If you’ve read Ken you’re familiar with the pre-trans fallacy (PTF). But is it valid? Is it itself a fallacy? To have a PTF the so-called transrational states of consciousness have to actually be…transrational.
And what if they’re not, as I’ve suggested before, but are really pre-rational stages of development that are highly and laterally developed via meditation?
Is it necessarily the case that if one like myself makes such a suggestion that we are automatically reductionist and have a lower than “integral” level of cognition?ÂÂ
Is it possible to still be considered “integral” without a belief is such transrational states of spirituality?
For a reminder, here’s how Ken described the PTF in Integral Spirituality (draft) pp. 70-71:
If you do not believe in Spirit, then you will take every trans-rational event and reduce it to pre-rational impulses and preverbal twaddle, perhaps claiming it is regressive, nothing but a holdover from the oceanic fusion days of infancy. You are a grand reductionist, and your names are legion, and happily you go about the day, collapsing trans-rational to pre-rationalâ€â€reducing any experience of Spirit to a bit of undigested meat, and God is something you can simply outgrow, if you just keep trying. With this sleight of hand, this intellectual bit of laziness, all genuine trans-rational realities are dismissed.
If, on the other hand, you believe in Spirit, and anything non-rational is Spirit, then it appears that every pre-rational twitch or twingeâ€â€no matter how infantile, childish, regressive, self-centered, irrational, or egocentricâ€â€is somehow deeply spiritual or religious, and so you go about reinforcing those areas in your awareness that will most fight maturity. Every Peter-Pan piety is encouragedâ€â€under the name of Spiritâ€â€as pre-rational is gloriously elevated to transrational. This makes even my selfish, pre-rational, preconventional impulses appear especially spiritualâ€â€yet they are not beyond reason, but beneath it.
This has to be taken in light of Ken’s recent placement of so-called transrational spiritual states experienced in meditation as no longer above the rational stages of cognition in the Wilber-Combs matrix. It would seem that Ken himself no longer considers them transrational?
Here’s how wikipedia describes Washburn’s take on it:
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transpersonal_psychology
According to Washburn the person emerges from the preconscious depths of the psyche. Later on, in the first half of life, development reaches the stage of normal egoic functioning. In the second half of life, if development goes well, the person might get the opportunity to return to, and reintegrate, the primordial depths of the psyche. Within the frames of Washburn’s theory this reintegration might be said to take place at a higher, trans-egoic, level (Kasprow & Scotton, 1999).
It might also be useful to read Perspectives in Transpersonal Theory by Gerry Goddard at http://mars.ark.com/~gero/persp-tt.html
Just a few random (and possibly useless) thoughts on this: I haven’t read Washburn properly but I have to admit that often in my own spiritual experiences, I find that I can sometimes regress and then a new “cycle” so to speak, begins. What I mean is, I have a partial or mini ego death, and then I literally feel reborn. I feel like a baby again. I want a mother to take care of me. I cry a lot because I feel isolated again. My brain processes the things I’ve just discovered and I have a heightened sense of awareness until this becomes automatic. But usually in a little while this passes and I find everything returning to normal again with a new awareness, with greater intentional control over some of my biological mechanisms at least (e.g. mainly my sex drive). As with an actual baby, the whole thing tires me physically and I sleep a lot in the aftermath of a partial ego death and rebirth. As I’ve had more experiences, each time this cycle gets shorter. So basically in my own life I’ve observed history repeating itself until I get wiser and wiser and the cycles get shorter and shorter.
Looking at child development, we find that babies are constantly observing the worlding, having sensory overload, with their brains constantly processing data. They sleep a lot because this process is tiring. Choice and action are the result of intentional or unintentional filtering of all the data that the brain is processing. I’ve found that personal growth is a matter of making such filtering increasingly *intentional* while expanding the *scope* of what can be processed. Speaking for myself, my experiences have always led to a greater control over some biological mechanisms like my sex and sleep drive.
So based on my own experiences, I don’t think a simplistic linear model of development suffices (i.e. pre-rational to rational to transrational). The cycle often repeats with each partial ego death for me (getting shorter each time), although I have greater awareness of my coping mechanisms each time and greater control over some of my biological mechanisms as a long-term consequence.
In other words, I think I’m in agreement with you, Edward. From my far-from-scholarly perspective, Wilber’s model seems too linear, and based on this model of linear time that we find in Western culture. For me personally, linear time is starting to look like an illusion created by the ego.
All of this requires a lot of thought and reading. My problem is that right now I don’t have the resources (no access to an academic library). Can’t wait till I’m in the US for grad school!
More jumbled up stuff: I have a very existentialist approach to psychotherapy because in healing myself from my traumas (which I mostly had to do all by myself in the absence of any real support), I’ve become more and more aware of the things I am doing to protect myself from dealing with my existential terror (or bliss, depending on which way you look at it — two sides of the same coin). There’s always a period of vulnerability after an awakening because you’ve suddenly become aware of your coping mechanisms and you’re afraid you’ll lose control of them. So you need to develop new ones in order to continue living in the “normal” state of consciousness with your heightened awareness of yourself. But while you’re doing this, you often regress to the older coping mechanisms — e.g. I bawl like a baby and do silly “pre-rational” things like holding on to rituals and clinging to various parental figures in my life (spiritual friends who take on the role of a mother when I’m like this) and what-not to make myself forget the awakening I just had because I’m afraid I won’t be able to control it. Eventually I realize the older mechanisms can’t work forever, and I take responsibility and develop new ones. Bhakti helps.
OTOH, you actually can never permanently regress to what you were before the awakening. I’ve tried to reverse the process of spiritual evolution (because I just got sick of how hard it was) and it actually doesn’t work. You can get the mind to forget what you experienced (and as cognitive science shows, the mind is notorious for its ability to forget), but the soul never forgets.
This is the bit that’s paradoxical. If my understanding is bearably correct, Washburn’s approach is more cyclical and Wilber’s is more linear. But honestly it sometimes looks to me like *both* of them are correct — they are just describing different aspects or poises of the process. Perhaps history is repeating itself, but with each death and rebirth, there’s heightened self-awareness. The cycles are getting smaller each time, and so it starts to look like we’re converging toward a teleological destiny.
Argh, my head hurts.
Sorry for being so rambly, but in regards to your question Edward, about whether or not one can be “Integral” without believing in transrational realities or levels of consciousness, all I can say is, these are just words and our map-making is in my opinion just a way to cope with our isolation and find others on the path. I can’t speak for anyone but myself because all I can speak of authentically are my own experiences.
My own experiences contradict the notion that no transrational realities exist. Every time I have a soul-level awakening I become aware of a source of infinite knowledge, infinite thoughforms. I can literally see my mind going round and round in circles, coming with dualities, showing me that the dualities are a figment of my imagination, created by my finite ego-mind in this finite world. I realize that Truth is not “either/or” but rather “both/and”. So the fear of winning or losing an argument disappears, because I realize that the counterarguments will come to me intuitively anyway.
Spirituality is basically about relationships in my opinion. The universe is fragmented and its different parts are trying to establish relationships with each other, shared linguistic spaces, shared maps, etc., so that the universe can unify itself. That is probably the teleological destiny that Aurobindo and Mirra are calling Supramentalisation. But for us to reach that point we absolutely have to LISTEN. I’m a terrible listener in real life because I have a such a noisy, distracting ego-mind.
But all the soul does IS listen. The soul is utterly quiet. I’m using a definition of the soul that is similar to process theology and also to what Jacob Needleman writes about the soul. The soul is basically a dynamic process that starts to develop when we have simultaneous awareness of both Spirit and body. It’s the relationship between us and the Divine, because unlike all the abusive gurus out there who have Divine Light mixed with ego, the actual Divine doesn’t ever want to hurt us. It wants to listen to us and respond accordingly, compassionately, according to OUR needs in this finite world, not according to its own agenda. To live in the Divine presence and learn to love the way God loves we have to lose our own agenda COMPLETELY, and really learn to listen to others.
