Anthropology of ConsciousnessAbstractVolume 13, Number 1, March-June 2002, pages 27-41 Collective Conscious Experience Across Time Axel A. Randrup The notion of collective conscious experience is here seen as an alternative or complement to the more familiar notion of individual conscious experience. Much evidence supports the concept of collective experience in the present. But what about time? Can a conscious experience which, when regarded as individual, is referred to the past be considered a collective experience extended in both past and present? My answer is yes, and this answer is supported by evidence about conceptions of time and conscious experience in various cultures, including Western culture and science, and by evidence about the psychological Now. Egoless conscious experience is an alternative to both individual and collective experience; it is often connected with experience of timelessness, and is then unrestricted by time. |
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