Mind in Deep Time: Original Participation and Re-enchantment of the World

This paper describes my experiences exploring consciousness as an artist-engraver, in particular the sense of reawakening the participatory primal mind, which came about through the act of engraving. This 'original participation' is viewed as a fundamental characteristic of our early Acheuelan ancestors and evidence is presented to show that they possessed both a 'modern' esthetic sense and also a prayerful, sacramental consciousness. It is suggested that this primal consciousness is a fundamental human quality that became eclipsed in the modern mind by the denial of participation and the Cartesian split between subject and object during the Scientific Revolution. It is upon this denial of participation and the illusion of objectivity that the whole methodology of natural science and the alienated outlook of contemporary culture is based. A re-enchantment of the world can take place through the re-mythologizing of consciousness and the re-apprehension of original participation.