Here is what Needleman has to say on the matter:
——–
In short, the soul is not a fixed entity. According to Fr. Sylvan it is a movement, that begins whenever a man or woman experiences the psychological pain of contradiction. It is an actual energy, but one that is only at some beginning stage of its development and action. Every day, every more or less average individual experiences the appearance of this energy in its most embryonic stage. Whenever there is pain or contradiction, this energy of the soul is released or activated. Lost Christianity is the lost or forgotten power of man or woman to extract the pure energy of the soul from the experiences that make up his or her life. This possibility is distinct only in the most vivid or painful moments of our ordinary lives, but it can be discovered in all experiences if one knows how to seek it.
Certain powerful experiences are often accompanied by the sensation of presence, and attention appears that is simultaneously open to a higher, freer mind or spirit, and to all the perceptions, sensations and emotions that constitute our ordinary self. One feels both separate and engaged in a new and entirely extraordinary way. One experiences “I am.†This is the soul in its inception.
It was a disaster for Christianity, according to Fr. Sylvan, when it adopted the notion that the soul of the human being already exists in finished form within human nature. This assumption about the given existence of the soul led to our identification of ordinary kinds of thoughts, emotions and sensations with the soul, the higher part of ourselves, and hence to the futile and mistaken effort to perfect our being by perfecting our thoughts, emotions, and sensations, that is, the futile effort of thought to alter emotion, or vice versa.
Your only freedom consists in where to place your attention.
——–
Heh, so basically what I’m getting at is that I’m just trying to listen to everyone’s point of view now without getting threatened by it, and even if your experiences contradict mine, I’d really like to hear about them and try to see the wisdom in them.
The summary is that before we set out to observe the universe, we need to cultivate the humility to observe ourselves. That for me is true objectivity. The only truly objective Observer is God, and personally I think the map-making is just a way to cope until we evolve to the stage where the entire universe has woken up and harmonized itself and then and only then will we have a final “theory of everything” (which in my opinion will probably just be silence
). Until then, all I can do is listen and offer my own crude maps. The acid test for me about whether or not I’m going in the right direction is to see whether or not my own being is tending more and more toward unconditional loving and a greater sense of freedom.
This stuff is really overwhelming me these days because I’m just getting out of another awakening. So sorry if I’m letting my ego run loose here! I think the blogosphere is absolutely brilliant — a way to get things out and feel like people are listening! I don’t need a therapist, I’ve got a blog.
John Stuart Mill once said something that to me was a nugget of Divine wisdom. He said that when people debate, they are both correct in what they affirm, but wrong in what they deny. This is something that’s taken me a long time to understand. This is where the feminine principle of listening intently is so important. If we’re truly to start seeing the Divine, we have to really start listening to other people and try to see what they are saying, even though it may contradict our own opinions.
This is the beauty of dialogue. David Bohm’s ideas on dialogue have really inspired me. In a dialogue I’m not trying to prove that the other person’s map is wrong. I’m trying to nuance or update my OWN map as best as I can based on what I glean from my communication with that person. How can we possibly live in the Divine presence without realizing that EVERYONE no matter how ignorant or stupid they appear to us on the surface (in this finite world) is totally equal to us deep down? To start seeing the Divine in everyone and everything we have to cultivate inner silence and incredible humility. I’m really awful at this!
So we’re back to another duality: spiritual growth is BOTH hierarchical AND peer-to-peer (egalitarian). Another duality created by our ego-minds!
In spirituality, we’re really just making it up as we go along and so getting attached to any one cognitive map is totally pointless. My main use for intellectual debate now is just to show myself that it’s so easy to observe the mind going round and round in circles. In my own experience, the mind cannot arrive at the Absolute Truth by itself, without higher gnosis.
This guy here has really put it well in his article “Toward an objective spirituality.”
http://www.mtnmath.com/artt72h/node8.html
——
“God is not a completed being but an ever expanding process of evolving consciousness. We, as the highest form of consciousness on this planet, are the eyes of God with the power to create the world through conscious control of future evolution. We cannot make decisions about this based on religious or spiritual feeling alone. History teaches us how badly our feelings and instincts can lead us astray without objective tests. Science has shown what miraculous progress is possible with the guiding star of objectivity.
Equating the existence of physical structure with conscious experience is the starting point of an objective spirituality. It establishes a framework for reconnecting scientific understanding to values by connecting structure to essence.
It implies that we are and always will be the merest hint of a shadow of what will be. Precisely because there is no ultimate or final goal but only an ever expanding horizon we must always value the experience of the moment for that is all that will ever exist.”
——
And this is really it — this is what my experiences have taught me. As long as I am human and choosing to remain stuck within the prison of my ego-mind, all I can ever hope to do is catch GLIMPSES of the Divine and then elaborate on them by mentally masturbating. I mentally masturbate because I can’t cope with the immense power within. It’s a defense mechanism to protect me from the bliss within that my ego fools me into thinking is terror. Until I have mentally masturbated to my heart’s content and cultivated the soul’s silence, all I have access to are shadows.
So at this finite level, all I know is that I don’t know! And the only thing that helps me deal with the anxiety of this is bhakti — the constant remembrance that my Source is Infinite and All-Knowing, and is always there to guide me. With the Divine’s ever-present assistance all I am doing is co-creating in my own sphere of existence by making the right choices as best as I can.
Thanks for your contributions Ned. I too think blogs help us to process, as process, in process. It’s a different form of writing than the polished, “finished” product of academia. The former is dialogical, the latter monological. Granted academic writing is also dialogical in that one responds to others’ finished products, but their thought processes are not revealed “in process” as in blogs. This is also why I find blogs to be a more open and self-revealing forum. And a place to practice bhakti, as you’ve noted.
Your quote from Toward an Objective Spirituality had a Derridean ring to it in that God is not a finished product but “an ever expanding horizon.” Therefore the goal of deconstruction is not to annihilate the current conceptions so that nothing remains in a terror of relativist equivalence. It merely reminds us that its never finished, despite our ever-evolving and better and more inclusive perspectives that do make relevant, appropriate, qualitiative judgments based on our current evolution. This realization does indeed elicit bliss in how far we’ve come, but also by knowing how much farther we have to go AND that we’ll never get there. The latter might elicit a more humble perspective.
As to whether it matters if such states of consciousness are pre- or tranrational, it does so only in terms of how we conceive of God or Spirit. If we see the Ultimate as a fixed product there is an END in sight. And when we choose to speak for this end we end up with hegemonic and dominating relations. So to me the whole “trans” aspect of states of consciousness arises from this very metaphysical notion of making the indefinite definite. And I think you might be right Ned in that we do so due to our existential fear of mortality. Even the God of today dies and a new (and different) God is reborn in every future “to come.”
Here is an excerpt from Goddard’s above referenced essay:
…while Wilber’s pre-trans distinction is valid in one sense, transcendence of the ego level actually implies a re-encounter with the original ground unconscious. Transformation beyond the dualistic mental-ego lies through a re-encounter with the original matrix, which is not so in Wilber’s model. Grof’s findings in particular suggest that there is no sharp distinction between these dimensions and that the transformational encounter with the unconscious is not restricted to the personal biographical level ‘this side’ of the transpersonal level. According to Grof (1985), Wilber’s emphasis on linearity and on the radical difference between pre-phenomena and trans-phenomena is too absolute a distinction. He writes,
“The psyche has a multidimensional, holographic nature, and using a linear model to describe it will produce distortions and inaccuracies…My own observations suggest that, as consciousness evolution proceeds from the centauric to the subtle realms and beyond, it does not follow a linear trajectory, but in a sense enfolds into itself. In this process, the individual returns to earlier stages of development, but evaluates them from the point of view of a mature adult. At the same time, he or she becomes consciously aware of certain aspects and qualities of these stages that were implicit, but unrecognized when confronted in the context of linear evolution. Thus, the distinction between pre- and trans- has a paradoxical nature; they are neither identical, nor are they completely different from each other. When this understanding is then applied to the problems of psychopathalogy, the distinction between evolutionary and pathological states may lie more in the context, the style of approaching them and the ability to integrate them into everyday life than in the intrinsic nature of the experiences involved” (p. 137).
