proclus,
Dionysius and their like. Needless to say that if its attempts do not have much in common with
the various quantitative “scales” used by clinicians (such as the Glasgow Coma Scale, the
Rancho Los Amigos Scale, the Mini Mental State), some complementarity must be secured.
To assess the position of a given experience on the scale of consciousness, the following
criteria are worth considering: (i) the experience’s cash-value (a necessary but not sufficient
criterion), be it practical (an improved mundane efficacy: a particular behavioural—in the broad
sense of the word—change that is valuable) or semantic (retrospective clarification of a past
experience); (ii) the level of intellectual and perceptual discernment (the intellectual and
perceptual acuteness in terms of discrimination, sharpness and freshness); (iii) the feeling of
interconnectedness and duration (the process awareness of actuality in the making and of its
relativity); (iv) authenticity (general qualitative features such as emotional intensity or the sense
of value and novelty).28
The most important problem lies in the assessment of the grade of the experience
independently of (but not necessarily without) measurement. The issue is to do justice to the
qualitative dimension of experience—its pure existential tone—together with its quantitative
dimension, that is no doubt accessed, but always at the cost of reductionistic working
hypothesis, by science. Existence is concrescing, hence sepulchral; being is transitional, hence
public.
Whitehead works with the qualitative criteria of novelty, beauty, intensity, complexity and
value to discriminate the level of the awareness of experience.29 The hierarchy that he
technically specifies in Process and Reality is the following: higher-grade actuality, living
person (enduring object with conscious knowledge), enduring living object, enduring non-living
object (society with personal order), corpuscular society, society (nexus with social order),
(non-social) nexus (“electromagnetic” occasions in so-called “empty space”), low-grade
actualities. To grasp Whitehead’s intention is more important here than to unfold the full
technical apparatus: there is a continuous thread running through all forms of existence in our
cosmos. To simplify: the basic—epochal or pulsative—structure of existence of an electron and
of a human mind is the same; there is “only” a difference in intensity and in complexity. One
can thus speak of a monism in order to make plain the ontological unity of all beings and
becomings—but it is a pluralistic monism in the sense that all beings and becomings are
epochal or bud-like (which does not amount to say that they are atomic in the Daltonian sense):
Consciousness flickers; and even at its brightest, there is a small focal region of
 Panpsychism in Action 405

clear illumination, and a large penumbral region of experience which tells of

intense experience in dim apprehension. The simplicity of clear consciousness is
no measure of the complexity of complete experience. Also this character of our
experience suggests that consciousness is the crown of experience, only
occasionally attained, not its necessary base (PR 267).
Although Whitehead does not specify a spectrum of vigilance centred upon human’s
consciousness-zero, one can cautiously speculate that the following approximation might have
been acceptable to him: mystical states (“oceanic” or “theistic”30), paradoxical or generalized
wakefulness (hypnotic state), consciousness-zero in the rationalized mesocosm, somnolescence
(drowsiness, daydreaming), paradoxical sleep, NREM sleep, coma.31
Whitehead nevertheless warned us: everything that is simple (or clear) is false but usable—
while everything that is complex (or obscure) is so to speak adequate but unusable.32 Two
questions will suffice to illustrate the limitation of our linear sketch: where exactly could near
death experiences fit in such a spectrum; does this scale do justice to Advaita Vedanta’s
arguments? First, NDE phenomena display a problematic double dimension: on the one hand,
they belong at the bottom of the scale to the extent that physical death is further down than
coma; on the other, they are akin to the so-called mystical. Second, Advaita Vedanta proposes a
complex set of arguments to show that the most important awareness takes actually place in the
NREM state.33 The immediate solution consists in ignoring the fringes of the spectrum,
especially since they deal with the ineffable, i.e., the non-rational. The mediate solution is to
turn to recent speculations in neuropsychology, such as the microgenetic theory developed by
Jason W. Brown, since 1972, after Gestalt theory and the genetic theories of Jean Piaget and
Heinz Werner.
Microgenesis is the basic pattern of the brain activity;34 it is a wave-like arborisation of
processes that unfolds from depth to surface, i.e., from the upper brain stem to the neocortex,
from subconscious layers to consciousness-zero. The usual (cognitivist) substantialist paradigm
is replaced by a process one: “things” are not “out there” waiting for us to be “discovered,” they
arise. Microgenesis basically argues for two main theses: the reversal of the current cognitivo-
connectionist interpretation and its rhythmization.
It is a reversal because there is progressive lateralization. Four steps pacing the gradual
transition from raw flux (where vagueness and complexity dwells) to constructed stasis
(displaying clear and distinct objects) are to be distinguished: (i) upper brain stem: pure
(unfocused) wakefulness, without self-awareness or even mental content (the corresponding
pathology being coma); (ii) limbic structure: image awareness disclosing a plastic and shallow
world (cf. dreams and hallucinations); (iii) parietal cortex: object awareness (exteriorized, i.e.,
spatialized world featured with stable entities) and self-awareness; (iv) neocortex: genuine
analytic perception granted by a bifurcation between the perceiver and the perceived (fully
independent external world); it is here that consciousness-zero spreads its wings.
At each step of this transition (from one mental state to another) that builds a progressive
differentiation, sensations act as input and motor responses are generated. On the one hand,
sensations shape, carve, limit, select, constrict the process: they are not its building blocks, they
do not fill pre-existing categories but bend the process of creation of perceptions. On the other
hand, motor outputs corresponding to the level of activity participate in the life of the
406 Michel Weber

