Erich Jantsch only lived to age 51 (1929 – 1980) and his obituary, written by a close friend, Milan Zeleny,  says; “his work remains unfinished and his dreams unfulfilled”.  How BRUTAL!  A few weeks ago, I hunted for and found the only biography of Erich that I could find, which was more like a short notebook, “The Quiet Ganesh: finding Erich Jantsch”, by Leah M. Sciabarrasi, … which put together notes on 59 small pages, a gathering of comments from people who knew him or had views on his work.   I was just ‘going with the flow’ as I tried to make sense out of how Erich and his amazing work with titles including “Design for Evolution (1975) and The Self-Organizing Universe (1980) seemed to be treated as a passing novelty, while my view was, based only on his THREE LEVELS OF AWARENESS, which he presented at the “International Conference on the Unity of the Sciences’ (ICUS) in Tokyo in 1973, where one can get a copy of his handwritten notes from his presentation (I have had this copy of his notes for some time and they are easy to read.  One can download a copy from;  https://icus.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Jantsch-Erich-Transexperiential-Inquiry.pdf )

THE EERY ‘COINCIDENCE’ was that after having reviewed ‘The Quiet Ganesh’ which was a skeletal review of his life and work, I searched the internet for an obituary for Jantsch, and found the two-pager by Zeleny which I printed out and showed, as it came off the printer, to my daughter Alison, who noticed in reading it, that Jantsch died on December 12, 1980 (I had no idea of his date of passing) but here I was printing his obituary out on this very same day DECEMBER 12, 2025, forty-five years after his passing.  This might not mean much to most people, and I myself am not what one would call ‘superstitious’, but I have such a strong connection with the work of Jantsch, in particular, his understanding of LEVELS OF AWARENESS which more than make sense to me (these awareness levels answer many questions in regard to problems with our WESTERN CULTURE).

 

OK, Jantsch’s THREE LEVELS of AWARENESS is like the ROSETTA STONE in that it ties together OTHER WORK such as Nietzsche’s argument that there is no such thing as LOCAL AUTHORING, that it is just the DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING and GRAMMAR so that when we use LOCAL AUTHORING in our language we are constructing a DISTORTED PSEUDO-REALITY where we say things like “THE TOWN IS GROWING” without mentioning the conjugate “SHRINKING OF WILDERNESS” and thus without CAPTURING THE SENSE-EXPERIENCE BASED REALITY of the all-including TRANSFORMATION.

 

OK, that is ONE OF THE THREE THINGS that when PUT TOGETHER, can help to give us an understanding wherein the SUM transcends the PARTS.

 

The SECOND THING can be gleaned from deserved attack on the LEGITIMACY of the notion of GROWTH.  We WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS are making strong progress in digging ourselves into a hole which it is not going to be easy to climb out of by our pursuit of economic GROWTH.  For example, as even economists are saying;

 

https://ensia.com/voices/end-economic-growth-economy/

 

Opinion: Sooner or later, we have to stop economic growth — and we’ll be better for it

The end of growth will come one day, perhaps very soon, whether we’re ready or not. If we plan for and manage it, we could well wind up with greater well-being.

by Richard Heinberg

January 8, 2019 — Both the U.S. economy and the global economy have expanded dramatically in the past century, as have life expectancies and material progress. Economists raised in this period of plenty assume that growth is good, necessary even, and should continue forever and ever without end, amen. Growth delivers jobs, returns on investment and higher tax revenues. What’s not to like? We’ve gotten so accustomed to growth that governments, corporations and banks now depend on it. It’s no exaggeration to say that we’re collectively addicted to growth.

The trouble is, a bigger economy uses more stuff than a smaller one, and we happen to live on a finite planet. So, an end to growth is inevitable. Ending growth is also desirable if we want to leave some stuff (minerals, forests, biodiversity and stable climate) for our kids and their kids. Further, if growth is meant to have anything to do with increasing quality of life, there is plenty of evidence to suggest it has passed the point of diminishing returns: Even though the U.S. economy is 5.5 times bigger now than it was in 1960 (in terms of real GDP), America is losing ground on its happiness index.

HOW ABOUT: “SOONER OR LATER, THE END OF GROWTH WILL MANIFEST”, when we come to realize that Nietzsche is right about the FALSEHOOD OF GROWTH (i.e. we are living in a world of TRANSFORMATION wherein EVERYTHING IS IN FLUX and THERE ARE NO LOCAL, EXPLICIT MATERIAL BEING THINGS THAT GROW, whether it goes by the name U.S. ECONOMY or WHATEVER.   The REALITY is TRANSFORMATION and we are all included within it, as is the understanding of Modern physics, indigenous aboriginals, Taoists/Buddhists and Advaita Vedanta.

 

GROWTH implies LOCAL AUTHORING OF ACTIONS and DEVELOPMENT, but THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS LOCAL AUTHORING IN THE WORLD WE LIVE IN WHICH IS A TRANSFORMING RELATIONAL CONTINUUM aka ENERGY-CHARGED PLENUM.  GROWTH is otherwise known as LOCAL AUTHORING OF ACTIONS AND DEVELOPMENT.  THERE IS NO DOER AND DEED LOCAL AUTHORING DYNAMIC, it is an EGO based FICTION that OBSCURES the reality of the all-including transforming continuum.