Any adequate synthesis of Grof’s and Wilber’s perspectives must certainly incorporate this more holographic and wrap around nature of consciousness within the grand spectrum. As Tarnas (1991) puts it,
“…this archetypal dialectic was often experienced simultaneously on both an individual level and, often more powerfully, a collective level, so that the movement from primordial unity through alienation to liberating resolution was experienced in terms of the evolution of an entire culture, for example, or of humankind as a whole — the birth of homosapiens out of nature no less than the birth of the individual child from the mother. Here personal and transpersonal were equally present, inextricably fused, so that ontogeny not only recapitulated phylogeny but in some sense opened into it” (p.429).
A synthesizing model must provide precisely such a nonlinear, holographic and personal/transpersonal interpenetrating structure while at the same time preserving, albeit in modified form, the essential insights of holarchical perennialism. It is this idea of the necessary re-encounter with the ground unconscious that constitutes the first levels of the transpersonal domain which is also the main feature of Michael Washburn’s model. Such a synthesizing framework needs to be articulated in terms of Wilber’s general perennialist holarchical scheme, and at the same time incorporating the dynamic/dialectical depth dimension of Washburn while mapping Grof’s matrices as implicit (pre-manifest) within the picture. I believe that the nature of the fundamental dialectic; namely, the ego/ground and conscious/unconscious relation, can be more adequately pictured than by Washburn (cum Jung/Neumann) and in this way can reconcile the deepest insights of Wilber, Washburn, Grof, and Tarnas.
And some more from Goddard:
Hence, we are not speaking of a ’something’ separating from something else and then rejoining it at a higher level. But we are certainly acknowledging a process of distinction and separation which eventually and optimally, at a new and higher level, leads to a reconnection, a higher level integration than original fusion. We are not positing some retroregressive return to primal levels which were allegedly more ’spiritual’ than the mental-egoic level. Furthermore, this higher level integration is not something entirely different and distinct from original fusion as Wilber would have it, but is a higher level manifestation of the same archetypal dynamic which informed the original fusion!
I think Washburn et al. are making a mountain out of a molehill. As I have discussed here previously, the various lower structures or brains in humans are overgrown and controlled by the higher ones. Thus, e.g., we do not ordinarily have pure sensory experiences, because our sensory brain is greatly modulated by the intellect.
When we transcend these brains, we are able to access them in their pure form, so to speak. If one wants to say this is the higher going to the lower, fine, but the lower experienced in this manner is not the same experience that someone with only the lower has. So one might experience one’s early childhood, but not in the same way one did as a child.
Which is of course what Goddard and Washburn say Andy. But they also say that its not just the personal sub- and unconscious but also the collective sub- and unconscious. As you noted earlier, the majority of consciousness is sub- or unconcious. It’s a vast storehouse that can contain everything from our individual psycho-history to collective archetypes. So in that sense it’s “trans” personal but not necessarily in the sense of being transrational.
this thread reminds me of an old essay I wrote in 1998, “Transpersonal Psychology at a Crossroads”
http://www.integralworld.net/esseng2.html
it’s about that both depth and height psychology have their own notion of “trans”, which is very confusing in the discussion.
and great you guys are bringing up Goddard’s work again!
and note that even in the Wilber-Combs Lattice, there’s a “super-integral” top row (unspecified), so even in Wilber-5 development still heads for the trans-personal (in the height psychological sense).
Yes, Ken does hint at the higher vertical structure-stages beyond cross-paradigmatic on the vertical scale of the Wilber-Combs matrix. And that they have similarities to the gross, subtle, causal and nondual state-stages but are not that, exactly. As to what they are exactly he didn’t say. I guess that information is reserved for the inner, esoteric circle that must first perform the ancient and venerable rite of “the sucking of the dick?” No suckee no luckee.
And again, to Ken’s credit, he notes the following in IS (draft) about the trans states and/or stages. This can also contextualize the pre-trans fallacy itself in that it depends on a philosophy of consciousness to establish it, for even the trans cannot see the myth of the given. Even the pre-trans fallacy is part of the myth of the given. Oh…my…God!!!
From pp. 207-208:
The myth of the given or monological consciousness is essentially another name for phenomenology and mere empiricism in any of a hundred guisesâ€â€whether regular empiricism, radical empiricism, interior empiricism, transpersonal empiricism, empirical phenomenology,
transcendental phenomenology, radical phenomenology, and so forth. As important as they might be, what all of them have in common is the myth of given, which includes:
–the belief that reality is simply given to me, or that there is a single pregiven world that consciousness delivers to me more or less as it is, instead of a world that is con-structured in various ways before it ever reaches my empirical or phenomenal awareness.
–the belief that the consciousness of an individual will deliver truth. This is why Habermas calls the myth of the given by the phrase “the philosophy of consciousnessâ€Ââ€â€and that is what he is criticizing because it is blind to intersubjectivity, among other things. As we have been saying throughout this book, consciousness itself simply cannot see zones #2 and #4, and therefore is deficient in and of itself (e.g., “Not through introspection but through history do we come to know ourselvesâ€Â). You can introspect
all you want and you won’t see those other truths. So consciousness itself is deficientâ€â€whether personal or transpersonal, whether pure or not pure, essential or relative, high or low, big mind or small mind, vipassana, bare attention, centering prayer, contemplative awarenessâ€â€none of them can see these other truths, and that is why Habermas and the postmodernists extensively criticize “the philosophy of consciousness.â€Â
–a failure to understand that the truth that the subject delivers is constructed in part by intersubjective cultural networks. This is why the myth of the given is also called “the philosophy of the subjectâ€Ââ€â€what we also need is “the philosophy of the intersubject, or intersubjectivity.â€Â
–the belief that the mirror of nature, or the reflection paradigm, is an adequate methodology. The recent move in spiritual approaches is to take the reflection paradigm (or phenomenology) and simply try to extend it to cover other realities (such as transpersonal, spiritual, meta-normal, planetary consciousness, complexity thinking, etc.). This is essentially the belief that the reflection paradigm, or monological empiricism and monological phenomenology, will cover transpersonal and spiritual realities. But the subject does not reflect reality, it co-creates it.
Now that I think further of it, the PTF is actually not part of the philosophy of consciousness. Well, not entirely. It arises from a structuralist perspective that sees structure-stages not seen within zone 1. However the state-stages that are seen within zone 1 were confused with the structure-stages of meditation by the premoderns as well as Ken himself in previously seeing them as becoming structure-stages when they were “stablized.” This will require more thought, investigation and dialogue to tease apart these distinctions as it relates to the PTF.
Regarding Washburn, et al, there is definitely something to the fact that “lower” levels – or at least psychic material from “lower levels” are revisited, and this revisiting takes place WHILE utilizing techniques for accessing higher levels.
Why this is, I have no idea. I’ve always been partial to some type of spiraling view, the conch shell, whereby one is “higher”, but revisits earlier psychic material that is touched on vertically.
of course, I haven’t worked out what is vertical, or what is horizontal – but there must be some view why, various techniques that “open one up” to the transpersonal also open one up to various early and powerful imprinting experiences, as those are brought up, and the charge associated with relaxed, as one relaxes into clear consciousness.
I’ll have to backtrack to previous discussions here. Ken notes in IS that the natural states of waking, dreaming and deep sleep “contain a treasure trove of spiritual wisdom and spiritual awakening… if we know how to use them correctly” and “the 3 great natural states of waking, dreaming, and deep sleep might contain an entire spectrum of spiritual enlightenment (p. 10).”
I think it might be a safe assumption that the natural states of waking, dreaming and deep sleep are what is usually referred to as the personal consciouss, subconscious and unconscious. Yet we can achieve the heights of the tranpersonal from the depths of these prepersonal, natural states. So in that sense it would appear that Ken is in line with Washburn on this.
