Listening With Ears, Eyes, Hands, and Heart

From an online class for the Sensory Awareness Foundation, January 6, 2024

On Silent Levels

In this class, I read a short piece from the chapter “On Silent Levels” from the manuscript of my biography of Charlotte Selver. Only a part of this is in the video but you may be interested in reading a bit more:

“Central to Elsa Gindler’s work was to become quiet,” Charlotte explains at her summer workshop in St. Ulrich in the Black Forest in 1992.” “As long as we are preoccupied with ideas and expectations we cannot be there for what is happening, for what could be happening.

Alfred Korzybski’s central question, stemming from his personal experiences of World War One, was, ‘why must there be wars?’ After years of research, which led him to the study of the origins of language, he concluded, ‘Because people don’t listen to each other.’”

I heard Charlotte speak about Korzybski many times and while I always had questions about her understanding of the principals underlying his work, General Semantics, especially with respect to its neurological foundation—the imagery she used seemed to stem from her study of photography rather than neuroscience—I was touched each time by her explanation of “how it comes to the word,” as she put it.

“Sensory cells are like photographic plates. When light hits receptors in the eye, they are impregnated with a pattern of shapes and colors. This information spreads throughout the entire nervous system. We begin to perceive, to feel, we experience in our totality. This occurs, Korzybski said, on silent levels, that is, in complete silence. It is only after this that we begin to put our experience into words.

But when there is all this thinking noise it is impossible for the impression to reach us in our totality, impossible to really perceive. To be really touched by what we see, or hear, or taste, we need to become quiet.”

“But that’s just the beginning, that’s just getting ready,” Charlotte added, “because once there is seeing, then you’ll see, once there is hearing, you’ll hear, but then you have to respond to what you see and hear. Then you have to play your part in the world, not just for yourself and your family.”

If you want to read the whole chapter, write me and I’ll send you a pdf: stelaeng@mac.com