THE HISTORY OF WESTERN ART B A PICTORIAL REPRESENTATION

OF THE EVOLUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Francoise Hall

Number of Words: 9,528 March 25, 2006

THE HISTORY OF WESTERN ART B A PICTORIAL REPRESENTATION

OF THE EVOLUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS

B.C.E.

6,000,000-200,000: THE PLEROMA-UROBORIC LEVEL OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Australopithecus africanus (4,000,000-1,000,000) is the earliest known hominid. He arises during the Pliocene Geologic Epoch (5,100,000-2,000,000), when the climate of the earth was cool and dry, foreshadowing the glacial climate of the Pleistocene Epoch. Mammals were supreme. The first tools of Australopithecus were simple stone choppers, and date from toward the end of his reign (just over 1,000,000 B.C.E.) (Encyclopedia).

2,000,000-100,000 B Lower Paleolithic Period. The Lower Paleolithic Period (2,000,000-100,000) of cultural and technological evolution encompasses the first 95 percent of the whole Paleolithic Period (2,000,000-10,000) B a Period which coincides with the Pleistocene Geologic Epoch (2,000,000-10,000), the most recent major glaciation of the European continent.

Homo habilis (2,000,000-1,600,000) is the first member of the genus Homo.

Homo habilis evolves into Homo erectus which exists for well more than a million years (1,600,000-250,000), and which, during the latter part of its existence (400,000-250,000), evolves into Homo sapiens. Beginning around 500,000 B.C.E., new forms stone tools appear which are either of the core variety (made by chipping the stone to form a cutting edge), or the flake variety (derived from fragments struck off a stone). The stones thus sharpened are used as hand axes to hunt and gather food (Encyclopedia).

Man=s world and man=s self (the new evolving center of his experience) are basically undifferentiated. Man=s self is embedded in physical nature (pleroma), and dominated by animal-reptilian impulses B uroboros is a serpent eating its own tail. Man is self-possessed and narcissistic. He is pre-temporal, having no concept of time. He does not anticipate death. This is the structure of consciousness which lies behind the theological myths of a Garden of Eden B a time of innocence, before Man Afell@ into separation, and self-reflective knowledge (UE Summary p. 23. For the mystic=s interpretation of Athe Fall,@ see p. 11 of present document).

200,000-9,500: THE TYPHONIC LEVEL OF CONSCIOUSNESS

200,000-50,000: The Low Typhonic Level

This stage in the development of consciousness coincides approximately with the Middle Paleolithic Period (100,000-35,000).

Neanderthal Man (from the Neader Valley, Germany), exists from around 200,000 to 50,000 B.C.E. He is either a sub-species of Homo sapiens (Homo sapiens neandertalis) or a separate species (Homo neandertalis). Neanderthal Man is a proficient hunter, making use of stone tools and bone implements. The environment is cold but he has discovered fire and uses it to keep himself warm. Plants are scarce and he probably consumes them only seasonally.

Cognitively, Neanderthal Man possesses only the crudest of paleo-symbols and images (the primary process of dreams). He is almost entirely pre-verbal, his language including intentional calls only by 70,000 B.C.E. He may have practiced a primitive religion since he paints the dead before burying them. As a whole, however, the evidence for religious beliefs or the production of art, is scant and controversial (UE p. 69; UE Summary, p. 24; Encyclopedia).

50,000-9,500: High Typhonic Level

This stage in the development of consciousness coincides approximately with the Upper Paleolithic Period (35,000-10,000).

Cro-Magnon Man exists from 50,000 to 10,000 B.C.E. He has finely crafted tools (made of stone and bone) and jewelry (made of shell and ivory). He creates polychrome paintings on cave walls. Around 50,000, his language includes modifiers, by 35,000, it includes commands, and by 20,000, it includes nouns.

Cognition consists of the primary process (the process of dreams), causing Cro-Magnon Man to confuse subject and object, and whole and parts. While his experience is no longer the undifferentiated wholeness of experience of the pleroma-uroboric stage of consciousness, Cro-Magnon Man still does not connect the parts of his newly differentiated experience by means of logic. He makes sense of his experience by means of magical association and contamination.

Cro-Magnon Man now differentiates himself from his environment. He experiences himself as separate from the natural world, though still magically intermingled (confused) with it.

Cro-Magnon Man still, however, does not differentiate himself from his body, and he experiences himself as a body-self. This body-self seems central to the natural world, and this induces Cro-Magnon Man to make the assumption (which the average person still makes today), that there is a Aself-in-here@ which must be defended at all costs against Athe world-out-there@ (UE Summary, p. 24; Encyclopedia).

Many human cultures, of which the Cro-Magnon is an example, arise during the Upper Paleolithic Period. Tools are of a great variety. Communal hunting and fishing begin. Pit houses are the first man-made shelters. Sewn clothing is worn. Sculpture originates B in particular, the carving of Venus figures. Painting originates. Time consists of an awareness of the simple present and its needs B Cro-Magnon Man is no longer content to eat, he goes on the AGreat Hunt.@

The self, now more individualized, faces a greater apprehension of death. There is a definite belief system which centers on magic and the supernatural. Magic both defends against (wards off) death, and delivers it (deals it out) to animals (the Hunt). War, in which death is delivered to other humans on a large scale, still does not exist (UE pp. 65-71; UE Summary, pp. 24; Encyclopedia).

28,000 The Lion-Human, from Hohlenstein-Stadel, Germany. Ulmer Museum, Ulm, Germany (p. 4).

The primitive typhon is interconnected with the head of an animal in nature. Note the similarity between the Lion-Human and the Sorcerer of Trois Freres, St.-Giroud, France (10,000 B.C.E.), which portrays man-as-typhon (UE p. 47). In each case, the Aman@ is an entity distinct from its surroundings, and hence, not a pleromatic-uroboric self. However, in each case, he is magically (confusedly) composed of different parts B that is, his self is his own body and the bodies of nature (UE Summary, pp. 80 and 95; Internet).

22,000 A Woman from Brassempouy, Grotte du Pape, Brassempouy, Landes, France. Musee des Antiquites Nationales, St.-Germain-en-Laye, France (p. 5).

21,500 A Woman from Willendorf, Austria. Naturhistorisches Museum, Vienna (p. 4).

This is a Venus figure, and is the earliest known form of the Great Mother (the Great Environment, the Great Surround) which dominates the typhonic and early mythic-membership structures of both the child and primitive humans. The Great Mother is a correlate of bodily existence, the representative of a global, separate and vulnerable existence in space and time. She engenders both the desire for a Great Protectress and the fear of a Great Destroyer (UE p. 128; UE Summary, pp. 81 and 95).

21,000 Wall Painting with Horses, Rhinoceroses and Aurochs, Chauvet Cave, Vallon-Pont-d=Arc, Ardeche gorge, France. (Aurochs are extinct ancestors of oxen) (pp. xlviii and 1).

Note the similarity between this Wall Painting, the Paleolithic Cave Drawing at the Trois Freres site, St.-Giroud, France (UE p. 53), the Spotted Horses and Human Hands (16,500 B.C.E., p. 6), and the Hall of Bulls (14,000 B.C.E., p. 9). In all cases, the figures overlap B by magic UE Summary, pp. 81 and 95).

16,500 Spotted Horses and Human Hands. Pech-Merle cave, Dordogne, France (p. 6).

