Subtle activism and interior communion: my beliefs about our
inquiry group process
This is my current set of beliefs about what we are doing, relating to my
experiences and the reports of others within our meetings, and set out in
what I regard as no more than provisional working hypotheses. It is, of
course, just one belief-system, among several that may co-exist in our
group. After it, I append two further documents with related perspectives on
subtle activism.
1. We are in one vast unified field of spirit in manifestation: spirit
embracing consciousness and life, manifestation embracing subtle realms and
physical worlds.
2. Each of us is a local eddy of manifest spirit within this greater
field, explicitly participating in a given physical locality within it, and
tacitly participating in the whole multidimensional field.
3. Each of us is explicitly embodied in a physical body and tacitly
embodied in a subtle body. The physical body realises mortal life and
consciousness. The subtle body has the latent capacity for non-mortal life
and consciousness.
4. When we awaken to our subtle embodiment and make it explicit within
our physical embodiment, our non-mortal life and consciousness infuses and
transforms our mortal life and consciousness.
5. We effect this awakening by posture, gesture, movement, rhythm and
sound, which both express the idiosyncratic promptings of our
immanent spiritual life, the animating ground of our double embodiment; and
open up to immediate theophany - the divine embrace of spirit in
manifestation here and now in this place.
6. When we effect this awakening together in the same place, combining
autonomous individual expression with mutual resonance, we become a potent
ring of awakened doubly incarnate beings, and thus open to a space between
between our physical world and the subtle realms. The space between the
worlds is a sacred matrix, the here and now reality of the divine embrace of
both realms. We have called it variously Shekinah, and the band of golden
silence.
7. When this sacred matrix is opened up by our dynamic toning and
gestures, it calls forth participation from presences in subtle realms who
interact with us and together with us engage in extraordinary forms of
subtle activism. The presences, attuned to archetypal energies, can pour
these into our shared and co-energised space, with three principal effects
co-created with us:
A transformation of the psychosomatic field of each of us.
A transformative impact upon the psychosomatic field of the human
race, through instant morphic resonance between us and the rest of
embodied humanity through specific patterns of genetic,
psychological, cultural, historic and subtle affinity.
An empowering of each of us in the furtherance of our social
activism out there in this world.
8. After the dynamic phase of subtle activism, we have a potent phase of
stillness, standing or being seated within the band of golden silence, the
Shekinah matrix. In this ecstatic communion, we seem to open to the reality
between us, to the divinity that is an ever-present flame of unity here and
now where we are. This silent communion is complementary to the subtle
activism and makes a very fundamental contribution indeed to the three kinds
of effect described above.
9. It is possible that this complementary combination of subtle activism
and interior communion, through its threefold effects, sows the seeds for
the future unfolding of doubly incarnate cultures, the birth of
civilizations which are both autonomously creative in the human realm,
cultivate explicit co-creation between independent humans and peer presences
in the subtle realms, and are open to the ever-present reality of the
between.
John Heron, 11 May 2005
Back to Papers on the inquiry group
TM EVIDENCE
Jorge Ferrer sent me TM evidence listed below. He wrote: "Here is more on
the idea of subtle activism and its possible impact on world affairs: it
is a summary of a number of TM studies published in
prestigious neuroscientific and sociological journals. The editors of these
journals advocate a materialistic world view and look thoroughly at matters
of methodological design, especially in studies of this kind. I have my own
questions about some of these studies, but the the evidence offered seems
suggestive that something may be going on here."
General
19 published studies on the effects of "Super Radiance"
Assemblies (large groups of TM meditators) on society.
They claim that when people are meditating individually, in their
own homes, measurable societal effects seem to show up when the
meditators exceed 1% of the population. But when people are
meditating together in groups, and the more advanced TM-Sidhi
technique is added, the threshold for measurable societal effects is
much less the square root of 1% of the population. For the US,
this figure is currently 1,700. For the entire world, the figure is
currently 8,000.
Basic theory
Violent crime, war, terrorism, and other negative social phenomena are at
root an expression of tension and stress in the collective consciousness.
The Super Radiance Assemblies produce a marked increase in the coherence of
the collective consciousness, purifying it of negativity and stress. This
leads to an increase of orderliness and cooperation in every sphere of
action.
Field Effects of TM on the Individual
1. Coherence
in brain wave patterns researchers measured the brain waves of
individuals 1,200 miles away from Super Radiance assembly of 3,500
meditators. At exactly the time the meditation began, the brain waves of
the individuals became more coherent and orderly. This happened on 6
different days. (International Journal of Neuroscience, 16, 203-209)
2. Sending and
receiving A non-meditator sat in one room and did a computer
program to test how quickly he/she could calculate. Unbeknownst to the
non-meditator, an expert in TM sat in an adjacent room and began
meditating. The non-meditators brain waves showed a marked increase in
brain wave coherence and improved performance on the test. (International
Journal of Neuroscience, 49, 207-211
3. Increased
release of serotonin 40 people in Fairfield, Iowa were tested
daily for the production of serotonin over a 60 day period, during which
the numbers of people participating in a large meditation group at MUM,
Fairfield varied greatly. The production of serotonin in the
non-meditators was shown to be 400% higher on the days when attendance
was greatest, compared to days when attendance was lowest. (Journal
of Social Behavior and Personality, in press)
Field Effects of TM on Society
1. Effect
on crime, individual meditators: Analysis of 24 cities in which
the number of people practicing TM exceeded 1% of the population
revealed a marked decrease in crime after the threshold had been
passed. Those cities were compared with "control" cities that
matched the "1% cities" according to other variables that have been
shown to correlate with crime rates: population, popn density,
unemployment rate, income, education levels, poverty levels,
percentage of people aged 15-29. Every control cities followed the
national trend of a rising average crime rate. Every 1% city showed
a significant decrease in average crime rate. After 5 years, there
was also a significantly lower rate of increase in average crime in
the 1% cities, compared with the control cities. The probability was
less than one in 1,000 that these results could have happened by
chance. (Journal of Crime and Justice, 4, 25-45)
2. Effect
on crime, Super Radiance Assemblies: Researchers looked at
statistics of crime rates for local areas in which large assemblies
of TM meditators had gathered. Four assemblies were picked: 300 in
Rhode Island in the summer of 1978; 3,500 in New Delhi in the fall
of 1980; 200 in Puerto Rico for 6 months; 1,200 in the Philippines
in the late summer 1984. In every case the crime rates dropped
markedly during the Assemblies, and rose again to pre-Assembly
levels when the Assembly was finished. The joint statistical
probability that crime had dropped in all four places by chance was
less than one in a million. (Journal of Mind and Behavior, 8,
67-94)
3. Effect
on war, Super Radiance Assembly: 200 TM experts were brought
together in Jerusalem for a two month period in 1983 (during the war
in Lebanon). Predictions of the results were lodged in advance to
independent scientists in Israel and the US. Results showed that war
deaths in Lebanon dropped by an average of 76% when attendance at
the Assembly was high. In addition, car accidents decreased, fires
decreased, and the Israeli stock market went up. Trends in each of
these areas were adjusted to take into account typical seasonal
fluctuations, and the results were still compelling. When these
statistics were combined to produce an overall Quality of Life
index, there was a highly significant correlation with the level of
attendance at the assembly. The probability of the result being by
chance was less than one in 10,000. This study was published by the
prestigious Journal of Conflict Resolution, based in Yale.