individual, in its actions. The fourfold basic pattern is the pristine pulsation of mental life,
sensory input and motor output receive a somewhat contingent and symmetrical status:
movement and sensation are analogous to action and perception, in both cases one contributes to
the construction of the other. Better: “action and perception are ab origine a single form, a
unitary act-object.”35 The pattern repeats itself endlessly (within the boundaries given by the life
of an individual, of course). Furthermore, it not only recapitulates previous (partially faded)
phases, it retraces phylo-ontogenic growth planes. Cognition is evolution compressed: evolution
delivers the structure of behaviour, ontogenesis refines it, and microgenesis operationalizes it.
Here we reach the second thesis: microgenesis advocates a rhythmization. The mind/brain
state growths and decays; it is essentially pulsatile, flickering. Since the decay is slower than the
growth, there is a brief overlapping of phases that accounts for the experienced continuity. From
base to surface, the mind/brain state smoothly unfolds before folding back up while being
replaced by a new unfoldment. In this context, freedom is being aware on all levels.

4. Panexperientialism and Hypnosis

The main consequences of this processualization—be it speculative or clinical—of the concept
of consciousness can now be explored. First, at a theoretical level, Whitehead’s
panexperientialism is differentiated from panpsychism; second, the nature of hypnosis is
processed; and third, socio-political issues are discussed.

4.1. Panexperientialism
So far, we have seen that the (subjective, human-centred) spectrum of vigilance corresponds to
an (objective) scale of consciousness or scala naturæ: the various types of experiences we enjoy
on an everyday basis can be put on a scale and this scale provides evidence for a continuity of
levels of (un)consciousness that goes all the way down and up. Thanks to panexperientialism,
the two concepts engineer a unipolar reality, so to speak. But how exactly does
panexperientialism differ from panpsychism? Let us examine two main sources of difficulties.
On the one hand, the prefix “pan” can either refer to the Whole (cf. the concept of World-
Soul) or to all parts (cf. the concept of hylozoism). A complementary—Leibnizian—version of
that basic contrast is the one between aggregates and individuals. On the other hand, the root
word “psychism” works at various stages or levels that can be heuristically identified and
hierarchized in the following way. First, it stands for psyche itself and, in conjunction with the
prefix “pan” leads irresistibly in the direction of animism. Second, it stands for subjectivity, i.e.,
for consciousness-zero or at least for an awareness of some sort: self-experience is its key-word.
Third, it stands for some mental activity, which means capacity of abstraction, of valuation,
together with some freedom (or spontaneity, depending on how you define your variables).
Fourth, it stands for pure experience, in the sense that everything that “is” either experiences or
is experienced.
Hence a 2 x 4 matrix that allows a sharper understanding of the shades of meaning provided
by panpsychism. From that perspective, Whiteheadian panexperientialism is a pluralism that
 Panpsychism in Action 407

defines existence by non-conscious—pure—experience; it does not argue for the universality of

