A CRIMINAL HISTORY OF MANKIND

learning to feed themselves do drop most of their food before it reaches the mouth. Human
consciousness is still in its infant stage. Like a baby’s hand, it has not yet learned to make proper
use of itself.
In the past half century, human consciousness has shown an interesting tendency to explore its own
possibilities: to learn to use itself. Some of these manifestations have been thoroughly negative -
the drug culture, for example, or the attempt of a Dean Corll or Ted Bundy to explore the limits of
self-indulgence. Our age has also seen the appearance of an unprecedented number of messiahs and
gurus, from Wilhelm Reich and L. Ron Hubbard to Metier Baba and the Maharishi; most of these
cults have their positive aspects, although their disciples are inclined to claim too much for them.
Aldous Huxley’s recognition, in the 1950s, that certain drugs such as mescalin and LSD could
amplify the ‘intentionality of consciousness’ and reveal the infinity of meaning locked in every
common object, was an important step in the exploration of perception (even though the
psychedelic cult of the 1960s reduced it to another form of self-indulgence).
Other disciplines, like split-brain psychology and bio-feedback control, were almost wholly free of
such drawbacks. The two are closely connected; indeed, bio-feedback control could be regarded as
a method of exploring right-brain awareness. Bio-feedback machines enable the subject to see or
hear his brain rhythms or the electrical impulses of the skin, and to recognise those connected with
relaxation. When we relax deeply, we sink into an inner-armchair, and the left-brain ego ceases to
patrol up and down in front of consciousness. The result is a sense of richness and multiplicity, as
the right brain adds its own voice to the dialogue of perception. This is what happens when we set
out on holiday; we relax in the armchair, sense impressions flood the senses, and the right brain
adds its commentary - memories of other times and places. (It might be better to speak of the ‘rightbrain
complex’, for we now know that memory is stored all over the brain.) So bio-feedback is a
method of reminding the ego that it is only the facade of consciousness, and that it can call for
support upon a far more powerful ally; it is a practical method of contacting Wordsworth’s ‘other
modes of being’. If the romantics had possessed such a technique, many tragedies would have been
avoided.
In this mechanism of ‘enrichment’ lies the whole secret of human evolution. Let us look at it more
closely.
When I open my eyes in the morning, I become conscious. I also begin to perceive. But my
consciousness is far more than mere perception. A man with amnesia would ‘perceive’ the same
bedroom that I see; so would a baby or a dog. But there is obviously a great difference between
their consciousness and mine.
The difference lies in what I add to perception. My brain is a storehouse containing millions of
memories, and I use these memories to ‘fill out’ my perceptions. When I look at a photograph of
my house, I see a quite different house from some stranger to whom I am showing the photograph,
for I complete the photograph with all my memories of the house, while he has nothing to
‘complete’ it with except his own memories of similar houses.
This mechanism called ‘completing’ is the most important of all functions of consciousness.
Without it, the world would be meaningless. I glance across the room and see something lying
under the table; for a moment I cannot decide what it is. Then I realise it is a child’s toy seen from
an odd angle. I have ‘completed’ it.