Note again the overlapping of the figures B that is, magic B as in the Paleolithic Cave Drawing at the Trois Freres site, St.-Giroud, France (UE p. 53), the Wall Painting with Horses, Rhinoceroses and Aurochs (21,000 B.C.E., p. xxx), and the Hall of Bulls (1,400 B.C.E., p. 9) (UE Summary, pp. 81 and 95).

14,000 Hall of Bulls, Lascaux caves, Dordogne, France (p. 9).

Note again the overlapping of the figures B magic B as in the Paleolithic Cave Drawing at the Trois Freres site, St.-Giroud, France (UE p. 53), the Wall Painting with Horses, Rhinoceroses and Aurochs (21,000 B.C.E., p. xxx), and Spotted Horses and Human Hands (16,500 B.C.E.) (UE Summary, pp. 81 and 95).

*14,000 Bird-headed Man with Bison, Lascaux caves, Dordogne, France (p. 9).

It may be that this is a portrayal of man-as-typhon B as in the Sorcerer of Trois Freres (10,000 B.C.E.) (UE p. 47) and the Lion-Human (28,000 B.C.E., p. 4). There is magic between the body of the Aman@and the bodies in nature (UE Summary, pp. 80 and 95).

* However, the bird is the classic symbol of spiritual power, including that of the shaman as he soared into the skies of the All, beyond the confines of earthbound mortality and the terror it engenders. This portrayal of a man, dressed in a bird costume, lying prostrate, with at his side, a staff with a bird perched on its top, could represent the vision of a shaman in a trance B a vision perhaps as powerful as the great bison which looms above. If this is so, then the scene depicts a more advanced level of consciousness than the typhonic B perhaps the psychic level, the ascent of consciousness to nature mysticism (the Nirmanakaya of the Buddhists) (pp. 7-8; UE pp. 56, 58, 76, 81, 84 and 88; HE, EoS, and SG Summary, p. 17).

9,500-2,500 B.C.E.: THE MYTHIC-MEMBERSHIP LEVEL OF CONSCIOUSNESS

9,500-4,500: Low Mythic-Membership Level

This stage begins at the end of the Pleistocene Geologic Epoch (2,000,000-10,000), most recent major glaciation of the European continent. It comprises the whole of the Mesolithic Period (10,000-7,000) and the beginning of the Neolithic Period (7,000-1,500).

With the retreat of the glaciers, hunting and fishing settlements arise along rivers and on lake shores. Man discovers farming, and societies are horticultural. The Neolithic Period is characterized by the domestication of plants and animals which makes possible life in settled villages. Crafts include pottery and weaving. Tools are still made out of stone B metals as yet have not been discovered. An early form of writing is developed.

The self is still close to the body, instincts and nature. Cognition is mythic B a mixture of magic and logic. The world view is based on magic.

Time is extended as preparations must be made for future harvests. It is seasonal, cyclic. Man pictures the future more vividly and apprehends his own mortality with more terror than in the past. Ceremonial graves are a common practice. Language is the vehicle of man=s new temporal consciousness. Able, by means of language, to transcend the present, the new self is now able also to transcend the present-tense-only body. The self is now a mental self as well as a physical self.

The cult of the uroboric Great Mother (the Serpent Mother) is prevalent throughout the Neolithic Period (7,000-1,500). Particularly during the early stages of this cult (c.7,500-3,500 B.C.E.), the Great Mother is a local figure in all mythologies B a simple biological nourisher and fertility token amplified magically to cosmic proportions, and worshiped. She is the bountiful goddess Earth, the mother and nourisher of life.

Immortality resides in the invisible world of power, and specific human steps, such as sacrifice, must be taken to come into accord with Spirit. The Great Mother demands human sacrifice to ward off death. The rage at being only a finite creature is now turned into rage at other finite creatures, and war, in the form of aggression and mass homicide, begins (UE p. 72; UE Summary, p. 25; Encyclopedia).

6,500 Figure from Ain Ghazal, Jordan. National Museum, Amman, Jordan (p. 29).

4,500-2,500: High Mythic- Membership Level

Civilization begins. The city-states and theocracies of Egypt and Mesopotamia flower. Kingship blossoms. There is an all-powerful, righteous Other (the King) who enforces a code of conduct based on absolutist and unvarying principles of Aright@ and Awrong.@ Social hierarchies are rigid, with an emphasis on law and order. Beliefs are concrete, literal and fundamentalistic. The self is conventional, conformist.

Contemplative endeavors arise, and the universal sequence of hierarchic levels of increasing breadth of consciousness is conceptualized as a AGreat Chain of Being.@

By 3,200, specialists have produced the alphabet, mathematics, writing and the calendar B the first purely mental productions of humans. Money symbolizes material transfer, and wages symbolize labor.

Immortality now resides in the visible world, and death is overcome by the accumulation of time-defying monuments. Egypt has mortuary cults, builds pyramids, and invents both golden death masks and mummies. This self now efficiently converts its extreme terror of death into murderous aggression. Beginning at this stage, the history of mankind is the history of the wholesale substitute sacrifices and murderous wastage which have marked Homo sapiens specifically (UE Summary, pp. 26-28; ToE Summary, p. 2).

3,500 Figures of a Woman and a Man, from Cernavoda, Romania. National Historical Museum, Bucharest, Romania (p. 21).

3,150 Face of a Woman, from Uruk (modern Warka, Iraq). Iraq Museum, Baghdad. The piece was stolen in 2003 and then recovered (p. 33).

3,000 People and Animals, detail of a rock shelter painting, Cogul, Lerida, Spain (p. 13).

* 2,550 The Great Sphinx, Giza, Egypt (p. xxix).

* The self which is portrayed here is the centaur, an integration of the mind and body (the noosphere and the biosphere). The observing self can see the body-mind as an object in consciousness. It can look at itself (the body-mind) and the world. The world view is world-centric. The centaur represents the vision-logic, aperspectival world view and is, therefore, a more advanced level of consciousness than the average one prevailing at the time (HE Summary, p. 17; EoS Summary, p. 17).

2,500 B.C.E.-PRESENT: THE EGOIC LEVEL

2,500-500 B.C.E.: The Low Egoic Level

This stage in the evolution of consciousness coincides very approximately with the Bronze Age (3,000-1,500). Societies are feudal agrarian. The egoic structure of consciousness emerges. The old cosmologies and mythologies of the Great Mother goddess begin to be transformed in favor of male-oriented, patriarchal mythologies. The new hero myth expresses the emergence of the unique individuality B the Aego@ (UE Summary, p. 29; SES Summary, p. 33).

In the East, the Great Mother (the typhonic level) is transformed into the Great Goddess, the metaphysical symbol of Oneness, the arch-personification of the power of matter, space and time, within the bounds of which all beings are born and die (the subtle level, the level above the psychic, the level of the saints, the Sambhogakaya of the Buddhists). In the West, however, the Great Mother is never differentiated from the Great Goddess. Instead, the Great Mother is dissociated and suppressed, and, except for Mary, women are completely left out of subsequent mythology. The Judaeo-Christian-Islamic religions are patriarchal in the extreme, without a trace of the subtle level Great Goddess.

Morality (that of the warrior, the duty-bound, the ethno-centric), does not see the value of universal compassion, interpreting it as a sign of weakness. ATruth@ is only that which fits the religious dogma. All that is called art depicts some aspect of the mythic organization (SES Summary, p. 33).

