An alternate view on states

I was wondering if any of you had read Mark Edrwards article “An alternate view on states, part I and II) ?- http://www.integralworld.net/

- Has it been discussed somewhere here that I don't know of?
- Does anyone know if Ken Wilber did respond to that text?

I'm thinking about making a summary of the main ideas of Edwards ideas and start a little discussion on this theme.

If this has already been done,please notify it to me.

Patrick

Re: An alternate view on states

Mark Edwards “An alternate view on states part I&II” says that KW is victim of a PTF2.

He argues that the realms Wibler talks about, gross, subtle and causal, and that can be felt in dream experience are not transpersonal.

He argues that sleep research have found no trace of transpersonal material in dreams and his hypothesis is that it is because sleep makes us enter into pré-personal states.

He says that studies on child spirituality don't show any consistency, as they are mostly reports of adults of childhood experiences. His hypothesis is that adults tend to “transpersonalize” experiences that probably were pre-personal.

As for vedanta who supports the idea that in sleep we experience subtle and causal states, he says that they were all subject to PTF, specially at that time (except Ramana Maharshi).

His two articles have the merit to question the nature of states and stages, which are highly  difficult to conceptualize.

My first critic of his article is that he repeatedly says :” Ken is saying here that the true nature of the sleeping states is transpersonal…” (partII, p. 18, end paragraph.)

And the same thing about Vedanta: “The Vedanta view is that in the state of deep sleep the self experiences the causal realm of transpersonal identity” (Part II, p.6, 5§)

But in the whole article filled with citation of Wilber, never does Ken say that the states of sleep are transpersonal! He never uses this word and after a little reasearch in the book “Integral Spirituality” and other articles, I have not yet found the word “transpersonal” linked to these staes. (If anyone finds anything of that sort, it will be nice to report it).

So I think that Edwards has made an assumption of his own. I believe that the word “transpersonal” has to do with the relative self, what is called the Ahamkara in vedanta. But the sleep states tend to potentially offer us a lesser distance or veil towards the non-dual self (causal).

Two things here can be misleading:

1) the word transpersonal is a misleading word in the sense that one can believe it means non-dual. I think it's not the case and that it refers to an egoic state that is less cristallized and more fluid, but certainly not non-dual! Pre-personal is also a misleading word as it could mean that there is a relative state without ego, but made of “bad things” like regression, fusion and the like! There is then a polarization between pre and trans: we want trans and we reject pre!

2) in the past, Wilber thought that subtle and causal were stages that you could stack up on the other ones, discovered in the west! 
This lead directly to a mixing of the words trans-personal and non-dual: they were the same. But I think this point has now changed and that the view is a bit different (Cf. the W.-C. Lattice)

As for Vedanta thinking that sleep was transpersonal, this is very stupid. Otherwise the Upanishads would have advocate sleep as spiritual discipline  and not meditation.

As I see it, I believe the words trans and pre-personal should be droped, as they can be highly misleading.

I think that as soon as a soul is in a body, some sense of identitty is here, and I could also say that as long as there is a body, .some sense of identitty will be here( as fluid and Kosmo-centric it may be). There is no pre and trans personal, but stage dependent egos! Fusion and regression will then be stage dependent ego experience of a non-dual state!

This would resolve as well the problem of magic thinking and all. Magical thinking is the stage dependent interpretation of a subtle realm intuition( and so is reason and the next stages, like trans-rationnal - Misleading as well.)

The words pre-rationnal, trans personal and the like just show from what stage we are theorizing: mainly rational, with a good sense of our person! An integral spirituality map would need words independent of any stage:

More later..got to work.

Patrick



 

Re: An alternate view on states

Patrick: “He argues that the realms Wibler talks about, gross, subtle and causal, and that can be felt in dream experience are not transpersonal.

He argues that sleep research have found no trace of transpersonal material in dreams and his hypothesis is that it is because sleep makes us enter into pré-personal states.