 

In the Genealogy of Morality and Twilight of the Idols. Nietzsche argues against the “superstition” that a discrete agent (the ego) exists prior to action, suggesting that “the doer” is merely a linguistic fiction superimposed upon the purported deed itself. For Nietzsche, this double error is a fundamental misinterpretation of reality driven by grammatical and psychological habits (a “superstition of logicians”). He argues that there is no independent, unified “subject” or “ego” that stands apart from its actions and causes them. Instead, actions and thoughts are part of a stream of becoming, a complex interplay of drives and physical processes, without a stable, internal “doer”. (In other words, Nietzsche argues against the “superstition” that a discrete agent (the ego) exists prior to action, suggesting that “the doer” is merely a linguistic fiction superimposed upon the deed itself.)

 

The reality is;… there is NO SUCH THING AS LOCAL AUTHORING OF ACTIONS and DEVELOPMENTS as is acknowledged in FLOW-BASED LANGUAGES.  We can see WHY IT IS that indigenous aboriginals’ RESTORATIVE JUSTICE makes NO ASSUMPTION of LOCALLY AUTHORED CRIMINAL ACTIONS but instead understands VIOLENCE in terms of RELATIONAL DISSONANCE that emerges as TENSIONS that build in the community that, without being resolved by something like the HEALING CIRCLE, manifest as VIOLENCE.

 

 

Jantsch’s THREE LEVELS of AWARENESS include a level 1 (the awareness of our inclusion in TRANSFORMATION) that WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS are BLOCKING OUT of our AWARENESS by way of our BINARY LOGIC, POLARIZED DIVISION into CONSERVATIVES and LIBERALS who are unable to resolve their EITHER/OR DIFFERENCES in UNDERSTANDING and get beyond the BINARY to the NONBINARY BOTH/AND LOGIC of the INCLUDING MEDIUM.  The less simple NONBINARY BOTH/AND LOGIC of the INCLUDING MEDIUM is REQUIRED to deal with the physical basis of our living within the energy-charged PLENUM wherein material forms are CONDENSATIONS of the PLENUM which is captured by the STRANDS in the WEB RELATION where the STRAND is BOTH ITSELF and at the same time, THE WEB IT IS INCLUDED IN.   The STRAND IN THE WEB relation employs NONBINARY, BOTH/AND LOGIC of the INCLUDING MEDIUM that is LESS SIMPLE than BINARY EITHER OR LOGIC of the “EXCLUDED MEDIUM” (the empty space medium), in that it supports NONLOCAL and IMPLICIT TRANSFORMATION (bypassing the TOO-SIMPLE LOCAL and EXPLICIT MECHANICS of notionally ‘INDEPENDENT’ material bodies (which our language suggests are) insulated from one another by a notional ABSOLUTE EMPTY AND INFINITE SPACE).

 

Nietzsche is saying that THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS LOCAL AUTHORING (i.e., in a transforming relational continuum, authoring is NONLOCAL and IMPLICIT as supported by Modern physics).  Let’s not forget that Nietzsche tapped into the work of Boscovich which is said to be 200 years ahead of his time and which acknowledges the BOTH/AND LOGIC of the INCLUDING MEDIUM as where material forms are condensations of the all-including energy-charged PLENUM.

 

SO PART 1 of this AWARENESS-based ROSETTA STONE is Nietzsche’s finding that we must LET GO OF THE NOTION OF LOCAL AUTHORING.

 

PART 2 is the AWARENESS that GROWTH is abstraction based on the DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING and GRAMMAR where we say things like ‘THE TOWN IS GROWING’ which may be TRUE but as Goedel’s theorem points out, all finite BINARY LOGIC PROPOSITIONS ARE INCOMPLETE and it is INCOMPLETE to speak of GROWTH of the TOWN without acknowledging the conjugate SHRINKING OF WILDERNESS which means that WHAT IS REAL is TRANSFORMATION which is less simple than GROWTH, the latter which may be TRUE but also, at the same time, INCOMPLETE.

 

So, the SUSPICION of GROWTH being unsustainable is ON TARGET because , as just described, the dynamic that is more comprehensive-than-GROWTH (GROWTH IS TRUE but INCOMPLETE), is TRANSFORMATION which is more complete and sense-experience affirmably REAL to boot.  GOODBYE GROWTH, HELLO TRANSFORMATION.

