What did Owen Barfield mean by original and final participation?
Owen Barfield uses “original participation” and “final participation” to describe two very different ways human consciousness can be related to the world. In short, original participation is an unselfconscious, pre-modern sense of unity with the world, while final participation is a consciously chosen, spiritually awake participation in the world that comes after the development of modern, separate selfhood.
Original participation
Original participation refers to an early form of consciousness (seen in small children and many traditional or “tribal” cultures) in which the human being experiences no sharp boundary between inner self and outer world. The world is felt as alive, ensouled, and filled with presences, and the person experiences this aliveness directly without realizing that their own mind is co-creating how the world appears. In this state there is little reflective self-awareness, so there is also little sense of individual freedom or critical distance from the surrounding world.
The middle phase: onlooker consciousness
Barfield describes the historical development of “onlooker” consciousness, characteristic of modernity, in which the self comes to feel sharply separated from nature and regards the world as a collection of external, indifferent objects. This phase emerges especially with Greek philosophy and the scientific revolution, leading to a sense of alienation: the world loses its experienced meaning and aliveness, even though this development also brings heightened individuality and critical reason. Barfield thinks this alienated phase is not a mistake but a necessary stage in the evolution of consciousness, preparing the possibility of a new, freer kind of participation.
Final participation
Final participation is Barfield’s term for a future (but already possible) mode of consciousness in which humans again experience the world as meaningful and alive, but now with full awareness that their own thinking and imagination actively participate in how reality is disclosed. Unlike original participation, this is not a naive immersion but a voluntary, reflective cooperation of human consciousness with the creative principle of the world (often articulated by Barfield in relation to the Logos and to Goethean/Steinerian ways of knowing). It preserves the hard-won sense of individual selfhood and freedom, while at the same time overcoming alienation by recognizing that knowing the world is always a participatory, meaning-creating act.
Relation between original and final participation
For Barfield, final participation is not a return to original participation but a higher form that includes and transforms it. The early unity with the world is regained, yet now consciously, ethically, and spiritually chosen, rather than simply given as an unconscious state. In this way, the historical movement from original participation, through onlooker consciousness, toward final participation is the story of the evolution of human consciousness toward a mature, free, and responsible relationship with reality.
Key differences at a glance
| Aspect | Original participation | Final participation |
|---|---|---|
| Sense of self | Weakly differentiated from world | Strongly individuated, self-aware self |
| World experienced as | Inherently alive, sacred, filled with presences | Again alive and meaningful, but through conscious insight |
| Awareness of participation | Unconscious: participation is not recognized | Conscious: participation is deliberately acknowledged |
| Freedom/critical distance | Low; immersion, little reflective freedom | High; freedom retained and integrated with participation |
| Historical association | Early/“tribal” and child consciousness | Possible future/spiritual mode after modernity |
Onlooker consciousness, for Owen Barfield, is the characteristically modern way of experiencing the world in which the self stands over against reality as a detached spectator, treating what it observes as an external collection of objects. It arises historically after original participation and is marked by a sharp division between “I” and “not-I,” subject and object.
Core features
In onlooker consciousness, experience is reorganized into “representations” in the mind that are assumed to correspond to an outside, mind-independent world, which is thought to exist and operate perfectly well without human beings. The self feels located “in here,” looking out at an objective universe that is fundamentally made up of quantities, forces, and things, not meanings or presences. This leads to the ideal of a neutral “view from nowhere,” where the best knowledge is thought to come from abstracting away personal perspective, value, and participation.
Historical emergence
Barfield associates the beginnings of this mode with Greek philosophy and the monotheism of Israel, but he sees it reaching maturity in late medieval and early modern Europe, with figures like Ockham, Copernicus, Bacon, Galileo, and Descartes. Descartes’ famous separation of res cogitans (thinking substance) from res extensa (extended substance) is a clear expression of onlooker consciousness, in which the mind is an inner realm considering an outer, mechanical world. Barfield interprets this not just as a theory but as a deep shift in how people actually experience themselves and nature.
Psychological experience
Psychologically, onlooker consciousness feels like increased self-possession and critical distance: the individual becomes more sharply self-aware, capable of reflection, analysis, and personal autonomy. At the same time, the world can feel “desiccated” or “sclerotic”: no longer a living matrix of presences, but a neutral environment to be measured, controlled, and used. Barfield notes that each person’s development from the imaginative, immersive consciousness of childhood into the pragmatic outlook of adulthood repeats this historical shift on a small scale.
Philosophical stance
Onlooker consciousness tends to conceal the mind’s active contribution to experience, imagining the mind as a passive receiver of impressions or information from a fully formed external world. Barfield refers to the associated style of thinking as “alpha-thinking”: thinking about things from outside, without reflecting on how thinking itself is shaping what appears. This stance underwrites modern empiricism and some versions of scientific realism, which treat meaning, value, and qualities as either subjective projections or reducible to quantitative structures.
Role in Barfield’s larger story
For Barfield, onlooker consciousness is both gain and loss: it brings heightened individuality, freedom, and analytical power, but at the cost of alienation from nature and a loss of immediate experience of meaning. He does not regard it as an error to be simply reversed, but as a necessary stage in the evolution of consciousness that prepares the way for “final participation,” where the self retains its freedom yet again recognizes its active, co-creative participation in the world’s appearing.
Can you compare Barfield's views on this to Gebster's view?
Both Owen Barfield and Jean Gebser describe a historical evolution of consciousness with distinct “structures” or “stages,” but they frame and value these stages differently. Barfield emphasizes participation (original, onlooker, final) and the co-creative role of consciousness in meaning, whereas Gebser maps multiple structures (archaic, magic, mythical, mental, integral) and stresses their concretion in culture, language, and perception.
