For those interested, the full story of the Witnesses Log and the other psychic events of that period is contained in ALICE HICKEY: Between Worlds. A free PDF can be downloaded from Sarasota Poetry Theatre Press by Googling: justin spring books guide to alice hickey
One thing that happened as the result of that highly psychic period was that I became extremely interested in the Mother Goddess culture which Alice Hickey saw as the cradle in which oral poetry rocked, i.e. it gave birth to oral poetry—a position also taken by poet Robert Graves in his White Goddess, where he equated the Mother Goddess to the Muse.
My new interest in the Mother Goddess period along with my extensive knowledge of preliterate poetry and art eventually brought me to the point where, for some reason, I started to become agitated whenever I read that the Sphinx was carved in Egyptian literate times (c.2500 B.C.).
I started to look at the scholarship on the Sphinx and came to the conclusion that the current archaeological position that the Sphinx was carved in literate Egyptian times (c.2500 B.C.) was completely wrong, because the face of the Sphinx clearly has the artistic characteristics of a preliterate carving, i.e., it had to have been carved sometime prior to 3200 B.C.. This led me to create an extensive site on the origin of the Sphinx along with a related historical novel: RIVER MOTHER: The Face of the Sphinx that I published in 2015.
A free PDF of RIVER MOTHER: The Face of the Sphinx can be downloaded from Sarasota Poetry Theatre Press by Googling: sarasota poetry theatre press free pdf river mother. The Sphinx site can be accessed by Googling: justin spring investigation of alternative worldviews
RIVER MOTHER: The Face of the Sphinx recreates what it felt like to possess the early consciousness of preliterate humans living in the Mother Goddess period, which existed around the world until 4000-2000 B.C.
It was only with the emergence of writing and large scale agriculture that a change in our consciousness occurred. That new logical consciousness is the same consciousness we have today. That change was quite rapid according to Julian Jaynes, whose groundbreaking book, The Origin of Consciousness, completely changed our thinking about the nature of preliterate consciousness. Hopefully, RIVER MOTHER: The Face of the Sphinx will help flesh out Jaynes’ work a bit by allowing readers to feel what that early consciousness was like—as well as what it felt like to live in that world.
Unfortunately, most of out archeologists have chosen to ignore preliterate cultures—despite the fact that the beliefs of all literate cultures have long preliterate roots. This archaeological avoidance is mainly due to the fact that there are no written documents to explore. All that remains of preliterate cultures is their art, which is something the scientific method doesn’t handle well, seeing art as too subjective.
The fact remains, however, that preliterate art is the true key to understanding the preliterate world, and if science has all but given up on it, there is no reason for the rest of us to walk away from that period, because it is completely capable of being understood by interested, intuitive artists. Despite what science would like us to believe, the scientific method isn’t the only method for arriving at the truth.
More importantly, I also firmly believe a good knowledge of the nature of our early consciousness and the Mother Goddess culture is needed if we are to truly understand poetry, its function, and its origins, because it was that early consciousness that gave birth to poetry. I believe that my exploration of those origins (in ALICE HICKEY: Between Worlds and SOULSPEAK: The Outward Journey of the Soul) wouldn’t have happened without something mysterious in my unconscious moving me toward Van-Ooy and the other speech-like poets I’ve mentioned.
Hopefully if you read ALICE HICKEY and SOULSPEAK: The Outward Journey and then read RIVER MOTHER: The Face of the Sphinx, you will find that the preliterate world was a coherent world driven by a much different and highly psychic consciousness whose concerns were primarily spiritual and artistic. In short it was very different from the logical, power-driven consciousness that began to emerge around the world during 4000-2000 B.C.
The true poets among us are those who still have access to that early consciousness—for it has never gone completely disappeared. If you’d like to know even more about that early consciousness, you can delve deeper by reading Julian Jaynes. A free PDF is available by Googling: julian jaynes the birth of consciousness free pdf.
One other thing I have come to believe is that our current modern, logical consciousness has become unbalanced. We have become much smarter as a result of its emergence several thousand years ago, but less wise. Our modern consciousness needs to be rebalanced by becoming more intuitive. In short, it needs to balance itself with something like the intuitive wisdom of our earlier consciousness. Jung believed this, as did Einstein when he said, “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.” This belief in the importance of intuition—of feelings—is also held by an ever increasing number of people around the world, especially women, who I believe will play a primary role in rebalancing our consciousness.
What I can now see is the visitations of Van-Ooy and others eventually brought me to oral poetry which, in turn, brought me into the world of prose: first to explain the origin and nature of oral poetry in SOULSPEAK: The Outward Journey of the Soul, then to explore my mysterious experience with Van-Ooy’s poetry in MIRRORS, and then, still later, to delve into the Mother Goddess period and the nature of consciousness in ALICE HICKEY: Between Worlds and RIVER MOTHER: The Face of the Sphinx.
If there is a silver thread that winds though all of these, it is my increasing and unwavering belief that feeling comes first. In other words, you have to feel your way towards the truth. Any truth. Think about that for a moment. Then stop thinking, turn inward, and let feeling take you where it will.