The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World

This is a book which will create a shift in how you see the world and stays with you once you finish reading it. David Abram beautifully weaves together philosophy, anthropology, & his personal observation to explore the deep connections between human beings, language, and the natural world in a poetic and accessible manner. He invites us to slow down and immerse themselves in the intricate relationships between their senses and their surroundings. Although this book isn’t light reading, read it in short bursts; its many ideas require reflection and help reawaken our sensory engagement with the earth and our understanding of our place in the world.

It starts with the cover, open the door of this superb book, step through the beatific painting of a crane preening it's lavender feathers and you will enter into a world of discourse with all animate life. David Abram has cast a spell across the pages of my existence. His words are tattooed into the dermis of my spirit-skin, inked to a metamorphosis of my soul; his medium is the lettered-word. The animal-familiars he has birthed in this book have informed my flights of fancy, my hikes over the mountains and hillsides every day and dreamtime since. I am in love with his ability to transfer to the page with the tiny symbols we refer to as the alphabet a communication that reveals the true nature of our earthly evolution with all animate life. He is a writer, writing about writing, writing about the dawn of the written expression of words. Part travel memoir, the journey of a magician, his sleight -of-hand abilities to make a dove appear with ink on paper, will have you thinking and feeling about the manifestation of all reality. Lakota, Hopi, Hebrews circle the "winds of the four directions," as crows and fire-flies light the sky. Mr. Abram has created something sacred about the oral traditions of language and the development of the written word as it informs us and simultaneously separates us from all that is.

I have long loved this book. I had occasion to recommend it again, and also have a moment to write a note about it... a rare synchronicity! So this: The few other reviews do a great job of describing the framework of relationship of the human to 'other-than-human' as exemplified in the evolution of increasingly complex abstractions of our communication systems, from pictograph to alphabet. From representation to communication by agreement that a symbol, and its related sounds mean a thing. What is passed over is the weaving of the story between the technical and the experienced. So I introduced the book thusly: It is an interesting book that weaves two stories together.. One of the experienced, "Other-Than-Human" world - of all types, from animal to insect, and charting the path of the human communication from the pictorial representation of the world as experienced, to the abstractions that make up the alphabet and the dictionary of words. Most of which have little direct association w the thing they are describing. In that movement of what might be called sophistication, he posits that our human experience has become increasingly split off from the rest of the world as our filter of engagement & experiences with the Other World(s) is increasingly via the cognitive & descriptive and less of the wordless, amazed, truly "awe-some" experience. I know I feel this lack. It is split that creates so many of the large and complex problems we are dealing with today. We tend to think we understand the systems we are sometimes rather slapdashedly mucking around with... We do not. What we do not typically reckon with is how integrated life is. And that it is more than a hallmark card, or a sappy new age chant to say that everything is connected to everything...Not knowing this is central to what we call "unintended consequences", but really are more accurately "unconscious consequences". While we have also gained some learning and benefit from our reductionist science, there is no doubt of that... if we do not heed the opening introduction of this book, and its basic prescription for our consideration : That to be human... a vital, life living , life supporting person/life force we Must have some meaningful relationship with the Other-Than-Human. For other books that work out that thesis in fact if not directly I'd suggest The Elephant Whisperer, and related books. And almost anything by Carl Safina. Especially "Song of the Blue Ocean".

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Through a singularly lyrical prose Abram invites the reader to re-examine how we perceive the world around us - and, in particular, how we perceive our relationship to the 'more than human' world. Quasi-academic, thoroughly researched and drawing on a wide range of disciplines, The Spell of the Sensuous stands as a strong example of why Abram is considered by many to be one of the contemporary world's most innovative visionaries.

A landmark book, a necessary read for any thinking person, regarding our limits of perception, how they came to be limited, about language and writing as ways to shut us down or open us up, about ecology and our broken relationship with the living Earth, and more, all very elequently written, his writting is near prose some of the time , I plan to reread it after a few months of pause, it will be a joy to revisit it.

Sehr gute Analyse von der Beziehung des Menschen zur Natur.

Very much enjoying this fascinating book!

Very badly printed