The Supreme Art of Dialogue - Softcover

Anthony Blake

9780980221206: The Supreme Art of Dialogue

Softcover

ISBN 10: 098022120X ISBN 13: 9780980221206

Publisher: DuVersity Publications, 2009

The Supreme Art of Dialogue attempts to integrate diverse perspectives on the dialogue process, including the spiritual and the scientific and is itself a kind of dialogue incorporating many points of view. At its core is a reconciliation between numerical or formal and verbal or qualitative ways of thinking. It has four main sources. Each contrasts with each of the others in contrasting ways, and engages with the others reciprocally. Structural Communication [Bennett] method of dealing with both content and structure of meaning independently; two-channel, two-way communica�tion based on writing. Structure is explicit and related to systematics. Devel�oped for educational purposes in the 1960s; further developed eventually into LogoVisual Technology Dialogue [de Mare and Bohm] free-floating conversation not directed to the future but to the present moment; with diffuse structure allowing for emer�gence, based on speaking. Structure is implicit. De Mare's median group is a special case of the maximum number of participants compatible with the possibility of equality between them. Dialogue requires the suspension of everyday habits and assumptions of discourse. Facilitation of dialogue varies according to theoretical perspective, purpose and context, from virtually non�existent to very managed. N-logue [Blake] structured conversation based on the number of partici�pants N; usually articulated and observable for small numbers up to 4; can be written or spoken. They require even more stringent suspensions of habit than dialogue in general. Structure is explicit. N-logues are treated as parti�cles of meaning making of various sizes and qualities called logons. Instead of 'adding' their separate minds together, the N persons take on roles of an N-mind. They can be practised as an art in their own right or discerned and cultivated as they arise spontaneously in dialogue. Dialogue is composed of N-logues. N-logue is conscious. Derives from systematics. ILM [Matchett] based on listening to complex sounds, especially music, that are more highly structured than speech in form, allowing content to arise of itself; centred in individuals though conducted in a group, where all listen to the same source but do not talk with each other. Structure is implicit. ILM is taken to symbolise and invoke access to the information field that underlies the very possibility of communication. Whatever an ILM experience means is just what the individual wants it to mean. From the Glossary The dialogue process is of supreme importance in human life yet only now is it beginning to be acknowledged. The late Patrick de Mare always insisted that dialogue was mind and that mind was that between brains rather than in brains. The key figures in the discourse of The Supreme Art include: John Bennett, mathematician and mystic and student of Gurdjieff; David Bohm, physicist; Patrick de Mare, pioneer of the median group concept; Gordon Lawrence, pioneer of the Social Dreaming Matrix, and Edward Matchett, an explorer of how genius might be developed.

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About the Author:

Anthony Blake has a background in physics and philosophy. He studied with the systems thinker and mystic John Bennett as well as with the physicist David Bohm and other innovators and pioneers. He has followed the principle of integration without rejection, proposed by Bennett, and focuses on how to make this possible in real life. He is the author of several books - on the Enneagram symbol of Gurdjieff, the meaning of time, intelligence, dialogue, globalization, systematics, etc. Co-founder of the DuVersity, of which he is Director of Studies, Anthony facilitates seminars and lectures on new methods.

Review:

"Back home again and finally finished reading The Supreme Art, which I found to be a supreme account of the state of mankind and the hopes of our attaining normality in the cosmic realm of life. While it combines science, religion, psychology and philosophy, as well of course simply talking and listening, I was struck most forcefully by the feeling that this is the best prescription I have read of a way to further Gurdjieff's work. Other readers, naturally, will find Gurdjieff references incidental but I think you have directed many of his ideas to new, inner realms." Bob Hunter --bob hunter

"Living in the era of information and knowledge, people are chained to facts. In a series of stimulating chapters this book invites us to enquire into the making of meaning. Public life is reduced to ideology which provides the leaders of society with a ready-made, taken-for-granted perception of so�ciety that the citizen has to accept as absolute truth. This book offers an antidote to slipshod thinking, also showing how dialogue like dreaming, can be creative by organizing thinking into new holistic patterns, leading us to the infinite." Dr Gordon Lawrence, author of Social Dreaming @ Work --gordon lawrence

"This book is a valuable attempt to explore the possibilities of dialogue from a multi-disciplinary perspective and 'stretches the envelope' to include con�cepts from physics and mysticism as well as from the more orthodox mate�rial of Group Analysis. Blake's advocacy of structure in meaning-making challenges many current assumptions and he introduces some new theo�retical approaches that offer much food for thought." Anthony Judge, developer of the Encyclopaedia of World Problems and Human Potential (Union of International Associations) and instigator of the Union of Imaginable Associations --anthony judge

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