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Coming to Our Senses: Body and Spirit in the Hidden History of the West
Originally published by Simon & Schuster in 1989, "Coming to Our Senses" is the second volume in a trilogy on the evolution of human consciousness, and the recipient (in 1990) of the Governor's Writers Award for Washington State. (The first, "The Reenchantment of the World," was published in 1981 by Cornell University Press; the third, "Wandering God," was released in 2000 by the State University of New York Press.) The focus of this particular volume is the relationship between culture and the human body, and the somatic basis of Western religious experience. Whereas the first volume in the series is largely historical, and the third largely anthropological, "Coming to Our Senses" focuses on human psychology, especially the earliest years of life, and how this has historically influenced the nature of adult life and institutions in the West.
425 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1989
19 people are currently reading
766 people want to read
About the author
Morris Berman
74 books118 followersDistinguished cultural historian and social critic Morris Berman has spent many years exploring the corrosion of American society and the decline of the American empire. He is the author of the critically acclaimed works The Twilight of American Culture, a New York Times Book Review "Notable Book," and Dark Ages America."
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
July 15, 2014
Morris Berman begins his exploration of the "hidden history" of the West with a discussion of the nemo, a word he borrows from John Fowles's
Aristos
which connotes the sense of non-existence at the core of the existential condition. The experience of this nemo, according to Berman, results from a developmental split between the felt sense of embodiment ("somatic awareness") and the mental self image that comes from how others see us ("specular awareness"). Berman uses the history of mirrors and the human relationship to animals to demonstrate how this split has led historically to a de-valuation of somatic, embodied experience, a consequent preference for "cognitively top-heavy" abstraction, and various attempts to heal the breach between the two.
The core of the book is an exploration of four different periods in Western history—the origins of Christianity and Gnosticism, the Cathar/Albigensian heresy in Southern France, the origins of science in the practice of alchemy, and the modern phenomenon of Nazism. Berman investigates how these periods relate to the suppression of the body in favor of the abstracted intellect and to the return of that suppressed somatic experience in different forms (e.g,. Gnostic mysticism, romantic love, scientific abstraction, and Nazi mass murder).
Finally, Berman looks at our prospects for the future. Since the abstraction/experience split and our attempts to smooth it over are still going strong in modern Western societies, Berman fears the potential for a resurgence of fascism. (Given the tenor of the 21st century so far, it would seem that his fears are well founded.) Instead of advocating another mystical or political attempt to heal over the split and to fill in the nemo, Berman discusses the possibility of a "gesture of balance"—learning to accept the split and the feeling of the nemo without being compelled to fill it in or smooth it over. This radical acceptance of the gap might be the key to "resolving" the gap altogether.
In short, this is a book that demands serious attention from students of history, politics, religion, philosophy, psychology, and also for those dedicated to pursuing a spiritual path.
The core of the book is an exploration of four different periods in Western history—the origins of Christianity and Gnosticism, the Cathar/Albigensian heresy in Southern France, the origins of science in the practice of alchemy, and the modern phenomenon of Nazism. Berman investigates how these periods relate to the suppression of the body in favor of the abstracted intellect and to the return of that suppressed somatic experience in different forms (e.g,. Gnostic mysticism, romantic love, scientific abstraction, and Nazi mass murder).
Finally, Berman looks at our prospects for the future. Since the abstraction/experience split and our attempts to smooth it over are still going strong in modern Western societies, Berman fears the potential for a resurgence of fascism. (Given the tenor of the 21st century so far, it would seem that his fears are well founded.) Instead of advocating another mystical or political attempt to heal over the split and to fill in the nemo, Berman discusses the possibility of a "gesture of balance"—learning to accept the split and the feeling of the nemo without being compelled to fill it in or smooth it over. This radical acceptance of the gap might be the key to "resolving" the gap altogether.
In short, this is a book that demands serious attention from students of history, politics, religion, philosophy, psychology, and also for those dedicated to pursuing a spiritual path.
November 12, 2015
Love of life is the uninhibited expression of interest, or curiosity - the cosmological urge/life force. A response to the world that is not driven by fear or even need. It is not the response of the infant to Transitional Objects which is rooted in insecurity (the desire to fill the gap) but a response rooted in trust, which tends to be spontaneous and immediate, not hurried or driven.
The essence of Self is not this or that particular persona or identity, but has the principle of transformation directly within it.
Personality is generally a posture of defense and one learns what one must defend oneself against in the context of what is regular rather than aberrant. What forms the core of the adult personality is that which was in the formative years, not traumatic but daily, repetitive, even boring.
How a nation or culture treats the bodies of its children, may have its echoes in the behavior of the entire national cultural body.
The history of toys is really a history of the body.
How the great teacher works: he speaks directly to the unconscious body.
