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Conceiving of consciousness as the only real 'value', Mr. Daly King asks the question whether it is possible to enhance our conscious 'I' in
such a way that we may discover the means of attaining a higher degree of consciousness, which will stand in somewhat the same relation to our ordinary waking consciousness, as this does to dreaming or sleeping consciousness. All human effort ultimately aims at this, but without any clear recognition of the goal, hence our efforts mostly go astray; the Eastern mystic too often mistakes the symptom for the state (as when he attaches an exaggerated importance to certain ways of breathing, which may be only the accompaniments of a more awakened consciousness), while Western man—even more deluded—thinks the end can be attained by the use of mechanical apparatus to make good the deficiencies of the human mind and body. The real method, the author thinks, lies in the substitution of an active for a passive 'I', and the most likely means of achieving this is through intensive observation of the bodily states and conditions—a suggestion with regard to which he acknowledges his indebtedness to M. Gurdjieff. Our progress in such observation can be checked by experimental methods. For instance, we can begin by training ourselves in discrimination, and our decreasing thresholds can be measured in the usual way. We can then proceed to practise ourselves in the 'simultaneous awareness of different sensory impressions', and ultimately 'our ability to discriminate should be carried to the point where our error as to amount, as subjectively felt and as objectively measured, is reduced to the ordinary error … which is present, for example, in the dial readings which occur in many physical experiments'.
Such a procedure, the author admits, is difficult, but the realization of the humiliating fact that at present '"I" am bound to an automatic body, that this body is the sole instrument of my very existence and that it is unpredictably out of