John Woodcock

Cultural Dreams John Woodcock

Everything we produce-art, entertainment, political events, books, movies, religion, economics, institutions, and money, etc.-is cultural, i.e. formed from within our minds, or more poetically, soul. Cultural productions find their origin in the form-making soul, as it undergoes its mysterious self-transformations. Dreams are also cultural forms and soul productions. So we can say that cultural productions constitute the dreams of a culture. They may become soul phenomena opening up to give us glimpses of possible futures flowing towards us "long before they happen", as Rilke says. Some of these essays focus on the loss of love in the world, others on the abandonment of any connection with something greater than us. Still others speak of chaos and fear, disintegration. Some address the hint of a possible future rooted in love. Finally, we cannot ignore the direst hint of all as one dark possible future gathers behind our current cultural productions-the withdrawal of the light that bestows meaning on our world: the death of psyche! Only the soul perspective can apprehend these possible futures bearing down on us at this time, looming behind our current cultural productions or dreams. These essays attempt to make these possible futures explicit from a soul perspective-glimpses appearing for a moment within the chaos that so marks the character of our modern times!