Ascent of Humanity

The evolution of the human sense of self

This is a large book by Charles Eisenstein about the evolution of life as a process of separation from ones environment. Tracing modern alienation a looong way back (before protozoa!) he takes a detailed look at what is happening around the world, putting forward an animist view of spirituality that emphasises the fundamental connectedness of all things/life. He looks forward to what he refers to as "the age of reunion", in which technology and human ingenuity is turned to the task of nurturing life and celebrating its difference, spontaneity and chaos, rather than attempting to separate and dissociate ideas and events and thus to bring them under human control.

Read by Lyn Gerry from episodes 461-485, made into audiobook by Robin Upton.

Introduction

1. The Triumph of Technology
   • Gee Whiz—The Future! 461
   • Utopia Postponed
   • The Addiction to Control 463
   • From Separation to Boredom
   • From Affluence to Anxiety
2. The Origins of Separation
   • The Biological Origins of Self
   • Fire and Stone
   • Labeling the World 464
   • Mathematics and Measure
   • Keeping Time
   • Images of Images
   • The Marvelous Piraha 465
   • Cultivation and Culture
   • The Machine
   • Religion and Ritual
   • The Playful Universe
3. The Way of the World 466
   • The Scientific Method
   • My Personal Age of Reason
   • Masters of the Universe
   • The Quest for Certainty
   • Reducing Reality 467
   • The Ghost in the Machine
   • The Origin of Life
   • Alone in the Universe
4. Money and Property
   • The Realm of Me and Mine 468
   • Alone in a Crowd
   • The Anonymous Power 469
   • Social Capital
   • Cultural Capital
   • Natural Capital
   • Spiritual Capital
   • Time, Money, and The Good
   • The Economics of Other 470
   • Interest and Self-Interest
   • The Crisis of Capital
5. The World under Control
   • The Total Depravity of Man
   • The Winners and the Losers
   • Life and Death 471
   • Yes and No
   • The Pressure to Break Free
   • Molding Minds
   • The Great Indoors
   • Life under Contract 472
   • The War on Germs
   • The War on Suffering
   • Life in a Playpen
6. The Crumbling of Certainty
   • The End of Objectivity 473
   • Truth without Certainty
   • Order without Design
   • The Nature of Purpose
   • The Purpose of Nature 474
   • Life without a Replicator
   • The Community of Life
   • The Genetic Plenum
7. The Age of Reunion
   • The Convergence of Crises 475
   • The Currency of Cooperation 476
   • The Restorative Economy 477
   • The Age of Water 478
   • Technologies of Reunion
   • Work and Art United
   • Back to Play
   • The Medicine of Interbeingness 479
   • The Spirit of the Gift
   • Storyteller Consciousness 480
   • In Love with the World 481
8. Self and Cosmos
   • Human Nature Restored
   • The Fall 482
   • The Perinatal Matrix 482
   • The Gaian Birthing 483
   • Eulogy and Redemption 483
   • At Play Beside The Tower 485

See Also

• http://www.ascentofhumanity.com, the full text on line, with other writings in different languages
• The entire audiobook (806MB ZIP file)