some form of psychism or even of mentation.
This perspective discloses furthermore an abstractive progression: psychism/subjectivity/
mentality/experience. As usual in philosophy, the use of abstractions is quite paradoxical: it
means both the quest for the ultimate generalities—that are not (necessarily) obvious for
common sense, i.e., there is a distantiation from immediate experience—and it claims that, by
doing so, it reveals the very marrow of any experience whatsoever. A good example is Plato,
whose arguments lead him to claim that solely the contemplation of pure forms is meaningful…
because they are what is most concrete! This paradox, which stems from the disregard for
sense-perception inherited from the Greeks, should lead us to be exceedingly careful in the
handling of daring generalities. One could claim nevertheless that the above abstractive
progression is indeed at work in James, who first (already in the Principles) embraced a rather
non-technical (or intuitive) panpsychism—in 1909, he is still speaking of “mother-sea” or
“common reservoir of consciousness”36—and later (in the Essays in Radical Empiricism)
spelled the (dry) basics of a panexperientialist framework.37 The quest for higher generalities
and the striping of immediate (sometimes naive) experience of its “obvious” and “subjective”
features are the two faces of the same coin. At any rate, these various conceptual stops do make
sense from the perspective of the “infinite number of degrees of consciousness, following the
degrees of complication and aggregation of the primordial mind-dust.”38

4.2. Understanding Hypnosis

Hypnosis ranks, with hysteria and dreams, among the main clues that put psychologists on the
path of the extra-marginal. Whitehead takes for granted here the works of his Harvard peers.
Whereas the Principles of Psychology, because of its topic, refers mostly to Alfred Binet and
Pierre Janet,39 the Varieties of Religious Experience, again because of its focus, mainly refers to
Myers, while “the wonderful explorations” of Binet, Janet, but also of Étienne Azam, Hippolyte
Bernheim, Josef Breuer, Jean Martin Charcot, Richard von Kraft-Ebbing, Auguste Liébeault,
Rufus Osgood Mason, Morton Prince, Théodule Ribot, and of course Sigmund Freud are
selectively mentioned.40 In order to refresh James’ own endeavours in the field of hypnosis (see
especially PP II, ch. XXVII), we propose to use François Roustang’s recent powerful
speculations, inspired in part by Léon Chertok and Milton H. Erickson.41 The goal of this
section is to display the correlation that exists between the ladder of states of consciousness and
the hierarchy of beings.
Chertok proposes a few provisional definitions of the hypnotic state stemming from the old—
but still actual—concept of animal magnetism42 and insisting on the affective core of the
hypnotic trance; it is a natural potentiality that manifests itself already in the relation of
attachment to the mother; it is the matrix, the crucible in which all subsequent relations will
come within the scope; its essence is very archaic, pre-linguistic, pre-sexual.43
Keeping this in mind, let us first sketch the induction of the hypnotic state (or “trance” as it is
called by James). For the sake of the present argument, we can bypass the distinction between
self-hypnosis and hypnosis suggested on a willing and co-operative subject by a clinician. The
basic conditions for entering hypnosis are fairly simple: it is just a matter of fixation of one’s
408 Michel Weber

own attention. As one concentrates on a single stimulus by gradually bracketing most of the
other afferent stimuli, attention becomes more and more invasive and the waking state gets
dramatically transformed: sense-perception is now nuclear, while action becomes cataleptic and
reason drifts from its judgmental concern to get closer to affects. Discussing the related topic
that is attention, a major mystic of the twentieth century—Simone Weil—puts it this way:
“attention consists in the suspension of one’s thought, in letting it available, empty and
penetrable by the object; it consists in keeping in oneself the proximity of thought and of the
various acquired knowledge that one is usually forced to use, but at a lower level and without
contact with it.”44 Hypnosis offers thus an examplification of the individuation/cosmization
dialectic. Attention and distraction are two closely interacting perceptive (better: prehensive)
phenomena. The hypnotic state is reached by focusing one’s attention on a given stimuli,
thereby ignoring all others—but that bracketing somehow leads to an enhanced environmental
awareness that amounts to what Whitehead calls a “negative prehension.”
What about the characteristics of this gradual relaxation or sleepiness? Hypnotic wakefulness
features indeed, as its etymology suggests, “many affinities” (PP II 599) with ordinary sleep:
muscular relaxation and redistributed brain activity (patterns that remind us of paradoxical sleep
as disclosed in EEG and EMG), anæsthesia and/or hyperæsthesia (although not genuinely
sensorial), amnesia (while hypermnesia is possible), perceptive distortions (including
hallucinations), increased suggestibility (besides post-hypnotic—i.e., deferred—suggestions)
and the possibility of role-enactment and of alteration of the personality.
But in addition it features remarkable differences (that James would claim are only of degree)
with ordinary sleep; to outline them coherently, it is essential to go through the four (non-
necessary) steps to full hypnotic actualisation. First, the induction of the hypnotic state occurs
through perceptive fixedness; fascination starts where ordinary perception stops. Second, the
hypnotic state installs indetermination: all customary differences can be abolished, paving the
way for confusion, blindness, loss of reference point and possibly feeling of helplessness. Third,
the positive side of the dispersed attitude of the attention (PP II 599) is the opening of the
possible: resting on this indeterminate waiting, spring dissociations, withdrawal and
hallucinations; and with them the possibility of transforming one’s appraisal of life. Everything
can be reframed: percepts can be put in a wider context by reverie, absence, or imagination.
Fourth, the hypnotic trance displays itself as enhanced vigilance, mobilised power, energy ready
to implement action, i.e., to shape the world. All the acquired knowledge is gathered, actively
taken in, and one has them at one’s disposal. This explains why the hypnotherapist suggests
only what is possible for the patient, s/he reveals the power patients have over their own
becoming.
Roustang concludes: “to understand something of paradoxical wakefulness, we have to do
violence to ourselves and—at a great expense—invent in our culture a new cosmology and a
new anthropology.”45 All the consequences of the continuum of the states of consciousness and
of the levels of beings, i.e., of bodies, have to be thought. This is exactly what
panexperientialism provides: one single onto-psychical field that allows, so to speak, only
unwillingly, the bifurcation of subject and object. Since there is one organising and
differentiating power endowed by many centre of forces, the mesocosmic perception of an
 Panpsychism in Action 409