Time is conceptual, linear and historical (UE Summary, p. 33).

2,250 The Stele of Naramsin, from Sippar, an Akkadian city on the Euphrates river, in present Iraq. This is an early example of a work of art which celebrates the achievements of an individual ruler. The stele (upright stone slab) literally carves in stone the concept of imperial authority. The work commemorates a military victory of Naramsin, the grandson of the Akkadian King Sargon I (ruled c.2,340-2,305). Naramsin, wearing the horned crown associated with deities, ascends a mountain. The conquered enemy forces are either begging for mercy or sprawled in death (pp. 36-37; Encyclopedia).

2,200 Disk of Enheduanna, Akkadian disk, from Ur, Sumer (modern Muqaiyir, Iraq). On the back, a cuneiform inscription reads:

AEnheduanna, priestess of the moon god, wife of the moon god, child of Sargon, king of the universe, in the temple of Ishtar, in Ur, built an altar, and named it, >Offering Table of Heaven=@ (p. 37).

Enheduanna was a Sumerian poet-priestess who lived c.2,300. She is the first known poet (man or woman) in history. She is also an early war protester, her work decrying the same horrors of war that we know today. Her poem, ALament to the Spirit of War,@ reads in part:

AYou hack everything down in battle . . . God of War . . .

Who can explain why you go on so?@

(Enheduanna, p. 3)

Ishtar was a Great Mother Goddess (the earliest form of which is the Venus Figure, A Woman from Willendorf (21,500 B.C.E., p. 4). In Babylonian and Assyrian religion, Ishtar was both the goddess of fertility (the source of all generative powers), and the goddess of war (capable of unremitting cruelty) (Encyclopedia).

2,000 Menhir Statue of a Woman, from Montagnac, France. Musee d=histoire naturelle et pre-historique, Nime, France. A Menhir statue is one in which the elements of the human figure are incised on all four sides of a single, upright, free-standing block of stone (p. 20).

2,120 Votive Statue of Gudea, from Lagash (modern Telloh, Iraq). Musee du Louvre, Paris (p. 38).

# 1,625 Woman or Goddess with Snakes, from the palace complex, Knossos, Crete. Archaeological Museum, Iraklion, Crete (p. 98).

# This statue represents a lower level of consciousness than the average prevailing in mainland Greece. It is a classic representation of the uroboric Great Mother, her typhonic form revealed by the intimate presence of the serpent-uroboros. The serpent also represents the phallus of the Great Mother, who is always hermaphroditic, that is, virgin, in the sense that with regards to intercourse, she belongs to no man whatsoever. She is forever the same, while men are but interchangeable bearers of the consort phallus. She is both mother and lover, and hence her consort is both her son and husband (UE p. 133; UE Summary, pp. 83 and 96).

1,500 The Iron Age (1,500 B.C.E.- Present). Civilizations are urban. A great variety of metal tools are used. Ox-drawn plows and wheel vehicles assume new importance. Warfare is conducted on horseback and in horse-drawn chariots. Alphabetic writing based on the Phoenician script becomes widespread.

In the Near East, male-oriented, patriarchal mythologies of thunder-hurling gods are now the dominant divinities.

Around 1,500 B.C.E., in both the West and the East, written records and mythologies begin to scream out in psychological anguish in ways not known before. Records explode in grief, doubt and sorrow. The moral problem of suffering moves to center stage, where it would remain to the present time. For the first time in history, there is a yearning for release from what is felt to be an insufferable state of sin, exile or delusion. This is what the theologians (and scientists) have called the Fall of Man.

The notion of a historical fall from Eden is present during this period, but the idea that humans are actually evolving toward Spirit is not yet conceived. History is viewed as a devolution B a continuous fall from God. The world of manifestation is devolving away from Spirit. God lies in our collective past, the Garden of Eden was yesterday, the Golden Age lies on the road behind us (UE Summary, p. 30; EoS Summary, p. 33).

Science, as represented, for instance, by Carl Sagan (1934-1996), interprets the AFall of Man@ as occurring around 2,000 B.C.E., when Man first experienced self-awareness, when he Afell@ out of his subconscious slumber in nature, magic and myth, awaking as a self-conscious ego, able to reflect, and hence apprehend his fate. Historical Eden is a pre-personal immersion in nature. The Fall is a psychological one, symbolizing the reflective awareness of a self awash in a world of hunger, pain and mortality (UE Summary, p. 47; SG Summary, p. 47).

Mystics and all esoteric religions, however, interpret the AFall of Man@ as having occurred together with the creation of the world, the ABig Bang@ (c.8,000,000,000 B.C.E.), when Spirit Alost@ itself in each successive descending level of reality, each level having a more restricted consciousness. Less aware than its predecessor, each level is less able to grasp, fully remember its predecessor. Since all levels are created by a forgetting of Spirit, all, except the non-dual, are forgetful of their Source. All seem to themselves to be dismembered, fragmented, living in separation from Spirit, in alienation, sin and suffering. The agony of each level is that it appears to itself, that is, it seems to itself, to be separate from Sprit. In reality, it is not, of course, since there is nothing but Spirit (UE Summary, pp. 23 and 47).

In contrast to its evolution in the East, the ego, in the West, becomes overly heroic, and draws the conclusion (illusory) that it is self-sufficient and independent. It does this by repressing both the lower levels of consciousness from which it has emerged (the Great Mother and the mythic-membership stages), as well as the higher realms, which should have been its destiny. The new ego, thus built upon a repression of the Below and a denial of the Above, upon a disdain of necessary Earth and a refusal of Heaven, this doubly defended consciousness, with its hubris and cosmo-centricity, would proceed to remake the Western world, and eventually underwrite an entire civilization (UE Summary, p. 30).

Around 1,300, history, as the chronicle of events in a society, begins to exist. Because of the dissociation of the ego from both body and God (the ego has dissociated itself from the body and thinks itself God), history becomes a chronicle of the power-laced feats of the ego, rather than a chronicle of the evolutionary steps toward Atman B one step of which would be, of course, the death and transcendence of the ego itself (UE Summary p. 31).

By 1,000, levels of murderous aggression and mass atrocities yet unknown in the history of the world occur. The new ego, more conscious of itself than its mythic-membership predecessor, is more vulnerable, more guilty and more terrorized by the thought of death B and hence, also more willing to deal joyously in massive substitute sacrifices. Joyful release accompanies the outbreak of war (UE Summary, p. 32).

1,330 Inner Coffin of Tutankhamun=s Sarcophagus, from the bomb of Tutankhamun, Valley of the Kings, near Deir el-Bahri, Egypt.

The new ego wants to be, pretends to be, immortal B God (p. 81; UE Summary, p. 31).

1,200 The (Real) Trojan War. Greece destroys Troy (Encyclopedia).

* 900 Centaur, from Lefkandi, Euboea. Archaeological Museum, Eretria, Greece (p. 119).

* The centaur represents the vision-logic, aperspectival world view which is that of a self more advanced than the average self during this period of time (See the Great Sphinx, 2,550 B.C.E., p. xxix).

* 875 Human-headed Winged Lion (Lamassu), Assurnasirpal II palace complex, Kalhu (modern Nimrud, Iraq). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (p. 26).

