We all begin our lives in the state of immersive, spontaneous, initially un-conscious Original Participation - which was, pretty much, the consciousness of mature adults in the earliest (e.g. hunter gatherer) phase of human history - a state of mind when we are in direct contact with an animistic (living, purposive, aware) universe of beings/ spirits, gods.
The Medieval Consciousness (aka Intellectual Soul) is that of the great span of recorded human history, of agricultural society, of civilization - the "axial age" when religions were developed; changing through the Ancient Egyptian (for example), Ancient Greek, Roman and into the Medieval era.
During this era, spirituality was largely communal, and contact with the world of spirit (experience of the spirit within us) was via intermediaries such as church structures, priests, symbolism and ritual.
For Christians this type of consciousness reached a peak in the Byzantine and Holy Russian societies of Orthodox Catholicism; and for Westerners it peaked in the Medieval times with Roman Catholicism in Western Europe.
Modern Consciousness - in which man is alienated from God, the gods, the world of spirits, and other beings; began to emerge with the Renaissance and Reformation (as traditional forms and symbols began to lose their objectivity and power) - and accelerated through the Industrial Revolution up to now.
So that now it seems obvious common sense that this is a purposeless, meaningless, dead universe - going nowhere, and in which we humans and individual persons are irrelevant; such that our "morality" is merely maximizing pleasure and minimizing suffering until we die and are annihilated.
Looking back; it now seems that I experienced the dying residuum of the Medieval Consciousness; which, although relatively feeble and only among a minority, was behind the radicalism of the counter-cultural desire for a simple, "natural", agrarian - and essentially modified-Medieval - life and society.
My point is that until the late 1970s a restoration of Medieval Cosnciousness actually seemed a realistic possibility; such that alternative living and self-sufficiency were topics of mainstream social discussion and aspiration. The revival of folk music and arts, and even "hippie" styles of dress and fashion - all seemed to presage this.
It really seemed possible then that we might "go back" to a village-based and agricultural society - on lines described earlier by William Cobbett, and depicted fictionally by William Morris.
Much of the mass youth interest in Tolkien was related to the hope aroused by his work that a Middle Earth kind of life might yet be genuinely possible.
And for some (but not me, at that time), this included an expectation that Christianity would again have a central and pervasive influence on society: a Chesterton/ Belloc type Distributism.
But through my life span the Medieval Consciousness has faded in objectivity and power; until now it is not regarded as a realistic possibility - or only except in a remote, abstract, wishful and as-if kind of fashion.
This can be seen in the disintegration, decline and corruption of all the major Christian churches; and their extreme alienation and giving up of shaping spiritual experience.
But the most significant decline of Medieval Consciousness (and the cause of church changes) is in the minds of Men - an inexorable dwindling which I have both experienced and observed.
This is where we find ourselves. I regard these changes in consciousness as objective, as causal, and as irreversible.
So it is from here that we ought to regard the future.
Since we cannot go back, and (further) my experience and observations suggest that trying to revert ourselves and society to Medievalism of consciousness is not just ineffective; but actually spiritually harmful... That, any rate, is how I read the various "utopian" experiments in back-to-the-land, communal and Alternative living.
Since what we have now is so dominated by the powers of evil, and so devoid of both purpose and meaning and hope - it seems to me that it is imperative we actively and consciously attempt to move our consciousness, and consequently our lives, forward into nigh unprecedented territory.
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NOTE: It may sound, from the above, as if I regarded Original Participation and Medieval Consciousness as taboo, necessarily harmful and to-be-shunned; but this is not the case. For many people, in many situations, both still have much to offer in the way of "therapy", encouragement, and even guidance. However the point I wish to emphasize is that they are not enough. They are both too feeble for what is necessary in our world, and both are harmful if made a strategy. They cannot suffice. There is no future in them.
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