The Coming Era of Time

In his book The Ever-Present Origin, Jean Gebser describes the new era of consciousness into which we are moving as we move from the era of rational consciousness into the an era of time-free transparency. This article describes in greater detail the meaning and nature of consciousness that is time-free and transparent. Both of these features are most apparent in night-time dreams and other altered states of consciousness, features that were and are available to the shamans of both ancient and contemporary hunting-gathering cultures. A direct way of experiencing these features of this new consciousness is through the altered state of ecstatic trance as researched by the anthropologist Felicitas Goodman as described in her book Where the Spirits Ride the Wind. The induction of this altered state of consciousness is then described