* The centaur represents the vision-logic, aperspectival world view which is that of a self more advanced than the average during this period of time (p. 27; See the Great Sphinx, 2,550 B.C.E., p. xxix).

850 Assurnasirpal II killing Lions, Assurnasirpal II palace complex, Kalhu (modern Nimrud, Iraq). The British Museum, London (p. 41).

* 750 Man and Centaur, perhaps from Olympia, Greece. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (p. 120).

* The centaur represents the vision-logic, aperspectival world view which is that of a self more advanced than the average during this period of time. In this sculpture, the centaur seems to be shaking a man who is blind (p. 120; See the Great Sphinx, p. xxix).

580 Gorgon Medusa, detail of sculpture from a pediment of the Temple of Artemis, Korkyra, Greece (p. 125).

In Greek mythology, Artemis is an Olympian goddess, daughter of Zeus, and, therefore, a derivative of him who symbolizes the newly emerging ego. The Medusa is a monster, both menacing and protective. According to legend, countless people tried to kill her, only to die when they looked at her face. The Greek hero Perseus succeeded because he beheaded her while looking only at her reflection in his polished shield (p. 125; Encyclopedia).

This is a classic hero myth. The mental ego emerges from the typhonic realms. Medusa is a derivative of the Great Mother which represents the typhonic level of consciousness. As all typhons, she contains both the serpent-uroboros and the lower aspects of human nature (emotional-sexuality and magic). Her serpent (awareness) has evolved only through what the perennial philosophy (in the form of kundalini yoga) has systematized as the lowest three chakras B food, sex and power. In Greek mythology, Perseus slays the Gorgon Medusa, thereby achieving enormous power B the ability to turn Atlas (who held the sky on his shoulders for all eternity) into a mountain of stone. The progression from a lower to a higher level of consciousness is always accompanied by a sense of victory and enormously increased power (UE p. 38; UE Summary, p. 29; Compare to Zeus defeating the Typhon, UE p. 193, and UE Summary, pp. 84 and 97; Compare also to The Devil, UE p. 216, and UE Summary, pp. 84-85 and 97; Encyclopedia).

500 B.C.E.-1,500 C.E.: The Middle Egoic Level (in Europe and Near East)

The dissociation of the ego (mental) from the typhonic and mythic-membership (body-bound) structures of consciousness B the mind from the body B is now a permanent element in the European tradition, and the distinguishing mark of European and Western man. The mind and body are dissociated rather than integrated (UE Summary, p. 33).

B.C.E.

450 Myron, Discus Thrower (Diskobolos). Roman copy after the original bronze of c.450 B.C.E. Museo Nazionale Romano, Rome, Italy (p. 112).

* 400 Battle of Centaurs and Wild Beasts, Hadrian=s Villa, Tivoli, Italy. This is a mosaic done in c.123 C.E., of a much-admired 5^th century B.C.E. painting by the Greek artist Zeuxis (p. 220).

* Note again that the centaur represents the vision-logic, aperspectival world view and is, therefore, a more advanced level of consciousness than the average one during this period of time (See the Great Sphinx, 2,550 B.C.E., p. xxix).

300 Head of a Man. Palazzo dei Consevatori, Rome, Italy (p. 191).

150 Hagesandros, Polydoros and Athanadoros of Rhodes, Laocoon and his Sons, Musei Vaticani, Museo Pio Clementino, Cortile Ottagono, Rome (pp. xliv, xlv and 174-175).

The statue depicts an episode of the Trojan War. The War was probably a real one, having occurred around 1,200 B.C.E., when the Greeks invaded Troy. Over the years, however, it became part of Greek mythology. The events in the final year of the War form the major part of the Iliad, an epic poem by the first European poet, Homer (c.700 B.C.E.) (Encyclopedia).

Historically, the serpent has been the symbol of levels of consciousness. Its presence, therefore, points to a possible interpretation of the sculpture in those terms (UE Summary, p. 78; Encyclopedia).

According to Greek legend, when the Trojan prince, Paris, abducted Helena, a married Spartan woman, the Greeks set off to invade Troy. After nine years of battle, they finally tricked the Trojans into letting them into the city, by means of a giant wooden horse in which Greek warriors were hidden. Troy was destroyed.

The precipitating event for the war, the abduction of a married woman, was a lowly deed, seemingly driven only by very low levels of consciousness development B the 2^nd (sexual) chakra and possibly the 3^rd (power) chakra of the perennial philosophy (UE p. 38).

Two people in Troy warned their fellow citizens not to take the giant horse within the city walls B Cassandra and Laocoon.

* Cassandra was a Trojan princess who had the gift of prophecy, together with the curse that her prophecies would never be believed (Encyclopedia).

* Laocoon was a priest (p. 175; Encyclopedia).

It is possible that these two individuals had a level of consciousness more advanced than the average, and had access to psychic capacities B capacities which are said in the perennial philosophy to exist only at the psychic level, the Nirmanakaya level, epitomized by the 6^th (ajna) chakra (the spot between and behind the eyebrows, the Athird eye@ of the psychics). This is the stage of consciousness achieved by the true shamans in typhonic times (200,000-9,500 B.C.E.) (UE pp. 56, 87 and 151).

Among the gods who favored the Greek side of the war, were Hera, Poseidon and Athena.

* Hera, both protective and destructive, represents the Great Mother whose cult was prevalent during the mythic membership stage of consciousness development (7,500-1,500 B.C.E.). According to the perennial philosophy, the Great Mother represents the lowest chakras B the 1^st chakra (food, matter, as in fecal matter), and the 2^nd chakra (the genitals) (UE Summary, p. 25; Encyclopedia).

* Poseidon, god of the sea, extremely powerful (able to cause earthquakes) and with a vengeful and violent disposition, represents gut reactions B emotions, power, vitality, the 3^rd chakra of the perennial philosophy (UE pp. 38 and 216; Encyclopedia).

* Athena, having been born fully-armed from Zeus= skull, is a derivative of Zeus, the supreme god of the Greeks. Zeus (root meaning, Abright@ or Asky@) represents the ego. He is the hero of the classic hero myth whereby his victory over Typhon (a derivative of Gaea, the Great Mother), earned him his reign over the patriarchal gods of Mount Olympus. Athena represents the victorious ego stage of consciousness development, the emergence of the unique individuality B the voice box, the discursive intellect, the 5^th chakra of the perennial philosophy (UE p. 193; UE Summary, pp. 84 and 97).

During the early stages of ego development (Low Egoic Level B 2,000-500 B.C.E.), in the West, both the lower and the higher levels of development were suppressed B the lower, that is, the Great Mother, the mythic-membership stage, and the higher, that is, the levels beyond the ego, of which the Nirmanakaya is the first super-conscious (UE p. 147; UE Summary, p. 30).

We see exactly this suppression operating in the punishment of Laocoon. The precipitating event for the war is a deed driven by the 2^nd and 3^rd chakras. Athena (ego, 5^th chakra) dispatches serpents (the classic representation of consciousness) to strangle Laocoon and his sons (6^th chakra). The result is the destruction of 2^nd, 3^rd and 6^th chakras in Troy. The presence of the serpent is the clue, the universal power of the mysterious serpent, the same serpent that was in the Garden of Eden (p. xliv; UE pp. 31, 150 and 152; UE Summary pp. 84, 85 92, 97 and 101).

