Saving the Appearances: A Study in Idolatry

by Owen Barfield

Barfield draws on sources from mythology, philosophy, history, literature, theology, and science to chronicle the evolution of human thought from Moses and Aristotle to Galileo and Keats.

Saving the Appearances is about the world as we see it and the world as it is; it is about God, human nature, and consciousness. The best known of numerous books by the British sage whom C.S. Lewis called the "wisest and best of my unofficial teachers," it draws on sources from mythology, philosophy, history, literature, theology, and science to chronicle the evolution of human thought from Moses and Aristotle to Galileo and Keats. Barfield urges his readers to do away with the assumption that the relationship between people and their environment is static. He dares us to end our exploitation of the natural world and to acknowledge, even revel in, our participation in the diurnal creative process.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Theology, Religion, History, Psychology, Spirituality

191 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1957

About the author

Arthur Owen Barfield was a British philosopher, author, poet, and critic.

Barfield was born in London. He was educated at Highgate School and Wadham College, Oxford and in 1920 received a first class degree in English language and literature. After finishing his B. Litt., which became his third book Poetic Diction, he was a dedicated poet and author for over ten years. After 1934 his profession was as a solicitor in London, from which he retired in 1959 aged 60. Thereafter he had many guest appointments as Visiting Professor in North America. Barfield published numerous essays, books, and articles. His primary focus was on what he called the "evolution of consciousness," which is an idea which occurs frequently in his writings. He is best known as a founding father of Anthroposophy in the English speaking world.

Barfield has been known as "the first and last Inkling". He had a profound influence on C. S. Lewis, and through his books The Silver Trumpet and Poetic Diction (dedicated to C.S. Lewis), an appreciable effect on J. R. R. Tolkien. Lewis was a good friend of Barfield since 1919, and termed Barfield "the best and wisest of my unofficial teachers". That Barfield did not consider philosophy merely intellectually is illustrated by a well-known interchange that took place between Lewis and Barfield. Lewis one day made the mistake of referring to philosophy as "a subject." "It wasn't a subject to Plato," said Barfield, "It was a way." Lewis refers to Barfield as the "Second Friend" in Surprised by Joy:

But the Second Friend is the man who disagrees with you about everything. He is not so much the alter ego as the antiself. Of course he shares your interests; otherwise he would not become your friend at all. But he has approached them all at a different angle. He has read all the right books but has got the wrong thing out of every one. It is as if he spoke your language but mispronounced it. How can he be so nearly right and yet, invariably, just not right?

Barfield and C. S. Lewis met in 1919 and were close friends for 44 years. Barfield was instrumental in converting Lewis to theism during the early period of their friendship which they affectionately called 'The Great War'. Maud also guided Lewis. As well as being friend and teacher to Lewis, Barfield was his legal adviser and trustee. Lewis dedicated his 1936 book Allegory of Love to Barfield. Lewis wrote his 1949 book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe for Lucy Barfield and he dedicated The Voyage of the Dawn Treader to Geoffrey in 1952.

Reviews

[BlackOxford · Rating 5 out of 5]

An Aesthetic Epistemology

What a wonderfully insightful, erudite and concise example of reasoning! It almost doesn’t matter weather Barfield is correct or not because the sheer elegant beauty of his thinking is so enticing. That he is correct, however, is a good bet, a bit like discovering Plato is a pseudonym for Helen of Troy and she’s asked you out on a date.

Barfield starts with the apparently innocuous example of a rainbow. Obviously the rainbow doesn’t exist except when it is seen. The particles of water which physically exist in the air-space of a thunderstorm are not the rainbow. The rainbow is constituted by that phenomenon and the human eye and brain in concert. This is ‘Kant for dummies’, and very effective.

Then extend that observation of the rainbow to the entirety of creation. None of it exists unless it is perceived, or as Barfield terms it, becomes a representation in the human senses. That’s right, the tree falling in the forest doesn’t make a sound if there’s no one to hear it. Even more surprising, “there is no solidity if there is nothing to feel it.” This talent to make representations, shared with many other creatures, Barfield calls “figuration.” Think of this as a confirmation of the modern corporate management principle: if it don’t get noticed it don’t exist.

A little clarification might help ease the threat of solipsism. A representation is something I perceive to be there. The same goes for you and everyone else. If my representation is different from that of others, this calls for an explanation. If a satisfactory explanation is found (e.g. differences in distance or persecutive on a phenomenon) then my representation ends by being part of a collective representation. If an explanation cannot be found, we’re stuck with social tension.

But it is also crucial to recognise that all the collective representations taken together with whatever personal representations we each may have don’t reduce what is unrepresented. We can say that the unrepresented is what is independently there and is undiminished in its infinity when anything becomes represented. In that case the world that we all accept as real is in fact a system of collective representations but it cannot be anything approaching the reality of what is there, or the phenomena that take place. This is so partly because of human sensory and technological limitations. But it is also a consequence that we are constantly choosing what to notice (to perceive) depending on what interests us.

What we then do with representations is remarkable and probably unique in the world as far as we know. We use language to name the representations and so develop words, ideas, concepts. This Barfield calls “beta-thinking” which is characterised by an intimate “participation” with the phenomenon we are engaged with.

Participation has a very specific meaning for Barfield beyond mere involvement. It is the “extra-sensory relation of the human being and the phenomenon.” In other words, beta-thinking uses language. The existence of the phenomenon depends fundamentally on this participation, that is, providing words for what we perceive. This provides the necessary condition for the creation of collective representations as well as subsequent cultures. Different words, different phenomena.

Our species has yet another unique skill. We can think about representations as something independent of ourselves and then consider representations in their relations with each other, a kind of analysis or theorising. And we can think about the nature of collective representations as such, and their relation to our own minds. This is a special kind of reflective ability which considers language independent of its figurative uses. Barfield calls this “alpha-thinking.” Alpha-thinking is akin to what can be called rational or scientific reasoning.

The three modes of thought interact more or less continuously, acting as what would be called (much later) cybernetic regulators on each other. But there seems to have been an evolution of this interaction within recorded history. Alpha-thinking has grown much more important. This can be documented in a number of interesting ways.

For example, when we translate the Greek ‘nous‘(νους) as ‘mind’ and ‘logos‘ (λογος) as ‘reason’ or ‘word’, “we are in continuous danger of substituting our phenomena for theirs,” among other reasons because the Greeks had simply not developed alpha-thinking as we have. They participated in phenomena they describe such that the significance of the ancient Greek really can’t be recaptured. Their divine pantheon to us presents many problem of logic that simply never occurred to them. Their ideas of personal virtue were not ethical abstractions but practical demonstrations by epic heroes.

