Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is?

Well it seems like it is time for a new thread again!

I am interested in hearing people's thoughts on the difference between pre and trans.

Seeing as this is a forum for Inetgral related material I am sure everyone here is somewhat familiar with:

1) Ken Wilber's groundbreaking essay The Pre/Trans Falllacy
2) The developmental stages of psychological development as mapped out by Ken using the work of Piaget (cognition), Kohlberg (morals), Gebser and others.
3) The Spiral Dynamics model of how developmental stages occur in cultures/societies.

Based on these exciting observations we have this broad three stage model that says there is for example:

Preconventional                      Conventional                    Postconventional

Prerational                               Rational                               Transrational

Archaic/Magic/Mythic               Rational                               Integral

Sensorimotor/preop             Concrete Operations            Formal Operations/Vision Logic

Purple/Red/Blue                  Orange/Green                        Yellow/Turquoise


Now it gets interesting when we decide where different things belong on this map.

Those of us that are familiar with the models may have an abstract grasp but sometimes be unsure how it actually applies to ourselves, the world etc..


So, let's pick somethings and discuss where they fit into these basic three broad stages of development.

Sound interesting?

If you are not familiar with the Integral material I am siggesting above I am sure that I or someone else here can provide you with links to create some context….

A good place to start viz the previous thread “Spiritual Atheism”, might be asking the following questions:

1 a) What differentiates the prerational worldview from the rational worldview?

b) How does this reflect in the spirituality of people whose orientation is prerational and how in those who are rational?

2 a) Next, what differentiates the rational worldview from the transrational worldview?

b) How does this show up in both rational and transrational spiritualities?

3 a) Last (and most challenging for us) What is the difference between prerational and transrational worldviews?

b) How does this difference show up in prerational and transrational spiritualities?

c) What makes us confuse the two and why?

Of course The Pre/Trans Fallacy essay is invaluable here.

Anyone wanna get us started?

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

may i start just by adding another question? what practices/study etc help people move “up”?

thanks for asking all these great questions! i really look forward to hearing some answers.

love

nicole

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

love the question nicole.

this is something i am actively working on.

a) well we know from research that ken refers to that meditation over a 5 or 6 year period actually measurably moves people up as much as two levels on several developmental scales….this is exciting! but it does nothing for the shadow material.

b) depth psychotherapeutic practices are primarily useful in resolving the dissociation of the socially/familially repressed shadow material that much spirituality unfortunately perpetuates and exacerbates. this also can helo free up energy and consciousness that has gotten stuck in the earlier levels of development.

c) study of intellectual material that requires excercising strong rational concrete operations skills - logic, philosophy, politics as well gettting well established in formal operations - poetry, mythology, the arts, literature helps people to grow cognitively into more upper level worldviews.

d) body based/pranic practices like yoga, qi gong, and even vipassana or holotropic breathwork can serve both the awakened embodiement process as well as be vehicles for body-mind integhration that includes psycho-emotional process…

meditation can also be a way to explore what it means to really commit to an inquiry-based appproach to awareness rather than a faith-based set of constructs. deconstructing the power of myth of the given can happen quite beautifully in meditation - which allows for higher levels of awareness to emerge……

all genuine stage wise growth is scary and requires that we surrender the defenses that have kept us feeling stable and safe at the previous level - this means we will necessairliy have to deal with the shadow we have been avoiding at each new threshold in order to move forward…

to summarize, the 3 aspects that i am writing about in this regard are:

1) cognitive development
2) shadow work
3) inquiry-based spiritual practice

but of course all of the above discussion depends upon a well understood model of development and an unflinching willingness to apply it ot ourselves and the world .