50 The Medici Venus. Roman copy of a 1^st century Greek Statue. Villa Medici, Florence, Italy (p. xxxiv).

C.E.

36 Jesus Christ. In the West, Jesus Christ has a causal level apprehension, AI and the Father are one.@ He is crucified.

The causal level is the level of the sage, the Dharmakaya of the Buddhists. The self dis-identifies with any and every object in awareness, because no object in awareness is the observing self. The self, the seer, the witness, is pure subjectivity B and thus can never be seen, can never be an object. The self is an opening, a clearing, an Emptiness, a vast spaciousness in which all objects (body, mind and nature) float by (HE, EoS and SG Summary pp. 19 and 34).

75 Young Woman writing, detail of a wall paining, from Pompeii. Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples, Italy (p. 210).

575 Virgin and Child with Saints and Angels, Monastery of Saint Catherine, Mount Sanai, Egypt (p. 285).

As Theotokos (bearer of God), Mary was viewed as the powerful, ever-forgiving intercessor, appealing to her Divine Son for mercy on behalf of repentant worshipers. The Christian warrior-saints, Theodore (left) and George (right), are both legendary figures, said to have slain dragons B the legends representing of the triumph of the Church over the Aevil serpent@ of paganism (pp. 283-284).

The unquestioned hierarchy as well as the minor importance of the woman, are revealed by Mary appealing to her son for mercy toward repentants.

The slaying of the dragon is a hero myth symbolizing the emergence of the ego from the typhonic realms (the Great Mother). The dragon guards the ego, preventing it from liberating itself (differentiating) from the Mother (Compare with Zeus defeating the Typhon, UE p. 193, and UE Summary, pp. 84 and 97).

975 Emeterius and Ende, Battle of the Bird and the Serpent, copy of a page from the Commentary on the Apocalypse, compiled around 750 by Beatus, Abbot of the Monastery of San Martin at Liebana, in the north Spanish kingdom, Asturias. The Commentary is an analysis of the visions set down in the Apocalypse (the Book of Revelation, that book of the New Testament which vividly describes the final, fiery triumph of Christ). Beatus=s work is an impassioned justification for orthodox beliefs, and appealed to Christians who were in a long struggle against Islam. The book was widely read, copied and illustrated. This Mozarabic style copy was produced under the direction of the scribe-painter, Emeterius, a monk in the workshop of the Monastery of San Salvador, at Tabara, in the kingdom, Leon (pp. 448-449).

A peacock grasping a snake in its beak is a metaphorical description of the triumph of Christ over Satan. A bird with a powerful beak and beautiful plumage (Christ), covers itself with mud to trick the snake (Satan). Just when the snake decides the bird is harmless, the bird swiftly attacks and kills it. Senior, the scribe for the project wrote:

ASo Christ in his incarnation clothed himself in the impurity of our human flesh, that through a pious trick, he might fool the evil deceiver . . . With the word of his mouth, he slew the venomous killer, the devil@ (pp. 448-449).

1,500 C.E. B Present: The High Egoic Level

This stage in the evolution of consciousness achieves the differentiation of the three truth domains in all existence B Art (the AI@ sphere, the subjective-individual), Morality (the AWe@ sphere, the subjective-collective), and Science (the empirical sphere, both in the singular, AIt,@ and the plural, AIts@). In art, this means the beginning of portraiture, such as that by Jan van Eyck (c.1395-1441) (SES Summary, p. 37).

1,100 Wiligelmus, Creation and Fall, facade, Modena Cathedral, Modena, Emilia, Italy (p. 510).

1,123 The Master of San Clemente, Christ in Majesty. Detail of apse painting from the Church of San Clemente, Tahull, Catalonia, Spain. Museu Nacional d=Art de Catalunya, Barcelona (p. 489).

Christ has a powerful presence as ruler and judge of the world. He sits within a mandorla. The symbols alpha and omega are on each side of his head. He holds the open Gospel inscribed Aego sum lux mundi@ (I am the light of the world, John 8:12). Four angels, each holding an evangelist=s symbol, float at his sides. At his feet are six apostles B Bartholomew and John visible here B and the Virgin holding a bowl (p. 488).

1,175 Virgin and Child, from the Auvergne region, France. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (p. 485).

1,280 Cimabue (Cenni de Pepi), Virgin and Child enthroned, Church of Santa Trinita, Florence, Italy (p. 572).

The Virgin holds the infant Jesus in her lap and points to him as the path to salvation (p. 570).

1,300 The Italian Renaissance. The Italian Renaissance in art consists of a radical departure from medieval methods of representing the natural world. This is accompanied by a renewed interest in the forms of classical antiquity, an attempt to represent the human figure with a greater sense of physical presence, a growing esteem for the individual, a more realistic depiction of space, and a new appreciation of all aspects of physical nature which would henceforth enrich the veneration of the celestial realm. The art of portraiture flourishes (Encyclopedia).

1,330 Vesperbild, from Middle Rhine region, Germany. Landesmuseum, Bonn, Germany (p. 559).

1,348 The Black Death. A Black Death epidemic kills many artists and patrons (Encyclopedia).

1,436 Jan van Eyck, The Annunciation. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. The painting represents the story recounted in the Gospel of Luke (1:26-38) (p. 593).

Gabriel has interrupted Mary=s reading B that is, thought, a pursuit of the ego (UE Summary, p. 37.

1,460 Rogier van der Weyden, Portrait of a Lady. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (p. 598).

1,476 Hugo van der Goes, Portinari Altarpiece. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, Italy (p. 601).

1,498 Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper, wall painting, Monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan, Italy (pp. xl and 649).

1,503 Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa. Musee du Louvre, Paris (p. 650).

1,550 Leone Leoni, Charles V triumphing over Fury, without Armor. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (pp. xxxiv, xxxv and 680).

The muscular nakedness of the statue embodies the idea of triumphant authoritarian rule (p. xxxv).

As Holy Roman Emperor (1519-1558), Charles V had a vast empire, which included the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Artois, Franche-Comte (Free County of Burgundy), Aragon, Navarre, Granada, Naples, Sicily, Sardinia, Spanish America, Castile, and the Hapsburg lands in Austria. As Charles I, he was king of Spain (1516-1556). Charles V was the last German emperor to be crowned by the pope (Encyclopedia).

At the time this sculpture was cast, Charles V was fighting Protestant forces in Germany (1546-1555). Defeated in 1555, he was forced to accommodate the Protestant Reformation within his empire, the terms of the Augsburg Treaty dictating that local rulers would henceforth select the religion of their subjects (p. 680).

1,565 Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Return of the Hunters. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (p. 712).

1,586 El Greco, Burial of Count Orgaz, Church of Santo Tome, Toledo, Spain. An angel lifts Orgaz=s tiny, ghostly soul along the central axis, through the heavenly hosts toward the enthroned Christ (pp. 705-706).

1,600 The Enlightenment (in the West). The increased consciousness soon leads to industrialization and rationality. The approach to knowledge is representational B the ANewtonian,@ ACartesian,@ Amechanistic,@ Amirror of nature,@ Areflection@ paradigm. This paradigm leaves out the Amap-maker@ B the self who is making the maps of the world. The view assumes that the thought process is so basically different from the real world, that it can either reflect the world accurately and holistically, or inaccurately and atomistically (HE Summary, p. 36).

1,635 Diego Velazquez, The Surrender at Breda (The Lances). Museo del Prado, Madrid (p. 753).