Perhaps the most compelling proof of the shift toward alpha-thinking is the so-called Copernican revolution, which also involved Kepler and Galileo. The ancient Greek notion of ‘hypothesis’ is that it is an explanation which “saves the appearances,” not in the sense of avoiding embarrassment but because such an explanation would account for the facts at hand acquired by beta-thinking. The Greeks weren’t bothered at all if several hypotheses accomplished this objective, even if they were contrary to each other. Respect for the factual data not theory was paramount.

Thus the idea of a heliocentric universe had been mooted and commonly known as early as the sixth century in a commentary on Aristotle’s treatise on astronomy (De Caelo). The real turning point in science occurred when Kepler and Galileo, and Copernicus “began to think not just that the heliocentric hypothesis saved the appearances but was physically true, in fact an ultimate truth.” This constitutes the real Medieval scientific revolution, not merely a change in paradigm but a fundamental shift in the nature of thought itself. Hence the Church could allow Galileo to continue to teach Copernicanism as an hypothesis that saved the appearances, but not as a truth.

What was feared by the Church in its condemnation of Galileo was a new theory of theory, namely that if some theory saved all the appearances, it was identical with truth. In other words, that if such a theory became a collective representation and used in alpha-thinking, it would be taken for more than an “artificial as if” Such an assertion would quite rightly be considered an idolatrous statement (the Church, of course, failed to comprehend that its great doctrinal edifice was exactly that for the same reason; Barfield misses the point as well, so forgive him his last two chapters).

So, concludes Barfield, “A representation which is collectively mistaken for an ultimate ought not to be considered a representation. It is an idol.” Through this insight we are able to detect what is essentially the evolution of idols from around the point of the Copernican revolution - a succession of claims to the ultimate truth of successive collective representations, all ultimately overthrown and forgotten as false idols. But yet each subsequentLy ‘confirmed’ hypothesis claiming to be true.

This continuous quasi-revolution in thought occurs in part because of the nature of language itself which means something slightly different today than it did yesterday; but also because alpha-thinking is inherently dialectical. It inevitably seeks the flaws in itself through the process of turning personal into collective representations. Indeed, that appears what we mean by inquiry tout court. And yet many scientists, religionists, ideologues as well as many other purely obnoxious people continue to insist that they know the truth. This is not only idolatry, it is hubris of the most intense order. And the insistence on ultimate truth is the best criterion of likely falsity I have ever come across in a lifetime of searching.

Postscript: Barfield’s theory is, as far as I can tell, exactly the same as the semiotic theory put forth by C. S. Peirce a half century earlier. Barfield’s ‘representation’ is functionally equivalent to Peirce’s ‘sign’. And the modes of thought, that is, figuration, alpha and beta-thinking, track Peirce’s First, Second, and Third. Barfield doesn’t mention Peirce so I presume that he knew nothing of his work or the work of other American pragmatists.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book came highly recommended from a good friend of mine and did not disappoint. Barfield is one of the lesser known inklings, perhaps because he wrote dense books like this one rather than fantasy stories like Lewis and Tolkien! Getting to know Barfield through this work makes me even more want to travel back in time to England and drink a pint with the inklings. If only I had a TARDIS...

But I digress. This book is not long but it is dense. Barfield's argument is that in the ancient world, up to the scientific revolution, people saw the world in a way he describes as "original participation." Basically, the natural world is not sharply divided from the spiritual, instead humans saw the world as living and filled with spirits and gods. In the words of Charles Taylor, this was an enchanted world. But as Taylor says, the modern era took us through a time of disenchantment where we became buffered selves. Barfield describes this as a sharp divide between the natural world and the subject. Emptied of life, the objects in nature were mere objects with nothing standing behind them. They became idols.

I cannot imagine Taylor has not read Barfield, for many arguments in his A Secular Age echo Barfield here. In essence, both offer a huge critique of modernity and naturalism as ultimately empty. For Barfield, the way out is "final participation." This was a tough idea to grasp, but as I understand it this is a recombining of the natural world with our subjective selves. It is a holistic view, ultimately only possible by bringing God into the picture. God allows us to make sense of the world.

Overall, a great read for anyone interested in philosophy and modern thought.

[James Prothero]

Very dense and philosophical, but the implications of this book are huge, and spell the end of materialism, naturalism and the beginning of what Barfield calls "final participation" in which humanity sees holistically again and dispels the "idols" of thinking we have mastered nature and the spiritual world with our science. And gone also is the Existential present. A masterpiece, though hard work to read.

[Kiara Aldana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Do read if you'd like new eyes.

[Jared Martin]

I too would like to join the chorus of those saying, “It’s a difficult read, but it’s worth it.” A lot of his main terms were loaded with definition and context. It’s hard to follow a stream of thought when constantly looking back to redetermine what he means when he uses these terms.
Regardless, I have never read a book that struck me with profundity such as this one. I am amazed at how many times in the weeks I was reading Barfield that I experienced his work shaping my engagement with other ideas, books, or conversations. I found him to clarify what I struggled to grasp in Charles Taylor’s terms “disenchantment” and “the buffered self.”
Based on the portion of this study I understood, he presents the workings of God through Christ as an evolution/progression from what he calls “original participation” to “final participation.” All this is tied up in how we perceive the world around us. I hope to read more of Barfield and possibly reread this book in order to better understand what all he means by final participation. The bit I could glimpse was compelling.

[Wesley Schantz · Rating 5 out of 5]

C.S. Lewis called Owen Barfield the "wisest and best of my unofficial teachers," and Barfield's Poetic Diction: A Study in Meaning is dedicated to Lewis (or, in the original publication of 1928, to Lewis' then-pseudonym, Clive Hamilton). The accompanying inscription, 'opposition is true friendship,' Barfield quotes from Blake's Marriage of Heaven and Hell, a work Lewis would later counter with his Great Divorce. Further epigraphs hail from Aristotle's De Anima and Coleridge's Biographia Literaria. As the one is left in Greek, and the other comes from somewhere in the middle of a long philosophical memoir, we might have an idea of what we're in for reading Poetic Diction. Barfield writes for an audience of people, like his friend-opponent Lewis, who are versed in language and literature, history and philosophy, and for whom controversies of logic and metaphysics rooted in the theories of the Greeks and Romantics but also in Locke, Hume, and Kant are live and urgent. Presumably, whatever might have motivated his early readers, most of us who come to read Barfield today do so by way of Lewis and Tolkien, rather than by passing through the rich intellectual tradition in which the Inklings themselves were steeped. Thus, my main impression reading Barfield's work is of a sort of super-grown-up talking over my head--and this is not meant so much as a criticism of it as a recognition of my own insufficiency. Though I can count myself lucky for having avoided some of the prejudices and pomposity of Barfield, Lewis, et al., which I fancy I can detect here and there, I'm sure I am full of my own updated ones, as well as being just generally much more ignorant and uneducated.