~julian

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Hi Julian,

Loved your response to Nicole, and for now would just like to gently tease out, with the help of other people's insights too, I hope, what depth and breadth of meaning is contained within this simple word 'meditation', and also to ask you to be rather more specific with regard to how much, and of what type (without just saying 'pre-rational'!) is the “much spirituality [that] unfortunately perpetuates and exacerbates [socially/familially repressed shadow material]”. In fact it would be helpful for me if you could specify which spiritual practices / methods / vehicles even, don't perpetuate and exacerbate “….. socially/familially repressed shadow material …”

With regard to your point (a), the bit that I'm interested in being “… meditation ….. does nothing for the shadow material”, I am familiar with and have my own experience of and in primarily awareness-based spiritual practices (and I'm not here referring to my qi gong practice) that are 'meditation', except in movement, not cushion-bound, that clearly do bring up shadow material into consciousness / awareness, and that simultaneously are working with the energy body, in such a way that in my experience shadow material does get worked with, processed … and I'm not implying completely, here, process being the process it is.

Ok, I've just re-read point (d). So another question that arises now is: assuming both qi gong and vipassana can be viewed as meditation (well-respected teacher Zhi Xing Wang almost invariably says 'come out of your meditation' as a session is coming to an end) in your opinion does the “psycho-emotional process” you refer to also include, or at least allow for, working with shadow material?

Best,

Lol

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Thanks Lol and Julian, this is exactly the type of exploration I am looking for. Because as wonderful as it is to have endless discussions about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin or the difference between pre and trans, and as light-bringing in that discussion as trans and others have been, when the day is done, if we're still deeply Shadowed, unmindful in our actions and not moving forward spiritually, are we truly becoming or just talking about becoming?

Namaste,

Nicole

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

ma rig pa

this is in response to your questions about what i was saying re: meditation, shadow etc…

i must admit ot having very little experience of dzochen. it has always seemed to me like a beautiful and deep practice. i definitely bow to your experience here and am very open to hearing about how your practice serves as a vehicle for shadow awareness/work.

my own experience with vipassana has been that it can definitely be such a vehicle, but only if practiced within a context that makes space for the psyche, rather than attempting to merely transcend it.

in my statement about meditation not addressing shadow material i am following wilber from several different interviews, as well as my own observation and that of several transpersonal theorists (welwood, kornfield, engler, kalsched) - that what often happens with those of us who follow spiritual practices without adequate attention to the psyche/shadow work is an increasing dissociation rather than an integration.

the capacity to dispassionately observe and disidentify from one’s experience so championed in the transcendentalist approaches, while powerful and beneficial in certain regards can also be repressive in others. this is widely discussed in the above transpersonal literature.

this is where an integral guide can potentially be so useful imo. i am so excited by the possibilities of the next generation of interally informed meditation teachers and therapists!

of course i agree that movement practices can be deeply meditative i their own way, i was making a distinction for the sake of inclusivity, beween purely still meditation practice and that of movement - and emphasizing both.

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

1 a) What differentiates the prerational worldview from the rational worldview?

The prerational worldview can be modeled rationally, but not visa-versa.

b) How does this reflect in the spirituality of people whose orientation is prerational and how in those who are rational?

Prerational spiritual people tend to:

• 1. Place little or no value on rationality when used to examine (question validity) core religious/spiritualist assumptions.
• 2. Hold  rationality in high regard and status when a “rational” authority figure uses rationalism to bolster core religious/spiritualist assumptions.
• 3. Use rationality in service of prerationality, and thus dishonor the value of rationality.
  
  

2 a) Next, what differentiates the rational worldview from the transrational worldview?

The transrational worldview cannot be modeled rationally, but the rational worldview CAN be understood (not mapped or rationally modeled) transrationally.

b) How does this show up in both rational and transrational spiritualities?

Rational spiritual people tend to:

• 1. Place little or no value on transrationality when used to examine (question validity) core religious/spiritualist assumptions.
• 2. Hold  transrationality in high regard and status when a “transrational” authority figure uses rationalism to bolster core religious/spiritualist assumptions.
• 3. Use transrationality in service of rationality, and thus dishonor the value of transrationality.

3 a) Last (and most challenging for us) What is the difference between prerational and transrational worldviews?