 

PART 3 is where Erich Jantsch’s levels of AWARENESS come into play.  CONSERVATIVES (AWARENESS LEVEL 3 which is the least aware) and LIBERALS (AWARENESS LEVEL 2 which is the next least aware) are BOTH BINARY LOGIC based.  The difference between the two is that while CONSERVATIVES like TRUMP with their level 3 awareness, believe in GROWTH of the U.S. ECONOMY as a one-sided action that can be pushed forth one-sidedly without compromise, … DEMOCRATS  with their level 2  awareness understand that everyone (the national players) is in the same swimming pool together so there is a need to COORDINATE (form alliances) to reduce backsplash.  BOTH OF THESE LEVELS OF AWARENESS ASSUME THE REALITY OF LOCAL AUTHORING, and as Nietzsche points out, this involves the “superstition” that a discrete agent (the ego) exists prior to action, suggesting that “the doer” is merely a linguistic fiction superimposed upon the purported deed itself.

 

The EGOS of those who believe in LOCAL AUTHORING are well evident in WESTERN CULTURE.  In indigenous aboriginal culture, the STRAND IN THE WEB understanding is that the AUTHORING of actions and development is NONLOCAL and IMPLICIT (relational) in which case there is NO WAY TO CREDIT and/or BLAME “LOCAL AUTHORS” because THERE ARE NO “LOCAL AUTHORS” .   This is not only so in indigenous aboriginal cultures, Taoism/Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta, the understanding is that our dynamics are like those in heavy freeway traffic where the AUTHORING of actions is BLURRED by complications such as the dog that darts across the busy freeway, incuding swerving and braking and accelerating so that when there is a fender-bender, imposing the “perpetrator-victim BINARY is just an expedient becasue THERE IS NO LOCAL AUTHOR; i.e. WHAT THERE IS, is the “THREE BODY PROBLEM” … “the impossibility of calculating the individual movements of three or more bodies moving under one-another’s simultaneous mutual influence”.

 

* * * * * *

 

THERE IS NO QUESTION THAT THE NOTION OF THE “LOCAL AUTHOR OF ACTIONS AND DEVELOPMENTS” DOES NOT EXIST IN OUR REAL LIFE EXPERIENCE OF INCLUSION IN THE TRANSFORMING RELATIONAL CONTINUUM  wherein the VIOLENT STRAND IN THE WEB is NOT THE AUTHOR OF THE VIOLENCE but the CONDUIT FOR TENSIONS THAT BUILD IN THE WEB, in which case the REMEDY is for all STRANDS IN THE WEB to comb together in the HEALING CIRCLE to “RESTORE” relational resonance and in the process, subsume relational dissonance.  That is what Modern physics is saying and that is what indigenous  aboriginals (the original-tradition followers) are doing.

 

WESTERN CULTURE is hung up on BINARY LOGIC which is NOT ONLY TOO SIMPLE TO CAPTURE THE NONBINARY LOGIC based BOTH/AND LOGIC of the INCLUDING MEDIUM where material forms are condensations of the energy-charged PLENUM, but BINARY EITHER/OR LOGIC of the EXCLUDED MEDIUM “OBSCURES” ACCESS TO NONBINARY BOTH/AND LOGIC of the INCLUDING MEDIUM.  For example, If BINARY LOGIC crops up first, and puts us into the simplified pseudo-reality where we are understanding things in LOCAL and EXPLICIT terms, then this sets up the practice of moreSCAPE-GOATING THE IDENTIFIED PATIENT (alleged OFFENDER), … IGNORING the interconnection and interdependence of all STRANDS IN THE WEB.

 

WESTERN CULTURE will use simple BINARY LOGIC to extrtact a PERPETRATOR and VICTIM from … NO MATTER WHAT SORT OF RELATIONAL COMPLEXITY IS  INVOLVED.   For example, when  the dust settles from the crazy traffic episode where there is breaking and accelerating and swerving within which a fender-bender occurs, we WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS habitually reduce this in our linguistic conceptualizing to simple BINARY LOGIC based terms of a PERPETRATOR and VICTIM.  Here we are using BINARY LOGIC to SIMPLIFY that which is far more complex (i.e. something that involves NON-BINARY BOTH/AND LOGIC of the INCLUDING MEDIUM).  

 

As Nietzsche points out, EGO is behind this simplification because EGO wants the rewards and respect that derive from LOCAL AUTHORING and once we finagle that to take credit for LOCAL AUTHORING OF GOOD ACTIONS, for consistency, we force ourselves to do likewise and use the LOCAL AUTHOR TACTIC (DOUBLE ERROR OF NAMING AND GRAMMAR) to speak in terms of the LOCAL AUTHORING OF BAD ACTIONS, OBSCURING IN THE PROCESS, the inherent NONLOCAL and IMPLICIT (relational) nature of dynamics as in TRANSFORMATION.

 

BELIEF in GROWTH is leading us to a CONFRONTATION with REALITY and the REALITY is that what is going on is NOT “GROWTH” but “TRANSFORMATION” and we say is the work of a “LOCAL AUTHOR” in WESTERN PUNITIVE/PURIFICATIONIST JUSTICE, is in REALITY A “LOCAL CONDUIT” for the VENTING OF TENSIONS in the social-relational WEB.

 

* * * * * * * *

 

THIS IS A BIGGIE FOR ME, SO BIG THAT I THINK THAT IT WAS COMMUNICATED TO ME FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE!

 

zeleny-1981-erich-jantsch-obituary-(1929-1980) (1).pdf