It seems like there are two ways to approach Barfield, then. Either we read him mainly for the light he can shed on Tolkien and Lewis--and this seems to be the trail blazed by Flieger in Splintered Light--or we strive, by reading many more and still wiser authors he draws upon and puts himself in conversation with, to understand his contributions to the much larger currents of thought he saw himself and his circle engaged in. For the former, a summary of his thought probably suffices, and all these allusions and foreign languages can be dispensed with. But the latter is clearly preferable, if we can work up the time and effort to undertake it; indeed, the former probably ought to lead into the latter, as Flieger seems to argue: "Barfield is not a fantasist (though he is the author of a deftly humorous retelling of 'The Frog Prince,' The Silver Trumpet. Primarily, however, Barfield is a speculative thinker and philosopher whose interest lies chiefly in the relationship between language, myth, and cultural reality" (xxi).

Making it our goal to find the way back to myth and truth through fantasy makes sense, too, given Barfield's association with and influence on these luminary authors, better known for their fantasies but also possessed in their turn of a wealth of scholarship and religious insight speaking powerfully to our time if we can manage to hear, to learn the language in which to understand them. Another don of Tolkien scholarship, Tom Shippey, makes the argument at some length in works like Tolkien: Author of the Century, that the writer of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, but also of The Silmarillion and On Fairy-stories, eminently deserves serious study alongside (or indeed slightly above) the giants of modern and post-modern literature. The likes of Woolf, Eliot, and Joyce, after all, for all their brilliance, seem to have sadly hollowed out the rolls of English departments, whereas the popularity of Tolkien and Lewis has been the impetus not just for major films leading new generations to their fantasy books, but also for scholarship delving into to the full range of their work and into the sources they draw upon.

Barfield, then, is an essential guide in this adventurous "Study in Meaning," of which there seems to be a revival perennially in the works. Whether in the focused Poetic Diction or in the sweeping Saving the Appearances, his erudite explications of exemplary passages of text, his logical refutations of counter-arguments we'd likely not dreamt of making in the first place, and his impassioned calls for ever more nuanced and subtle attention to the workings of imagination and consciousness are quite the experience. Numerous shorter works freely accessible on the page of his literary estate, which calls him, a little apocalyptically, "the first and last Inkling," will give you a taste of his style (oratorical, elliptical, sententious) and a sense of his driving concerns (philology, cultural history, mystical participation).

(Hereabouts is where I would give a more detailed analysis of a few of Barfield's books, and maybe someday I will, buckling down to study Greek and Coleridge and all that before re-reading them, but I just don't think I understand them well enough to be much help at this point. Still, I would love to hear from anyone out there who does!)

Intriguingly, while Barfield had such a tremendous impact on Lewis and Tolkien, and thus on anyone who's been led by them to try to read Beowulf in Old English or to see in Chaucer or in a church window a tenth of what a medieval might have seen there, he also cites some surprisingly esoteric "'friends'" in his afterword to Poetic Diction. Chief among Barfield's enthusiasms are the founder of Anthroposophy, Rudolf Steiner; Goethe, the unacknowledged scientist; and numerous thinkers he recognizes as partaking, along with Barfield himself, of "Neo-Platonism, an underground stream, and philosophically no longer quite respectable" (223). The inexhaustible reading list Barfield bequeaths also includes Spengler's Decline of the West (featured prominently in Conroy's Lords of Discipline, it took me a while to realize this was a real book); Jung, Freud and other students of "the so-called 'psychology of the unconscious'"; Giambattista Vico; Susanne Langer; and many others one would hope to see courses about on Mythgard or Signum University someday. But we should hasten to browse among them in the meantime, to talk about them with other intrepid readers, and so to continue to pass along the thrill of discovery caught from the venerable Barfield.

[Chrystal · Rating 4 out of 5]

I understood about 5% of this book; if I were asked to summarize it or even try to say what it is about, my words would tumble forth as rank gibberish. Barfield introduces a bunch of terms that he then uses throughout the book, and I never really understood what they meant. I didn't even get a grasp on what he was writing about; I read the introduction about five times, then went back after I finished and read it again. Either I am extremely dense (highly probable) or his writing style is extremely abstruse (somewhat likely) or the ideas he presents are very hard to wrap one's mind around (highly likely). Also my ignorance of Greek, Hebrew, and ancient philosophy are great impediments to my understanding of his ideas.

The strange thing is, I found the book very interesting and made lots of notes and marked up the book in a messy manner that will annoy me if I read it again. I am determined to read some more of his books in hopes that I will understand him a bit better.

Barfield was a Theosophist, which I know absolutely nothing about. I know that he and CS Lewis disagreed over this issue loudly and often. Although there don't seem to be any unorthodox ideas about Christianity in this book, there is something a bit odd about it. I suspect if I knew more about Theosophy I would be a bit more leery about his philosophy. Definitely will have to explore more. This book makes me feel like an ignoramus.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Saving the Appearances Owen Barfield, friend of C S Lewis and JRR Tolkein and member of the Inklings, had this to say about the changes in our perception of reality from the medieval paradigm to the modern. He is talking about how we partition and categorise poetic or symbolic interpretation from the "literal". This is important in order to understand the poetic view of the world, one that does not place the premium on scientific knowledge at the expense of the poetic, the symbolic and the artistic.

"When the 'things' of the physical world have become idols, then indeed the literal interpretation excludes the symbolical, and vice versa. But where everything is representation, at least half-consciously experienced as such, there is as yet no such contradiction. For a representation experienced as such is neither literal nor symbolical; or, alternatively, it is both at the same time. Nothing is easier for us, than to grasp a purely literal meaning; and if we are capable at all of grasping, in addition, a symbolical or 'fancy' ,meaning, as we do in poetry, we are in danger of confusing the one with the other. Before the scientific revolution, on the other hand, it was the concept of the 'merely literal' that was difficult. And therefore the writer who is referred to as Dionysius the Areopagite, and Thomas Aquinas and others after him, emphasised the importance of using the humblest and most banal images, as symbols for purely spiritual truths or beings. For only in this way could a representation be safely polarized into symbol and symbolized, into literal and metaphorical".