The differences cannot be adequately explained rationally.  They can only be understood transrationally.  Transrational “understanding” is not by nature rational, and thus defies taxonomic categories, cartographies, and all linguistic rational modeling schemes.  The differences are noticed through embodiment and enactment in a case by case, moment to moment way.

b) How does this difference show up in prerational and transrational spiritualities?

Barely at all from the POV of the rationalist.

c) What makes us confuse the two and why?

They both look irrational.  And rationality is the primary medium of linguistic exchange. 

Go beyond the language, go beyond the mapping and categorizing.  Then see the differences.  Cultivate full-bodied intuition.

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

ah nice response transient! i have to go because my yoga partner is here, but i look forward to replying….

thanks
~j

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

okay, here is rediscovering astrology, by sweet Thomas Moore over here for the pre/post analysis:

http://www.resurgence.org/resurgence/issues/moore221.htm

I am back at work right now…..it is a full moon…in the past 2 hours we have had a 5 person MVA, a retained placenta with a delivery, and an overseas flight from amsterdam is dropping off a woman in active labour, ……..and the night is still so very young……so it is a good night to discuss full moons and so on….

I do though often think about the stars….about the big bang, the 13.8 billion years that has ensued….how the light from the stars is travelling back to meet my eye.  How in the past 13.8 billion years, my eye has been arriving too, against all odds, though all sorts of attractions and repulsions, permutations and combinations, in this moment ready to catch the light from the star….This astounds me……Thomas Moore reminds me of my astonishment.  It does not seem prerational…but actually rational and clear, and then beyond rational to miraculous and phenomenal…..

Now back to the full moon mayhem in the emergency department….

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Hi Jane

I'm so glad you're with us! Thanks for the link to the Thomas Moore article, brief as it is.

I will stand up and declare my interest in astrology, and how I can find it useful and helpful, but can't go so far as to say I believe in astrology. I have to say I was deeply unimpressed with the attempt at 'disproving' astrology that I read, narrated by our Ken in 'One Taste' ….. because for me it completely misses the point. I am not in the least bit interested in or have any 'faith' in predictive astrology, solar astrology, statistics etc. and in no way do I consider the position or movements of the planets to be in any way causative of anything happening in my life, and I don't embrace the notion that there are extremely subtle influences exerted by the planetary bodies in terms of gravitational or some type of subtle energetic influence ….. and yet equally I am not closed to this possibiility.

But I do appreciate and respect the work of the likes of Liz Greene and Alice O. Howell, both Jungian analysts (and astrologers), and recognise that the planets (including Sun and Moon here) can be viewed as symbols of archetypes, and am prepared to at least allow that in the natal chart  they can be representative of powerful archetypal forces in the individual pyche. I don't have a rational explanation for this, I'm not sure if there is one, but I am open to the possibility that there is a transrational explanation.

What allows me to accept that the natal chart may give a picture of potential dynamics and archetypal relationships within the psyche are the apparent synchronicities that show up in my life and do seem to be related, at least synchronistically (if that is the correct adjective pertaining to the noun 'synchronicity'), to transits to my natal chart.

I welcome the rational gaze on what could possibly be viewed as irrational behaviour ….. maybe it could be revealed that my predilection for this way of relating to astrology stems from something as yet unworked with in my psyche ….. but interestingly enough I do feel I have benefitted from all the mulling over, musing upon, ruminating on such matters over the years, and that this has helped me get to know myself better, aided me in growing 'bigger'. Maybe that's the real point.