Basic parallels
Historical evolution:
Barfield: moves from original participation (immersed, participatory consciousness) through onlooker consciousness (modern subject–object split) toward final participation (conscious, free participation in meaning).
Gebser: moves from archaic to magic to mythical to mental (our dominant “rational” structure) and anticipates the “integral” structure, which transparently integrates the earlier ones.
Modern consciousness as crisis:
Barfield: the modern “onlooker” stance yields alienation, a dry, objectified world, but is also a necessary phase toward a higher participation.
Gebser: the deficient phase of the mental–rational structure shows up as hypertrophied rationalization, atomization, and loss of the earlier cohesive structures, demanding a transition to the integral.
Barfield’s onlooker vs Gebser’s mental-rational
Barfield’s onlooker consciousness: a sharp subject–object division; the self stands outside nature, viewing it as neutral, mechanistic, and value-free; participation is denied or hidden.
Gebser’s mental–rational structure: dominated by perspectival thinking, linear time, abstraction, and objectification; it separates observer from observed and privileges analytic, causal explanation.
These are closely analogous: both see the modern stance as a powerful but one-sided development that treats the world as an external object-field and underestimates the role of consciousness. Both also see this stance as historically necessary but now crisis-ridden.
Barfield’s final participation vs Gebser’s integral
Barfield’s final participation:
Gebser’s integral structure:
An “aperspectival” consciousness that can make all earlier structures (archaic, magic, mythical, mental) transparent to one another without privileging a single one.
Emphasizes presence and concretion: time and space are no longer merely linear or perspectival but are experienced in a more “whole” way.
Both final participation and the integral structure overcome the modern split without dissolving the self. Barfield frames this in explicitly participatory and often theological–Logos terms, while Gebser stresses structural transparency and the concretion of time and space.
Role of earlier stages
Barfield: original participation (e.g., mythic, “tribal” consciousness) is historically prior and preserved in imagination and language, but it must be transformed rather than simply recovered; final participation is not a return but a higher synthesis.
Gebser: magic and mythical structures are not “left behind” but remain present; in the integral structure they are integrated rather than repressed, each contributing its strength (e.g., magic immediacy, mythical polarity, mental clarity).
In both, earlier modes are genuine but incomplete; the task is to carry them forward into a more conscious, non‑reductive form.
Key similarities and differences
| Aspect | Barfield | Gebser |
|---|---|---|
| Main focus | Participation and evolution of meaning | Structures of consciousness and their expression |
| Modern stage | Onlooker consciousness (subject–object split) | Mental–rational structure (perspectival rationality) |
| Future stage | Final participation | Integral (aperspectival) structure |
| Attitude to earlier stages | Transform original participation into conscious participation | Integrate magic, mythical, mental without regression |
| Theological dimension | Strong (Logos, spiritual evolution) | Present but more phenomenological–structural |
In sum, Barfield and Gebser tell strongly resonant stories: both see modern “onlooker/mental” consciousness as a powerful but limited achievement and envisage a coming form of consciousness that restores depth, participation, and meaning while keeping modern selfhood and clarity.
Gebser justified integrating the magical structure by reframing it not as superstition or regression, but as a dimension of consciousness that preserves vital human capacities—like deep participation in nature, immediacy of presence, and communal belonging—that the purely rational “mental” structure tends to suppress.
Jean Gebser’s project in The Ever-Present Origin was to show that human consciousness unfolds in mutations (archaic, magic, mythical, mental, integral), each with its own strengths and distortions. Importantly, he argued that integration means presentiation—making earlier structures transparent within the integral—rather than reverting to them.
Why magic mattered for Gebser
Magic as participation: Gebser saw the magical structure as characterized by identity with the world, a sense that humans are not separate from nature but bound in direct reciprocity. This isn’t “woo” but a recognition of the participatory dimension of consciousness.
Immediacy and presence: Magic consciousness is “point-like”—it lives in the immediacy of the moment, without abstraction. Gebser argued that this immediacy is crucial for counterbalancing the mental structure’s tendency toward detachment and over-analysis.
Communal belonging: Ritual and collective practices in the magical structure embody a sense of shared being. Gebser thought modern society’s fragmentation could be healed by re-integrating this communal dimension, without abandoning rationality.
Avoiding regression: He warned against romanticizing or reverting to magic. Instead, the integral structure “makes transparent” the earlier ones, allowing their strengths to be present without falling into their limitations (e.g., magical fear of spirits, mythical dogmatism, mental hubris).
His justification
Gebser’s key move was to argue that each structure is a mutation, not a rung on a ladder. The mental structure mistakenly believes it has “transcended” the earlier ones. Gebser insisted that the integral must include without collapsing:
Magic provides immediacy and participation.
Myth provides narrative coherence and symbolic depth.
Mental provides rational clarity and analysis. Together, they become transparent in the integral, which avoids the shadow of each (magical superstition, mythical literalism, mental arrogance).
Risks and trade-offs
Risk of regression: Romanticizing indigenous or magical practices can lead to abandoning rational safeguards. Gebser cautioned against this.
Risk of inflation: Over-identifying with “magical powers” can lead to psychic inflation, which he saw as a danger of modern spiritual movements.
Actionable takeaway: Integration means seeing through these structures, not falling back into them. Magic is justified as a dimension of consciousness, not as a belief system to adopt wholesale.
So when Gebser integrated magic, he wasn’t saying “believe in spells.” He was saying: recognize the participatory immediacy of life as a real structure of consciousness, and let it inform the integral without regression.
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