He says that studies on child spirituality don't show any consistency, as they are mostly reports of adults of childhood experiences. His hypothesis is that adults tend to “transpersonalize” experiences that probably were pre-personal.”

Patrick: “ But in the whole article filled with citation of Wilber, never does Ken say that the states of sleep are transpersonal! He never uses this word and after a little reasearch in the book “Integral Spirituality” and other articles, I have not yet found the word “transpersonal” linked to these staes. (If anyone finds anything of that sort, it will be nice to report it).

So I think that Edwards has made an assumption of his own.”

Yes, I think you're right with this last bit. I don't think that Ken is saying that the state itself is transpersonal nor the content of the dreams; what is transpersonal is the witnessing awareness that a person develops or falls into. So, nothing really transpersonal is going on when the child dreams or when most adults dream, but when an adult learns to stay awake in those dreams–lucid dreaming or, as Ken prefers, pellucid dreaming–that witnessing awareness that they have become (remaining awake as it as the body sleeps) is what is transpersonal. The dream content itself may be childish or whatever but is not transpersonal either.


Patrick: “As for vedanta who supports the idea that in sleep we experience subtle and causal states, he says that they were all subject to PTF, specially at that time (except Ramana Maharshi).”

What's PTF?
 

Patrick: “2) in the past, Wilber thought that subtle and causal were stages that you could stack up on the other ones, discovered in the west!” 

Ken may have thought at one point that the states were actually stages, but I'm pretty sure he never thought that the subtle, causal, and nondual were discovered by Westerners.

Patrick: “As for Vedanta thinking that sleep was transpersonal, this is very stupid. Otherwise the Upanishads would have advocate sleep as spiritual discipline  and not meditation.”

Also, it's better if we don't label things as “stupid” and such. That's a little harsh. Better to say “incorrect” or something. Best to try to be soft and diplomatic and subtle as people's feelings get hurt and such. I'm not always perfect at this myself, but it is important that we try to refine the way we discuss these things and try to converse with eachother in the most evolved manner that we can.



 

Re: An alternate view on states

Thank you David for you post.

PTF stands for pre-trans fallacy. Arthur posted a paper from Wilber on this here:

http://pods.zaadz.com/ii/discussions/view/118440#118440

Patrick: “2) in the past, Wilber thought that subtle and causal were stages that you could stack up on the other ones, discovered in the west!” 

David: “Ken may have thought at one point that the states were actually stages, but I'm pretty sure he never thought that the subtle, causal, and nondual were discovered by Westerners.”

My sentence was badly constructed: I meant “stacked up on the stages discovered by westerners”. The coma was at the wrong place.

David: “Also, it's better if we don't label things as “stupid” and such. That's a little harsh. Better to say “incorrect” or something. Best to try to be soft and diplomatic and subtle as people's feelings get hurt and such. I'm not always perfect at this myself, but it is important that we try to refine the way we discuss these things and try to converse with eachother in the most evolved manner that we can.”

 I said “to think…is stupid” and not that anyone was stupid! This lightens it a bit. I come from a place were lyrics are not censored and movies neither! On this subject, it has always struck me how the language in movies in the US was censored and how violent the movies were. This is definitely a paradox!

Although I don't like censorship, specially in the name of religion, or the Higher self,
I think you're right and I will be vigilant in the futur on this pod.

Back to the subject:

I wonder if the notion of pre-trans fallacy becomes unvalid with the new version of states and stages (as exemplified in the W.-C. Lattice). I'll post something on this matter this week-end.

Patrick

Re: An alternate view on states. End of pre/trans fallacy?

This is a point that has been bugging me for the past days and I would certainly need some help on this subject:

1) At the time of “Atman project”, Wilber used the discoveries of Western social and psychological siences to draw a map of stages. He thought that evolution would then lead us into the stages discovered by the est (Buddhism and Hinduism, but also Christian mysticism). That was the map of the stages.