[Aubrianna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book the way I think physicists love physics. Not because they understand it but because it seems to scratch the very baseness and bareness of all.

Like you’ve been digging and digging and finally hit bedrock and now can at last start building.

[Sabrina · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredibly difficult book, but ultimately worth it. I think it's successfully managed to open entirely new ways for me to consider not only the world around me, but thinking itself.

[Dave Maddock · Rating 4 out of 5]

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? If you answer with a resounding "No!" then Barfield is your man. In fact, his first chapter is a restatement of this very cliche: he asserts that a rainbow only "exists" if it is being perceived by a conscious being.

He goes on to develop his idea of the evolution of consciousness, which goes something like this:

-- "reality" (whatever that is...) must be perceived in some way by a consciousness (when it is not, he calls it the "unrepresented" and, like Wittgenstein, passes over it in silence)

-- therefore, reality depends (partly?) on our consciousness (we create "representations" and "appearances" in our mind)

-- when we recognize this, we "participate"; when we don't, the appearances become "idols"

-- history is the story of man "originally participating," but over time his appearances become idols as he strengthens the me/other divide of what he perceives (his evidence, such as it is, is covered more fully in his prior two books History in English Words and Poetic Diction)

-- we need to recover this awareness of the connection of our consciousness to creating reality and participate again in full awareness ("final participation")

-- Christ's incarnation is a special event which heralds this transition


If you think the above is a clever bit of psychologizing but seriously flawed as a metaphysical theory, well Barfield says that's just because you are an idolator. You are in thrall to the idols of the scientific revolution, which has destroyed participation altogether and offered nothing in return.

Barfield claims at the outset that "this is not a book about metaphysics" and then goes on to base his entire thesis on a dodgy metaphysics, having disposed himself of the necessity to justify his metaphysical assumptions. Let us grant him his entire system without the underlying metaphysics. Now ask, "why is participation better? What if a falling tree rainbow does make a sound sight?" In that case, non-participation is entirely valid, possibly superior.

There is a lot more I could critique (especially his attacks on science), but I will leave that for another day. I've already made some relevant points in my reviews of Poetic Diction and CSL's The Discarded Image (the latter cites this book).

Nevertheless, this is a fascinating, challenging and stimulating book. Highly recommended for Inklings fans, theology nerds, and Christians duped by Deepak Chopra.

[Harold Rhenisch · Rating 3 out of 5]

Barfield's famous difficulty is a result of some awfully bad writing. If we shook this bag of coal up a bit and let the lumps settle to the bottom of the dust, his thesis would be simple: because the Jews invented consciousness, because consciousness is evolving and "we" today are at the pinnacle of it, Christ is immanent. There is some fantastic stuff about perception and idolatry here, that are the real core of the book, or should have been, if an editor had had a go at him. The last two chapters, in which he makes his Christian argument, are weak, because by that time his house of cards is starting to wobble. For one, he is making general comments upon human intelligence based solely upon White European Judeo-Christian traditions, and nothing else. That this could possibly be an evolution of consciousness rather than an evolution of a cultural idea is just plain ugly. Nonetheless, this 20th Century junk aside, the good in this book is so fine that it's time for a rewrite.

[Shelby Bowden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably one of the best books ever written. It induces a complete reordering of your mind and your perception of reality. I have now read this book several times and still feel like i could use a few more passes to really understand it. Every Christian should read this!

[Steve Greenleaf · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the early 1920s, Owen Barfield published two books, History in English Words (1926) and Poetic Diction: A Study in Meaning (1928), which provided significant insights into the way humans think. Enthusiasts of his work include T.S. Eliot, W.H. Auden, and later Saul Bellow, Howard Nemerov, James Hillman, and Harold Bloom, to name some of the more prominent. These early publications could have foretold a successful academic career, but Barfield was called instead to participate in the family of legal business in London. Accordingly, from 1934 until 1959, Barfield lived and worked in London as a solicitor while continuing his literary and cultural studies on the side (including his participation in "The Inklings"). During this period, he continued to publish journal articles and a collection of those articles were published as Romanticism Comes of Age (1944), but otherwise Barfield was not a position to turn out a full work developing his ideas. Happily, shortly before his retirement from the law practice, his hiatus came to an end in 1957 when Barfield published Saving the Appearances: A Study in Idolatry. The reward was worth the wait.

Saving the Appearances is a work that ranges across a variety of disciplines: anthropology, philosophy, literary criticism, science, and religion. Barfield's overall aim is to explore and understand what he terms “the evolution of consciousness”, which it goes beyond the history of ideas, to understand the ways in which humanity has changed the way we experience the world. Early in the book, drawing especially on anthropology and the work of Levy-Bruhl, Barfield posits that early humans engaged in the world by “original participation". In this period of human culture, the division between subject and object is blurred, and spirits, sprites, and gods animate the natural world. This way of seeing the world continued more or less intact up until the Scientific Revolution— with one significant exception. Barfield notes that the Hebrew Bible reflects a significant withdrawal away from ideas of “original participation” to draw a sharp line between humanity and the natural world. Of course, this cultural tradition mixes with the Greco-Roman and eventually Christian tradition and on into the Scientific Revolution.

With the advent of the Scientific Revolution, humankind began to disengage its consciousness from the natural world. This became the age of increasing abstraction and alienation from the natural world. It became a world of “idolatry”; that is, of giving precedence to empty images and abstractions. Barfield is quick to identify the many benefits that this new form of scientific knowledge bestowed on humankind. Scientific and technological advances have improved the well-being of humanity immensely. But this new knowledge and attendant power came at a cost. Barfield hopes that the disengagement from nature and the attendant idolatry reached its zenith in the 19th century and that we can move on to something new that he deems “final participation", which incorporates the role of human consciousness in forming the natural world. Barfield acknowledges we can't return to Eden, but he believes that we can combine both a scientific and a participatory perspective into our consciousness.