EXPLORE WHAT YOU FEAR MOST
The real goal of a spiritual tradition should not be ascent, but openness, vulnerability, and this does not require great experiences but, on the contrary, very ordinary ones. Charisma is easy; presence, self-remembering, is terribly difficult, and where the real work lies.
Journeys are for the most part undertaken out of restlessness; some sort of lack, or need, is typically present. Things are "not right" here, there is something better to be found somewhere else.
Modern creativity:
- is heavily fueled by the desire to prove that one exists
- has a strong addictive or compulsive component to it: outdo yourself with each succeeding project
- is heavily characterized by suicide
- quickly loses interest in artists who have nothing 'new' to offer
- involves the sexualization or at least eroticization of the activity: one's work becomes one's lover: one's central and obsessive relationship
- has to be provisional, dissatisfied, restless. you are constantly challenged to create Yourself, and this process never ends.
The search for self-expression actually winds up depleting your Self. You are the agent of your own crucification. You are your own slave driver (Reich)
Create from what you have, not from what you lack.
Don't create the work, you step out of the way and let it happen.
What matters:
how birthing takes place,
how infants are raised,
having a rich and active dream life,
animals,
ontological security,
the magic of personal interaction
healthy and passionate sexual expression
What does not matter:
career,
prestige,
putting a good face on,
the newest fashion in art or science
When you've lost your body, you need an ism.
The essence of Self is not this or that particular persona or identity, but has the principle of transformation directly within it.
Personality is generally a posture of defense and one learns what one must defend oneself against in the context of what is regular rather than aberrant. What forms the core of the adult personality is that which was in the formative years, not traumatic but daily, repetitive, even boring.
How a nation or culture treats the bodies of its children, may have its echoes in the behavior of the entire national cultural body.
The history of toys is really a history of the body.
How the great teacher works: he speaks directly to the unconscious body.
EXPLORE WHAT YOU FEAR MOST
The real goal of a spiritual tradition should not be ascent, but openness, vulnerability, and this does not require great experiences but, on the contrary, very ordinary ones. Charisma is easy; presence, self-remembering, is terribly difficult, and where the real work lies.
Journeys are for the most part undertaken out of restlessness; some sort of lack, or need, is typically present. Things are "not right" here, there is something better to be found somewhere else.
Modern creativity:
- is heavily fueled by the desire to prove that one exists
- has a strong addictive or compulsive component to it: outdo yourself with each succeeding project
- is heavily characterized by suicide
- quickly loses interest in artists who have nothing 'new' to offer
- involves the sexualization or at least eroticization of the activity: one's work becomes one's lover: one's central and obsessive relationship
- has to be provisional, dissatisfied, restless. you are constantly challenged to create Yourself, and this process never ends.
The search for self-expression actually winds up depleting your Self. You are the agent of your own crucification. You are your own slave driver (Reich)
Create from what you have, not from what you lack.
Don't create the work, you step out of the way and let it happen.
What matters:
how birthing takes place,
how infants are raised,
having a rich and active dream life,
animals,
ontological security,
the magic of personal interaction
healthy and passionate sexual expression
What does not matter:
career,
prestige,
putting a good face on,
the newest fashion in art or science
When you've lost your body, you need an ism.
September 6, 2017
This is a wonderful book to compliment a major textbook on Western Civilization. The subtitle tells it all: Body and Spirit in the Hidden History of the West. Berman starts out claiming that the west has a dualistic tradition that exists not only in religion but in philosophy. After a brief lesson in psychoanalytic object relations theory which explain what happens when at an early age a mother is split into good mother and bad mother, he sets upon the road of the underground western history. His work sets out to reveal the hidden mystical traditions in the West that were not dualistic. These include the Gnostics and the Cathars. He argues that religious heretics, witches and magicians strove for a participatory consciousness and they were persecuted because of it. Berman has a good command of the early history of science and appreciates that the in the beginning of science, many scientists were magicians. When the magical traditions were persecuted, science became mechanistic and created another duality between dead matter on the one hand and an otherworldly Protestant God on the other.
This book is well-written and addressed to an educated lay person. It has adequate references and not a dry book. I wish two things could have been added. One is that though the book is supposed to be about our senses, Berman does not discuss how the senses themselves evolved. For example, Walter Ong and Marshall McLuhan talked about the rise of sight and the decline of hearing after the invention of the printing press. That evolution would have worked very well with his overall argument. Lastly, James Hillman makes a very provocative case for the existence of a polytheistic psychology in Renaissance Italy before the arrival of a new monotheistic psychology that came about with the Protestant Reformation. Both oral storytelling traditions and polytheistic psychology could have supported the underground participatory tradition and while vision, mechanistic science and monotheistic psychology all supported the dualistic tradition in the west. Overall I found this a very inspiring book.