But of course there is always a condition: “If we know how to use them correctly.” Meaning, meditative practice. However, so-called spiritual awakening is associated with these trained, meditative state experiences, which are, according to Ken, bringing conscious awareness of the waking state into the natural states of the subconscious and unconscious. I can only assume at this point that what differentiates pre from trans here is the fact that conscious awareness is introduced into the natural states. Again, this is in accord with Washburn.
Now Mark goes into how what Ken is doing here is in fact commiting a PTF, confusing the natural states with trans states. I’ll explore that in a latter comment.
But still, at bottom of all this is the fact that Ken equates state training as being “spiritual” or “trans” training, yet he says that all of what is experienced in this training is indeed still monological and is part of the myth of the given. So how do we differentiate the myths of consciousness with the reality of a trans level that is part of the myth?
“If ‘enlightenment’ (or any sort of unio mystica) really meant going through all of those 8 stages, then how could somebody 2000 years ago be enlightened, since some of the stages, like systemic GlobalView, are recent emergents?” (IS draft, p. 107)
“…many of the great contemplative texts, sutras, and tantras were written in the cognitive line from at least the turquoise and often indigo or violet levels.” (IS draft, p. 127)
Mark Edwards, An Alternative View on States (AVS) Part I:
The current integral theory model of states is committing a category error, the Pre-trans Fallacy #2 to be precise, when it proposes that individuals access transpersonal states and/or realms when they enter into the natural states of dream sleep and deep sleep. This error has important implications for the whole of the Integral theory of states.
Regressive states are those that fall below the self-system’s average level of development in its baseline waking state. In their healthy form these might also be called involutionary states (which include dreaming and deep sleep) in that the self-system temporarily identifies itself with formative and developmentally earlier aspects of its identity.
Progressive states (which include peak experiences and flow experiences) are those that rise above the self-system’s average level of development in its baseline waking state. In their healthy form these might also be called evolutionary states in that the self-system temporarily identifies itself with more advanced levels of developmental potential.[
Naturally induced states come in two main varieties:
i. Those that involve the deliberate training of consciousness and behaviour over a long period. These include such things as advanced meditation, high performance athletic ability or artistic and extreme absorption in the natural world or some other revered object of attention. These ASC that require training are almost always evolutionary states because they are developmental potentials that have not yet been fully realised by the self-system.
ii. The natural ASC that occur without effort are the dreaming or REM sleep state and the deep sleep or Non-REM sleep state. They generally require no-training or deliberate practising to be achieved because they relate to formative stages of identity that have subsequently been completely integrated within a more expansive self-system.
Mark Edwards, AVS II:
Before looking at the some traditional views on states I need to put in a cautionary word. Almost all pre-modern, traditional transpersonal models of spirituality had very little or no understanding of childhood development, psychopathology or the developmental stages that lead up the personal egoic identity. As such, they are often unaware of any PTF considerations. Hence, when we interpret any traditional models of the transpersonal we need to be very aware that serious category errors are common in the traditional views of sleep, dreams, ASCs psychotic states, mental illnesses and the infant/child state.
It is with some prudence then that traditional views on states and stages that may include pre-personal components should be taken over into the integral view. At the very least we need to run them through a PTF filter to realign the pre-bits with the earlier forms of development and the trans-bits with the later forms of development. Wilber has performed this re-alignment and re-interpretive process on many theories and worldviews views, particularly those of the Jungian, new age/new paradigm, new mythology, and plural-spiritualist varieties. He has not, it seems to me, been as diligent with reviewing the Vedantic and Vajrayana traditions in their treatment of states. By his admission he has adopted many aspects of these models without modification.
Both Vedanta Hinduism and Vajrayana Buddhism have developed models of the sleeping and dreaming states which they tie into their philosophies of spirituality.
The nescient state of deep sleep is an undifferentiated state of complete immersion where no self-other, subject-object distinction exists. But this is also the undifferentiated immersion of the pleroma or at least the self-without-other state of the archaic uroboros. Duality only arises with the emergence of the early mind, linguistic identity and the membership self. So we have the nonduality of the very primordial developmental stages and experiential states being associated with the very advanced developmental stages and experiential states. This is evidenced in many passages in Advaitic texts where the state of deep sleep is recognised as a state of avidya or not-knowing and yet is also seen to be a nondual state of bliss or ultimate being.
Aurobindo, using the traditional name of “prajna” for the deep sleep state, calls it the state of “all delight”, “He who knows”, and “the Wise One”. All these are examples of PTF-2 connections between the deep sleep state and the very highest causal state of transpersonal experience.
Wilber rightly regards Ramana Maharshi to be one of the great spiritual sages of history. He refers to his writings quite frequently and quotes him specifically with regard to the states of sleep and how they relate to the transpersonal realms. But Raman’s writings on these matters are not at all straightforward and he at times follows closely the traditional Advaitic predilection of associating sleep with the transpersonal and at other times warns against doing so.
But Ramana is saying that the sleep states cannot simply be equated with the transpersonal and that they are states of “nescience” or ignorance rather than transpersonal insight. Arthur Osbourne, one of the pre-eminent students and interpreters of Ramana’s writing says that Ramana “guarded against” the idea that the transpersonal states of realisation were “like” states of sleep.
Sri Aurobindo’s interpretation of the Deep Sleep state as the very highest causal state is, in fact, in variance with the traditional Vedantic and Buddhist thought and their modern commentators. Sri Aurobindo brings in the precision of Vedic insights to the fore in their pristine simplicity and beauty and in that lies his supremacy. But the secret is to read The Life Divine oneself instead of relying upon stereotyped two-liners written by someone else.
[Re: Re: The Death of Man or Post-Humanism 101
by Debashish on Fri 17 Nov 2006 07:12 PM PST | Profile | Permanent Link
http://www.sciy.org/blog/_archives/2006/11/16/2504561.html#783939
About Derrida's principled refusal to name the Other, I too admire him for his mystical, linguistic and social rigor. But I do not think this is the only path of language in an age of transition. To the complaint from a critic that the line from Savitri "Teased the Inconscient to wake Ignorance" was not good poetry because it was full of "metaphysical abstractions," Sri Aurobindo replied that things like Inconscient and Ignorance were not at all either "metaphysical" or "abstractions" to him, but realities of experience and he was stating it like he saw it. So if his reader did not see it like his saw it, the best he could expect is that he would some day. In the meantime, he also outlined his theory of The Future Poetry to prepare the openness to a legitimate reception of his language.]
Thanks for the link Tusar. It’s good to see that an Aurobindo adherent can appreciate and understand Derrida, unlike some “integral” thinkers. You and Alan are right, I do need to check into this Aurobindo fellow. From your link:
One does respect Derrida for recognizing the utter potential for the disaster which logocentrism and a transcendental signified can bring to interpretation; and in so doing for remaining at the “marginsâ€Â. Although Derrida’s work can be seen as providing a remedy to the totalizing narratives of metaphysics, in which the whole tyrannizes it’s parts, it can also be said that if metaphysics had not existed he would have had to invent it to be coherent. But Derrida gestures, hints, puns, and his way toward finding a heuristic for encountering the Other. The true Kabbalist he refrains from speaking the “One Word†which when spoken dissipates the phenomena, in a metaphysical abstraction.
Look at Mark’s 2 main varieties of natually induced states, meditative (and other) training and the natural states of dreaming sleep and deep sleep. I think this too can be reconciled with both Ken’s and Washburn’s ideas in that the natural sub-conscious and unconscious are transformed by a developed awareness skill (meditation), and that this skill is indeed an evolutionary advance. It seems both Ken and Washburn recognize that the naturual, prerational states have been transformed by conscious awareness and that they are not equated.