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Julian, I read thearticle, Rediscovering Astrology, again, and wondered about your hasty conclusion that it is 'pre-rational'.  Actually, I suspect you did not read it at all!  If  you did  read it, and have unequivocally determined that it is 'pre-rational', I would conceed that  there is a lot of work to be done shining light on our differing versions of what 'trans-rational' is about…..and the 'work' makes me feel a bit discouraged.
For the most part, Iam not really one for arguments anymore, though I have done my time railing against the powers that be, with some limited effect. The two fellows on the video clip, Dawkins and the other fellow, at least conceed (words to the effect) that making a better argument that something is 'right,' just means that  you have made a better argument, not that the 'something' is indeed 'right'.  And when people turn their backs and  walk away from these arguments, they often walk away in various states of anger or humiliation.  The heat of these arguments does not  generally touch people with the gentle encouragment to stay true to themselves and find out what is really going on, 'who are you really?'  I often wonder what it is that makes any of us able to  courageously look into our own inner landscape to find the landmarks, soulmarks, that will resonate and bring us to a new way of seeing, and indeed, to a connectivity in the 'we' space of inter-being. 
Jane 

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

yea you're right jane - my bad.

i think i responded hastily so as to try and avoid a drawn out debate about astrology.

the article is nice - i think you are perhaps pointing out the beauty and awe of looking up at the sky and feeling our connection to or identity with the kosmos.

i am with you on that.

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

wow jane! what an intense work world you have.

sorry for the snap response before about astrology. i think that like anything else it can of course have transrational archetypal value, but there are several reasons it doesnt resonate for me at all.

i don't think it's necessary to go into that here, unless you specifically want me to.

of course i respect that it is a way for yout o connect to something meaningful.

as far as my pre/trans definitions i find that the way most people who are really into astrology enage it is primarily magical/narcissistic.

it's part of the new age zeitgeist that i find somewhat empty.

my experience is that there is a type of literal belief in astrology that usually goes with a green regressive spiritual worldview. i generally don't find it to be authentically transrational in it's principles, practice or possibilities.

nice poetic reflections in the article you linked though.

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Here's my take on “transrational.”  As Wilber often points out, pre-rational and transrational thinking and awareness are often confused, simply because both are non-rational.  But transrational awareness is a non-rational form of cognition which transceds and encompasses rational thinking.  Transrational insights, when they are expressed, are often expressed in rational language; Wilber is masterful at this.  But of course some traditions may chose enigmatic forms of expression, to reveal the limits of and point past conventional rational thought.

In pre-rational awareness, we may think affectively and by association, rather than through the use of inductive reasoning.  The pre-rational worldview may be coherent, but its coherence is on the level of resonance and reflection, meaningful correspondences, affective associations, and so on.  This field of “coherence” may appear seamless and holistic, but it is pre-rational.

In transrational awareness, we may return to a holistic sense of things, but our holistic perspective now encompasses rationality and the ability to relate the items of our awareness through complex logical relationships.  In transrational awareness, while we can use logic, we can perceive the limitations of our logical constructs, as well as the limits of our pre-rational, affective associations.

My understanding is that at the upper limits of rational awareness, we are capable of seeing and thinking from multiple perspectives at once.  We move from a somewhat linear perspective of cause and effect, to more open and decentered forms of reasoning.  We may be able to think things through using classical “excluded middle” logic, but we also have access to “included middle” logic (built on models of transcendence and inclusion).  I see this as the “vision logic” stage.

In transrational awareness, we can become aware of connections that transcend or run deeper than normal causal chains, but in this case, the perspectives which disclose particular causal chains are seen as subsets of a more encompassing awareness.

I expect my explanation here is not without its flaws, but this is my general understanding at this time.

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Awesome, B.

….. and extremely useful ….. I think I'm still well in the process of discovering “the limits of [my] pre-rational, affective associations”.

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Balder:
“Transrational insights, when they are expressed, are often expressed in rational language; Wilber is masterful at this. But of course some traditions may choose enigmatic forms of expression, to reveal the limits of and point past conventional rational thought.”

And also, to keep the insights from being misused and bastardized. Wilber is masterful at using the language of rationality to express transrational “insights”, and then proceeds to get very annoyed when they are inevitably co-opted by lower-elevation critics who consistently misunderstand him. He’s amazingly smart about perspectives, and equally naïve about the way people will misuse codified systems. He talks about what a perilous situation we are in when WMDs become available to lower meme individuals and groups, then proceeds to do the analogical equivalent himself by codifying “transrational insights”. Any closed system must develop a coherent defense by virtue of its coherence. The overvaluing of coherence for its own sake generates the need for defense.


I’m reminded of a story I was told in childhood about Jesus. In this version of his life he told his followers that he would never do any writing himself, because of the inevitable way that his words would be misused by powers that would arise in his wake. I don’t know if that story has any merit factually, but it has a lot of merit considering how things worked out with Christianity.

Transrational insights can be powerful things. A healthy respect and wisdom is required. Why does the ascending cognitive rationalist’s expression of the sacred dimensions of living so often feel like mere lipservice?


Your explanation of transrationality is useful and appreciated Balder. You appear to know your stuff. Nice discussion here.

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

enjoying your eloquence, transient. i look forward to more.

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

nice extrapolation balder.

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Thomas Berry is a friend of mine.  When my boys were little, he conducted a lovely naming ceremony on the shores of Lake Erie for each of them.  It was a Omaha ceremony which each child is raised up and introduced to the four corners of the earth, and to the stars above and the earth below.  there is a little saying that is repeated, “may your path be easy over the next hill” (or something like that, I am not remembering it perfectly.  Actually, my youngest son, David was screaming his head off through it, and I was trying in vain to have this blissful (pre-rational)moment of deep connection. So actually, I was  distressed that my baby was not being serene and curious, and he was blowing my not-so-serene cover  all to hell as is the nature of children, or at least mine….. Actually, I have pictures of this, with David wailing away.  It makes me laugh now,…but I digress.)  Before the ceremony, Thomas sent me down the path to the lake to get water from the lake.  He said, “We are going to use water, not as a symbol of everlasting life, but as water.  What could be more sacred than that!” and he laughed, knowing that this is also a bit of a digression from his passionist priest training.  “Water as water.  What could  be more sacred than that?!”  As we walked through the beautiful oak forests there, he said  holding out his hands, “Look at this world.  THIS is the first book, and we are ripping pages out of it and destroying them everyday.”  “We are carbon thinking.  We are thinking carbon. Carbon is thinking us.”  “This is a singular time-emergent bio-spiritual reality.” 
On Thomas's 85th birthday, my mother and I drove down from Ontario, to spend the day with him in North  Carolina.  We put together a picnic lunch and a cake and arrived at his little hermitage outside of Greensboro. I had secretly picked up some of those trick candles you can get for birthday cakes, the ones that  keep relighting themselves after you blow them out. Not all 85, maybe 10 or so…… It was so funny to watch as Thomas blew them out over and over, not really noticing them re-light, or even paying attention, or caring…and my mother who adores him, kept being amazed that the candles kept spluttering back to life…..”Did you see that?” she would say.  Thomas without really paying heed, would just blow them out again.  He just seemed too happy that we had visited to care about the details…… Still, the trick candles delighted my mother,…….prerational, awesome, such a great rube, in a way, my mother.  ….  And me, (such a prankster! I can just see my boys rolling their eyes with that 'oh please, you've gotta be kidding' look) I was blown away too, by these two gorgeous older people, playful, and wise…and so newly delighted in this moment…..in that beautiful moment…..
It turned out that while we were visiting that day,  copies of Thomas's book “the Great Work” newly minted, arrived in box…….so there we were in this glorious day……His writing is about the recognizing the 'rational' aspect that holds the pre and trans together….  and about how it is all sacred. ….about the sentience of the natural world…. 
My mother is an amazing woman.  Years ago, with her life in turmoil, she would hide away reading Teilhard de Chardin, and not have anyone to talk to about her amazing discoveries.  (the divine millieu, the phenonmenon of man!) She has been a wonderful advocate for the earth.  Sometimes she says, “all of this boils down to six inches of topsoil, and the fact that water is wet.”……She gives talks like this to the Probis Club and the town council and school children….blue meme, orange meme, green meme, red meme……  All on her own without any collegial presence,  for years she has been standing up and insisiting, “The natural depth of each one of us is the whole of creation.”  and  finally, when she found Thomas Berry, she had someone to talk to that already understood what she was saying.  “We are not a collection of objects.  We are a communion of subjects.”   “Nothing is itself without everything else.”  
Brian Swimme is a student of Thomas's.  And I love listening to him talk.  “hydrogen left on its own become humans”  He holds an awe and a surprise in the way he speaks that I love, that I resonate with…..it is not some voodoo version of enlightenment, and it does not fit perfectly into the AQAL, stages, states, pre/trans map of Ken…..but at the same time, it holds a steady gaze while looking closely at this evolving mystery of being.   I have a friend, who is an anthropologist with the Smithsonian Institute….he comes up to Labrador in the summer….the oldest rock in the world is north of Nain….and a year ago in the summer, the oldest DNA was discovered on it…..! 4.1 billion year old earth, 3.9  billion year old rock, 3.8 billion year old DNA….. unbelievable!  The DNA must be a constant in the universe just like Pi……already enfolded in the ever-emergening recipe….
Anyway, these are all thoughts.  I had a fun night last night.  A plane flying from London to Chicago dropped down from the sky in an emergency landing  into Happy Valley and dropped off a gorgeous couple who proceeded to have a gorgeous baby boy emerge all within an hour of arrival……….the father's name was Paris after the Greek myth's Paris…..the one who ran off with Helen and caused the Trojan War…..My friend, Ramsses, will find that amusing….   and later this morning, as my shift ended, another baby boy arrived out of the mystery, coming out of a young woman who was one of the babies I helped be born some years ago….it is all amazing….this singular, emergent , time-dependent unfolding…..what could be more magical than THIS!

