Wild Hunger: The Primal Roots of Modern Addiction.

Description

This pioneering work explores why our culture is plagued by addictions―by giving serious attention to our genetic legacy from our hunter-gatherer ancestors. Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Table of Contents Prologue - Hunger for Ecstatic Connectedness PART I - Nature’s Regenerative Cycles Chapter One - Ecstasy Deprivation and Addictive “Remedies” Who Are We and What Do We Really Want and Need? Archaic Experience, Rituals, Signs, Symbols, Myths Ecstasy Wilderness Regeneration Mother and Mother Nature Guilt Civilization, Coordination, and the Sacred Fragmented Modern Humans Loneliness An Addicted Culture? Overreaching and Disintegrating Mind and Consciousness Body-Selves Creating Havoc with Themselves A General Statement of Value The Importance and Limits of Physiology Rooted Appreciation and Responsibility Smiles of Condescension Addiction As Loss of Self and Supportive World Notes Chapter Two - Rediscovering Space, Time, Body, Self Nature a Machine? Technology: Power and Alienation René Descartes, Modern Science, Human Difficulties Mother and “Mother” as Matrices Ecstasy Deprivation and Alienation Belonging to Nature, Belonging to Self Scientism Scientism/Science Notes Chapter Three - Circular Power Returning into Itself Repudiating Mechanism The Ultimate Kinship System Emerson: Promise and Problem Varieties of Fear Sacramental Power Openness and Vulnerability Notes Chapter Four - The Intimate Otherness of Body-Self’s World: Addiction As Frightened Response Addictive Cravings and the Blur of Guilt The Bodily Self Living the Body-Self Bodily Roots of Self and Mind Corporate Bodies Reason and Choice Addicted and Frightened Groups Precarious Identity and the Body Shamanic Consciousness Neither Subject Opposed to Object nor Mind Opposed to Matter The Spontaneous Body-Self The Involuntary Moment Notes PART II - Addiction: Circular Power Short-Circuited Chapter Five - The More Than Merely Human: Hunger to Belong Loss of the Wilderness Self Beyond the Merely Human—Encounter with the Other The World As the Greater Body Alienation from Earth and Body-Self Finding Our Way Back Body-Self and Native Peoples Body-Self Opening up New Consciousness Notes Chapter Six - Medical Materialism and the Fragmented Grasp of Addiction Addictions As “States of Physical Dependency” Addiction a Disease? The Withdrawal Symptom Criterion of Addiction The Addict’s Brain and World “The Craving Brain” Designer Drugs Breaking the Spell of Addiction More on Issues of Character and Ethics Ecstasy and Empiricism Some Empirical Illumination Therapeutic Approaches and Natural Cycles Alcoholics Anonymous Reconfiguring the Imaginal and Conceptual Ground The Limits of Empiricism Notes Chapter Seven - Possession, Addiction, Fragmentation: Is a Healing Community Possible? Redrawing the Conceptual Map Rituals Demonic Possession and Addiction More on Demonic Possession Addictions Confronted Angelic Possession Regenerative and Degenerative Rituals Notes Chapter Eight - Smoking As Ritual, Smoking As Addiction Communicative Ecstasies of Body-Self Forming Itself Inner Body As “Womb” Fragmented Mythic Impulsions Achieving Sound Individuation Communication of Privacy Confirming the Private Body-Self Orgasmic Transactions More Mythic Dimensions of Smoking Self Reconceiving Itself Notes Chapter Nine - Body, Nose, Viscera, Earth The Dimensions of Time The Most Intimate Horizons Finding Our Way Back into Olfactory Experience A Pivotal Point John Dewey’s Encounter with Body-Self and Time Scents, Aromas, Bodily **Spirituality Viscera as Sense Organ Naming the Real Powerful Names The Eternal Present The Body’s Trunk and the World Tree Notes Chapter Ten - Art and Truth Art Breaks Open and Cultivates the Ground of Meaning Art and Regenerative Experience Art and the Healing Organization of Space and Time Regenerative Conceptions of Truth Symbolic and Mythic Art Modernism and Scientism: Uprooted Truth The Seductiveness of Correspondence Theories of Truth Meaning Erotic Meaning and Truth Art and Hunger for the Earth Music Art and Religion Notes PART III - Harmony with Nature Chapter Eleven - Mother Nature: Circular Power Returning into Itself Mother Nature and Defiant Male Identity Male Aggression Against Women Identity and the Male and Female Bodies Why Myths? The Persistence of Archetypes Organically Developing Archetypes of Knowing and Being Entrenched Patriarchal Myths Women’s Religions and Healing Male and Female Feed into Each Other Harmonizing and Phrasing Voluntary and Involuntary The Sacramental and the Sacred The Spiraling Matrix: Taoism Female Initiation Rites at Puberty: Can We Learn Anything? A Partial Account Pretending to be Whole Notes Chapter Twelve - Technology As Ecstasy: How Do We Deal with It? The Arrogance of Modern Technology Primal Tools/Modern Tools Modern Technology’s Blindness to Its Own Mythic Assumptions A Trap Primal Technology—the Dance with Nature and Its Disruption Modern Technology: Tacit Asceticism A New Art of Life? New Friendly Technologies Virtual Reality—the Siren Call Coordinating Mythic Power and Technical Expertise Media Stars: New Demigods and Demigoddesses A Rough Sketch of Our Place in Nature Our Crisis Technological Extensions of Our Bodies? Healing Arts Individuals’ Initiatives and New Arts of Life Our Problematic Adaptibility Notes Conclusion - The Awesome World Sources Acknowledgments Index About the Author