Anthony Van Dyck, Charles I at the Hunt. Musee du Louvre, Paris (p. 762).

1,645 Gianlorenzo Bernini, Saint Teresa of Avila in Ecstacy. Cornaro Chapel, Church of Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome (p. 729).

The sculpture depicts a vision which Saint Teresa recounted, in which an angel pierced her body repeatedly with an arrow, causing her to be transported into to a state of religious ecstasy, a sense of oneness with God (p. 728).

1,656 Diego Velazquez, Las Meninas (The Maids of Honor). Museo del Prado, Madrid (p. 754).

This is any example of a level of consciousness more advanced than the average at the time. It anticipates the post-modern view in which various perspectives are taken into account at the same time, with a recognition that none has a monopoly on truth. The perceiver (the artist) is part of, and inseparable from, the perceived. The world is not just a perception, it is also an interpretation (HE Summary, p. 41).

1,659 Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-portrait. National Galley of Art, Washington, D.C. (p. 770).

1,700 The Age of Reason (in the West). Reason B the formal operational stage of consciousness development B emerges as the basic organizing principle of society. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) defines autonomy as the courage to think for oneself and not rely on socially given rules and dogmas (SES Summary, p. 37).

1,739 Jean-Simeon Chardin, The Governess. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (p. 905).

With his portrayals of young mothers, governesses and kitchen maids, Chardin is one of the first French artists to honor the dignity of women=s work, and treat the lives of women and children with sympathy (p. 905).

1,798 Francisco Goya, The Sleep of Reason produces Monsters, From Los Caprichos (The Caprices). Hispanic Society of America, New York (p. 954).

In 1793, Charles IV, king of Spain, fought in France, against the French revolutionaries. Two years later, however (in 1795), Charles IV made peace with France, and a year later (in 1796), entered a war against England as an ally of France (Encyclopedia).

Between 1796 and 1798, Goya assembled a folio of 80 etchings, ALos Caprichos,@ which depicted what he considered to be the specific follies of the Spanish life. The Sleep of Reason is one of these follies (p. 954).

1,800 The Industrial Revolution B Modernity. The industrial revolution renders the casting of iron technically useful (Encyclopedia).

The idea of history as evolution, a growth toward God, slowly replaces the idea of history as devolution B a fall from God. The Aneo-perennial philosophy@ still has the One, timeless and absolute Spirit of which the entire universe is but a manifestation, but that world of manifestation is now evolving toward Spirit. God lies in our collective future. The Garden of Eden is tomorrow. The humanistic-scientific-rational stage is one of the stages of the return of Spirit, as Spirit, to Spirit (EoS Summary, p. 40).

1,815 Francisco Goya, Third of May, 1808. Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain (p. 955).

The painting portrays the faceless, mechanical forces of war blindly destroying defenseless humanity (p. 954).

Spain, under Charles IV (see The Sleep of Reason, 1798, p. 954), suffered a major defeat in its war against England, at the Battle of Trafalgar (1805). In his own country, Charles IV increasingly reinstituted the Inquisition, reversing most of the reforms which the French Revolution had inspired, and even halting the entry of French books into Spain. In March 1808, French troops marched into Madrid. A popular uprising forced Charles IV to abdicate in favor of his son, Ferdinand VII. However, Napoleon captured both Charles IV and Ferdinand VII, and enthroned his own brother, Joseph Bonarpate, as king of Spain. On May 2, 1808, a rumor spread through Madrid that the French planned to kill the royal family, held captive in France. The people rose up. A day of bloody street fighting ensued during which hundreds of unarmed Spanish were herded into a convent, and executed by a French firing squad in the pre-dawn hours of the next morning. This painting is Goya=s reaction to the event (p. 954; Encyclopedia).

* 1,863 Edouard Manet, Le dejeuner sur l=herbe (The Luncheon on the Grass). Musee d=Orsay, Paris (p. 981).

* This may depict a more advanced level of consciousness than the average one at the time. Post-modernity, which begins around 1,950, recognizes that nothing is pre-given. The world is not just perception, it is also an interpretation. In this painting, the figures fail to connect psychologically. What is obvious to us B the nudity of the woman B does not enter the consciousness of either of the two men at her side (pp. 980-981; HE Summary, p. 41)

1,874 Edgar Degas, The Rehearsal on Stage. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (p. 987).

1,876 Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Moulin de la Galette. Musee d=Orsay, Paris (p. 986).

1,882 Edouard Manet, A Bar at the Folies-Bergere. Institute of Art Gallery, London (p. 990).

1,936 John Heartfield, Have no Fear B He=s a Vegetarian. Paris. Stiftung Archiv der Akademie der Kunste, Berlin, Germany (p. 1061).

1,937 Pablo Picasso, Guernica. Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain (p. 1019).

In 1937, German legionnaires in the service of Spain, bombed Guernica, a town of 6,000 inhabitants, clinging to the mountainside of northern Spain, the capital of the Basque people. Guernica became the first European city ever to know death from the air. The painting is Picasso=s reaction to the event (Lindqvist, pp. 5 and 72-74; Francoise Hall, Poem, p. 1).

1,950 The Age of Informatiion B Post-modernity. Post-modernity recognizes evolution B the unfolding of the Great Chain of Being in evolutionary time (HE Summary, p. 36; IP Summary, p. 7).

Post-modernity also recognizes that nothing is pre-given. Humans are co-creators of their own evolution, their own history, their own world spaces. Reality is not just a perception, it is also an interpretation (HE Summary, p. 41).

During Modernity, the war machine spins out of control. The sacred or semi-sacred restraints are either gone or perverted into Aholy wars.@ Wars are increasingly fought over ideas rather than simple property or goods, and hence, the sheer destruction of all people, property and goods becomes acceptable. Abstractions are now the object of war. The world is split into several large and heavily armed camps of finite creatures, glutted in overkill, and bent on mutual destruction (UE p. 72; HE Summary, p. 41; UE Summary, p. 32).

The new power of the ego, accompanied by its new inherent terrors, results in new, wildly exaggerated substitute gratifications (such as hedonistic over-indulgence), and new, wildly exaggerated substitute sacrifices (such as mass homicide, oppressive exploitation, massive slavery, class alienation, and violent inequality) B all of which cripple the levels of exchange both in one=s own self and in those who happen to fall under one=s influence or power. Thus are the ego=s attempts at token cosmo-centrism and symbolic immortality (UE Summary, p. 32).

1,962 Diane Arbus, Child with Toy Hand Grenade. The Museum of Modern Art, New York (p. 1111).

1,983 Maya Ying Lin, Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The Mall, Washington, D.C. (p. 1144).

1,993 Mel Chin, Revival Field: Pig=s Eye Landfill. St. Paul Minnesota. The Revival Fields series serves the practical purpose of reclaiming a hazardous waste site through the use or plants which absorb toxic metals from the soil (p. 1147).

MY CONCLUSIONS

1. The Evolution of Consciousness: The evolution of consciousness has a direction B ever-widening, deepening, embracing awareness. It is not possible to believe that this evolution has suddenly stopped at our present ego level. One must conclude, with Ken Wilber, that the asymptotic end-point is non-dual consciousness.