This book is well-written and addressed to an educated lay person. It has adequate references and not a dry book. I wish two things could have been added. One is that though the book is supposed to be about our senses, Berman does not discuss how the senses themselves evolved. For example, Walter Ong and Marshall McLuhan talked about the rise of sight and the decline of hearing after the invention of the printing press. That evolution would have worked very well with his overall argument. Lastly, James Hillman makes a very provocative case for the existence of a polytheistic psychology in Renaissance Italy before the arrival of a new monotheistic psychology that came about with the Protestant Reformation. Both oral storytelling traditions and polytheistic psychology could have supported the underground participatory tradition and while vision, mechanistic science and monotheistic psychology all supported the dualistic tradition in the west. Overall I found this a very inspiring book.
May 20, 2025
A good, unique, and very palatable rendering of the hidden history undergirding the Western matrix of psychospirituality, and an excellent and indispensable companion to Berman’s The Reenchantment of the World.
Not only an outstanding and engaging storyteller, I have never encountered an author or intellectual who is so adept at using historical and anthropological connections for the layperson as an initiatory stage of spiritual insight. Arguably, any and all knowledge is a search for the transcendent and therefore possesses a certain mystical quality, but Berman’s ability to reimagine and map the larger and smaller currents of history as processes that, whether intentionally or not, emerged from the singular desire towards divine insight or experience is unique. It is a testament to his skill as a storyteller that he is so adept at abiding by the contemporary standard of concrete fact and yet successfully demonstrating that all methodologies and movements of the historical zeitgeist, whether past or present, explicitly spiritual or firmly rational, are actually articulations emerging from the same Source - the intangible and mystical that has always animated human existence.
Not only an outstanding and engaging storyteller, I have never encountered an author or intellectual who is so adept at using historical and anthropological connections for the layperson as an initiatory stage of spiritual insight. Arguably, any and all knowledge is a search for the transcendent and therefore possesses a certain mystical quality, but Berman’s ability to reimagine and map the larger and smaller currents of history as processes that, whether intentionally or not, emerged from the singular desire towards divine insight or experience is unique. It is a testament to his skill as a storyteller that he is so adept at abiding by the contemporary standard of concrete fact and yet successfully demonstrating that all methodologies and movements of the historical zeitgeist, whether past or present, explicitly spiritual or firmly rational, are actually articulations emerging from the same Source - the intangible and mystical that has always animated human existence.
September 3, 2010
My favorite book!
July 31, 2016
Este libro es maravilloso.
A mi juicio, Morris Berman es uno de los autores más necesarios de leer.
Cuestiona y analiza de la mejor manera todo un sistema; y responde a tantas preguntas y cuestionamientos que nos hacemos como seres humanos.
Aprendí muchísimo de este libro y me emocionó hasta las lágrimas incluso.
Estoy muy contenta de haberlo leído gracias a la universidad. Lo recomiendo totalmente.
No es tan simple de leer, pero es necesario para comprender el mundo y la sociedad en la que vivimos. Todos debiesen leerlo.
A mi juicio, Morris Berman es uno de los autores más necesarios de leer.
Cuestiona y analiza de la mejor manera todo un sistema; y responde a tantas preguntas y cuestionamientos que nos hacemos como seres humanos.
Aprendí muchísimo de este libro y me emocionó hasta las lágrimas incluso.
Estoy muy contenta de haberlo leído gracias a la universidad. Lo recomiendo totalmente.
No es tan simple de leer, pero es necesario para comprender el mundo y la sociedad en la que vivimos. Todos debiesen leerlo.
June 23, 2019
Rated PG-13 for one brilliantly timed F-bomb.
January 17, 2020
Life changing
November 9, 2020
I keep Berman's CTOS handy on the shelf, to refer to and to reflect. Berman may get bogged down with references but the premise, research and perspectives are essential, now more than ever.
April 30, 2022
This is an excellent book. Should be given more attention.
April 18, 2010
As part of his Re-Enchantment trilogy, this is one of the top 10 most important books to read. It is important because it examines and questions the effects that our mostly unconsciously arbitrary 'truths' about where the important things in life reside affect our society's sociological biases and expressions. You will not see the world in the way you did before reading the book. (Or, I suspect, you will think it is complete trash, and is completely erroneous and irrelevant.)
July 20, 2008
A friend I lent this book to quipped that he would have titled it "The Apotent Hypnogogue Cathected," which gives some idea of how eggheaded and opaque the discourse can get.
Want to read
August 17, 2015i'm just starting this book today....don;t know what to expect. the title is intriguing...so we'll see how it is....
Read
December 14, 2008This does not seem as revelatory now as it did to me 10 years ago, but important in understanding how our sense of self and somatic perception has shifted through time in the west. Fascinating.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews