Transformative power of development: Feedback 3/3

[Previous installments: 1/3 and 2/3.] The third section of Julian Walker's article is called "Telling the difference". Again, my emphasis given here are not present in the original article. Here we go:

So the antidote here is to:
a) develop more resources, especially post-narcissistic self-love and support and cognitive development that includes critical thinking
b) do the necessary healing and self-awareness work to process through enough of the traumatic (shadow) material and
c) take up a serious set of practices that help one to develop transrational awareness. Of course this takes years and is very difficult work - but the honest truth is that this is the way with genuine stagewise development.You can't just read about it in a book.

The rational arrest (as oppposed to the prerational regression) tends to perform the same mistake in reverse: where the regressive type has mistaken magic and myth for interior depth of transrational, the rationally arrested type has categorized anything non-rational as belonging to the magic and mythic category - and in so doing cuts off the possibility of genuine interior development of depth, embodied aliveness, emotional connection, intuitive/rational synthesis, and the power and beauty of experiences on the other side of egoic-identification, experiences that are made possible through meditative practice and energetic initiation.

The difficulty here is that the rationally arrested individual doesn't want to have a spiritual life - unlike the prerational regressive, who is longing for one but has taken a wrong turn! However, for arguments sake - the antidote here might be an equal investment in both:
a) healing (shadow) work and
b) inquiry-based practice (which is still deeply rational in it's foundation), but along with (instead of what is probably already well-developed critical thinking )
c) work that deepens the relationship to the body and emotional life.

Solutions given here are just fine, only Julian clearly focuses on doing, without considering how much such processes may depend, sometimes decidedly, on other influences and resonances, namely - cultural codes and beliefs one internalizes from various sources plus the impact of significant mundane and sacred relationships. I'm sure Julian's quite aware of these factors, and I think including them here in a blurb would make his distinctions and suggestions more meaningful. Apart from that, I think that shadow-inquiry-embodiment provides an excellent general basis. Of course, much depends on the methods employed to make these principles operational and effective.

So the BIG question is: how do we tell the difference between prerational and transrational ideas, experiences, beliefs, worldviews etc? What is transcended, what is included? This is nowhere as important as in the realm of developing a contemporary, grounded, integrated, adult spirituality. In fact it is in many ways the crucible of the next stage of our growth as a species.

One simple answer comes directly from Integral Theory originator Ken Wilber in his very recent Salon.com interview: ""The mystical state is often beyond words. It is trans-rational because you have access to rationality but it's temporarily suspended. A 6-month-old infant, for instance, is in a pre-rational state, whereas the mystic is in a trans-rational state. Unfortunately, "pre" and "trans" get confused. So some theorists say the infant is in a mystical state."

"The rational scientist looks at all the pre-rational stuff as nonsense -- fairies and ghosts and goblins -- and lumps it together with the trans-rational stuff and says, "That's nonrational. I don't want anything to do with it."

Now the funny thing is, even regressive types deeply interested in Wilber's work will see a quote like this and either gloss right over it or make some kind of gesture toward disagreeing with it and suggesting that he was having a bad day or not thinking clearly...

When initially reading that statement by Ken Wilber, I scratched my head just a little bit, and thought, there's a tricky simplification by Wilber's own standards. Surely, we need simplified ideas about these things to help hoi polloi make significant distinctions which are completely absent from education and public discourse. The notion that, for example, there is prerational spirituality, rational spirituality, and transrational spirituality is a very basic one, and the same may be applied to many different types of experience and human development in general. What Wilber is saying, effectively, is that only an adult person with critical faculties can reach into transrational proper. Now, this was based on multi-valued logic before Wilber recognized the crucial difference between stages in frontal psychological development, proceeding as transitional and enduring structures on one side, and shifts in witnessed states that characterize mystical experience and longterm meditative training. These two were previously pushed unto the same axis, and thus even Wilber himself participated in the pre/trans confusion for some time after coining the term "pre-trans fallacy" (PTF). As clarified initially with the Wilber-Combs lattice - where structures of consciousness from archaic to magic to mythic to rational to pluralistic to integral and beyond are given the vertical axis, and forms of mysticism from nature to deity to formless to nondual are given the horizontal axis - people have spiritual experiences of various depths at virtually all levels of structural development. So, even in that rather simple lattice, one can posit two dozen combinations, of which one half is rational and beyond, that is transrational. This makes PTF useful though insufficient. The main thrust of WCL is that not only can we differentiate between four inclusive types of spirituality, but each of these may be experienced and then interpreted at different levels of thinking about and engaging the manifest world. Pertinent to Julian's consideration, prerational interpretations of actual and/or potential experience disempower the individual not just by producing a very shallow account of "what happens" but also through directly fueling spiritual narrow-mindedness and narcissism. Now, individuals and groups may espouse a rational, pluralistic, and even integral view of reality, and yet fail to avoid making prerational judgements on very important issues concerning translation, transformation and spiritual awakening.