object by a subject ceases to be mysterious: in pure experience, subject and object, subject and
subject, grow together and reciprocally (com-)prehend themselves.46 Each experience has both a
physical and a mental dimension that can be separated only in abstraction. The concreteness of
experience, in other words, goes beyond the limited perspectives of “physicality” and
“mentality.” After many others, Deleuze has suggested the metaphor of the fold to intuit how
such a bimodal ontology is possible; James provides us with a concept.

4.3. Socio-Political Consequences

It seems appropriate, by means of conclusion, to evoke the socio-political correlation of the
discussion of the nature of consciousness and of its possible technical manipulation (in all
senses). Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) is an important figure with that regard, both because of his
representativeness of the late Victorian agenda—featuring eugenics and dysgenics (Darwin,
Galton, Malthus)—and of the depth of his insights. His paternal grandfather was Thomas Henry
Huxley (1825–1895), the great Victorian biologist; his brother Julian (1887–1975) was the well-
known evolutionary biologist, humanist and internationalist; and prominent intellectual figures
such as J. B. S. Haldane, Bertrand Russell and J. W. N. Sullivan were his friends. Not only has
Huxley seen clearly the correlation between substantialistic consciousness, consumerism and
totalitarianism, but hypnosis played a key-role in both his dystopic World State of Brave New
World (1932) and his utopic Kingdom of Pala in Island (1962).47
Brave New World puts on stage mass-production under three main guises sealing the
totalitarian order: eugenics, eupaedia and soma. “A love of nature keeps no factory busy”48:
only artificial processes are deemed worthy (most being named with the suffix “-surrogate”).
Eugenics is actualized through bio-engineering and contraception. Eupaedia amounts to
emotional-engineering and (subliminal) conditioning through hypnopaedia.49 Soma is the
omnipotent drug: besides all sorts of surrogates, omnipresent music, tap-tv, feelies (or tactile
talkies: films with physiological effects) and other overwhelming presences, the state drug
provides peace ad libidum—from a punctual stress-relief to a longer “soma-holiday” from
reality. Even religious experiences are conditioned to suppress unwelcome emotions. In sum:
human beings are simple instruments for engineers who have been themselves duly
programmed; fully-fledged consciousness is to be avoided.
The motto of the World State is Community, Identity, Stability. Community means social
utility: when we are told that “Everyone belongs to everyone else,”50 it means that the basic rule
is purely utilitarian. Identity is the main keyword: thanks to the bio- and emotional-engineering,
each citizen is confined within a very precise circle; there is (almost—depending on the grade)
no elbow-room given to individual action. Stability is the sine qua non of civilization; total
order is guaranteed by water-tight structures. Even science has to be carefully monitored.
Stability is the highest social virtue because it leads to lasting happiness.
In Island, Huxley insists in a radical empiricist manner that “nothing short of everything will
really do.”51 The total consumerism has been substituted for a scientific culture of awareness
secured by a synergy between Western science and Buddhist culture that especially emphasizes
the presence (attention) to the present moment: “here and now boys.”52 Its three main tools are
birth control, holistic education and moshka. Birth control is indispensable to avoid the
410 Michel Weber