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Beautiful, Jane.  I stand beside you and celebrate the glory of this star-hung world.

And how lucky you are to have a friend like Thomas Berry, and a mother who is so alive to the mystery and wonder of our interbeing.

(I'm lucky, too, to have an amazing, wise mother.  She does things in her simple, direct way that many rationalists dismiss as impossible.  For instance, she traveled as a crow to visit her dying brother.  And he knew it:  this worldly, alcoholic, millionaire lawyer, lying in his deathbed riddled with cancer, called her the next morning and said, “I couldn't sleep well last night.  It was so strange.  I kept dreaming a crow was trying to get into my room.”)

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Bruce.  It is a delight to be hanging out under this star-hung world with you too….

and I love our mothers!  and how mine has  exceeded the limits of my perspective in just about every way……and just when I get it all figured out, there she is with something new….and I am back at the drawing board.

thank you ,  Jane

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Jane, you rock my world! (And I dig Moore, Teilhard, Berry and Swimme too!)

:-)

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

this is the most beautiful post of yours i have read so far jane. thank you so much!

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Julian, I’m not one to put anything I deem substantial into astrology, but I still have seen no viable reason to have it junked.

This next thesis isn’t as impressive as I’d like, but it seems to be a decent balance between what you’re willing to accept and what I’m trying to convey.

Astrology – A Rational Chao/Dynamic Appraisal

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

i haven't had a chance to read anything here yet but am delighted at the activity!

i have been busy winding up the dialog on the spiritual atheism thread.

i ust posted this there, but thought to add it here as it is a somehwat in depth bit on pre and trans and why the distinction matters:


here goes:

hey balder and lauren in particular, and everyone else too!

first i want to suggest two extraordinary books about truma and healing: waking the tiger by peter levine and most especially: the inner world of trauma by donald kalsched.

at the risk of sounding like a pompous ass :O) let's all read the pre/trans fallacy essay again as we get deeper into the new thread. what are the real world psychological implications of this observation? personally i think it gives us a powerful lens to look at the boomeritis spirituality of the green new age collective we are all a part of, willingly or not.

i think the points you two are bringing up begin to get at the heart of what the pre/trans thread i started will hopefully be - a discussion on how we make distinctions between pre and trans. i  look forward to hearing more from you about these ideas specificallly that perhaps go a little deeper into exactly which states/beliefs and why you think should not reside in the prerational camp….