4. Effect
on war from a distance, Super Radiance Assembly: Researchers
measured the effect of 7 different Super Radiance Assemblies, held
in different places around the world, on war deaths and intensity in
Lebanon. They employed an independent expert in the field of media
content analysis to monitor 10 different media sources for the 2 and
a half year period that included the 7 Super Radiance Assemblies. He
was given no other information about the studys theory or
methodology, and was not told which dates were experimentally
significant. The results showed that on the days of the assemblies,
war deaths in Lebanon dropped an average of 71%. A combined analysis
of all the factors measured war deaths, war injuries, war
intensity, and progress toward peace showed that, on the 93 days of
the assemblies, the average result was a strong improvement in
peacefulness. The probability that this result occurred by chance
was less than one in ten million trillion! (Journal of Social
Behavior and Personality, in press).
5. Effect
on terrorism, Super Radiance Assemblies: During a 2 year period
in the 1980s, 3 very large Super Radiance Assemblies were held:
7,000 in Iowa, 5,600 in Washington D.C, and 6,000 in the
Netherlands. Statistics of daily terrorism during this 2 year period
were gathered from the Rand Corporation. The researchers calculated
the average casualties caused by terrorism in the weeks the
assemblies were not in session, and the average for the weeks the
assemblies were in session. The results showed an average 72%
reduction in worldwide terrorism during the weeks the assemblies
were in session. (Journal of Offender Rehabilitation, in
press).
6.
Washington D.C Demonstration Project: A large group (up to
4,000) of TM meditators converged on Washington D.C in the summer of
1993. John Hagelin had lodged predictions of the studys effect on
violent crime with an independent panel of scientists and police.
The results showed a 23% decrease in violent crime from usual
trends, even though there was a spell of record hot weather (usually
correlated with increased crime rates). The police representative
who provided the data was sufficiently convinced to appear as a
co-author of the paper (Social Indicators Research, 47,
153-201).
The Hidden Face of Wisdom: Towards an Awakened Activism
Here is very interesing and comprehensive paper on subtle activism by
Sean M. Kelly, California Institute of Integral Studies. See especially
sections 4, 5 and 6.
Introduction
With the birth of the modern age and the beginnings of the Planetary Era,
the wisdom (sapientia) that is said to define the sub-species of humans to
which we belonghomo sapiens
sapiens (the wise among the
wise)came
increasingly to be identified with the powers of science and technology, the
twin engines of the Wests
triumphal march towards a glorious future. In philosophical and scientific
circles, the subtler, more intuitive, imaginal, and speculative dimensions
of human experience, though obviously still active and even valued and
cultivated by some, were generally demoted to an inferior status relative to
Cartesian clear and distinct
ideas or the readily
manipulable data
of the empiricists. To be sure, there have always been alternative trends
and even, at times, relatively widespread movements that refused the
otherwise dominant rationalist and empiricist orientationsmost
notably, the Romantic and Idealist movements of the early 19th centurybut
these trends remain counter-cultural. The experience of the twentieth
century, however, with its World Wars and unparalled barbarities, along with
the current realities of global terror and the truly catastrophic prospect
of biospheric collapse, have plunged those not too numb to feel it into what
Edgar Morin calls the crisis of the futurethat
is, into an awareness of radical doubt and uncertainty, of generalized
anxiety and the specter of hopelessness. Such, at any rate, are possible
responses of a mind and heart which, knowingly or not, still clings to the
root assumptions of the dominant worldview, or which nevertheless finds
itself embedded in the social, cultural, and psychological network of ideas
and behaviors that both sustain, and are sustained by, this worldview.
One thing is clear at leastwe
can no longer in good faith accept the traditional definition of our
species. In place of homo sapiens sapiens, Morin has proposed homo
sapiens-demens, which highlights the fact that whatever we might rightfully
be able to claim in the way of wisdom or intelligence is offset by an equal
measure of insanity or madness (demens suggests both
dementia
and demented).
If our species has excelled in the discovery, production, and appreciation
of truth, goodness, and beauty, it is also unsurpassed in its capacity for
the creation of falsehood, wickedness, and ugliness. Demens, however, also
suggests a potential for the kind of subtle guidance the ancient Greeks
looked for from their daimones or guiding spirits (the most famous example
being Socrates daimon). I
will return to this second sense of demens shortly.
In the face of mounting madness on a planetary scale, many are compelled to
some form of activism. Because of the urgency of the problems, however, and
because of the pervasive character of the dominant, extraverted and
materialistic worldview, it is easy for the would-be activist to limit his
or her perception to a narrow band of the spectrum of action, to that which,
in effect, corresponds most obviously or directly to the forces or
situations that one would like to change. From this point of view, activism
means putting ones body on
the line, most commonly in the form of protests or demonstrations, less
often by going to the front-lines themselves to confront military, police,
or corporate aggression. I am not questioning the value of this kind of
activism, and I certainly in no way wish to cast a shadow on the truly
heroic actions of people like Julia Butterfly Hill or the young man who
stood steadfast before the tank in Tien-An-Men square. I only want to
suggest that not only will such individuals remain exceptionaland
in this way continue to inspire us with their courage and commitmentbut
that the kind of global change that clearly must come about, and which the
activist intends, would not be served if all of us were somehow ready and
able to take on this kind of direct action. It is not enough, though it may
be necessary, too, to stop the saws and tanks themselves. For saws and
tanks, and the people who operate them, are governed not only by their
respective states or corporations, but also by the root assumptions,
beliefs, and valuesby the
paradigms (and, as we shall see, perhaps by even subtler forces)that
unconsciously govern these very states and corporations.