What I would add to this is that more often than not prerational worldviews, beliefs, ideas etc are ungrounded. They will include (instead of transcend):
* fantastical beliefs
* unscientific views of reality
* confusions between inner and outer reality and their relationships (category/quadrant errors), and very often
* various kinds of metaphysical denial structures around suffering, trauma, injustice, and the randomness of the world at large.

Generally there is a narcissistic tone - one of specialness, being at the center of the universe, being chosen, having angels, spirit guides and special intentional powers etc.. On the other hand the transrational worldview is in no way at odds with reasonable perceptions and interpretations of reality - it just takes them deeper, develops them further.

Here I beg to differ, since this leaves room for considerable doubt. I mean, "reasonable perceptions and interpretations of reality" is simply too vague. Or, even worse, Julian perhaps suggests that we can remain "reasonable" while adjusting ourselves to reality. Being "in no way at odds wiith reasonable" is hardly a working definition of transrational. Even if you move up the WCL and then suddenly turn right at "rational". Reality has absolutely no problem with reasonable or unreasonable, although the distinction remains quite clear. What appears as reasonable, however, should be questioned for the sake of those that hold it dear. There is a "reasonable" at every point in WCL, and there's pathology at every point, as well. It seems I can hear what Julian is saying, sort of, and I agree with that. But I don't resonate with "rational" and "reasonable" being used without delineation of the specific meaning employed and qualification regarding their quirks. In short, rational will take you as far as it goes, the problem is it doesn't go very far. And I'm afraid that by using it as a primary point of reference we cannot really address the problems that are behind this whole mess of narcissism and wishcraft in the current view of development and transformation.

There is a choice-less awareness of the reality of suffering and injustice - without the ironically linear attempt to make spiritual sense of these things via metaphysics. The transrational worldview is deeply compassionate and insightful, discerning and realistic. It encapsulates reality as it is and sees the sacred awe-inspiring nature of life without denying any of it's horror or meaninglessness. Transrational awareness is able to very deeply inquire into the more intuitive creative language of poetic metaphor, mythic symbol and archetypal experience without literalizing any of it or committing category/quadrant errors that turn those intrapsychic revelations into propositional statements about objective reality.

There is also, even more so, an awareness of the illusory nature fo the whole display, starting with dissolving the self-contraction of myself standing back from this whole suffering and injustice, relaxing into it while also relaxing the hold on it and what it means. Being realistic? Like being "reasonable"? Yes, but only because and only when that's how things work. Not because that's what the transrational view "is". Namely, a certain level of sophistication in manifesting ultimate clarity is necessary because at any given time in history there is a standard of civilized, dignified thought - today that standard is rational or higher, and moving. Also, whatever is good from any existing structure is ideally retained, included and embraced to serve that purpose.

Sane harmony as well as a kind of integrated differentiation between inner and outer reality is amplified, deepened and celebrated in it's stark and beautiful is-ness. Though some of the interior meaning that magic and myth were unconsciously fumbling toward may be included in it's deeper unfoldment in transrational awareness, none of the literalism, narcissism, magical thinking or pseudo science lasts a nano-second in the crystal clear, diamond-like perception of reality as it is.

To be consistent, nothing lasts a nano-second in the perception of reality as it is. There are pre-trans fallacy, category error, quadrant absolutism, level/line fallacy etc. But there's also the problem of two-truths conflation in various forms. "Isness" and "diamond-like" pertain to the ultimate, and the ultimate - being as it is - gives birth to many different expressions, while we're free to prefer any of them, thus making ourselves an identity amidst all other expressions. The ultimate, however, also known as "reality", never really becomes any one of its expressions, never really enters time so to speak, though it never exists elsewhere, or elsewhen. The ultimate is indeed the isness, as revealed in diamond-like perception, of anything observed, whether magical, mythic, or rational, or beyond - this isness is stark, and beautiful, in each and every one of those. Most everyone who have discovered this clarity in the past have had no idea there will be a rational, scientifically re-defined world in their near future. And the best among them could see and understand "everything" there was to understand. Yet, now we need a new platform to continue their legacy. We need a new way of bringing in both development and awakening, each informed by the other. Yes, this new way cannot allow itself to confuse pre- with post- anything, because it must maintain a deep evolutionary logic concerning everything in the manifest domain. Also, this new way must be effective in persuading the world that cultures and views also evolve, and that sacred cows are never what they seem. Transformation can be pursued by those who find themselves so inclined, and should be made into a universal right, but will nonetheless remain a tricky, non-linear, and difficult process, one that has just become quite a bit more complex than it used to be. Isn't that fun?

There are many points in addition to these, that need to be considered in more detail, like individual development and spiritual practice NOT being a private affair in a rational-and-beyond space, like development plus/vs awakening NOT being separate issues in an integral space, like these distinctions being characteristics of an emergent culture and therefore in dire need of differentiation from cognate and/or similar ideas already in use etc. What I have said in this feedback hopefully reflects my basic position of agreement and sympathy with Julian's take on the power of development. I'm looking forward to take this mutually enriching discussion further. Godspeed!