But I think Ken and Mark continue to “inflate” these states into something transrational, i.e., beyond cross-paradigmatic stages. Ken makes a good case that one can achieve advanced meditative training and have stable casual and nondual realization but still not have advanced beyond a conventional (mythic-rational) cognitive line. To me this indicates that such meditative training IS an evolutionary stage training, but not “trans”rational stage training. It is an advanced and lateral egoic-rational training whereby the ego can look back with intent focus on earlier stages like dreaming and sleep. And when they do so, without higher cognitive capacity that is a RECENT emergent, it is intepreted as something “beyond” the rational ego, the later of which has been around in the times the traditions were instituted.
Contrary to popular belief, the ego did not originate in the last 300 years. Perhaps that is when it stablized as a kosmic habit in the general populace, but the meditative micro-communities were are the leading edge of stage development and were certainly at least at the mythic-rational transition. Which brings up an interesting question as to whether any of these types of traditions even could exist at a level pre-ego.
Hi Edward,
Not sure that I get your point here, Are you saying that the pre-/trans- distinction for both states and structures is not accurate?
No, I’m suggesting that pre/trans is accurate for stages but that there is no transrational stage, as yet. Cross-paradigmatic cognition, though trans formal reasoning, is not trans reasoning.
I’m also suggesting that so-called subtle and causal states are also not transrational. I’m guessing at this point that they are indeed how the prior stages of dreaming (subconscious) and deep sleep (unconscious) appear to (or are translated by) one who has laterally and highly developed their ego-witness capacity with meditation at the formal operational level of cognition. And finally, I’m suggesting that to intepret this phenomenon as transrational is part of the very traditional culture that you’ve rightly noted makes so many confusions with stages.
I’m sorry Edward – now I’m really confused. I’m sure you have a worthy idea here but I don’t understand it. You’ll need to clarify for my how you can maintain that the “pre/trans is accurate for stages” while also saying that there “is no transrational stage”. This is like saying the experience of children and mystics gets confused all the time but, actually, there are no mystics.
Yes, there are mystics, but what is it they experience? And how is that experience different from a child?
Pre-trans is relational; pre or trans what? Usually the pre-trans refers to rationality. Pre-rationality is the child, transrational is the mystic. What I’m saying is that mystics and children are not equated, but they are possibly accessing the same thing (dream and sleep). It’s just that an aspect of a higher stage not found in childhood, the rational ego, is super-developed laterally in meditation. (It’s like you highly developed sports analogy.) This highly developed aspect of a higher stage (ego-witness) focuses backward in development on dream and sleep (sub- and unconsious), which produces an experience of those stages that is different than the child given its higher altitude. In other words, an altered state experience of a lower stage. This experience is trans-child yet not trans rational.
I’m not claiming this is fact, just speculation based on looking into alternative ways to view states and stages, like Washburn, Grof, Tarnas and Goddard. I’m just trying to figure out what seem like inconsistencies in this whole state-stage, pre-trans, Wilber-Combs matrice combined with the pomo critique of the myth of the given of pure phenomenology.
Or to recapitulate re: Washburn from wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transpersonal_psychology
According to Washburn the person emerges from the preconscious depths of the psyche. Later on, in the first half of life, development reaches the stage of normal egoic functioning. In the second half of life, if development goes well, the person might get the opportunity to return to, and reintegrate, the primordial depths of the psyche. Within the frames of Washburn’s theory this reintegration might be said to take place at a higher, trans-egoic, level (Kasprow & Scotton, 1999).
I think that Wilber’s description and explanation of the pre-trans fallacy in “Eye to Eye” is perhaps his greatest contribution to the history of ideas. The transrational stages are not highly develop forms of the rational stages – that’s why they are transrational. Washburn’s model is interesting but suffers from the very strong form of PTF-2 that it wants to endorse. One of the very few empirial studies of Wilberian ideas compared the Wilber and Washburn models as they relate to pre-trans life trajectories (see reference). The abstract for this “empirical examination of Wilber’s and Washburn’s theories” reads as follows;
“Participant observation and open-ended interviews with Indian and English elderly who were recognised as spiritually mature provided data for evaluating Washburn’s claim that a period of egoic regression preceeds movement to transpersonal level. Hermeneutical analysis of interview protocols and research notes indicated that half of those nominated in each sample had reached the transpersonal level, of these, only about half gave indications of having undergone a regressive transition period. On the basis of this, and other internal evidence, support was found for Wilber’s theory.”
And elsewhere in the paper,
“Overall, we found no evidence of regression in three of the five English transpersonals and two of the four Indian subjects at that level. … Our data therefore provide instances of several “white crows” that challenge Washburns “black crow” theory — that is, that to arrive at the transpersonal level it is necessary that there be a regressive U-turn. Our data rather supports Wilber’s contention that there in fact may be U-turns, or little deaths, between other stages, as well as at the time of transition from the personal to the transpersonal level, and that these U-turns may or may not be regressive in nature. Thus the three Indian men presently at the rational stage who reported crisis type illnesses may have experienced these U-turns in the movement from mythic/membership stage to the rational stage, which would be consistent with Wilber’s, but not with Washburns theory.”
To repeat, transpersonal stages are not highly developed forms of rationality. They include the rational in the same way that rational identity includes somatic identity but they are fundamentally defined by patterns of experience and behaviour that are qualitatively different from rational forms of being and doing.
I’ve read Washburn’s book “The Ego and the Dynamic Ground” and I was totally unconvinced that his view explains ‘the data” in any way that might be regarded as superior to that of Wilber (either logically, intutively, or scientifically).
But I guess that I’m still missing your point Edward because you know all this stuff, so there must be something else that is on your mind, some other nuance that I’ve missed and have not cottoned onto as yet. My problem is I can’t see what that might be from what you’ve written so far.
Thomas, L. E., Brewer, S. J., Kraus, P., A. & Rosen, B. L., 1993, ‘Two patterns of transcendence: An empirical examination of Wilber’s and Washburn’s theories’, Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 33, 3, 66-81.
Oh yes, and Wilber’s developmental model may be many things but it is not “linear”.
Perhaps part of the problem is that I myself only have an inkling or intuition of what I’m trying to express. It’s not worked out to completion but is merely a door-opening question at this point.
In ths study you cited they used a goup of “elderly who were recognized as spiritually mature.” So what are the assumtions that define spiritually mature? What are the implicit assumptions that define a transpersonal level? We have experiences and then they are labled pre or transpersonal based on developmental levels. So far I’m with the program. An adult has an experience of infinite emptiness and a child has an experience of undifferentiated fusion, yet they are different. Pre-trans: I’m still with the program.
So I’m not saying that one has to regress to childhood states of fusion to experience adult states of emptiness. Again, I’m with the conclusion of the cited study. But what is the nature of the infinite? What is the nature of the Witness? And how do we interpret both? These are the questions I’m exploring and offering tentative and speculative alternatives. I will see if I can provide a more clear explantion forthcoming. In the meantime, these seem like legitimate questions.
So Mark, perhaps if you clarify how you see the relation of states to stages, Ken’s own PTF and the problems inherent in Ken’s Wilber-Combs matrix this will provide a context for me to clarify my own intuitive sense of what doesn’t seem right.
As a start, we might agree that what is conscious is the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. The subconscious contains much more and the unconscious might even be considered infinite. So what we’re calling superconscious emptiness seems to add one key element to the infinite unconscious: conscious awareness. But it is not bare conscious awareness, because animals have that. It is abstracted conscious awareness, an order of abstraction that can differentiate not only me from the other, as again animals can do that. It can abstract a me from myself, my body, my thoughts, my “self.” And this capacity begins where in the developmental stage spectrum?
For example, according to Cook-Greuter this capacity begins to emerge at her stage 3/4, which is still in the conventional category. I’m suggesting this is where the Witness begins. She says in her white paper Ego Development at http://www.harthillusa.com:
Stage 3/4 or the Self-conscious stage characterizes people who are now able to step back and look at themselves as objects from a distance. They can see themselves as object and thus start to reflect upon the self. A conceptual watershed is crossed when one can take the third person perspective. This stage has a distinctly different clinical feel. Individuals begin to be capable of some introspection and self-understanding. It also means they need to differentiate themselves from the immediate family context and assert and express their newly discovered personhood. The third person perspective permits operations with abstract objects and concepts.