What I am suggesting, in other words, is that what is needed is not
necessarily more activism as it is normally understood, but a revisioning, a
broadening and deepening of what it means to be an activist. More
particularly, I want to give some sense of the full range of possibilities
open to an awakened activismthat
is, an activism which recognizes the active potential of consciousness,
spirit, or what might be conceived of as the subtler dimensions of the field
of action. In their association with such words as psyche, spirit,
contemplation, meditation, prayer, and even wisdom itselfthese
dimensions are often considered irrelevant or even antithetical to what is
usually considered the proper domain of the activist. In what follows, I
will consider a range of examples, along with an admittedly impressionistic
and provisional typology, of what I consider forms of awakened activism,
some of which stretch the bounds of what is currently referred to as either
spiritual activism
or engaged spirituality.
1. The common view
The common understanding of Spiritual Activism or Engaged
Spirituality, despite its association with counter-cultural elements
(resistance to the status quo; opposition to the modern separation of facts
and values; non-denominational or pluralistic spiritual values; emphasis on
communitarian, social justice, and ecological values, etc.), is still
somewhat embedded within the modern Cartesian worldview in at least one
respect: it retains a subtle version of the ontological divide between the
realm of mind, spirit, or consciousness, on the one hand, and the
real
world of action, on the other. Here are two, in other respects very
different, examples of what I mean. The first is a major study on Engaged
Spirituality sponsored by the Ford Foundation, based on a survey of relevant
literature and material gathered from 79 interviewees, including 40 leaders
in the field of integrating contemplative practices into social justice
work. The study contains many valuable insights and will doubtless be well
appreciated by researchers in the field. Note, however, the following
statement:
"Spirituality, while sometimes viewed as being a strictly inward, even
narcissistic
activity, has the potential to propel people into lives of social service
and public
engagement. Spirituality in this sense is a vital resource, sustaining
people in the hard work of social change, and, on regular occasions,
inspiring them to imagine possibilities that exceed realistic expectations."
(Stanczak and Miller, 20)
The authors rightfully point to the view held by many activists (the
prototype here is Marx) that spirituality is narcissistic or escapist. While
they clearly intend to counter this view and show how the two realms can
come together, they nevertheless tacitly accept the modern split by saying
that spirituality has the
potential to propel people into lives of social service and public
engagement, as though
spirituality itself is the static or disengaged starting point which can
lead toif the leap is great
enough (propel)action
in the real (social,
public)
world. Similarly, spirituality is a
vital resource which can
sustain
and inspire
people in the hard work of
social change, but is not
therefore itself a form of work or action in the social sphere.
The second example has to do with the struggle for the abolition of slavery.
According to various sources (including Lincolns
wife, Senator Thomas Richmond, Colonel S. P. Case, and the spirit mediums J.
B. Conklin and especially Nellie Coburn Maynard), Lincoln was motivated in
his push for abolition by sιances he attended, some of them in the White
House. A more general link between spiritualism and the abolition movement
is also well-documented. Horace Greeley, Karl Marxs
editor at the Herald Tribune, and Victoria Woodhull, the first woman to run
for President of the United States, were two leading abolitionists and
founding members of the first American section of the Communist
International. They were avid spiritualists who attended sιances with Kate
Fox, one of the sisters that sparked the spiritualist movement (Proyect).
Ann Braude has recently made a strong case for the influence of spiritualism
on many principal players, including Victoria Hull, in the late nineteenth
centurys womens
suffrage movement (Braude).
As fascinating as it is to learn about the strong connection between
spiritualism and the emancipatory interest, at least in the United States,
it would appear that the activist component was restricted to communications
from the spirit worldthe
advice reputedly given to Lincoln is emblematic here. Spirit, in other
words, is still only a resource
(however precious to those who seek it) which must be carried over, as it
were, to the (material) world of action.
2. An alternative view
The example of spiritualism, though still involved in the Cartesian
split, brings us to the threshold of an alternative view, or a set of such
views, which sees spirit, mind, or consciousness as (potentially at least)
itself a form of action. To this set belong most idealists and introverted
thinking types, as Jung might say. The contrary viewthat
consciousness is essentially passive, is reflective of the legacy of the
materialism and extraverted empiricism that has dominated western culture
from the mid-nineteenth century into our own times. In a decidedly
counter-cultural tone, here is James on the
reality of the unseen:
All our attitudes, moral, practical, or emotional
are
due to the objects
of our consciousness, the things which we believe to exist, whether really
or ideally, along with ourselves. Such objects may be present to our senses,
or they may be present only to our thought. In either case they elicit from
us a reaction; and the reaction of things due to thought is notoriously in
many cases as strong as that due to sensible presences
.
The whole universe of concrete objects, as we know of them
swims
in
a wider and higher universe of abstract ideas
that
lend it significance. As time, space, and the ether soak through all things,
so
do abstract and essential
goodness, beauty, strength, significance, justice, soak through all things
good, strong, significant, and just.
Such ideas, and others equally abstract, form the background of all our
facts
.They give its
nature,
as we call it, to everything we conceive of. Everything we know is
what
it is by sharing in the nature of one of these abstractions
.
Polarizing and magnetizing us as they do, we turn towards them and from
them, we seek them, hold them, hate them, bless them, just as if they were
so many concrete beings. And beings they are, beings as real in the realm
which they inhabit as the changing things of sense are in the realm of
space." (James, 56; my emphasis).
That the polarizing
and magnetizing
effect of ideas can extend beyond their proper realm into the social and
political spheresand these
even on a global scaleshould
be obvious from even the most cursory survey of history. The most striking
examples that immediately come to mind are the Hellenistic empire of
Alexander the Great, guided by the idealism he imbibed from his tutor,
Aristotle; the emergence of Christendom out of the life and teachings of
Jesus and Paul (especially through the vision-inspired Constantine); the
rise of world communism (with the specific extreme example of Stalinist
totalitarianism) out of Marxs
ethical idealism and secularized millenarianism; Hitlers
brand of Nazi fascism; and fundamentalist inspired terrorism. One should
not, of course, forget the less obvious but no less significant case of
democratically elected right wing governments, whose extreme ideological
agendas are, in the eyes of most activists, as pernicious in their effects
as some of the more egregious totalitarianisms.