this is obviously a dense and complex conversation and not one that remains contained within the boundaries of theory. it has so much to do with our worldviews, emotions, and longing for meaning and grace.

my position is very simple so far.

all mythologies, metaphysics, magical claims (which we shall define here as anything outside the laws of physics), archetypal beings or symbolic constructs are:

a) taken literally at the prerational level as historic, present or yet to come, facts.
b) shot to pieces as completely non-existent at the rational level (no proof exists for ANY of them)
c) analysed and understood at the transrational level for their metaphoric value and as a beautiful (if partial and often flawed) sign of the extraordinary intuitive symbol generating power of the psyche in it's attempt to interact with the great unknowns of our existence.

the rational gaze, once uplevelled to the transrational, is not put aside. it is the foundation on which transrational interpretation and revelation/epiphany rests. transrational cognition has nno problem making very clear distinctions betwee what is literally real and what is symbolic - neither does it balk at evaluating different interpretations of symbolic material as deeper or more superficial.

easy example:

a) the virgin birth of jesus is believed to be literally true by mythic level prerational christians. this is a prerational belief - by definition.

b) at the rational level we recognise that this is simply an impossibility and is an idea common to several myths/religions that has no basis in fact and yet is held onto by prerational people as a jolly good reason to from time to time butcher and murder those who do not agree, be they religious adherents of another stripe or rational atheists.

c) at the transrational level we become engaged by the poetic wonder of mythology and while recognizing the origins of all mythology as resting in the human psyche, we start to see the sacredness in that mysterious process of meaning making, symbol generating, projecting into the mystery. at this level we being to become adept at interpreting the symbolic references in the mythic material and applying it to our lives and our internal process, without the need to “believe” in it literally (prerationally) and with all the sacredness intact and all the superstition surrendered. so the virgin birth might represent a spiritual kind of birth, a new life taht awakens in the heart and mind, a sense of altruism or compassion that springs forth from no ulterior motive and is therefore uncaused or virgin and mysterious in it's origin…

now i think these three categories are pretty straightforward and i see no need to equivocate about them.

you'll notice that the awe-inspiring relationship to the mystery is absolutely central and that i have ALL THE SPACE IN THE KOSMOS for it. :O)

at the same time i am entirely comfortable DIFFERENTIATING pre from trans and feel that this is important from a theoretical and experiential standpoint.

here's an example of why:

i work one on one with people all the time and i train people to do one on one bodywork/dialog process.

now let's say someone comes in and tells me that they saw jesus last night in their bedroom and he said the end of the world will happen tomorrow at 2 pm.

of course the first question is: have you taken any drugs recently. if not, i would do everything i could to kindly, gently diplomatically, but firmly insist that this person get a thorough psychiatric evaluation. it would be unethical in my opinion not to do so

now many spiritual healers and teachers i know, even licensed therapists would not have this response.

and this is one of the things that is dangerously wrong with the green relativist romanticism that plagues the alternative community.

or how about the person who comes in talking quite seriously about their spirit guides and the literal ghost that haunts them?

now obviously in both cases i am going to be very gentle and much more cautious than i would on a forum with peers. but what would happen for me internally is that i would get as grounded as i can and prepare to hold space for some really powerful and probably unconscious PSYCHOLOGICAL TRAUMA that is being telegraphed to me by this symbolic (but literalized) language.

now of course this is completely different from someone who comes in speaking of having difficulty integrating very expansive meditation experiences with their daily living or with the unfortunate persistence of their emotional triggers.

it is also different than someone coming in and saying that their heart is broken open to the suffering of the world and they have a mind-blowing epiphanic revelation of what jesus or the image of the bodhisattva represents on an archetypal/feeling level.

what i have found over the years is this:

the tendency to literalize (or concretize) spiritual symbols/material is 99% of the time a red flag of one or both of two things:

