From: lancelot@cruzio.santa-cruz.ca.us
Newsgroups: sci.lang,sci.classics,sci.anthropology,talk.philosophy.misc,sci.philosophy.meta,rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Eyes as Windows of the Soul
Summary: Eye Indices of the Gods
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 92 11:58:56 PDT
Reply-To: lancelot@cruzio.santa-cruz.ca.us

In article <1992Jul29.022611.14276@husc3.harvard.edu>, zeleny@husc9.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny) writes:
> I have it on good authority that Merleau-Ponty attributes the origin of the
> above commonplace to the Phoenicians.  Unfortunately, I've been unable to
> find the attribution in his works.
> 
> A question for all commonplace experts: what is the earliest occurrence of
> this locution known to you? has it found significant representation in the
> arts? in which languages and cultures does it occur? is there a religious
> significance to it? has it been discussed in scholarly literature?
> 

Not sure about the first verbalization, but Julian Jaynes has some
very interesting things to say about the concept in THE ORIGINS OF
CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE BREAKDOWN OF THE BICAMERAL MIND (pp. 168-173 esp.).
He argues among other things that early "eye idols" were semi-hallucinatory
mnemonic aids for a nonconscious people who could not voluntarily 
retrieve admonitory experience. Some of the small objects may have been 
"capable of assisting with the production of bicameral voices."
He goes on to discuss the importance of eye-to-eye contact in primates
(in hierarchical positioning for example) and human social interaction
in the juvenile stage ("An infant child, when its mother speaks to it,
looks at the mother's eyes, not her lips.") He mentions the importance
of eye-to-eye contacts in both authority and love relationships.

In the bicameral period the eyes are a prominant feature of most 
temple statuary. "The diameter of the human eye is about 10 percent
of the height of the head, this proportion being what I call the eye index
of the idol. The famous group of twelve statues discovered in the
Favissa of the temple of Abu at Tell Asmar, the symbols carved on their
bases indicating that they are gods, have eye indices of as high as
18 percent--huge globular eyes hypnotically staring out of the
unrecorded past of 5000 years ago with defiant authority." (Jaynes, pg.169)
Jaynes suggests thst there is a diminution of consciousness that results
from staring into the eyes of the idols that enhances the hallucination of
divine experience. This is in line with my own subjective experiences
with the Nakpas (tantric yogis) of the Nyingmapa ("Ancient") school
of Vajrayana Buddhism utilizing thankas and statuary as an aid in 
tantric meditation, with animistic wood-carvers in West Africa, with
idols of the "black virgins" in Europe, to say nothing of sloe-eyed 
Egyptians, Senegalize women, and bicameral southern women here in 
the U.S. ;@} ;@} ;@} ....


-- 
Brett Breitwieser                     KC6UPU, Grid CM86XX
The Crown Project                     lancelot@cruzio.santa-cruz.ca.us
425 Ninth Ave.                        ..netcom!cruzio!lancelot
Santa Cruz, CA 95062-3715             Fido: 1:216/509
Julian Jaynes:"...hypnosis can cause this extra enabling because it 
engages the general bicameral paradigm which allows a more absolute 
control over behavior than is possible with consciousness."                    
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