What I would like to draw on from James, however, in combination with his
sensitivity to the power and vitality of ideas, is his use of the field
metaphor which he applies to the phenomena of consciousness. Extending Jamess
metaphor, I suggest that we can speak of a field of action, which in some
sense is identical to the field of consciousness, the same unitary reality
considered from more of a motor (action) than a sensory (consciousness)
perspective. As in the case of consciousness, the field of action also
involves the distinction between focal point and marginwhere
what occupies the area at or around the focal point is experienced as more
concrete or realalong
with the recognition of the indeterminateness or uncertainty of the margin.
From the perspective of the dominant (extraverted, materialistic,
power-driven) worldview, the realm of the psyche, of mind, spirit, or
consciousness, is marginalized and therefore practically invisible. Since
what is attended to or focused upon is where most of the action isor
thought to be, at leastthe
dominant view is blind to fact that, despite its subtlety and general
invisibility, consciousness too is a form of action (and, as we shall see,
to some the most potent form of action).
One could, in this connection, appeal to the spectrum metaphor instead of,
or along with, that of the field. The advantage of the spectrum metaphor is
that it suggests a graded scale of increasing subtlety (from infrared to
ultraviolet). One could also draw fruitful parallels with David Bohms
theory of the implicate order, with the focal point of the field
corresponding to the explicate order. Bohm has applied this theory to the
special case of the relation of mind or consciousness to matter with his
notion of soma-significance
(see Bohm 1985; and Kelly 1992). According to Bohm, what we consider matter
(soma)
from one perspectivesay, for
instance, a photon or electronlooks
like mind
(as active information
or significance)
from the subtler perspective of the field with which it is inseparably
associated (the field, which is described by the Schrφdinger wave equation,
corresponds to the implicate order of the particle). For our purposes,
however, the field metaphor will suffice. In what follows, I want to
consider a range of increasingly subtle (and therefore generally marginal)
regions of the field of action along with some representative players in an
expanded vision of spiritual activism or engaged spirituality.
3. The intellectual as activist
I begin with the most familiar (to me, and likely to most of my
readers) and least controversial region of the fieldthat
of ideas, ideologies, worldviews, and paradigms. The word paradigm
(paradeigma) goes back to Plato, with reference to the realm of Ideas as the
truly real or abiding, and before that to the stories of the (controlling)
gods and (exemplary) heroes. With profound affinities to Kantian categories
and Jungian archetypes, the term took its modern definition from Thomas Kuhns
Structure of Scientific Revolutions (where it was used in both the general
sense of worldview and in the more restricted sense of specific
puzzle-solutions
standing as models or exemplars for a particular field of research). More
recently, Edgar Morin has written of paradigms in a manner that suggests a
kind of genetic program or deep organizational structure of worldviews. A
paradigm, writes Morin, contains
the
fundamental concepts and master categories of intelligibility as well as the
logical relations of attraction and repulsion (e.g., conjunction,
disjunction, implication) between these concepts or categories (Morin, 1991,
213; my emphasis). This
definition, which recalls James on the
polarizing
and magnetizing
effect of ideas, is more precise and potentially fruitful than, though in no
ways in conflict with, the main Kuhnian variations. The point here is that
paradigms not only describe, but actively prescribe, define, and literally
shape the world that is viewed.
Morin gives the example of two antagonistic views of the human/nature
relation which nevertheless privilege the same
categories of
intelligibility (in this
case reduction or disjunction). One (the biological sciences, with the human
genome project as emblematic) sees the human as a purely natural phenomenon
and ultimately reducible to chemistry, the other (most humanities and social
sciences, with deconstructive post-modernism at the extreme) as defined by
culture. Both, however, in attempting to subordinate the other to itself,
participate in the same paradigm of simplification, which of course is
dominant in our times.
If paradigms are like the genetic programs of worldviews, Morin agrees with
James that the ideas and ideologies which correspond to the paradigms are to
be looked upon as functionally equivalent to living beings or organisms
rather than as mere words
or passive data. Like biological organisms, worldviews and systems of ideas
in general are self-reproducing and self-maintaining. The two most
pathological examples of this phenomenonwhich
in their excess highlight these organismic qualitiesare
(for individuals) paranoid delusions and (for collectivities) fascist or
totalitarian ideologies. In both cases there is something like a metabolic
process of assimilation of whatever can serve as
food
for the perpetuation or repair of the program, as well as an
ideo-immunological response which rejects anything that threatens the core
identity. Here the responses range from simple denial to brutal repression
and the attempt to exterminate the perceived threat. Again, one need not go
to the extreme of outright dictatorship to witness the immunological
qualities of ideas or worldviews. It is enough, for instance, to note how
critical or divergent views are systematically excluded from the major
media, or how clearly one-sided, if not blatantly false, ruling-government
claims are enshrined as self-evident or quasi-sacred facts.
To work actively, and as an awakened activist, with ideas, worldviews and
paradigms as living and autonomous entities is not to ignore the concrete
social and political power relations within which they are embedded
(concentration of capital, control of the military, of the media, etc.).
Worldviews and culture generally are embedded in society and its power
relations, which, however, are equally embedded in culture. The relation
between the two, along with such terms as consciousness or spirit and
nature; the individual and the collectivity; unity and diversity; culture
and society, is complex, which is to say (at the least): dialogical,
recursive, and holographic. Any view which privileges one term in any such
pair of opposites can be taken as a manifestation of the paradigm of
simplification.
The mission of the intellectual, as an awakened activist, depends upon the
ability to discern the presence of the paradigm of simplification and, by
contrast, to enact and model the paradigm of complexity. The latter is
perhaps the closest we can come, short of any metaphysical claims, to an
embodiment of what I, for one, would be happy to call Wisdom. Or at least,
it might be considered the essential base of any intellectual approach to
what, after alldespite our
appropriation of the word in the self-definition of our speciesused
to be considered a Goddess. Enacting the paradigm of complexity means to
privilege theories over dogmas or doctrines, which is to say an open
rationality over rationalization. Morin summarizes some of the differences
between the two with the following (reduced) table of contrasts:
Doctrines theories
self-referential (weak eco relation) auto-exo-referential (strong eco
relation)
rigid links between concepts logical necessity of conceptual relations
very strong immune response immune response (only rejects what is (rejects
all challenges) irrelevant)
anathema polemical vigor
Morin points out that the difference between doctrines and theories often
depends not so much on the ideas themselves that constitute a given system,
but on the degree to which the organization of the system is open or closed.