Then, the notion of pre/trans fallacy (from now on PTF) was very important:

There were no spiritual states in infants and the like. I think we can say that with this model, the meaning of spirituality was “The highest level in any of the lines” (Integral Spirituality, p.100). Hence the importance of the PTF concept: a state of a lower stage like “fusion” lived by a child or during a psychotic experience was not to be confused with the spiritual experience of a sage meditating and reporting a non-dual experience.

Pre and trans personal were linked with the (existing at the moment or not) spiritual line or experience. pre/trans rational is obviously linked with the cognitive line of development.

Now, the theory has evolved and we find ourselves with stages and states connecting in a different manner. The next evolutionary stages are not simply the spiritual experiences (which are states), but something else. (third-tier  stages).

With the Wilber-Comb lattice, Wilber says that a spiritual experience/state can be lived at any state: it's the subtle and causal realms which are available at any stage of development.

In this model the central meaning of the word spirituality is not anymore “the highest level in any line”, but more probably “a separate line in itself” (IS, p.100) or “an extraordinary peak experience or state” (IS, p.100)

It follows from this that we could ask the question : is the infantile fusion or regression not simply how a spiritual experience appears to us at a certain stage? Is it not a spiritual experience, colored by the stage the person is at?

If that be the case - and it is certainly nothing but a hypothesis- then the notions of pre/trans fallacy concerning the spiritual line is not valide anymore. Those experiences are spiritual experiences, due to a connection to subtle and causal realms, but with different manifestation in the relative world.
These experiences should not be equated on the relativ level of stages, but on the level of state, their connection can be seen.

That point seems quite tricky to me and if the term pre/trans personal is argued to be still valide, at least it's meaning tends to change with the new model orentation.

Patrick

Re: An alternate view on states. End of pre/trans fallacy?

This is a very valid point Patrick.

We still need the PTF (pre/trans-fallacy) to distinguish different kinds of interpretations of spiritual experiences.

And is a state ever “pure”, free from interpretations even as the state is happening? I think not. Not completely. Therefore the PTF is still needed both as we interpret a state after it happened, and also for interpreting how our stage affected the state itself while it was going on.

It's good that you clarify the difference between Wilber-IV and Wilber-V so clearly. We need to be clear on that, since confusion always results when some people still have one map in their head and others have an updated version. I believe some of the most heated PTF debates in this pod have been affected by people using Wilber-IV instead of Wilber-V, or using both simultaneously.

Thanks also for distinguishing between transrational, transpersonal, etc.

Re: An alternate view on states. End of pre/trans fallacy?

Thanks Pelle for your post,

Yes I guess we still need The PTF concept, but it can be misleading and bring us back from Wilber V to Wilber IV. Do you see what I mean? It's bringing us to believe that spiritual experiences are at higher stages only.

I believe indeed that there are a lot of confusion within the talks about integral concerning the relative and absolute aspects of emancipation. Balder's transcript of a part of his conversation with KW reasserts the difference of these to aspects of reality. Here's the link to his post on the TSK pod (I hope you don't mind Balder for this liberty I took.)

http://pods.zaadz.com/tsk/discussions/view/126206#126206

Pelle: “And is a state ever “pure”, free from interpretations even as the state is happening? I think not. Not completely. Therefore the PTF is still needed both as we interpret a state after it happened, and also for interpreting how our stage affected the state itself while it was going on.”

This question is an important one, and Wilber has put a lot of emphasis on it. But I wonder if there is not a lack of conceptualization of the interraction between states and stages.

How are the relative self and the non dual self (absolute) considered to be interacting in an integral model?

With love,

Patrick

Re: An alternate view on states. End of pre/trans fallacy?

I don't mind at all, Patrick.  In fact, I'd welcome Pelle's contributions to that discussion (which has a sister thread also here in Chapel Perspicacious; I posted a link to the TSK pod discussion here yesterday).  But just to be clear:  my second post in that thread is not a transcript from my conversation with Ken.  It's a chapter out of one of the TSK books, Love of Knowledge.