2. Technology vs. Consciousness: The present asymmetry between our technological advances and our present level of consciousness, threatens the very continuation of life as we know it on the planet. It is important to ask, therefore, AHow fast are we moving toward higher levels of consciousness B levels beyond ego, where war and destruction are obsolete, non-issues, because the ego has been transcended by levels which recognize that our history is not a chronicle of the power-laced feats of the ego, but rather a chronicle of our evolutionary steps toward Atman?@

Table 1 shows our levels of consciousness through time. Will the curve representing the rate at which we climb to higher consciousness levels, cross the curve representing the rate at which our technology of death is mushrooming, in time to avert disaster?

Table 1: Human Consciousness through Time

Level of Consciousness Dates Duration

(Hominids/Humans) (Years)

Pleroma-uroboric 6,000,000-200,000 B.C.E. 5,800,000

Typhonic

Low Typhonic 200,000-50,000 B.C.E. 150,000

High Typhonic 50,000-9,500 B.C.E. 40,500

Mythic-membership

Low Mythic-membership 9,500-4,500 B.C.E. 5,000

High Mythic-memberhip 4,500-2,500 B.C.E. 2,000

Egoic

Low Egoic 2,500-500 B.C.E. 2,000

Middle Egoic 500 B.C.E.-1,500 C.E. 2,000

High Egoic 1,500 C.E.- Present 500

3 We are All Holons: The world is made of holons B nests within nests within nests ad infinitum all the way up and all the way down.

As holons, we have four domains in our existence:

Two domains whose truths are revealed only by interpretation, through dialogue:

i The Intentional (AI,@ the subjective).

ii The Cultural (AWe,@ the inter-subjective).

Two domains whose truths are revealed empirically, through a monologue, measurement:

i The Behavioral (AIt,@ the objective).

ii The Social (AIts,@ that is AIt@ in the plural, the inter-objective) (HE and SES Summary, pp. 7-11).

Marilyn Stokstad focuses almost entirely on the empirical B the Behavioral, AIt@ (when and where the artist was born, who his/her parents were, where he/she traveled, when he/she did a particular piece of work, what methods and materials he/she used, etc. . .), and the Social, AIts@ (the techno-economic conditions in which the artist lived, concurrent wars and diseases, patrons supporting his/her work, availability of materials, such as stone, clay or bronze, etc. . .).

Stokstad focuses slightly on the Cultural B the inter-subjective, AWe@ (the position of the artist in society, who his/her friends were, to what social groups he/she belonged, who commissioned the work, how the work was received, what other artists seem to have influenced the work, etc. . .).

Stockstad omits almost entirely the Intentional, AI@ (the subjective state of the artist, his/her intentions, feeling state, level of consciousness as revealed by his/her work, what he/she said about the work, how the artist him/herself understood the work, etc. . .).

In this respect, Stokstad is part of present day Western society which denies any truth to whatever cannot be measured empirically. Even art historians must be Ascientific,@ Aobjective.@

4. Artists express World Views: Marilyn Stokstad omits any mention of the world views represented in the history of art, and this is a great deficiency in her otherwise comprehensive book.

World Views: Each of the four domains of holons evolves. In particular, the subjective domain evolves. The world view of humans changes with evolutionary time B from pre-conventional to conventional to post-conventional (formal-operational), and, in some rare cases, even beyond the conventional. By omitting the subjective domain, Stokstad also omits its evolution through time B the evolution of consciousness.

World views are different ways of categorizing, organizing, representing and presenting our experiences. The world is a tapestry of multiple world views. All our individual perceptions are embedded in a particular world view which constrains what we chose to see (OT pp. 243-245).

World views operate for the most part collectively and unconsciously, presenting themselves as simply true. Each world view, with its distinctive characteristics, engraves itself onto those born within it, and most individuals do not even suspect that their perceptions are occurring with the horizons of a given, rather specific view. Few question the world view in which they find themselves B a fish is unaware that it is wet (OT pp. 245-246).

This is true of all levels below the psychic (world-centric). Even the integral-aperspectival world view, which privileges no perspective as final, in its extreme form, slides into saying that, therefore, no perspective is better than another B except its own, of course, which is then covertly privileged.

Only at the psychic stage, does an individual recognize that his/her world view is but one in a great holarchy of nested stages of consciousness (the AGreat Chain of Being@) (OT pp. 246-247; SES pp.192-193 and 747).

At any time, in any culture, most adults inhabit the landscape of one particular world view. As William James (1842-1910) said, without some sort of world view, we remain lost in the blooming buzzing confusion of experience. And as Hubert Benoit (1904-1992) noted, it is not an identification with any one level of consciousness per se which causes problems, but rather an exclusive identification with any particular level (OT pp. 244-245 and 275).

Art: It is not the object expressed, but the depth of the subject expressing it, that most defines art. Artists express world views. Both objects and values differ among various world views. Artists can depict their particular perceptions of the objects and values in any world view to which they are alive themselves. The deeper the awareness of the artist, the more world spaces he/she can plumb. It is the depth of the artist (the perceiver, subject) who provides the objects of art (OT pp. 243, 245).

At their best, avant-garde artists are the great surfers of the next waves of consciousness which will immerse the average of us in the future. Artists are canaries in the cultural mine shaft (OT pp. 243, 248-251).

World Views expressed by Artists: A brief overview of world views and how artists have portrayed them, gives a pictorial representation of the evolution of consciousness.

e. The Pleroma-uroboric World View (6,000,000-200,000 B.C.E.). This world view produces no art.

The Low Egoic level (2,500-500 B.C.E.), however, because it has transcended the Pleroma-uroboric and Typhonic stages, can portray those earlier stages. Such a portrayal is Woman or Goddess with Snakes (1,625 B.C.E., p. 98).

b. The Typhonic World View (200,000-9,500 B.C.E.). This world view is magic-animistic, marked by a partial overlap between subject and object. On the one hand, Ainanimate objects,@ like rocks and rivers, are felt to be alive, even possess spirits, and on the other hand, the subject contains within it parts of his environment.

An example of the art produced from the Typhonic level of consciousness is the Lion Human (28,000 B.C., p. 4) (OT p. 244).

c. The Mythic-membership World View (9,500-2,500 B.C.E.). This view contains a plethora of gods and goddesses, not as abstract entities but as deeply felt powers, each having a direct hand in the affairs of earthly men and women (OT p. 244).

The mythological interpretation of the 1,200 B.C.E. Trojan War by the Greeks during the Low Egoic Level of consciousness (2,500-500 B.C.E.) is an example. An episode of the mythologized war was portrayed later, during the Middle Egoic Level (500 B.C.E.-1,500 C.E.) by Hagesandros, Polydoros and Athanadoros of Rhodes, as Laocoon and His Sons (150 B.C.E., pp. xliv, xlv and 174-175) (OT p. 244).

d. The Egoic World View (2,500 B.C.E. - Present). This world view emphasizes the ability of an individual to think for him/herself. ARationality@ takes center-stage. The view assumes that the subjective realm, our thought process, is so basically and fundamentally different from the objective realm of nature, the Areal@ world, that we can map this outer reality completely impartially, objectively (OT p. 244).

An example of this approach to the world is Francisco Goya, The Sleep of Reaon produces Monsters (1,798 C.E., p. 954).

e. The Existential (Integral-aperspectival, World-centric) World View (Modernity). This view reflects a more advanced level of consciousness (the vision-logic), than the High Egoic Level (1,500 C.E. - Present) which is the average in our time.