Malthusian explosion of misery on the island: it is achieved through the yoga of love,
contraception and, more curiously, given the context, artificial insemination.53 Holistic
education54 works on all fronts, verbal and non-verbal, prevention and cure,55 consciousness and
subliminal awareness. It is in this context that use is made of hypnosis,56 described as
“psychological facts of applied metaphysics”57 and of spiritual exercises. Philosophy qua
symbol-manipulation is of no use to attain paradoxical wakefulness.58 Moksha59 is the
community drug that is used on special, ritualized occasions to open the way of liberation from
the prison of oneself and to encounter reality, which is described as luminous bliss, timelessly
present Event, perpetual creation.60 In sum, human beings are treated as unique individuals;
total consciousness is the key to individual and social harmony.
The specular motto can be spelled with the same categories. Community means now that
everyone and everything belongs to everyone and everything else. “Elementary ecology leads
straight to elementary Buddhism”—and vice-versa. No means but only ends—the ultimate one
being the fundamental global harmony. Identity refers to true individuals; maximum elbow
room is provided for each person to find peace; no complete adjustment is expected: even to a
sane society, it would not be sound. Stability names peacefulness harmony, perfectly indifferent
transience.
Expect the best, prepare for the worst could be Huxley’s own conclusion. His two major
works make clear, at least from the perspective of the present argument, that the question of the
nature and conditions of possibility of consciousness, far from being a puzzle for idle
philosophers, engage our entire existence and especially our socio-political status. To do justice
to the wealth of our experience, we need to adopt a systemic understanding of knowledge and
action that boils down to two correlates: the empirical origin of cognitive functions and the fact
that cognition serves to engage with the world, not to represent it. As Whitehead says: “we
cannot think first and act afterwards. From the moment of birth we are immersed in action, and
can only fitfully guide it by taking thought” (SMW 187). If experience is broader than cognition,
it becomes urgent to adopt a critical panpsychist onto-epistemology. Such seems the price to
pay to make sure that no worldview endangers the Ur-doxastic vital—carnal—link we maintain
with the world at large.
 Panpsychism in Action 411

Notes

1
A first draft of this article was read at Action theories: Social action, Theory of Mind, Philosophy
of Action, Religious Action, International and Interdisciplinary Conference, Pontifical Salesian
University, Rome, 6-8 October 2006.
2
See A Pluralistic Universe’s concept of “non-rational.”
3
George Boole, An Investigation of the Laws of Thought on Which are Founded The Mathematical
Theories of Logic and Probabilities (1854), New York, Dover Publications, Inc., 1958, cf.
Chapter XV, “On the Aristotelian Logic,” pp. 174 sq.
4
Metaphysics Beta, 4.
5
Metaphysics Gamma, 3; Posterior Analytics I, 77a10-22.
6
Metaphysics Gamma, 7; Posterior Analytics I, 77a22-25.
7
Process and Reality. An Essay in Cosmology, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, and New
York, Macmillan, 1929. Reprint: New York, Macmillan Free Press, 1969. Corrected edition:
Edited by David Ray Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne, New York and London, The Free Press.
A division of Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc. and Collier Macmillan Publishers, 1978.
8
A careful analysis would be needed in both cases. On the one hand, the development of Husserl’s
concept of intentionality is complex and it progressively leaves the scene for the concepts of
temporality and intersubjectivity (cf. J. English, Sur l'intentionnalité et ses modes, PUF, 2006,
pp. 155 sq. and Jean-Marie Breuvart, “Husserl et Whitehead, sur l’Intentionnalité,” in Michel
Weber et Pierfrancesco Basile (sous la direction de), Chromatikon III. Annuaire de la
philosophie en procès—Yearbook of Philosophy in Process, Louvain-la-Neuve, Presses
universitaires de Louvain, 2007, pp. 45-56. On the other hand, Whitehead’s appeal to Bradley
in the Gifford context seems quite rhetorical.
9
Hannah Arendt, The Life of the Mind [1971]. One-volume edition, San Diego, New York,
London, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1978.
10
David Ray Griffin and Huston Smith, Primordial Truth and Postmodern Theology, Albany, New
York, State University of New York Press, 1989, esp. pp. 90-91.
11
B. Russell, Portraits from Memory and Other Essays, New York, Simon and Schuster, 1956, p.
39.
12
It is worth highlighting that some Aristotelo-Thomists claim that the concept of substance has to
be interpreted in a processual manner: cf. James W. Felt S.J., “Whitehead's Misconception of
“Substance” in Aristotle,” Process Studies, Vol. 14, N°4, 1985, pp. 224-236; Reto Luzius Fetz,
Whitehead. Prozeßdenken und Substanzmetaphysik, Freiburg und München, Verlag Karl Alber,
1981; William Norris Clarke, S.J., The One and the Many. A Contemporary Thomistic
Metaphysics, Notre Dame, Indiana, University of Notre Dame Press, 2001.
13
“Our original sensible totals are, on the one hand, subdivided by discriminative attention, and,
on the other, united with other totals,—either through the agency of our own movements,
carrying our senses from one part of space to another, or because new objects come
successively and replace those by which we were at first impressed. The 'simple impression' of
Hume, the 'simple idea' of Locke are both abstractions, never realized in experience.
Experience, from the very first, presents us with concreted objects, vaguely continuous with the
rest of the world which envelops them in space and time, and potentially divisible into inward
elements and parts. These objects we break asunder and reunite. We must treat them in both
ways for our knowledge of them to grow; and it is hard to say, on the whole, which way
preponderates. But since the elements with which the traditional associationism performs its
constructions—'simple sensations,' namely—are all products of discrimination carried to a high
pitch, it seems as if we ought to discuss the subject of analytic attention and discrimination
first. The noticing of any part whatever of our object is an act of discrimination” (The
Principles of Psychology [1890]. Authorized Edition in two volumes, New York, Dover
Publications, 1950, I , p. 487-).
412 Michel Weber

