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William Irwin Thompson

William Irwin Thompson Books

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“Some god or Weltgeist has been making a movie out of us for the past six thousand years, and now we have turned a corner on the movie set of reality and have discovered the boards propping up the two-dimensional monuments of human history. The movement of humanism has reached its limit, and now at that limit it is breaking apart into the opposites of mechanism and mysticism and moving along the circumference of a vast new sphere of posthuman thought.”

YearsHumansHas BeensTwoRealityPastMovingMovementThousandLimitsSixOppositesHarmonyHumanismCornersBoardsMysticismSpheresMechanismThousand YearsHuman HistoryMonumentHuman ThoughtMovie SetsBreaking Apart
Book:Passages about Earth: An Exploration of the New Planetary Culture
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“What is at the higher levels of meaning consciousness is like a hyperspace in which each point is equidistant from the other and where 'the center is everywhere and the circumference is nowhere'? The mythologies of the occult seem like baroque music: there is an overall similar quality of sound and movement, but, upon examination, each piece of music is unique; Vivaldi and Scarlatti are similar and different.”

DifferentSeemsSoundLevelsConsciousnessQualityPiecesMovementHigherMusic IsUniqueUnityMythologyExaminationOccultHigher LevelBaroqueBaroque MusicVivaldi
Book:At the Edge of History
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“Like a shadow that does not permit us to jump over it, but moves with us to maintain its proper distance, pollution is nature's answer to culture. When we have learned to recycle pollution into potent information, we will have passed over completely into the new cultural ecology.”

DoeMovingCultureAnswersEnvironmentInformationShadowDistanceEnvironmentalOver ItPermitPollutionEcology
Book:Transforming History: A Curriculum for Cultural Evolution
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“Hominid and human evolution took place over millions and not billions of years, but with the emergence of language there was a further acceleration of time and the rate of change.”

YearsHumansLanguageChangeMillionsEvolutionRateBillionsEmergenceHuman EvolutionAccelerationRate Of ChangeHominids
Book:Self and Society: Studies in the Evolution of Cutlture, Second Enlarged Edition
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“If humans died in a healthy culture, they would not lock out the earth in metal coffins and carve their names on stone monuments, but would instead place the naked body in the earth and plant a tree above the silent heart.”

IfsHumansHeartBodyEarthCultureNamesTreeHealthyStonesDiedPlantSilentNakedMetalsLocksMonumentCoffinsPlant A TreeSilent Heart
Book:Darkness and Scattered Light: Four Talks on the Future
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“If a person is open to a new world view, it can often mean that he is not firmly rooted in the reality of the old world view; as a lunatic or alienated artist, his own neurotic traits can become magnified as they tremble with the new energy pouring in from the universal source.”

IfsWorldMeanPersonsRealityArtistEnergyViewsSourceMindfulnessUniversalNew WorldTraitsRootedNeuroticPouringLunaticWorld ViewOld WorldNew Energy
Book:At the Edge of History
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“For the first time in human evolution, the individual life is long enough, and the cultural transformation swift enough, that the individual mind is now a constituent player in the global transformation of human culture.”

MindFirstsHumansLongEnoughLife IsCultureIndividualPlayerEvolutionFirst TimeTransformationConstituentsHuman EvolutionIndividual Life
Book:Self and Society: Studies in the Evolution of Cutlture, Second Enlarged Edition
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“With the emergence of civilization, the rate of change shifted from hundreds of thousands of years to millennia. With the emergence of science as a way of knowing the universe, the rate of change shifted to centuries.”

WayYearsUniverseChangeKnowingCenturyCivilizationRateEmergenceRate Of Change
Book:Self and Society: Studies in the Evolution of Cutlture, Second Enlarged Edition
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