Owen Barfield 1898-1997

Barfield's ideas are certainly his own, although he placed himself within a tradition established by Rudolf Steiner (labeled by Steiner as “Anthroposophy”). Barfield came to his ideas independently of any knowledge of Steiner, but after encountering Steiner in the 1924, Barfield aligned himself with the Anthroposophy movement. Steiner is one of those persons from the esoteric tradition who can seem from one perspective brilliant and insightful and from another perspective outright crazy. But whatever the merits or demerits of Steiner, Barfield's arguments can sail or sink on their own.

A short review like this can't begin to do justice to the depth and complexity Barfield's work. Barfield erudition across disciplines of knowledge and across history is staggering and makes significant demands on the reader. However, it's worth the effort. Understanding how humans have changed over the course of time is no small undertaking. We all sense how differently we perceive the world today then did our forebears of even 100 years ago, not to mention 500, 1,000, or 5000 years ago. To understand this change is to understand a great deal of what it means to be human. Barfield’s project is to understand and further grasp the evolution of consciousness as a movement from original participation to final participation.

Barfield project is encompassing, and he’s one of those thinkers that can’t be grasped in a single are reading or a single work. In some writers, the perplexity left after a single reading of a single work reflects the confusion of the author and a dead-end for the reader. But in some, like Barfield, it marks a profound journey of insight into humanity and how we can better understand ourselves.

[Celina Sourbeer]

Scattered thoughts:

Author's claim: is not concerned with metaphysics.

Actuality: is concerned centrally with metaphysics (alongside a bunch of other things).

Author's claim: Kant was a catalyst for modern idolatry.

Actuality: author is sort of Kantian?

He neglects to argue for the nature of perception and cognition he assumes. But his whole argument partly hangs on this very controversial assumption. He *argues* for an evolution of *consciousness*, but he *assumes* that perception itself involves figuration, rather than providing the materials for figuration (in his sense of "figuration"). I cannot quite tell if he thinks perception is active, rather than passive; he almost seems to suggest that perception is passive in original participation but active in final participation. In which case, you're talking about two different mental faculties, as far as I'm concerned. My grasp of the concept of final participation is still loose. This book is dense and startlingly original, which makes it brilliant, but also makes me wonder if I'm simply too set in my idolatrous habits of mind, or if Barfield is simply wrong. I think he's probably interestingly wrong, with some true insights along the way.

Barfield crucially believes that key ancient and medieval philosophers generally *identified* perceptions with substances' actualized potentiality. But I don't think this is exegetically correct? I'm pretty sure Aristotle and Aquinas distinguish our perceptions from the (at least primary) qualities that produce the perceptions in us.

Barfield seems to say the following: (1) To the extent that the medievals retained original participation, the phenomena *were* the perceptions, constituting them from the outside in. (2) In final participation, perceptions and phenomena are still identical, but now *we* are to create the phenomena actively; we—not substances or whatever else used to underly phenomena—are their source. Our potential to create the phenomena—that is, the appearances—must be actualized, just as the substances used to actualize what we passively perceived as phenomena. The argument is that the historical evolution of consciousness consists in transferring the source of phenomena/appearances from the *unrepresented* to the human mind. First, how does this end game differ from a sort of idealism or Kantianism? Second, what in the Sam Hill is Barfield's notion of the *unrepresented*? From my reading of him, I regard this notion as something we cannot observe either in principle, because by nature it underlies sensible qualities, or in fact, because we somehow lack the means, though Barfield seems to conflate the two. Now, it seems we can mentally "represent" these things, or we can model them, by inferring their existence and nature from the qualities/phenomena that we do observe. But are they not then represented? And even if collective representations exist and influence or are involved in how we perceive, it does not follow that their influence is truth-conducive (we sometimes perceive incorrectly). And if it is not, the only reason it is not is that they fail either to *exhaust* or *correspond to* reality.

I was most put off when I suspected Barfield was like philosophers who assert (or barely argue) that we sense *perceptions* rather than the *things* which are the objects of our perception. (That is, they suggest that we perceive perceptions, as far as I can tell). Or, further, that we know only *concepts*, and never know the things of which we somehow develop concepts. If we are obliged to participate *actively* in the creation of phenomena/appearances—not just of our own artifacts but all of reality—how does this view importantly differ from a sort of idealism? As I said, parts of this book seem brilliant, but this aspect was very unclear. Perhaps if he had admitted at the outset that he was doing metaphysics, he would have done it better (now THERE is an evergreen sentence).

Is Barfield yet another thinker who tries to make a solely historical argument for a philosophical conclusion? I'm not yet sure. I'd have to re-read the book, to be honest. *Even if* Barfield were correct in all his beliefs about the history of consciousness, he cannot directly derive his metaphysical conclusions from it. At least, I am thoroughly unpersuaded.

But, for all my confusions/questions/criticism, this book is clearly the work of a singular mind. At times I felt the world shift under me as I read. It's the culmination of decades of scholarship, deeply original, and shot through with brilliance. His conclusions' explanatory power for various theological and biblical conundrums is profound, and therefore oddly troubling, because the founding philosophy is so questionable and unclear. I don't know how to process this book.

[Jim Leckband · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most original books I've ever read. Maybe the thoughts in this book have a long pedigree, but in my experience I have not seen much approaching them. Perhaps it is the fundamentalism of theology that taints talking about the origins of religions as taboo, or that this kind of thinking is buried deep in anthropology's history when anthropology has other concerns now. Perhaps if I had ever finished The Golden Bough or The Raw and the Cooked then I might have had a similar experience.

In any case, the thrilling (!) last chapter made the preparatory chapters worth it. In essence Barfield builds up a case that Christianity is the evolving response to what was lacking when Judaism abolished idolatry. In Barfield's view, pre-Judaic paganism (or animism) is man's "original participation" with the world. Pagan man sees the wind and mountains not as we see them - but as participants in the world as well as himself, in fact there is no way to disentangle the wind, the mountains and himself. I feel Barfield kind of yearning for this state in his descriptions of its "wholeness" with the world. As time went on, this animism came to be regarded as agency - the wind or the river or the ocean has a motive. This in turn was distilled into idols that symbolized the forces of the world.

And then, of course, history happened. The Greeks and their reason made the scientific viewpoint possible, and Judaism replaced idolatry with an unknowable, unseeable, and unsayable God of laws, rather than a God of participation with man. The "original participation" of man has been replaced by a dry, fundamentalist and unmysterious clockwork of "if this, then that." Where is man's imagination in all this? Where is "image making" man? Why the iconoclasm of fundamentalism? Because imagination is the destroyer of the strict "if this, then that" way of being.