This capacity emerges in contemporary children around ages 11-12. Now, imagine when this “conceptual watershed” was first emerging in humanity at least a couple of thousand years ago. It would seem quite mysterious, this ability to look back upon oneself from a vantage point of…where? As Ramana probes, who is doing the looking? Who is this Self that sees the self? Mysterious indeed. And it does seems “trans†self. And in an abstract (rational) sense, it is. But it is not transrational; it is a rational capacity.
Now imagine when this observing self that is apart from the self looks back at previous stages of its own makeup, like the subconscious and the unconscious. Before this emergence these prior stages were undifferentiated. Now that we’ve differentiated from them and experience them with this “witness†it is obviously a different experience. They are seen in a different light, from a different view or altitude. But the altitude that is required to achieve this is only at the 3/4 rational stage, which is still conventional and still interprets what it sees in conventional, cultural contexts. So what if this is what is happening: the “object†of their witnessing is their own prerational stages, not something that is postrationial? How would someone(s) describe such new experiences some two odd thousand years ago, given their cultural context? Might it be something like the subtle and the causal?
So given what we’re learning now from postformal and postconventional stage research (but it’s not postrational*), how might we interpret this scheme in light of these developments? Would it be the same as or different from the traditionsal perspective? Or what would it include from the traditions and what how would we transcend that perspective?
*Cook-Greuter does go into the postrational “mystical†stages with her highly speculative conclusions based on how the traditions themselves interpret the experiential data.
[Derrida the Movie - a Review by Debashish Banerji
by Debashish on Wed 22 Nov 2006 01:28 AM PST | Permanent Link
Derrida - a Film by Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering Kofman (2002)
http://www.sciy.org/blog/_archives/2006/11/22/2518036.html
I had seen this movie on the Fench philosopher Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) earlier when it was released but had occassion to view it again in DVD form. Considering the multiple recent references to Derrida in SCIY, I thought of reviewing the movie. There are a good number of reviews of this movie and the majority of them are not favorable. I agree that if one is trying to learn something about the philosophy of Derrida from the movie or if one was interested in the "juicy details" of his life, one would be disappointed...
Singularity also marks Derrida's meditations on the "secret" and the "gift." Here, too, the question of "who's secret" is haunted by the absent presence of the singular One, the gift of one's deepest secret can be made only by the One to the One since it has no belonging to any particularity. Like true improvization, it escapes from the improvizer/giver to its reception by the Other, but in the singularity of its depth, this "deepest secret" escapes also the Other and disappears into the Unnameable. This raises an aporetic paradox also for the question of human responsibility: "How can another see into me, into my most secret self, without my being able to see in there myself? And without my being able to see him in me. And if my secret self, that which can be revealed only to the other, to the wholly other, to God if you wish, is a secret that I will never reflect on, that I will never know or experience or possess as my own, then what sense is there in saying that it is my secret, or in saying more generally that a secret belongs, that it is proper to or belongs to some one, or to some other who remains someone. It's perhaps there that we find the secret of secrecy. Namely, that it is not a matter of knowing and that it is there for no one. A secret doesn't belong, it can never be said to be at home or in its place. The question of the self: who am I not in the sense of who am I but rather who is this I that can say who? What is the- I and what becomes of responsibility once the identity of the I trembles in secret?" (Jacques Derria, Gift of Death, University of Chicago Press, 1995). ]
I agree mostly with what Mark said. I’m not sure I regard the PTF as Wilber’s greatest contribution, but I agree that it’s a very important idea, and I largely accept it. As I have pointed out elsewhere, what Wilber does not explain is why there should even be a fallacy, why pre- experience should appear like trans- experience. A model that recognizes that non-dual or what I call zero-dimensional experience occurs at every emerging new level can make sense of this.
I also agree with Mark that “transpersonal stages are not highly developed forms of rationality.†Since I distinguish between stages and levels, between transformation and transcendence, I don’t quite agree with his statement that “they include the rational in the same way that rational identity includes somatic identity.†The latter is a transformative difference in my model, whereas transrational is a transcendent difference. Rational identity does not transcend somatic identity, the two frequently conflict, this is why there is war between reason and emotion, or the needs of the intellect and that of the body.
Edward, you say, “according to Cook-Greuter this capacity begins to emerge at her stage 3/4, which is still in the conventional category. I’m suggesting this is where the Witness begins.†Well, if we accept a developmental model, the witness could be said to “begin†anywhere, even with animal consciousness, or even lower forms of consciousness, if they really exist. Wilber thinks consciousness of some sort is part of existence at every level, and I think so, too, though we have no way of proving this. But in any case, I think the important point is that the kind of reflection or self-observation possible at that (3/4) stage, or even at higher, postformal stages, is not the kind of observation possible at a truly transrational stage. These postformal stages still involve thinking, what may be called observing or witnessing one’s thoughts is really thinking about (some) thoughts with (other) thoughts. Wilber himself makes this conflation in IS, when he equates meditation with phenomenology as a zone-1 perspective. The two are very different processes, phenomenology does not lead one to enlightenment.
This is why I don’t accept Edward’s view of meditation as a lateral movement, akin to super-development of the body by athletes. The greatest athlete in the world is still a mortal, who can’t essentially break free of his/her mortality. He/she has skills that are not fundamentally different from the skills all or most of us have, they are just more highly developed. The meditator has a skill, if one should even call it that, which ordinary people do not have.
To These wonderful questions Edward:
But what is the nature of the infinite? What is the nature of the Witness? And how do we interpret both?
I suggest delving into the great sacred texts and into the modern classics by the great prophets, theologians, seers and social justice sages of contemporary times. And find a community that breaths life into one of the honoured traditions of the Mystery and do what they do for yourself. And keep dancing.
peace
mark
I’m doing it Mark and the work-in-progress is here on these pages. And this community is an important part of that process, for which I give thanks on this day of thanksgiving.
Wonderful to hear that Edward.
Gerry Goddard replied to me via email and gave permission to post his clarifcation on the issue below:
The pre-trans distinction is valid enough when applied to developmental stages. The PTF becomes problematic when it denies the reality of a trans-egoic dimension that involves a downward inclusive integration of certain inevitable noospheric divisions as well as an integration of the noosphere with the biosphere which, despite Wilber’s alleged mind-body ‘integrated’ level (centaur), was not possible prior to transpersonal levels. Individuated consciousness, that which constitutes the noosphere, rests on the conscious/unconscious split (where unconsciousness is collective unconsciousness or species-group mind). The advent of the trans-egoic domains is precisely the point where this division no longer holds and is overcome in a higher level inclusion.
The Grofian and Washburnian phenomenology (though not a complete description of the possible experiences of these domains) occurs because consciousness development through the noosphere necessarily occurs through the dualism of individual and collective, agency and communion, which are to be reconciled, and can only be reconciled, in the transegoic. Self reflexive consciousness from the advent of the human brain to the limits of the egoic is necessarily embodied and situated within the greater ocean of psyche (greater than the developing individual). Such an integration involves not only the integration of mind and body, noosphere and biosphere (ontological levels ‘beneath’ the transpersonal which had become increasingly and inevitably divided), but also of the divisions constituting the noosphere itself. (See my Consciousness and the Holonic Infrastructure, http://www.integralworld.net/goddard6.htm.) But the reunification described by Washburn is not the ultimate level realization, nor is the collective unconscious the ultimate Ground of Being. Nevertheless, Washburn and Grof are indeed describing a general stage and level of the transpersonal necessarily involving an interpenetration of consciousness and unconsciousness — a structure or ontological domain deliberately bypassed by such ‘makyo-avoiding’ practices as Zen, yet a level still inevitable in the process of evolutionary integration.
Are we implying here that there is a stage between the rational and transrational, that arises as the noetic or transrational tries to reintegrate with the biophysical? Also, that the PTF does not accurately address this?