Openness depends upon the psycho-cultural ecosystem. Thus, the ecosystem
of science more or less guarantees the openness of theories, which therefore
can only ever partially become doctrines. The ecosystem of a rigidly
centralized political party, by contrast, favors doctrinization, which in
turn favors a rigid centralization: for instance, in the context of the
university, Marxism can be considered as a theory, which is discussed in
relation to other competing theories, whereas within a sect or a party that
sets itself up as the rightful owner and sole interpreter of the theory, the
same Marxism becomes a doctrine; it is considered confirmed to perpetuity
and therefore irrefutable, and any data or argument that challenges it is
rejected in the manner of an immunological response. (Morin 1991, 134-135)
The same, of course, could be said for the theory of the so-called
free-market
of laissez-faire capitalism (Morins
example comes from a socialist France where even communism, though
pronounced dead by the U.S, still plays an active role in national
politics).
The openneness of an awakened intellectual, explicitly activist or not,
involves a kind of learnθd
ignorance (docta ignorantia)
that is to say, an informed
acceptance of the limits to knowledge, of the irreducible presence of
uncertainty and the inevitability of error. This kind of ignorance,
moreover, though informed or educated, must itself also be learned, for the
natural tendency of the mind is to settle on what most suits it, or more
particularly, suits the generally unconscious feelings and drives that
constitute the life-blood of the paradigm within which the ideas in question
are embedded. One also sees, therefore, how necessary it is to link
intellectual honesty with the corresponding psychological habit or
discipline of searching out ones
deeper or subtler motives, whether these have their source in what Jung
calls the shadow (the repressed, unacknowledged, or simply undeveloped part
of the personality), or in more collective and perhaps even archetypal or
transpersonal realms of consciousness. For, as Jung put it: "Our fearsome
gods have only changed their names: they now rhyme withism."
Without the kind of inoculation that comes from the practice of complex
thinking and the willingness to look at the shadowand
even here there is no guaranteethere
is the real danger of possession by these
-isms,
with all its attendant horrors. The danger is potentially global in
proportions. As Morin states the case:
master-words
(the equivalent of Jungs
-isms)
are "verbal giants whose empire extends over the entire political domain:
thus, according to the particular optic, democracy/dictatorship,
socialism/capitalism, left/right, contest and divide the world (Morin 1981,
54)."
4. The psychonaut as activist
Jung first drew attention to the dangers of archetypal possession in
his prophetic 1936 essay, Wotan,
where he described the phenomenon of National Socialism in terms of
unconscious identification with the long-buried Germanic god of storm and
frenzy, of lust for battle, and of illusion and magic. Jung and his
followers point us to the other sense of demensalong
with the sense of madness or insanity, the idea that the wisdom of the human
is closely linked to the presence or activity of what used to be called gods
and spirits (daimones), but which we have come to feel more comfortable
calling the creative imagination or simply the unconscious.
More recently, psychiatrist, consciousness researcher, and transpersonal
psychologist Stanislav Grof has integrated Jungs
archetypal perspective with a neo-Rankian recognition of the impact of the
birth trauma not only on individual development, but on that of culture at
large and particularly, in this context, on key elements of our current
global crisis. Echoing Jung, Grof asserts that
[a]ny plans to change the
situation in the world are of problematic value, unless they include a
systematic effort to change the human condition that has created the crisis
(Grof 1985, 432). Grof makes
a convincing case that totalitarian systems, autocracy, dictatorship, police
states, bloody revolutions, and war in general, all draw significant
portions of the enormous amount of energy required to sustain them from the
unprocessed trauma associated with birth. The force of the trauma arises
from an unparalled hyper-arousal of the nervous system, typically combined
with sustained crushing pressure and often near suffocationall
of which, of course, has to be put in the context of the experience of a
being with no voluntary physical, or self-reflectively cognitive, coping
mechanisms (the main defense being simple dissociation) and with an
extremely dilated time sense. The titanic energies or dynamic tensions
generated at birthstored
indefinitely, as somatic psychotherapy has shown to be the case with all
trauma, in the bodyare a
ready source for the fear, hatred, and malignant aggression that are
mobilized on a mass scale in times of war and civil unrest and projected
onto the enemy.
The real problem,
Grof writes, "does not consist in isolated individuals or political parties
and factions. The task is to create safe and socially sanctioned situations
in which certain toxic and potentially dangerous elements of the human
personality structure can be confronted and worked through without any harm
or damage to others, or society as a whole. Externally oriented radical
programs and political power struggles, although of vital importance if
challenging a murderous regime of a Hitler or Stalin, cannot solve the
problems of humanity without a simultaneous inner transformation. They
typically create a pendulum effect whereby yesterdays
underdog becomes tomorrows
ruler and vice versa. Although the roles change, the amount of malignant
aggression remains the same, and humanity as a whole is not helped." (ibid.,
413)
As Grof sees itand again, in
full agreement with Jungthe
point of inner transformation can be summed up with the phrase: go in
instead of acting out. In contrast to the more standard view of a
spiritually informed activism or engaged spirituality, where
inner work
is seen as a necessary accompaniment to, or resource for,
real
action in the outside world, I am suggesting that intentionally engaged
inner transformation is a form of awakened activism. If Grof is right, the
world needs this kind of activism as much as it does that of the more
obvious front-line
variety.
Chris Bache has amplified Grofs
model in a way that reveals another aspect of the psychonaut as awakened
activist. Coming out of hundreds of solo LSD sessions following a modified
Grofian protocol, Bache makes explicit what is already implied by Grof (and
Jung, for that matter, with his theory of the collective unconscious)namely,
the idea of a species mind in which the individual mind or psyche
participates. More particularly, Bache suggests that part of the reason, at
least, why experiential engagement of the perinatal unconscious is generally
so overwhelming is that, in revisiting ones
own unprocessed birth trauma, the psyche resonates with a corresponding
perinatal dimension of the species mind. This dimension of the greater Mind
(again, one can think here of the Jungian idea of the collective
unconscious) functions as the repository not only of humanitys
cumulative experience of biological birth, but also (as Grof demonstrates
for the case of the individual) of all unprocessed traumatic residues that
share the same feeling tone or other phenomenological qualities as one or
more of the various phases or matrices
of the birth process. Participating, as it were, in the same energetic
field, these experiences and residues are all non-locally related and
potentially accessible (especially in non-ordinary states of consciousness)
by what Rupert Sheldrake has called
morphic resonance (see Sheldrake 1989).