The imagination of man, which Jesus in the New Testament is exercising with his parables, is now the link to our pagan participation with God(s). The fulfillment of the "logos" with the "light" - or the word with the idol. In other words, the merging of the law and spirit or the imagination. The final act of Jesus, the Communion of "Take, eat, this is my body" is seen by Barfield as the culmination of the original participation of the pagans whose Gods were of them and their world, into the final participation of Christianity where man is now of God by partaking of the body of Christ.

Man, if my Lutheran upbringing ever would have done 0.01% of this kind of analysis, rather than the IQ of 65 dumbed down sermons and Bible lessons, it would have been a whole lot more interesting.

[Philemon - · Rating 3 out of 5]

I keep coming back to this book and not getting very far with it. I notice many GR reviewers swear by it, and Gary Lachman (who met Barfield not long before the latter died) warmly recommended it. So I keep coming back. The problem is that I demand clear, plain language in discursive writing on a topic, and for me part of clear writing is establishing context, which this book does not appear to do. It doesn't take me too long to get terminally annoyed at feeling lost.

Also, there's the issue of long-in-the-toothness. Saving the Appearances came out in 1957. Much of the same ground -- disenchantment in the post-industrial age -- is covered more approachably and extensively by Charles Taylor's magisterial A Secular Age (2007). I also note that there's another book, Mark Vernon's A Secret History of Christianity: Jesus, the Last Inkling, and the Evolution of Consciousness (2019), that examines Saving the Appearances specifically and may serve as an alternative entry point to Barfield's thinking.

[Phillip · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finished my 4th complete rereading of the book. It stands up to this sort of attention. It makes me more interested in Rudolf Stiener and Goethe because they provide the context of his remarks that are introduced but not developed enough to be anymore than intriguing.

This is my first complete reading of this book. I read a section of it in the Barfield reader and then did alongish but unsatisfying read of most of the book earlier in the year.

I have no problem believing that he leavened the intellectual horizons of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis.

It is difficult reading and I will need to give it another careful read to be confident about what the author meant. It is worth it.

[Dawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

To be quite honest...this book is an incredibly difficult read (or at least it was for me). I thought I was pretty intellectual until I read this. Barfield was a member of the Inkilings Literary group that included C.S Lewis and Tolkien and his thoughts are extremely profound once you figure out what the heck he's saying. Read this in a Psychology of Religion class and it really left a mark and kept me thinking for a long....long...time:)

[Tara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to sort of hold onto the thoughts in the first few chapters and let them ruminate for a few days before I really felt comfortable moving forward. But I am very glad I did, Mr. Barfield had an astonishing breadth of knowledge and a lovely ability to translate that into a cohesive but open worldview. Original participation! Final participation!

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting book about how we represent the world and truth within our mental representations of them.

We often mistake our models of things for the world itself, and the book is primarily about how we can avoid making that mistake.

[Steven Rodriguez · Rating 2 out of 5]

You can read my review on my blog:

https://heteroglossolalia.wordpress.c...

[Joshua · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is probably the first really 'hard' read I've had in a while. Mr. Barfield has a way of saying things in such an abstract way that there were times when I had to step back and say to myself, 'I know what those words mean, but I have no idea what he just said.'
My main problem with the book is that I could not determine if his concept of 'collective representations' was literal or philosophical. Now, of course, there is an argument throughout the book that the literal and the symbolic do not by necessity have to be separate. So, perhaps, that answers the question right there; however, I fail to be persuaded that my view of reality--or Western society's view--is what makes nature--or, as he calls it, 'phenomena'--appear the way it does. That sounds like something straight out of a stoner's mouth. I do, however, agree that your philosophical and theological views change the way in which you view reality. For example, it is quite fair to say that Medieval man viewed nature differently that Modern man; but again, I cannot be certain of Mr. Barfield when he says the exact statement, whether he means it literally or philosophically. But now we're only going in circles. I'll just say this, I've been an advocate for the belief that nature, among other things, can be both literal and symbolic for probably my whole life, but I cannot abide nonsense that would claim a tree or a fox was quite literally seen as a different image by a man, simply because his philosophy, theology, or 'collective representations' are different than mine. The image of nature has been a constant, in my opinion; although, the concept of what nature is and our view of it has certainly changed with our philosophical view. Maybe that's all he's trying to say about that. Like I said, I had a hard time figuring that out.
His concept of 'participation,' and especially 'final participation' was the hardest part of the book for me to grasp. While it is heavily tied in to the concept I just finished discussing, and that was somewhat of a difficulty, the main thing I failed to grasp was what exactly 'final participation' is. I think I have a fair grasp of his concept of 'idolatry,' meaning the 'phenomena,' or nature, has become devoid of meaning outside the literal; but I am unsure of how 'final participation' is supposed to fix it. In the most simplistic of forms, I would explain it thus: 'original participation' was the view of 'phenomena' as being imbued with God, meaning God was in everything and everything--including man--was connected; whereas, 'final participation' is when man has taken the creator role, not replacing God, but joining Him, and imbuing the 'phenomena' with the Word. In today's society--thanks mostly, according to Mr. Barfield, to the Scientific Revolution--we lack any participation and have turned the 'phenomena' into 'idols.' I can easily agree with that, but only in part agree with the concept of 'final participation' I cannot, however, bring myself to believe that it will be achieved in any earthly way. But perhaps that is what Revelations means by a 'new Heaven and a new Earth.'
I like his criticism of modern science, which views nature as something outside of ourselves. We are observing nature, simply unaware of the fact that we are a part of it. In Portland, where I live, nature, upon first glance, appears to be a big part of the community. The roads are thick with trees and most houses look like they have gardens of wildflowers instead of yards. There are parks everywhere. But it feels less like nature is a part of the society, and rather like nature is around the society. It's a nice decoration, and we all enjoy looking at it, but just like a picture of a distant relative, it's hard to feel yourself truly connected to it.
He does, at the end of the book, discuss Christ's and Christianity's role in bringing about 'final participation, and his interpretation of the Parable of the Sower is hard to argue with, as well as one of the most interesting interpretations of it that I've ever read. But to a certain degree, his final chapter smacked a bit of blasphemy. I'm quite sure I'm misreading what he meant, but I got the impression that all those 'I Am' statements of Christ--'I am the way, the truth, and the life. . .' 'I am the light of the world. . .' 'I and my Father are one'--would one day be statements we could honestly make, once 'final participation' is fulfilled. He directly says, 'at each "I am" the disciples must have heard the Divine Name itself, man's Creator, speaking through the throat of man; till they can hardly have known whether he spoke to them or in them, whether it was his voice which they heard or their own.' That type of statement is not new to me. I've heard it from many theologians of the 20th and 19th century, but I baulk at the notion that we will one day be one with the Father. Not because, like some have said, because I long to keep my identity. I agree with C.S. Lewis's view, that we will be absorbed into the Godhead, in the sense that we will be made perfectly His own, and therefore become perfectly individualized, and in that sense, we can say 'I and my Father are one,' meaning 'my views and my Father's are the same;' but to say it with Christ and in the sense that He meant it--I refuse such theology. Of course, I could be entirely wrong on what Mr. Barfield was saying. Perhaps he simply meant it in the sense that the name of the Jews echos the name of their God, so that they could feel a deeper connection between them and God than simply the Creator/creation connection--that he was inside their very being.
Certainly, writing this out has helped me to better formulate my views of this book. I will consider rereading it later, after reading other books by Mr. Barfield perhaps. While is was not an easy read, it did give me many things to contemplate, but I would be lying if I said I wasn't looking forward to a nice, easy novel now.