I would say the PTF neatly cuts away any innappropriate metaphysical assumptions that might arise from such a stage- which I think was one of Ken’s main points with the PTF in the first place.
As far as the idea of meditation being a purely lateral movement- the trancendent or transrational is made so in part by the nature of it not already being known. Ken (in interviews with Cohen) has talked about spirit moving back down the the spiral to effect change, something like: experiencing the transrational or trancendent creates a reaction in you so that spirit is acting upon itself through you. Yes, you could say that such statements reek of metaphysical assumption, but I don’t think that its that simple. You don’t have to think about the transrational as a self-reflexive metaphysical element, but simply as somehow tied to that which is not yet known/has not yet arisen. If you accept Wilber’s idea of each of the four quadrents as co-creating reality this isn’t such a long jump- the interior aspect of the human holon as it actively allows for new creation- transrational by virtue of being rational but not yet known (trancendent by virtue of its all quadrant potential?). It seems to me that the question to ask is: is meditation or the witness allowing allowing for novel and appropriate new creation in reality in any or all quadrents? If it is then moving backwards (or sideways) is moving forward as well, literally.
Hi Edward,
My problem with the Wilber Coombs lattice comes largely from Wilber’s use of the gross-subtle-causal model, which I think is an archic and therefore anachronistic appraoch to take when discussing developmental issues. for example, gross can refer to thephysical realm that is inhabited by rocks and the material world and it can also refer to gross mind that experiences that world through the senses. similarly, the Subtle can refer to any dream experience, emotional experience, mental image, ecstatic state or mystical experience of a deity form. the definitions are wobbly imprecise and range over huge areas of both phenomenological and philosophical territory. to top it all off Wilber equates the PREpersonal states of dreamless asleep and dreaming sleep with the temporary experience of transpersonal subtle and Causal realms. premodern forms of the perennial philosophy made no distinction between the prepersonal and the transpersonal because they did not understand childhood development. and anyway their distinction between dreaming deep sleep and the waking state were purely for teaching purposes and were not meant to be taken literally (or scientificall).
all this means is that we should not rely on the developmental models of ancient traditions if we want to map out the full scope of human development. they are obviously very helpful for understanding and practising transpersonal experience but I am extremely wary of relying on the traditions when I want to discuss the larger trajectory of human personal and social development. So this whole gross Subtle Causal model is to my way of thinking completely unhelpful, and actually misleading, when it comes to the discussion of the relationships between state stages and structure stages.
States are really a first person experiential phenomenon, whereas stages (or as Wilber sometimes calls them “structures”) are really a third person scientific description of the development of the states over time. states can also be regarded as a temporary first person experience of a potentially Autopoeitic identity structure. The differences are ones of duration and perspective not content this is why pre/trans fallacies can occur with both of these “lenses”. The useful thing behind the wilber-coombs lattice is the idea that transitory states are always interpreted because they are impermanent. There are two basic directions in which the Wilber-Coombs lattice is not so helpfuly. the first is that interpretation is always a social event and is not dependent merely upon one’s own developmental worldviews. the second is that the cause one dimension involves the distinction between gross Subtle and Causal then it is subject to the vagaries of the Pre/trans confusions. as you know all this has been explained in my essays on Frank’s site.
but edward it puzzles me that you have difficulties with the pre/trans ditinction. could I suggest that you read a book like “oneness and separateness: from Infant to individual” by Louise J. Kaplan – lots of these sort of books were written in the Sixties and 70s on childhood development and they are absolutely fall of Pre/Trans confusions and the sort of romantic models of childhood continue to resound in the interpretation of the Renée Baillargeon results on object permanency. See also Norman O Brown and even Joseph Cambell’s work there you’ll get a real taste of how this interpretation of both ontogenetic and phylogenetic forms of the PTF thing inhabits so much writing on spirituality. Unfortaunately, anywhere you see wilber discussing dreaming and dreamless sleep and how these are associated with subtle and causal states you’ll also encounter it – irony of ironies.
Let me begin with quoting some excerpts from Goddard’s above referenced article “Perspectives in Transpersonal Theory.” The article starts with the two stories of transpersonal psychology, the Fall and Progress. He’s trying to find an integration between them. He says:
There is a general agreement between these paradigms that higher level mystical Realizations presuppose the development of some sort of autonomous self sense. Even the post-Jungian view ~ if we can call it that ~ is not saying that the Realizations of mystics are literally a straightforward reliving of previous levels of consciousness which had become lost. What then is the ‘post-Jungian’ view actually claiming; or, more exactly, what is it precisely that it is entitled to claim such that Wilber’s accusation of the pre-trans fallacy does not apply? To put it another way, what is the post-Jungian view trying to articulate that is clearly not being addressed in Wilber’s level by level, stage by stage evolutionary model ~ the model which Washburn refers to as the linear ‘ladder paradigm’?
It is, I believe, the intuition that something of great value that we once experienced, however dimly, has been lost. Furthermore, it had to become lost for us to take the next developmental step which brings us to our present condition. Then to move on from here, we must reclaim what we have lost and integrate with it. But such an integration is not merely some modification of the ego and its drive to greater self actualization, but a radical transformation which accesses the transpersonal dimensions. The bringing together, or reconciliation of two fundamental polarities constitutes an opening into the trans-egoic domains.
I feel that both these broad views are correct in certain essential respects and can be reconciled. The key to such a reconciliation is the understanding of ‘reality’ ~ psyche and nature ~ in radically archetypal terms; that is, in terms of those foundational principles necessarily posited as informing and constituting such ’structures (themselves reified concepts) as the ego/self and the ground/matrix. I believe we are logically compelled to establish a multivalent archetypal polarity as ontologically central and foundational. If we understand the development of consciousness as informed by a dynamic interplay of archetypal bi-polar principles ~ part and whole, agency and communion, individual and society, masculine and feminine ~ then we can begin to understand the process which moves from a primal and interpenetrating balance toward an increasing distinction, and because of that polar distinction, to move through a state of severe imbalance, thence to move along to a new level, but now a repolarized integrative balancing of the principles. Such a process can be pictured as the awakening of consciousness at successively higher levels of a perennialist Great Chain; described by Wilber ~ adequately enough in its most broad strokes ~ as the levels of matter, body, mind, soul, and spirit.
Hence, we are not speaking of a ’something’ separating from something else and then rejoining it at a higher level. But we are certainly acknowledging a process of distinction and separation which eventually and optimally, at a new and higher level, leads to a reconnection, a higher level integration than original fusion. We are not positing some retroregressive return to primal levels which were allegedly more ’spiritual’ than the mental-egoic level. Furthermore, this higher level integration is not something entirely different and distinct from original fusion as Wilber would have it, but is a higher level manifestation of the same archetypal dynamic which informed the original fusion!
So, I’m proceeding from this: “There is a general agreement between these paradigms that higher level mystical Realizations presuppose the development of some sort of autonomous self sense.” This is required if we are to have a pre-trans distinction; it’s pre autonomous self sense (aka fusion), autonomous self sense (aka rational ego) and trans autonomous self sense (aka mystical union). Do we agree so far?
Agreed. And remember this developmental relationship is one of nonequivalent inclusion. It’s not an exclusionary sequence. It’s nonlinear. the transautonomous includes autonomous and pre autonomous.
Goddard’s points have largely been answerd in Wilber’s pre-trans essay. as he says “the Jungians do recognise that development occurs in two major phases: the development and then the transcendence of the ego.” Wilber also recognises that the Jungian model postulates at least three key aspects in development – the unconscious Self, the Ego, and the conscious Self. Wilber’s point is that the unconscious Self is equated with the conscious Self in terms of its spiritual identity. and I think he is 100 percent right in this. for example in Jung’s “on the nature of the psyche” Jung says “just as the archetype is partly a spiritual factor, and partly like a hidden meaning imminent in the instincts, so the spirit, as I have shown, is two-faced and paradoxical: a great help and an equally great danger.” and elsewhere “the medieval man …was of least biologically nearer to that unconscious wholeness which primitive man enjoys in even larger measure, and the wild animal possesses to perfection”. This unconscious wholeness is inherently spiritual in Jung and he equates it with the spirituality of the individuated ego. For example, the Jung Lexicon has this entry under the definition of Spirit – “An archetype and a functional complex, often personified and experienced as enlivening, analogous to what the archaic mind felt to be an invisible, breathlike “presence.— With “archaic mind” being the operative term here. (As I see it, the confusion in Jung between binary dualities and the end points in a developmental spectrum often gets worse in his followers and in the writings of those he influenced.)
