Gebser makes the observation that [the] two-dimensional wavelike rhythm of the soul is accompanied by an experience of time characterized by a retrospectiveness, a continual “harking back to what was,” a returning again and again to the “beginning,” as the ocean waves rise, crest, and fall back down into their troughs, only to rise again. So as to distinguish cyclical/mythic time from the linear “progression into the future” subsequently to develop along with the advent of mental/spatial consciousness, Gebser characterizes the former as “temporicity.”

(back to chapter 6)