14
Cf. James’ Essays in Radical Empiricism [Posthumously published by Ralph Barton Perry], New
York, Longmans, Green, and Co., 1912, p. 145 and our next section.
15
William James, Essays in Radical Empiricism [Posthumously published by Ralph Barton
Perry], New York, London, Bombay, and Calcutta, Longmans, Green, and Co., 1912, p.
3. Ernst Mach is an important precursor of the concept of pure experience. His Die
Mechanik in ihrer Entwicklung Historish-Kritisch Dargestellt (1883) and especially his
Beiträge zur Analyse der Empfindungen (1886). (James visited Mach and Stumpf in the
summer of 1882.)
16
“Through feelings we become acquainted with things, but only by our thoughts do we know
about them. Feelings are the germ and starting point of cognition, thoughts the developed tree.
The minimum of grammatical subject, of objective presence, of reality known about, the mere
beginning of knowledge, must be named by the word that says the least. Such a word is the
interjection, as lo! there! ecce! voilà! or the article or demonstrative pronoun introducing the
sentence, as the, it, that” (The Principles of Psychology, op. cit., I, p. 222).
17
From koinos, meaning “common,” “public.”
18
We borrow of course Bateson’s term: cf., e.g., “Culture Contact and Schismogenesis,” Man
XXXV, 1935, pp. 178-183, reprinted in Steps to an Ecology of Mind, op. cit., pp. 61-72. See
also Cornélius Castoriadis, L'institution imaginaire de la société, Paris, Éditions du Seuil, 1975
(The Imaginary Institution of Society, Translated by Kathleen Blamey, Cambridge,
Massachusetts, MIT Press).
19
See infra our discussion of the status of hypnosis.
20
David Skrbina, Panpsychism in the West, Cambridge, MIT Press, 2005. The depth of Skrbina's
scholarship in this area is astonishing: the cumulative weight of his documentations makes it
impossible to deny the seriousness of panpsychism as a philosophical position, and his
erudition makes it impossible not to take his own book seriously. His treatment of
Whiteheadian panpsychism is, however, somewhat weaker.
21
Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas, New York, Macmillan Company and Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press, 1933. Reprint: New York, The Free Press, 1967, p. 226; cf. p. 222 and of
course James’ Principles of Psychology, op. cit., I, 232
22
Jason W. Brown, forthcoming, Ch 8.
23
This criteriology is inspired by William James’ Varieties of Religious Experience. A Study in
Human Nature. Being the Gifford Lectures on Natural Religion Delivered at Edinburgh in
1901-1902, New York, London, Bombay, and Calcutta, Longman, Green, and Co., 1902, pp.
15-19.
24
Cf., e.g., the Glasgow Coma Scale, that is based on motor responsiveness, verbal performance,
and eye opening to appropriate stimuli: G. Teasdale and B. Jennet, “Assessment of coma and
impaired consciousness: a practical scale,” Lancet 2, 1974, pp. 81-84.
25
Eugene I. Taylor [Reconstructed by], William James on Exceptional Mental States. The 1896
Lowell Lectures, New York, Charles Scribner's Sons (Amherst, University of Massachussetts
Press, 1984), 1982.
26
James Ward, “Psychology,” in Thomas Spencer Baynes (ed.), Encyclopædia Britannica, 9th ed.,
1886, vol. XX, pp. 37-85. & Johann Friedrich Herbart, Psychologie als Wissenschaft,
neugegründet auf Erfahrung, Metaphysik und Mathematik [1824].
27
Cf. our “La conscience spectrale chez James et Whitehead,” in Guillaume Garreta et Mathias
Girel (dir.), William James et l’empirisme radical. 1904-2004, Éditions du CNRS, forthcoming.
28
“The subjective aim … is at intensity of feeling (a) in the immediate subject, and (b) in the
relevant future” (PR 27). “Each occasion exhibits its measure of creative emphasis in
proportion to its measure of subjective intensity” (PR 47).
29
Cf., e.g., PR 177.
30
The rational discrimination, apart from the hierarchization, of impersonal and personal mystical
experiences is a problem that would send us straight back to Aquinas and Eckhardt.
31
A more detailed argument can be found in M. Weber, “James’s Mystical Body in the Light of
the Transmarginal Field of Consciousness,” in Sergio Franzese & Felicitas Krämer (eds.),
 Panpsychism in Action 413

