Sensus Communis, Synesthesia, and the Soul

McLuhan takes up his father Marshall's mantle by marrying communications and religion in this journey through the senses

In this essay of extraordinary scope and depth, Eric McLuhan explores faith as a form of knowing. He does so against the backdrop of preliterate man’s concrete, bodily submersion in the putting on of poetry and drama (the practice of mimesis) and post-literate man’s bodiless submersion in electronic communication, in which sender and receiver are everywhere and nowhere at once. In traversing the Aristotelian and Medieval concept of sensus communis, he examines synesthesia as, in effect, its operating system and charts the modern and contemporary mandate to embrace the discarnate. He washes up on the shore of religion as he uncovers a trinity of knowledge, that is, three kinds of sensus communis—the five physical senses, the four intellectual senses of Scripture (historical, allegorical, tropological, and anagogical), and the three theological senses (faith, hope, and charity)—each of the three complete in itself yet interacting with one another. A fascinating odyssey that will dazzle the senses.

Eric McLuhan (1942-2018) was a renowned literary and communications theorist. He is the author of eighteen books, including Cynic Satire, The Human Equation series (written with mime artist Wayne Constantineau), and Theories of Communication. He also co-authored essays and books with Marshall McLuhan, including Media and Formal Cause and Laws of Media: The New Science.

Luke Burgis has founded and led multiple companies. He’s currently entrepreneur-in-residence and director of programs at the Ciocca Center for Principled Entrepreneurship at the Catholic University of America, where he also teaches business and develops new education initiatives. He's also the founder and director of Fourth Wall Ventures, an incubator for people and companies that contribute to the formation of a healthy human ecology. He graduated from NYU Stern School of Business and later from a pontifical university in Rome, where he studied theology. He is the author of Wanting and he lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife, Claire.