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 an audiobook by Robin Upton.

Introduction

1. The Triumph of Technology
   • Gee Whiz—The Future! 461
   • Utopia Postponed 462
   • The Addiction to Control 463
   • From Separation to Boredom 463
   • From Affluence to Anxiety 463
2. The Origins of Separation
   • The Biological Origins of Self 463
   • Fire and Stone 463
   • Labeling the World 464
   • Mathematics and Measure 464
   • Keeping Time 464
   • Images of Images 464
   • The Marvelous Piraha 465
   • Cultivation and Culture 465
   • The Machine 465
   • Religion and Ritual 465
   • The Playful Universe 465
3. The Way of the World
   • The Scientific Method 466
   • My Personal Age of Reason 466
   • Masters of the Universe 466
   • The Quest for Certainty 466
   • Reducing Reality 467
   • The Ghost in the Machine 467
   • The Origin of Life 467
   • Alone in the Universe 467
4. Money and Property
   • The Realm of Me and Mine 468
   • Alone in a Crowd 468
   • The Anonymous Power 469
   • Social Capital 469
   • Cultural Capital 469
   • Natural Capital 469
   • Spiritual Capital 469
   • Time, Money, and The Good 469
   • The Economics of Other 470
   • Interest and Self-Interest 470
   • The Crisis of Capital 470
5. The World under Control
   • The Total Depravity of Man 470
   • The Winners and the Losers 470
   • Life and Death 471
   • Yes and No 471
   • The Pressure to Break Free 471
   • Molding Minds 471
   • The Great Indoors 471
   • Life under Contract 472
   • The War on Germs 472
   • The War on Suffering 472
   • Life in a Playpen 472
6. The Crumbling of Certainty
   • The End of Objectivity 473
   • Truth without Certainty 473
   • Order without Design 473
   • The Nature of Purpose 473
   • The Purpose of Nature 474
   • Life without a Replicator 474
   • The Community of Life 474
   • The Genetic Plenum 474
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 478
   • Work and Art United 478
   • Back to Play 478
   • The Medicine of Interbeingness 479
   • The Spirit of the Gift 479
   • 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)
• Browse the audiobook by chapter r subsection