Dasein

The primitive realization, prior to true individuality and social acceptance of the individual soul, of nevertheless [being-in-the-world]

. At this stage the ego is very fragile and may lapse into [fascinans]

, or identification with some prepossessing external. Such a lapse may be referred to as [soul-loss]

. It is said to be involved in all mental disturbances and to be resisted by anxiety. Magical powers, such as possessed by a [shaman]

, will protect a community against soul-loss. This is the basis of ceremonies in which the shaman first allows himself to be overwhelmed by fascinans, identifying himself with the possible source of soul-loss; and then, through dasein, overwhelms the fascinans and passes this insight on to the community.

Dasein as transcendental imagination is not a subject but a trans- or pre-subjective self preceding the dichotomy of subject and object and rendering it possible. Such imagination is then an indeterminate unknown that lies between the subject and the object.

To be means to be open, unhidden, and Dasein means to be the place of this openness and unconcealment. Dasein is therefore primarily not man at all but the place of the presence and revelation of Being. Dasein is the truth of Being, namely Being in its openness. It is a basic misunderstanding to emphasize Being as a noun, suppressing its significance as a verb. Being is not a vacuous concept standing for something remote or abstract. Rather it is the most concrete and closest of presences. Ordinary human life moves within a preconceptual understanding of Being. Dasein's being-in-the-world is a unitary phenomenon, a primary datum within which the question of whether the world exists apart from the knowing subject simply does not arise.