Jung’s treatment of the realtionship between the “instincts” and “self-realisation” is subtle and nuanced but he continually struggles with their developmental relationship. He continually applies the idea of the “coincidentia oppositorum” the coincidence of opposites and equates that with the duality of the unconscious and the superconscious – but these two are not two sides of the one coin (binary equivalents) – Jung is mixing a valid principle of binary opposition/unity with a developmental spectrum which has nonequivalent inclusion as its guiidng dynamic – (the transcend and include principle). Because Jung is almost always dealing with mutually cocreating binaries he tends to see all development in that light. Wilber explains all this better than anyone else ever has. have another look at Wilber’s PTF essay again it’s subtle and insightful. and Jung writings become emminently more comprehensible (at least to me) having understood Wilber’s PTF distinction.
Mark: But Goddard does not struggle with the developmental holoarchy of nonequivalent inclusion. He does however see that there is also a horizontal dialectical polarity at the self-autonomous stage that is imbalanced and needs to be redressed before we can move into the healthy expression of the transpersonal stage. And it is not a return to presersonal fusion. It is based on the holonic structure much as is your work. Here are a few excerpts from “Holonic logic and the dialectics of consciousness†at Integral World:
From the beginning and from the beginning consciousness of humans, two fundamental ways of knowing were fused and predifferentiated  the subject/object mode and the subject/subject mode. Since our model allows and even requires both of these epistemological modes to be mapped, it is not limited to only the subject/object mode, the mode which actually developed historically (from the Greeks through modernity). With the rise of modernity (most clearly articulated by Descartes) these two epistemological modes became differentiated. These modes would not then lie at different levels on the same, to use Wilber’s terms, cognitive stream or line. ‘Original fusion’ as I am here describing it is not identical with participation; rather, original fusion is the as yet undifferentiated enfoldment of both epistemological modes. In the modern era, the great differentiation is to be understood as the differentiation, not primarily of the subject and object, but of subject/object knowing and subject/subject knowing. But with the great differentiation, it was the subject/object mode which came into emphasis and marginalized the participation mode which has continued to be marginalized even when not relegated to the status of primitive fusion.
In holonic polar dialectical fashion, the modern differentiation actually meant that the subject/subject mode became the de-emphasized pole of the epistemological enfolded pair (subject/object appears now as ‘figure’; subject/subject appears now as ‘background’). The further development of consciousness did indeed depend on the differentiation which occurred in the modern era. Since further development was, almost exclusively, of the subject/object mode, the subject/subject mode did not develop and was, from the point of view of mainstream culture and consciousness, devalued. It became a ‘lesser’ mode attributed to women, children, primitives, Romantics, and ‘purely subjective’ artists. From the subject/object perspective, it is seen as only the primal and primitive way of knowing; the ‘regressive fusion’ which Wilber accuses Romantics of committing. But original fusion or predifferentiation, which was indeed primal and even ‘primitive’ if you like  i.e. lower on the developmental chain  was not subject/subject knowing per se, but the pre-differentiated fusion of subject/subject and subject/object modes of knowing. This point provides the purchase by which we can reveal the inherent skewing within Wilber’s account of development.
Given the path that historical development has taken, we are indeed looking ahead to levels of consciousness where hopefully, both epistemological modes have become differentiated and integrated at a higher level. But that does not mean that the subject/subject knowing is ‘up there ahead’; a higher level of the chain with emergent properties of communion, telepathy, and mystical union with nature. The historically unprecedented higher level which lies ahead on the evolutionary path, is the integration of the two epistemological modes. But before we can integrate these two modes, they must both become differentiated on the same footing! Therefore, we are going to have to ‘go back’, to pick up again and acknowledge the lost and alienated mode of knowing. So we are not saying that a subject/subject way of knowing, or a participatory epistemology stands either lower or higher than the subject/object mode on the same cognitive line. The higher or trans-egoic epistemology is an integration of both these modes as an equal bi-polarity.
So what is Goddard talking about when he says subject/object and subject/subject? He’s talking about holonic perpsectives, the inside and outside of interiors and exteriors. And he’s doing so years before Ken did.
He’s also talking about the distinction of individual and social holons, with both of them having agency and communion. Much like Mark does.
Regarding the subject/object and subject/subject we talked about this in reference to the formation of an autonomous self from the outside in, as in the social psychology theories of Mead. Goddard clarifies his meaning of these terms, using LEFT as the left-hand quadrants and RIGHT as the right-hand quadrants (per the last above reference):
“So in a more adequate model, the LEFT ‘outer’ experience is distinguished from the LEFT ‘inner’ experience (what we have called the legitimate Cartesian bifurcation to be pictured on our LEFT) in that the LEFT ‘outer’ is ‘the way the other ’shows up’ as RIGHT objecthood. The LEFT ‘inner’ along with the LEFT ‘outer’ shows up objectively on the RIGHT and as the LEFT ‘outer’ of the other. That is, the full description of the RIGHT of the one is equivalent to the LEFT outer of the other.”
He describes the relationship of individual to social holons thus (per the
last reference above):
“So the logic of the dialectical relation of individual to society is such that each bi-polarity is oppositely configured. The agency of the individual and the communion of society are mutually configured — that is, they stand in Janus-faced relation. The same holds for the communion of the individual with the agency of society. On the vertical axis, the individual develops up to the mental-ego level through the dialectic of its agency against the pull of its own communions and of the conforming forces of social agency. Society develops as increasingly communal. But as it does so, there is an overarching sense in which the ‘individual’ becomes ‘more’ and the ’society’ becomes ‘less’; that is, the individual (i.e. the agentic individual) becomes more and more front and central, with society as a background matrix for the individual. Genuine collective consciousness (group mind) in fact becomes ‘less’: it becomes collective unconsciousness! As ‘group mind’ gives way to ‘individual mind’, the original fusion of the largely communal (tribal) individual and agentic society (small group cohesion) is replaced by increasingly autonomous interacting individuals. Society does indeed then become a web of individual communions replacing or superseding the fundamental group mind or field mind, which is for us collective unconsciousness, but was once the enchanted interconnected wholeness of psyche/nature at pre-mental/egoic levels. That is, with consciousness increasingly centered in the individual, society/culture indeed becomes a conscious, intentional intersubjective web just as Wilber actually describes the Lower quadrants! The development of consciousness up to and including the mental-ego is indeed the development of individual consciousness occurring through an increasing individual/world distinction!”
These are then related to the subject/object and subject/subject domains as follows:
“The model we have been mapping grounds bi-polar holonic structure (subjective/objective) in a binary relational and mutually perceptual model as the necessary condition for all manifestation. The bi-polarity of subject/object (mind/brain) is logically related to the dyad formed by at least two individual holons in mutual perception. But the mutual subject/object perceptual relationship of the binary pair of individual holons constitutes only one of two fundamental epistemological modes informing all manifestation. There is also a primal subject/subject mode, a direct resonance between subjectivities within a cohesive or agentic social form. The individual holonic dyad exists in two epistemological modes: the subject/object relation and the subject/subject relation. Subject/object perceptual interactivity is the basis of the agentic individual and communal social development: subject/subject connective resonance is the basis of the communal individual and the agentic form of society. (In the course of development from the primal human up to the modern the subject/subject way of knowing gives way to the subject/object epistemology, consequently, to individual agency and social communion as we shall trace below). “
You lost me here edward