[Saul]

Every once in a while a book comes along and blindsides you, effortlessly making everything click into place.

Like John Crowley describing his reaction to reading Hamlet's Mill, my impression of this book can be summed up as: "this might not be the perfect description of the truth, but whatever that is, it's going to look something like this".

Felix eidolon!

[Bruce · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quite a dense book but well worth it - I had to often go back to the first few chapters to refresh myself with some of the terminology. An advantage is that in the beginning of many chapters OB gives you a summary of where he has taken the reader so far and refers to previous chapters. It is as though he is well aware how complex the subject matter is and he works hard for the reader to understand.
It could be misunderstood that the author is embracing the idea that we should go back to some kind of communion with nature, place and tribal gods (original participation). While much has been lost as individualisation and self awareness has developed going backwards is not where he is taking us - it is rather that some other goal is introduced (final participation) helped on by the Christ event and authentic Christian life. This has brought connective meaning back to the fore. However, rather than the participation being through tribal deities or place it is made more concrete through a pushing beyond to an inward experience of the ever present, all knowing God. However, the isolation and separation of phenomena from their participatory essential meaning has resulted in a conceptual idolatry not too dissimilar to that of early generations where the hollowness of idols is reflected by the empty souls of their worshippers.
With all this comes the mis-interpretation of previous cultures through only under-standing them through the lens of our present language and consequent worldview. OB seems to specialise in linguistics and indicates through the study of words and what they meant then, we can get a closer approximation to reality as it was understood and get an idea of how our ideas are shaped. Yes - very complex! And my apologies for any misrepresentation.
As a fellow inkling and highly respected by author C S Lewis (although they often disagreed over the use of imagination in the Christian faith) Owen Barfield's works are well worth further examination but it will be guaranteed hard work! His grandson has devoted a website to all his works.
A great accompaniment to the content of the present book would be "A Secret History of Christianity: Jesus, The Last Inkling, And The Evolution Of Consciousness" by Mark Vernon which I am reading now.

[Nathan Albright · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having never read anything by the author before, although I have long known about him as a member of the Inklings, I can see how it was that both Tolkien and C.S. Lewis were influenced by his clear and sound and striking thinking.  This book is, as its subtitle makes plain, a study in idolatry, and it does so in an immensely thoughtful way that exposes the ugly magical nature of contemporary thinking while encouraging the reader to an appreciation of both medieval thinking as well as biblical thinking.  The author simultaneously recognizes the difference between Greek and Hebrew thinking while viewing both of them as superior to ancient paganism and contemporary materialist thinking.  And if the author believes it is too late for humanity to enjoy the sort of naive participation that allowed for allegorical thinking in the past, he believes that we can achieve a non-idolatrous participation that recognizes I and thou through the conscious and intentional workings of the mind.  The author views the parabolic reasoning of Jesus Christ in the Gospels as being an important aspect of this process, which ought to please some of his readers even as the author's discussion of the idolatry of scientism will likely go over the head of many contemporary readers, alas.

This book is a relatively short but powerful one at less than 200 pages, and it begins with an introduction to its 1987 edition as well as the original introduction.  After that the author discusses the reality of the rainbow (1), the importance of collective representations of reality (2), and the relationship between figuration and thinking (3) and the matter of participation (4).  The author discusses various views of prehistory (5), original participation as it occurred in ancient heathen thinking (6), and the meaning of appearance and hypothesis in medieval thinking (7).  The author discusses the problematic relationship between technology and truth (8) as well as the evolution of idolatry (9) and understanding of phenomena (10) between the premodern and modern Western world.  After that there is a discussion of the medieval thinking environment (11), some changes (12), and of the texture of medieval thought (13).  The author compares the difference of thinking before and after the Scientific revolution (14), mind and motion in the Greco-Roman world (15), and the importance of Israel's anti-idolatrous approach (16).  After this historical context the author writes about the development of meaning (17), the origin of language (18), symptoms of iconoclasm (19), and the author's thoughts about conscious and intentional final participation (20).  After this the author discusses saving the appearances (21), space time and wisdom (22), matters of religion (23), the incarnation of the Word (24), and then, finally, the mystery of the Kingdom of God (25), after which there is an index.

Every human worldview that seeks to raise itself against God's ways requires iconoclasts willing and able to tear down the strongholds of those arguments that would seek to attack the laws and ways of the Eternal, and this book does a good job at showing the internal contradictions that are present within materialism that makes it impossible to avoid degrading others and engaging in idolatrous thinking that fails to demonstrate self-awareness and that seeks to do violence to our language and even threaten the possibility of genuine insight about the world around us and how it can be collectively understood and represented.  The fact that the author can talk about a seemingly esoteric subject like idolatry and make it chillingly relevant and present a scope of the history of consciousness and how it has varied over the ages demonstrates considerable insight.  A good deal of the author's intent is to encourage the reader to avoid the chronological snobbery that thinks we understand the past and how people thought and are superior to it when that is frequently not the case, and the author even manages to demonstrate the importance of creativity to the contemporary mind and the importance of that creativity being turned towards moral ends rather than being praised without discernment or discrimination.