Fringes of Religious Experience. Cross-perspectives on William James's Varieties of Religious

Experience, Frankfurt / Lancaster, Ontos Verlag, 2007, pp. 7-37.
32
“Seek simplicity and distrust it” (The Concept of Nature [1920], Cambridge University Press,
1964, p. 163). “Exactness is a fake” (“Immortality,” in Essays in Science and Philosophy, 1947,
p. 96).
33
Arvind Sharma, The Experiential Dimension of Advaita Vedanta, Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass
Publishers, 1993.
34
The term “microgenesis” was originally coined to render Heinz Werner’s 1956 Aktualgenese,
referring to the process by which a mental state is formed in the present moment. Cf. Michel
Weber, “Alfred North Whitehead's onto-epistemology of perception,” New Ideas in Psychology,
24, 2006, pp. 117-132.
35
Jason W. Brown, The Self-Embodying Mind. Process, Brain Dynamics, and the Conscious
Present [Revised and expanded version of Self and Process, Brain States and the Conscious
Present, New York, Springer-Verlag, 1991], Barrytown, Station Hill, 2002, p. 9; cf. p. 123.
36
William James, “Confidences of a ‘Psychical Researcher’” [1909], in Essays in Psychical
Research. Fred. H. Burkhardt, gen. ed.; Fredson Bowers, text. ed.; Ignas K. Skrupskelis, ass.
ed., Cambridge (Mass.), Harvard University Press, 1986, pp. 361-375.
37
Griffin proposed the concept of “panexperientialism” in 1977 to name Whitehead’s attitude: cf.
David Ray Griffin, “Whitehead’s Philosophy and Some General Notions of Physics and
Biology,” in John B. Cobb, Jr. & David Ray Griffin (eds.), Mind in Nature. Essays on the
Interface of Science and Philosophy, Washington D. C., University Press of America, 1977. For
a more recent discussion, see David Ray Griffin (ed.), Founders of Constructive Postmodern
Philosophy, op. cit.
38
James, William, The Principles of Psychology, op. cit., Volume One, p. 149.
39
Cf. Alfred Binet, La psychologie du raisonnement. Recherches expérimentales par l'hypnotisme,
Paris, Éditions Alcan, Bibliothèque de philosophie contemporaine, 1886; Pierre Janet,
L’automatisme psychologique, Paris, Éditions Alcan, 1889.
40
Cf. VRE 115, 125, 233-5, 240-241, 269-270, 401, 413, 484, 501, 516.
41
See especially François Roustang’s Qu'est-ce que l'hypnose? (Paris, Éditions de Minuit, 1994).
42
The concept, of course present in PP, has been recently re-invigorated by Boris Cyrulnik (cf.,
e.g., his L’ensorcellement du monde, Paris, Éditions Odile Jacob, 1997).
43
“On peut seulement affirmer que c'est au niveau de l'affect, c'est-à-dire de la réalité la plus
évidente, puisqu'elle est de l'ordre du vécu, et la plus difficile à comprendre. […] C'est un
quatrième état de l'organisme, actuellement non objectivable (à l'inverse des trois autres: veille,
sommeil, rêve: une sorte de potentialité naturelle, de dispositif inné prenant ses racines jusque
dans l'hypnose animale, caractérisé par des traits qui renvoient apparemment aux relations pré-
langagières d'attachement de l'enfant et se produisant dans des situations où l'individu est
perturbé dans ses rapports avec l'environnement. L'hypnose garde sa spécificité par rapport à la
suggestion, bien que celle-ci, sous quelque forme qu'elle se manifeste, soit nécessaire à la
production de celle-là. La suggestion nous apparaît ainsi comme la relation primaire,
fondamentale entre deux êtres, la matrice, le creuset dans lequel viendront s'inscrire toutes les
relations ultérieures. Nous dirons encore qu'elle est une entité psycho-socio-biologique
indissociable, agissant à un niveau inconscient très archaïque, pré-langagier, pré-sexuel, et
médiatisant l'influence affective que tout individu exerce sur un autre” (Léon Chertock,
L'Hypnose. Théorie, pratique et technique. Préface de Henry Ey. Édition remaniée et
augmentée [1959], Paris, Éditions Payot, 1989, pp. 260-261). Cf. Isabelle Stengers et Léon
Chertok, Le Cœur et la Raison. L'hypnose en question, de Lavoisier à Lacan, Paris, Éditions
Payot, Sciences de l'homme, 1989 (Translated as A Critique of Psychoanalytic Reason:
Hypnosis as a Scientific Problem from Lavoisier to Lacan by Martha Noel Evans). Stanford,
Stanford University Press, 1992) and Léon Chertok et Isabelle Stengers, “Therapy and the Ideal
of Chemistry,” Nature, Vol. 329, 1987, 768 sq.
44
“L’attention consiste à suspendre sa pensée, à la laisser disponible, vide et pénétrable à l’objet,
à maintenir en soi-même la proximité de la pensée, mais à un niveau inférieur et sans contact
414 Michel Weber

