Talk:The Art of Creation (book)

Chapters

The Art of Creation: The Law of Nature, a description of the creation of the physical universe as a process that proceeds from pure desire through thought and finally to manifestation, in both the natural world, and through the apparatus of the Physical Unit.

There is the first birth of dim vague Feeling or Desire; then the growth in clearness and intensity of that Feeling; then its shaping into distinct Thoughts or Images; till these latter become intensely real to ourselves; then the descent of Thought and Feeling into our Nerves and Muscles, our Habits and Manners, the expression of our Faces, the very forms of our Bodies; and their ultimate translation into Action, and the results of our actions in the Outer World. Of this process there is no doubt. And thus we see that there is in Man a Creative Thought-source continually in operation...

Matter and Consciousness: A remarkable chapter where Carpenter philosophically deduces that

...(the ego) is a kind of widely-diffused substance of Mind, of which thoughts are modifications. Indeed, the idea is suggested that possibly all egos are in essence the same—that they are portions or branches of one universal mind-stuff, of which all thoughts and existences are modifications.

In this chapter Carpenter dances around the idea of a cosmic Fabric of Consciousness

The Three Stages of Consciousness: In which Edward Carpenter outlines a three-stage model for the evolution of Consciousness in humanity from Simple Consciousness through Self Consciousness and finally to Cosmic Consciousness which is a stage where humanity is capable of realizing and "reflecting" the universal I.

The Self and its Affiliation" In which Edward Carpenter plays with notions of ego, attempting to distinguish Spiritual Ego from Bodily Ego, attempting to document the "evolutionary" emergence of Bodily Ego as an interim step towards Connection (what he calls Cosmic Consciousness). Note, Carpenter sees this in evolutionary terms, thinking that the bodily ego, what he calls the "Me" or the Elusive Self must develop before it can become "large enough...to reflect the universality of the I,"

In the final words of this chapter Carpenter vaguely points to a necessary process of Integration which occurs once an initial realization/Connection is made.

When I say the idea of the true Self arises, I do not say that at once the complete and final Individual is realized. Nature does not proceed per saltum. On the side of the past, there may yet be much “clinging to the old self”; and again, on the side of the future, there may be many new disclosures and revelations still to be made. But this stage—in which the human being begins at least to realize his universal life and identity; in which he, as it were, comes within sight of the end—forms such an epoch, that it may be taken as one of the great landmarks on his immense journey.