[Ben McFarland · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Owen Barfield Reading Tour continues. Saving the Appearances was a bit more uncomfortable for me to read than Poetic Diction, which had been written by Barfield about a quarter century before. It's a smidgen less pithy than Poetic Diction and lost me in abstract terms a few times -- something that never happened in Poetic Diction -- but if I want to be honest, the reason Saving the Appearances made me uncomfortable is that in it, Barfield goes after science. Well, "goes after" is a little too harsh, because Barfield is not suggesting a return to Medeival non-science -- he's suggesting going forward from what he terms the "idolatry" of materialism and scientism. He does it with the same dense but clear style that was such a revelation to me in Poetic Diction, and my goodness, I used to think some writers made me think but Barfield leaves everyone else in the dust for making you THINK. I spent as much time staring off into space processing what I just read as I did actually reading.

I'm going to have a bunch of quotes coming up to show you exactly what I mean by all this, but for now, my recommendation is to definitely read Poetic Diction first, but then read this one. At the end of the book Barfield finally gets specific about Christianity and he just rattles off fascinating paragraphs about topics I've spent years thinking about -- the creation of Adam, how to take the Eucharist, etc. -- and in each case he says something I've never really heard before (although I hear echoes of these ideas in Tolkien and Lewis).

A few "really?!" moments: the proposal that Galileo was insisting that the church's model of the heavens was wrong and that his was the only one to be right (with Barfield's implicit support of the proposal that BOTH could be right?!); the assertion that evolution and the Christian faith naturally go together (Lewis was never quite that sanguine, although his long quote from the Problem of Pain about human evolution would fit right in with Barfield's ideas); and the quote that I think may go too far, that "Man is the messiah of nature" in interpreting Romans 8.

I'm beginning to understand why Barfield isn't more widely read. He is indeed brilliant and seminal, but while Lewis and Tolkien work to make themselves accessible, Barfield is intent on clarity but not as much accessibility. He is intent on iconoclasm and that's an uncomfortable thing! He and Lewis do not agree on every point, but the importance of his thought is obvious in Lewis's quote that Barfield was "the wisest and best of my unofficial teachers". Your mind may be blown, and the fact that he's a Christian may not be obvious till the end of this book, and you may argue with him on certain points (I think I will!) but I fully recommend taking a "class" from Professor Barfield. (Even though he never was a professor, this was his side work from his day job as a barrister!)

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite a few mind bending thoughts/observations scattered throughout - which were interesting to mull over when possible - but half the time I felt like I was lacking the 80 additional IQ points necessary to tap into this man’s brain.

Owen Barfield knows how to make a man feel like a Neanderthal, that’s for sure.

The way modern Man observes and processes objects in reality (nature) is entirely different from the way Man observed and processed nature in the Ancient or Middle Ages. Barfield investigates how we can know that is the case and what reality may look like to future observers. Next time you look at a rainbow, try to imagine how you would process it in a pre-scientific era. That pre-scientific “mythical” interpretation is likely closer to the truth of what a rainbow actually is, when compared to modern understanding of it being a mere ocular phenomena that occurs when light waves and moisture interface at a certain angle. Same goes for a tree. You can explain away at the atoms and molecules that compose it. Are you any closer to understanding what a tree is?

His own summary of one of his chapters: “The evolution of nature is correlative to the evolution of consciousness.” The history of nature is manmade. Our development of that history corresponds to our own evolution as conscious beings.

It’s in the same ballpark as, “If a tree falls in the woods when nobody is around, does it make a noise?” or “do objects have color if a set of eyes aren’t there to observe?”

On the ultimate emptiness of science: “There is only an accelerating increase in that pigeon-holed knowledge by individuals of more and more about less and less, which, if persisted indefinitely, can only lead mankind to a sort of ‘idiocy’…”

In a way he argues that nature had more meaning before science. Science destroys true meaning by explaining half understood patterns to the point of exhaustion. Nature was more real than it is today. We now are all burdened with a false/elitist perception & write off our surroundings as obvious unavoidable happenings that only exist because they are explainable by math, bro. But math is not what we think it is. He goes into that as well. You can probably intuit where that heads.

The way I understand it, math & science are two ways in which we attempt to “save the appearances” of nature. If science and math check out & make sense when grafted onto nature, then we stamp them with the holy stamp of “True”. The book tackles “what is real” & Barfield tries to “save the appearances” of reality being a reality which God is the inevitable source of.

All words are symbols. Any thing can become an idol if not observed through an appropriate lens. We are marching toward a future where objects have no deeper meaning and are idolized nonetheless… atheist proponents of environmentalism stand out to me.

All the more evidence of a God-shaped hole in the heart of every human.

[Stuart Gathman · Rating 5 out of 5]

With the rise of Critical Theory, this book is more important than ever to understand what is true and what is evil about CRT. Barfield was a lawyer and philologist. He reminds you of what your physics teacher told you: what you perceive is not reality (that being what Barfield calls "the particles"). And what you perceive is shaped by language. You may have watched some youtube videos on the how the color blue was not consciously perceived until it had a word. Tetrachromats are not aware of the additional colors they can perceive without words.

What you perceive is not the "real world". In a healthy brain, it is a controlled hallucination informed by a continuous stream of data from the senses, in turn stimulated by impinging particles. Ancient minds were well aware of the illusory nature of perception (despite not knowing about particles). Modern minds often believe that what they see is "reality". This is the "idolatry" in the subtitle. Idolatry in this sense is confusing an idol - a model of something you have constructed - with reality. Idols are made by human craftsmen, but also by human brains. And machine brains - constructing such "idols" (or "representations") is essential to machine vision and hearing - the foundation of robotics.

Barfield calls the shared words and symbols of a culture the "collective consciousness". Barfield traces how this consciousness has evolved throughout Western history, and compares some non-western cultures as well. The evolution of consciousness is more important than evolution of DNS (if there is such a thing). The culture you pass on to those you raise or mentor is more powerful than any DNA you pass on.

The most difficult concept is what Barfield calls "participation". Briefly, that is where you consciously influence how you perceive the world. But to whom or what do you work to conform your perceptions? Ancient writers of the Bible said "do not be conformed to this world-system, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds", and "let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus". "Mind" is φρονέω, to observe (perceive) or direct the mind to observe (participation).

Modern Cultural Marxists want to transform your mind to observe the world according to their world system, colloquially called "wokeness".

[Gage Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

What Barfield has to say in this book may completely change your mind about paganism, Christianity, modernity, phenomena, and consciousness. His unique insights paint a story of time that I had always somewhat known but had never been able to articulately realize. A must read for anyone interested in our world’s abandonment of the materialist paradigm in order to participate in reality again and what the vision for the future may look like.