avec elle, les diverses connaissances acquisés qu’on est forcé d’utiliser” (Simone Weil, Attente
de Dieu, Paris, La Colombe, Éditions du vieux colombier, 1957, pp. 76-77).
45
“Pour comprendre quelque chose de la veille paradoxale, il faut nous faire violence et inventer
dans notre culture, à grands frais, une nouvelle cosmologie et une nouvelle anthropologie”
(Qu'est-ce que l'hypnose? op. cit., pp. 98-99).
46
“Grâce à cette puissance qui organise et différencie, représentée par l'anticipation, toute une
série de faux problèmes tombent d'eux-mêmes. Il n'y a plus à se demander comment un sujet
peut percevoir un objet, puisque l'un et l'autre grandissent ensemble et s'appréhendent dans une
action réciproque, ni comment un humain peut en comprendre un autre, puisqu'ils n'existent dès
l'origine que par cette compréhension, ni comment peuvent se tisser entre eux des interrelations:
l'identification et le lien affectif n'ont dû être inventés que par la supposition erronée que les
individus d'abord confondus, ont été ensuite séparés” (Qu'est-ce que l'hypnose? op. cit., p. 87).
47
Aldous Leonard Huxley, Brave New World, 1932; With an introduction by David Bradshaw,
Hammersmith, HarperCollins, 1994; Island. A Novel, London, Chatto & Windus, 1962.
48
BNW 19.
49
“Sleep-teaching” (BNW 21, 24, 38, 91, 101, 234) or emotional-engineering (BNW 58); “engineer
into feeling” (BNW 163): (subliminal) conditioning (BNW 214) and scientific propaganda. Non-
rationality of the “words without reason” (BNW 24; cf. 23).
50
BNW 38.
51
Isl, 141.
52
Isl. 21 & passim.
53
Isl. 187.
54
Isl. 203.
55
Isl. 68-9, 132, 141, 150, 208-9, 220.
56
Isl. 2, 32, 59, 93, 95, 123, 180, 203.
57
Isl. 76, 221.
58
Isl. 185.
59
Meaning “liberation, release,” moksha is a toadstool, mescaline-type substance that works
holistically, unlike any pharmaceutical drug (Isl. 135 sq., 168, 261, 263-286).
60
Cf., respectively, Isl. 263 and Isl. 269.