Given these assumptions, Bache proposes the following:
just as problematic
experiences can collect and block the healthy functioning of the individual,
similar blockages might also occur at the collective level. This suggests
that the unresolved anguish of human history might still be active in the
memory of the species-mind, burdening its life just as our individual
unresolved anguish burdens ours. Continuing the parallel, if conscious
engagement of previously unresolved pain brings therapeutic release at the
personal level, the same might also occur at the species level. (Bache, 78)
The perinatal dimension of the species mind not only functions as repository
of cumulative trauma, however, but points as well to the notion that our
species is itself undergoing a kind of birth and evolutionary leap. This
implies, along with the idea that it might be necessary for enough of us to
do the work of inner transformation to make a difference at the level of
socio-political reality, that such a difference will necessarily involve
both a catharsis and an awakening of the species mind itself.
It is difficult to see at this point in time how Baches
claims or those like them could ever be verified or tested, which does not,
however, mean they should not be pursued (especially given the stakes
involved). Equally uncertain is the precise relationship between the
individual psyche and the species mind, the degree of relative autonomy in
either direction, and how best to facilitate the new birth. In any case, if
the catharsis in question can, as Bache points out, be characterized as a
release of collective karma, then one sees how this type of deep
experiential workespecially
when the desire for such a release is explicitly taken up into the intentioncan
be considered a kind of awakened activism. The
inner
work undertaken is equally for the benefit of all. It is active on the level
of the collective or the transpersonal and not merely that of the individual
or the personal. Insofar as this form of awakened activism invokes, or
otherwise involves itself with, an overtly spiritual or religious world
view, one could see it as signaling the emergence of a new form of socially
or politically inflected yoganot
so much karma yoga, as what might be called a yoga of karma.
5. The yogi as activist
While Bache envisions the release of collective karma through deep
experiential engagement of the species mind, the example of Sri Aurobindo
points to the possibility of intervening in present social and political
movementsand this in the
most direct mannerthrough a
yoga of action on the subtle planes. The species mind, for its part, though
described in terms of Jungs
collective unconscious and Sheldrakes
morphic fields, can also be thought of as a subtle plane entity. The main
difference is that, with the language of subtle planes, one has taken the
final step beyond even the most speculative of models into an explicitly
spiritual/metaphysical world view. In the case of Sri Aurobindo, however, we
are still dealing with deep, or high, experiential work (yoga), though at
this point at least I know of no other accounts that we might turn to for
comparison.
Sri Aurobindo (b. 1872), though recognized as a great Hindu sage and
spiritual adept, was also a prominent political activist. Onetime leader of
the Nationalist movement in Bengal and author of many
political-revolutionary pamphlets, he was imprisoned for a year awaiting
trial for conspiracy, but finally acquitted (see the Introduction and
chronology in McDermott). Fleeing the British authorities, he retired to
Pondicherry (1910) to pursue a more concentrated spiritual discipline. With
the Mother,
he guided the ashram until his death in 1950. It is said that, for the last
twenty years of his life, Sri Aurobindo rarely left his room, let alone the
ashram or Pondicherry.
The common view of the relation of wisdom or spirit to action would probably
characterize Sri Aurobindos
life in this way: upon his return to India from his long sojourn in England,
the first phase was one of action in the world, followed by the longer,
contemplative phase where, though he maintained an avid interest in them, he
was no longer directly engaged in political matters. This is not his own
view, however. Here, for instance, is what Sri Aurobindo, referring to
himself in the third person, had to say about his role in the outcome of
World War II:
In his retirement Sri Aurobindo kept a close watch on all that was happening
in the world and in India and actively intervened whenever necessary, but
solely with a spiritual force and silent spiritual action; for it is part of
the experience of those who have advanced far in Yoga that besides the
ordinary forces and activities of the mind and life and body in Matter,
there are other forces and powers that can act and do act from behind and
from above; there is also a spiritual dynamic power which can be possessed
by those who are advanced in the spiritual consciousness,
and this power is greater
than any other and more effective. It was this force which, as soon as he
had attained to it, he used, at first only in a limited field of personal
work, but afterwards in a constant action upon the world forces. He had no
reason to be dissatisfied with the results or to feel the necessity of any
other kind of action.
when
it appeared as if Hitler would crush all the forces opposed to him and
Nazism dominate the world, he began to intervene. He declared himself
publicly on the side of the Allies, made some financial contributions in
answer to the appeal for funds and encouraged those who sought his advice to
enter the army or share in the war effort. Inwardly, he put his spiritual
force behind the Allies from the moment of Dunkirk when everybody was
expecting the immediate fall of England and the definite triumph of Hitler,
and he had the satisfaction of seeing the rush of German victory almost
immediately arrested and the tide of war begin to turn in the opposite
direction. This he did, because he saw that behind Hitler and Nazism were
dark Asuric forces and that their success would mean the enslavement of
mankind to the tyranny of evil, and a set-back to the course of evolution
and especially to the spiritual evolution of mankind.
It was this reason also that induced him to support publicly the Cripps'
offer and to press the Congress leaders to accept it
.
When negotiations failed, Sri Aurobindo returned to his reliance on the use
of his spiritual force alone against the aggressor and had the satisfaction
of seeing the tide of Japanese victory, which had till then swept everything
before it, change immediately into a tide of rapid, crushing and finally
immense and overwhelming defeat
.
(Aurobindo, my emphasis)
These are clearly staggering claims! How could one individual, tucked away
in his room on a different continent, have a determining influence on the
course of a war involving many nations and the interactions of millions of
people? What context do we have for even understanding, let alone for trying
to assess the validity, of such claims? We will turn to these questions in a
moment. First I would like to point out that the standard activist view of
Sri Aurobindos life in India
is plainly mistaken. It was not a case of action in the
real
world followed by contemplation or inner
work, but one of a
continuity of action with a shift from grosser or more manifest to subtler
regions of the field of action. Though he continued to act in more obvious
waysthrough public
declarations, financial contributions, and in a consultative capacityhe
considered his action on the subtle planes to be
greater than any other and
more effective.
