Penetrating Silence (1976). Unpublished Works

The title is one I thought of because it seemed that it might give an idea of the area about which I want to talk, and it might be sufficiently stimulating or irritating to induce somebody to come and hear. Unfortunately what is an advantage from that point of view is almost immediately a disadvantage because it tends to obtrude to a point where it becomes difficult to pay attention to further extension of this subject. To try to extend the subject, in a sense it would be easier if I said it would be a good thing for all of us to remain silent, and if you could simply note what you then hear. Some of it would seem to be immediately obtrusive, other parts of it not so clear, but gradually perhaps you would be able to hear even things like your heartbeat. This is what I mean partly by the penetrating silence. If you can achieve that silence then it becomes more possible to hear things you cannot otherwise hear. In that way one begins to be able to collect evidence: certain facts, impressions begin to obtrude. It is rather like the situation which Freud describes a when he talks about Charcot, whom he obviously admired very much – the statement of Charcot's in which he says, “Go on looking until you think you see a pattern emerge.” People who have had a medical training would be familiar with this in looking at an X-ray photograph. If you are familiar with the X-ray, you begin to notice some shadow with which you are not familiar. If you can stand the strain, you go on looking at what you don't understand and with what you are not familiar. Unfortunately most of us rapidly learn at school and elsewhere to fill that gap because it is so unpleasant. As a result it becomes very difficult indeed to achieve a silence because of the clamour of all the information picked up in the course of one's life. There is so much noise going on in one's own mind that it is hard to notice any fresh

element. We tend to try to simplify the situation by thinking of it in terms of a bo