The view has the understanding that multiple perspectives are built into the universe, and that there is not one privileged perspective. Individuals must carve meaning for themselves from a frightening multitude of possibilities (OT p. 244).

Examples include Diego Velazquez, Las Meninas (The Maids of Honor (1,656, p. 754) where the subject (the artist) is part of the objective scene; and Edouard Manet, Le dejeuner sur l=herbe (The Luncheon on the Grass) (1,863, p. 981) where the two men are oblivious to the nudity of the woman right in front of them (OT pp. 246 and 250).

f. The Psychic (Global Soul, Yogic, Shamanic) World View. This view is Agross@ or nature mysticism B what the Buddhists call Nirmanakaya. The person is temporarily able to dissolve the sense of a separate self and find an identity with the entire gross, sensorimotor world B all living beings (HE, EoS and SG Summary, p. 17).

An example could be Diane Arbus, Child with Toy Hand Grenade (1,963, p. 1111).

The Subtle (Saintly) World View. This view is marked by an apprehension of subtle forms and transcendental archetypes, primordial patterns of manifestation which are usually felt, and claimed, to be Divine. It is what the Buddhists call Sambhogakaya (OT p. 244; HE and EoS Summary, p. 18).

I do not find any portrayal of this world view in Stokstad=s book, only a representation of someone experiencing this world view B Gianlorenzo Bernini, Saint Teresa of Avila in Ecstacy (1652, pp. 728-729). The great Spanish mystic, Saint Teresa of Avila (1515-1582), has given us beautiful descriptions the subtle level. Prior to the transformative absorption in this level, the unregenerate self (ego) is like a silkworm:

AAnd now let us see what becomes of this silkworm. [After being] in this state of [absorption], and quite dead to the world, it comes out a little white butterfly.@

(SES pp. 303-304 and 430; ToE p. 111;

ToE Summary, p. 6).

The Causal (Sagely) World View. This view does not seem to be represented in Stokstad=s book. It is characterized by the direct realization of a vast unmanifest realm, variously known as Emptiness, cessation, the Abyss, the Unborn, ayn, the Ursprung B a vast Formlessness from which all manifestation spring. It is what the Buddhists call Dharmakaya (OT p. 244; HE and EoS Summary, p. 19).

The Non-dual World View. This view does not seem to be represented in Stokstad=s book. It represents a radical union of the Formless with the entire world of Form. It is what the Buddhists call Svabhavikakaya (OT p. 244; HE and EoS Summary, p. 20).

NOTE

AWestern Art@ includes:

The Paleolithic (2,900,000-10,000 B.C.E.), Mesolithic (10,000-7,500 B.C.E.) and Neolithic Period (7,500-1,500 B.C.E.), including the Bronze Age (3,000-1,500) and the Iron Age (1,500 B.C.E.- Present) (pp. 1-26).

Art of the Ancient Near East (pp. 27-52)

Art of Ancient Egypt (pp. 53-88).

Aegean Art (pp. 89-112).

Art of Ancient Greece (pp. 113-180).

Etruscan Art and Roman Art (pp. 181-248).

Jewish, Early Christian and Byzantine Art (pp. 249-302).

Early Medieval Art in Europe (pp. 441-470).

Romanesque Art (pp. 471-512).

Gothic Art (pp. 513-576).

Early Renaissance Art in Europe (pp. 577-644).

Renaissance Art in 16^th Century Europe (pp. 645-718).

Baroque Art in Europe and North America (pp. 719-786).

Art in Europe and North America

18^th Century (pp. 897-940).

19^th Century (pp. 941-1018).

The Rise of Modernism (pp. 1019-1082).

The International Avant-garde since 1945 (pp. 1083-1152).

AWestern Art@ excludes:

Islamic Art (pp. 303-328).

Art of India

Before 1,200 (pp. 329-358).

After 1,200 (pp. 787-800).

Chinese Art

Before 1,280 (pp. 359-384).

After 1,280 (pp. 801-816).

Japanese Art

Before 1,392 (pp. 385-404).

After 1392 (pp. 817-836).

Art of the Americas

Before 1,300 (pp. 405-426).

After 1,300 (pp. 837-858).

Art of Africa

Art of Ancient Africa (pp. 427-440).

Art of Africa in the Modern Era (pp. 875-896).

Art of Pacific Cultures (pp. 859-874).

REFERENCES

All page numbers refer to:

Stokstad, Marilyn. 2005. Art history. 2^nd Edition, Revised. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.

Except for:

Columbia Encyclopedia. 2000. Sixth Edition. New York: Columbia University/Gale Group.

Enheduanna, 2003. ALament to the Spirit of War,@ in Daniela Gioseffi, Ed., Women on war B An international anthology of writings from antiquity to the present, 2^nd Edition. New York: The Feminist Press, City University of New York.

See also Francoise Hall, August 10, 2003. Poem, ATo Enheduanna.@ 14 pages.

Internet (for dates).

Lindqvist, Sven. 2000 (in Sweden) / 2002 (English Translation). A history of bombing, Linda Rugg, Translator. New York: The New Press.

See also Francoise Hall, November 12, 2001. Poem, AWestern Civilization B A Short History of its Aerial Bombardments.@ 5 pages.

Wilber, Ken.

1981/1996. Up from Eden B a transpersonal view of human evolution. Wheaton, IL: Quest Books. (Abbreviated as UE). ^(a)

1983/2005. A sociable God B (1983 subtitles: a brief introduction to a transcendental sociology), 2005 subtitle: toward a new understanding of religion. Boston, MA: Shambhala. (Abbreviated as SG).^.(a)

1995/2000. Sex, ecology, spirituality B the spirit of evolution. 2^nd Edition, Revised. Boston, MA: Shambhala. (Abbreviated as SES). ^(a)

1996. A brief history of everything. Boston, MA: Shambhala. (Abbreviated as HE). ^(a)

2000/2001. The eye of spirit B an integral vision for the world gone slightly mad. Boston, MA: Shambhala. (Abbreviated as EoS). ^(a)

2000. One taste B daily reflections on integral spirituality. Boston, MA: Shambhala. (Abbreviated as OT).

2001. A theory of everything B an integral vision for business, politics, science and spirituality. Boston, MA: Shambhala. (Abbreviated as ToE).

Summarized in Francoise Hall, AAn Integral Vision,@ March 12, 2006, 21 pages

_________________________

^(a) Summarized in Francoise Hall, AA Transpersonal View of War B War as a Substitute for Cosmo-centrism and Immortality during the Egoic Stage in the Development of Consciousness,@ November 5, 2005, 103 pages.

***

ILLUSTRATIONS

(In the Order in which they are mentioned in the Text of the present Document)

Note: Homo sapiens came into existence 400,000-250,000 B.C.E. The first illustration reproduced here (Marilyn Stokstad=s first) is from 28,000 B.C.E. (The Lion-Human).

The illustrations reproduced here, therefore, cover the last 7-11 percent of the history of Homo sapiens B beginning mid-way through the High Typhonic Level of Consciousness Development (50,000-9,500 B.C.E.) B the mid-way point is 30,000; and a third of the way through the Upper Paleotlithic Period (35,000-10,000) B a third of the way through is

27,000 B.C.E. ^@

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^@ (28,000 / 400,000)x 100 = 7 percent.

(28,000 / 250,000)x 100 = 11 percent.