As for contexts, I have said that I know of no comparable instances in
modern times that we might turn to for comparison. Despite some similarities
with Jungs view of what lies
behind the worlds
-isms,
or with Morins understanding
of the power of master
words, it is not a question
here of interacting with the human collective unconscious or species mind,
nor of encountering the manifestations of collective karma or archetypal
forms per say. Instead, one has to do here with present supra- or infra-
human forces/entities (Sri Aurobindo uses the Vedic term Asura, which is
functionally equivalent to the Western, or Near Eastern, notion of
demon)
that are actively, though generally invisibly, involved in human affairs,
and in this case, political affairs on a global scale. Apparently, Sri
Aurobindo and the Mother believed that Hitlers
soul had been replaced by an Asura. One could, of course, take Jung at his
word with respect to the Nazis and the god Wotan, in which case we would
have a closely parallel (and contemporary) interpretive framework. Jung,
however, did not claim to play any direct, confrontative role in this
particular encounter between the human and the demonic, nor presumably would
he recommend such an attempt, given his repeated warnings of the dangers of
possession, inflation, or fascination by these powers (whether he would even
think it possible for someone to do what Sri Aurobindo claims to have done
is impossible to say).
In terms of known types of religious experiences and practices, the closest
parallel would be the battles of shamans (most often with rival shamans,
though also with other malevolent spiritual forces or entities). While these
take place on subtle planestypically
in the upper
or lower
worldsthe issue of the
battles have consequences in the manifest world: the afflicted individual is
cured or the community shakes off its bad luck in the hunt. The main
differences between the traditional shamanic journey and what we can
conjecture about Sri Aurobindos
yogic intervention include the following: the shamanic journey typically
involves some kind of obvious trance induction technique (sonic driving,
dance, fasting, sacred medicines), a ritual or ceremonial element, and is
focused on the condition or fate of a single individual or that of the local
community. Sri Aurobindos
descriptions of the practice of integral yoga, by contrast, do not involve
any manifest trance induction techniques or ritual elements (though they
might include the latter), and at least in the case of his intervention in
WW II, it is a question of world-historical rather than merely individual or
local concerns.
We do not know, unfortunately, any of the details of Sri Aurobindos
intervention. What did he do in the way of preparation? What did it look
like from the inside? Was the will noticeably engaged, or was it more a
matter of arriving at the proper constellation of intention and inner
perception? Was the confrontation with the Asuric forces direct, or
symbolically mediated in some way (as happens, for instance, in the case of
ceremonial magic)? I ask these questions not only out of sheer curiosity,
but, on the one hand, to assist in finding the appropriate interpretive
context, and on the other, to gather a sense as to how, in the absence of
explicit instructions, one might go about cultivating what, if authentic,
would constitute one of the mostif
not the mostpotent forms of
political activism.
Sri Aurobindo saw his ability to act on the subtle planes as something that
comes naturally to those who
have advanced far in Yoga.
There are many yogis in the world todayperhaps
none have advanced so far, for there are no reports of similar
interventions. Skeptics might say that, with similarly favorable outcomes,
the reports will surface. The problem is that we have had no such outcomes.
Or have we? An absence of reports does not necessarily mean that significant
interventions on the subtle planes, though likely less dramatic than the one
that might have tipped the scales in favor of the Allies in WW II, have not
in fact taken place. As for Aurobindos
own claims, because of the special nature of historical eventstheir
intrinsic irrepeatability and extreme overdeterminationit
is impossible in principle to assess their genuineness. It is a fact,
however, that the defeat of the Nazis was highly improbable up until the
time it happened (see Morin 1999, 99f.). Despite all the uncertainties, can
we afford not to support and affirm the possibility of this kind of
interventionagain, given the
stakes involved, and the generally meager returns of ordinary means? Even if
Aurobindos gifts were
unique, perhaps the ability to engage in this kind of subtle or awakened
activismor something akin to
it, but less dependent on rare genius or years or spiritual disciplineis
more readily available than we might think.
6. The meditator as activist
Finally, a more modest, and much less dramatic, proposal for a kind
of awakened, or spiritual
activism comes from Marianne Williamson and the Global Renaissance Alliance.
The GRAs approach to
activism considers stillness, envisioning, interpersonal healing, depth of
insight, radical good will, and the creation of sacred space as
acts of power
with global political ramifications. The foundational practice recommended
by the GRA is the formation of Citizens
Circles or
Peace Circles.
A simplified version of the format is as follows: a self-selected group of
(ideally) six to 10 people agree to meet weekly. There is a common
perception that the world needs healing and a shared general intention that
the activity of the group will contribute to a positive transformation.
Following a period of twenty to thirty minutes of silent sitting, members of
the group are encouraged to voice any vision of a better world that might
have arisen, in the form of a statement that begins:
I see a [name of country,
locality, or simply world]
where (or that) [some positive, desirable image or outcome].
After this visioning
phase, a group member facilitates a dialogue around whatever is
up
for the group that day.
The group may or may not choose explicitly to address matters of social or
political concern in its dialogue period. Similarly, it may come about,
after the group has stabilized sufficiently and if the rapport is suitable,
that a particular project is decided upon that would constitute a readily
recognizable form of activism. Such manifest action in the world, however,
is not considered necessary for the
spiritual activism
of the group to be effective. For, as we read from the GRAs
website: The simple
configuration of people gathered in a circle, sharing prayer and meditation
and heartfelt conversation, casts a web of healing power affecting not only
the members of the circle but the world at large.
We are informed that the New Activist
uses prayer, meditation and
forgiveness as tools for the creation of a world made right. Whoever wields
the power of a loving mind wields a power that is greater than any on Earth,
restoring conscience to its primary place in human affairs (GRA website).
Despite its simplicity, Peace Circles actually combine diverse elements
(power of the group, quiet sitting, shared visioning, facilitated
discussion, often prayer) which, apart from whatever virtues they may have
on their own, may act synergistically to amplify the desired effect. For our
purposes, however, I want to focus on the meditational element, in which I
include prayer (though not always present) and visioning or
imagining.
I realize these are distinct practices. I consider them together here purely
for ease of treatment and since they all share the constellating of a
particular form of mind-intent expressed in the phrase above,
the power of a loving mind.