About the topic of this thread – I'm very interested in it and have been following the posts here.  I think you make a good point:  the Wilber-Combs lattice does impact the PTF, if not by invalidating it, at least by altering how it is understood and applied.  I'll come back to this discussion later…

Best wishes,

Balder

Re: An alternate view on states

This is a great thread Patrick,
The idea of childhood experiences with non-dual states, has never been questioned by me, because I had these experiences. I know that's what they were, because its the same quality of mind experienced almost continually these days after a great deal of study and meditative practice; although, there are still gaps of awareness and a lot of habit energy that I have to contend with.
So, from direct experience, I know that's what I experienced as a kid. I don't remember anything like that until I was maybe 10 or so. 
What I disagree with however, is the idea that once the experience is over, the person interprets it according to they're current stage and level. That a Christian will say that it was like a light and angels were there, or anything like that. Because, I remember one of the most vivid experiences was when I was in church as a kid. I never even tried to explain it, or thought I could, and I certainly couldn't explain it with Christain terminology or mythology. I don't see how it's possible to warp a non-dual experience into anything in particular, because it isn't like anything in particular, nor is it different from any other experience, while also not being the same.  I would imagine that one would have to have an inclination towards self-diseption, but that not everyone would try to interpret it in some graspable way.
It like people that take a hit of acid and start talking to a tree. Anybody that has taken acid knows that it doesn't actually make you think you can talk to trees or that trees are going to talk to you. That's just not what happens. But, there's a kind of personality that is already inclined towards a greater degree of fantasy and role play.  Its a kind of willed and accepted self-diseption by the person and often by the people around them.  Like goth kids playing at witchcraft or people who feel the holy spirit and start to jump around holding snakes. This has also been noted by some shaman, who talk about the reality of the trance state in some cultural groups.
This idea is very nuanced, so I can explain further if you'd like.

Part of the problem with some authors writing, including Wilber's, is to romanticize the higher states. The fact is that they are different, but they're not completely different. You don't gain anything, but when you romanticize higher states like they are anything in particular, then people who are prone to fantasy can inflate bullshit.

Re: An alternate view on states

A few thoughts -
1) Wilber talks about 'trailing clouds of glory' or, spiritual experiences had by young children he suggests that these experiences for children have much to do with their recent exit from the bardo realm - in other words, this is a childhood spiritual experience but, has much to do with the recent exit from the subtle realm. 

2) As Wilber online says :  “Because I dwelled on the many items in the archaic state and in infancy that are in fact prepersonal, I got the reputation (unfairly but perhaps understandably) for denying the possibility of any sort of archaic or childhood spirituality, which, as I said, is quite untrue.” (this account being I believe still within Wilber IV however- uncertain if this is so -?) He further suggests that when it comes to childhood spirituality it may be better to maintain deep skepticism to aviod pre-egoic elevationism. 
 
3) in regards to the PTF itself - I might be wrong with this account but I'l give it a shot 
Wilber IV: at this point his system emphisizes the mystical being (nature, deity, formless, nondual) having to have passed through all the previous stages (up to and including vision-logic) to be at a stable mystical stage of development. Thus, the PTF occurs if one lifts a pre-rational/pre-conventional experience (although he certainly does not deny the possiblity that spirtual experiences can occur here as noted in #2) to a properly mystical stage of awareness. (this distinction amongst other things insures that people do not mix up those extraordinary childhood experiences with a romatic view of early childhood as heaven). Wilber V: patrik says:  “It's bringing us to believe that spiritual experiences are at higher stages only.” I don't think so, I think that wilber can still embrace his stance presented in Wilber online (#2) while adding this new level of complexity. The PTF does shift slightly (as you argued i think) it would as far as I can ascertain have much more to do with this idea that although a pre-conventional person may be able to enter authentic spirtual states the all-qudrent reality of the person is still very much PRE not TRANS and because one should opt for both freedom and fullness it is still important not to confuse the two. Perhaps.