In contrast to the shamanic/yogic way of dynamic confrontation or to the
psychonauts path of
purification, both of which involve a strenuous engagement with dark forces,
the GRA and its Peace Circles stand in the tradition of a certain strand of
Christian idealism and contemplative spirituality (New Thought, Christian
Science, the Unity Church, A Course in Miracles) and New Age Metaphysics
(see Hanegraaff). The paths of the psychonaut and the yogi, at least for the
exemplars I have chosen, seem more at home in the world view of what James,
in his Varieties of Religious Experience, describes as the
Sick Soulthat
is, a view that sees evil and suffering as ontologically real and, though
perhaps ultimately defeatable, as forces that need somehow to be integrated
into the fabric of everyday life. By contrast, the GRA meditator clearly
belongs to Jamess
Healthy-Minded
type, which has a
constitutional incapacity for prolonged suffering,
and who tends to see things
optimistically (James, 127).
The leaders of the Healthy-Minded world view have
an intuitive belief in the
all-saving power of healthy-minded attitudes as such, in the conquering
efficacy of courage, hope, and trust, and a correlative contempt for doubt,
fear, worry, and all nervously precautionary states of mind
(ibid., 94-95).
Clearly, Jamess
Sick Soul
and Healthy-Minded
are ideal types, which means one will most likely find actual individuals
and groups that combine aspects of both types. The GRAs
Principles of a New
Activism, on the other handfrom
which I quoted aboveare an
unambiguous expression of Jamess
Healthy-Minded world view. The main difference from the specific groups that
James considers in the Varieties is that, whereas these are focused on the
goal of individual healing, Peace Circle meditators usually have the nation,
and ultimately the planet as a whole, as the focus of their healing
intention. With this social and political focus, the idealist and
contemplative stream is brought into the service of activism as well as
therapy.
The New Testament source for the belief in the power of mind-intent is the
saying of Jesus (Mathew 7:7:8): Ask,
and it shall be given you; etc.
The idea is that, if it come from a pure heart that seeks to fulfill the
Will of God, who is Almighty, any petition must surely be granted. In the
context of 19C New Thought metaphysics and its New Age descendants, the
personal theistic element is often muted in favor of, or is combined with,
an idealist view of Universal Mind, the true reality, with which our
individual minds are consubstantial. Here it is a question of achieving a
certain clarity of intention or vision,
which, given the consubstantiality with Universal Mind, must necessarily
manifest in the world-at-large. Again, as we read in the GRAs
Principles of a New Activism: When
a critical mass of prayer and meditation is extended in the direction of
peace, then the conditions of war will automatically be cast away from
Earth.
Though less dramatic than the claims of Aurobindo, one could argue that this
kind of activism operates on the more subtle ranges of the field of action,
since mere thought or intention (vision or
imagining)
is considered to be potentially effective of radical change. In terms of
Aurobindos esoteric
ontology, as we have seen, the spirits of the Vital plane (among which are
the Devas and Asuras)which
is subtler and both suffuses and envelops the Material planeexert
a determining influence on the affairs of this world. Since the Mental plane
is even subtler than the Vital, however, it is conceivable that any
influence emanating from there could be correspondingly more potent. If this
were the case, it would lend even more support to the case of the
intellectual as activist, though the Mind in question here is more intuitive
than conceptual in character.
In our own times, this Mind or its functional equivalent is often
characterized in terms of fields
of energy,
perhaps even using David Bohms
theory of the implicate
order, which in physics is
the non-local Ground of the manifest or
explicate
order of the material world as we normally experience it. Bohm himself
proposed that, if enough people engaged in the process of meditative
dialogue that he pioneered, and managed to clarify and harmonize the
otherwise generally fragmented patterns that dominate our thinking and
communication, this might have a catalyzing effect on society as a whole
(see Bohm 1994; and Bohm and Kelly).
While reputable studies have been done that appear to demonstrate the
ability of mere intention to heal or otherwise positively affect individual
human beings, and even plants (see Dossey and Gerber), it is difficult to
know how the effects on society could be reliably detected. We are faced
with another version of the difficulty we encountered in wanting to verify
Sri Aurobindos claims. With
the irreducible uncertainty that must accompany this kind of inquiry,
however, we are left also with something analogous to Pascals
wager: there is no cost in allowing that it may be so. On the other hand, to
deem it impossible could block one of the most powerful means at our
disposal to bring into being the better world for which we all long.
Conclusion
We are left with a central question: How conscious is the relation
between manifest action in the physical and social worlds, on the one hand,
and the activity emanating from subtler worlds, on the otherthe
world of ideas and paradigms; of feelings, complexes, and archetypes; of
Devas and Asuras; of daimones, ancestors, and angels? However far one is
willing to go in admitting the reality of these and other subtle forces or
entities, if the relation remains unconscious, our actions are no better
than the turnings of clock-work or the gesticulations of clever-seeming
puppets.
Given the dominant cultural and political bias towards the grossest forms of
action, which tend also to be the most short-sighted and self-serving, it is
incumbent upon those of us with more openness or sensitivity to the subtler
forms of action to encourage and support each other in our various pursuits,
however tentative they may be. We dont
all have to be intellectuals, psychonauts, yogis, or meditators to be
awakened activists. I have simply selected these types, and their chosen
representatives, to illustrate some of the main paths that have already been
traveled. Though not many have Morins
gift for discerning the pervasive though generally invisible presence of a
noxious paradigm, we can all benefit from his modeling of intellectual
integrity and an open rationality. And while few might have the stamina to
endure the ordeals of deep experiential work in the service of planetary
healing, or feel called to the kind of heroic confrontation of Asuric forces
exhibited by Sri Aurobindo during WWII, it requires comparatively little
effort to include our political leaders and public figures in our daily
meditations and prayers. Though costing little, we must not underestimate
the power of focused intention resting in, or issuing from, a clear and
quieted mind and an open, aspiring heart. For it is in such minds and
hearts, as in the still glassy surface of a mountain lake at dawn, that
Wisdom is wont to show her veilless face.
We must waken to the entire field of action and make more conscious and
intentional the relation between the subtle and the gross, the hidden and
the manifest. We must honor the many paths that cross the field of action,
recognizing that what might appear as fainter trails are, for some, the
surest way to the desired goal. We must seek to discover where we are most
at home in the field of action, cultivate the garden there, and offer up the
finest fruit to the Wisdom we would have dwell among us.
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