1) the person has tapped into a very regressed aspect of self that was really traumatized at some point or is operating from a magical defense against feeling some very painful emotions or dealing with intense trauma. (when we are children we have a prerational worldview)

2) the person has suffered a breakdown of the membrane between the conscious and the unconscious mind such that they are in the grips of a psychotic or semi-psychotic delusional state. (meister eckhart- the madman is drowning in the same waters the holy man swims in)

neither of these two states are fun, spiritually advanced, or  levels of perception that are more clear, complex, beautiful or rich than ordinary rational, grounded awareness. though they represent a powerful opportunity for growth if handled well )and if we are lucky) they are actually decompensated, degraded states of being that psychology, spirituality and healing should properly attempt to resolve.

they should not be mistaken with transrational spiritual openings. i have no problem stating unequivocally that for example the paranoid schizophrenic is not experiencing access to a higher truth.

again part of what is so dangerous about the alternative community is that practitioners who do not know the difference between pre and trans will often encourage and fetishize fragmented and dissociated states in their client/students - which only makes them worse and everyone more confused….

so again i think it is about making good distinctions.

pathological. healthy. prerational. ratiional. transrational. accurate. delusional.

to me it is more harsh, more erroneous, more of an insult to the human spirit not to make these distinctions out of a kind of pious “respect” or vague allegiance to “possibility” (that to me just sounds like green relativism) thatn too make the distinctions and actually be of service to people in terms of identifying and resolving pathology, identifying and guiding stagewise healthy growth, identifying and processing issues that have derailed or distorted awareness in any of the lines or at any of the levels of growth.

the difference between pre and trans. pre is at odds with rationality. trans transcends yet includes and rests upon rationality.

all magic fantasy, all mythic literalism, all superstition, all unproven accounts of the laws of physics being eluded are by definition prerational.

this in no way excludes awe at the mystery.

it just puts that awe right back where it belongs: right back in the real world/universe that we live in and the extraordinarily improbable consciousness that is in relationship to it.

this in no way excludes any possibility that there is much to learn and that our understanding of reality will keep deepening.

this in no way is a tyrranical opression of anyone's right to think whatever they want.

it is an attempt to unpack the meaning of certain integral ideas that for me begin with wilber's roots in transpersonal psychology.

se on the next thread - i am excited to hear you flesh out your position on what is pre and trans and why!


:O)
peace and have a great weekend!
~julian

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Hi, Julian,

Thanks for your response.  I'm responding to your letter here rather than the other thread, since this is where the energy seems to be for now.

You may not have read it yet, but if you look further up in this thread, you'll see that I've put forward a few thoughts on my understanding of transrational (the letter I posted yesterday at10:26 PM).   I'd be interested in your response to my initial “stab” at a description, since I think it's important for us to be really clear here.  We may be using words differently.

In some parts of your last post, it seems to me that the capacities and perspectives you are calling transrational are actually still within the rational sphere.  At least, it is not clear to me where the “trans” comes in.

Also, just personally or anecdotally, I'd love to hear if you've had any experience with transrational states of consciousness or experiences, and if you can compare or contrast that with any prerational spiritual experiences.  I'm also curious if you believe that any so-called paranormal events are actually possible – energetic healing, telepathy, precognition, distance viewing, astral travel, etc. – or if you think all such phenomena are hallucinations or faulty interpretations of mundane, unexceptional events.

Best wishes,

Balder

P.S.  One thing that concerns me about the view that you are expressing is that you appear to be conflating a particular worldview with a cognitive capacity.  I am not sure this is warranted, or rational.

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

cant respond too much right now bader - but will asap - please do go on about the distinction you feel i am missing about worldviews and cognition. sounds interesting……seems like you are joining te chorus that wants to point out some incongruity i what i am calling rational - do tell, do tell…. :O)

i will go into more detail later, but yes - i have much experience of both pre and transrational states. as i have mentioned i was on a serious psychedelic path for some years and ave been a yogi, bodyworker, holotropic breathing faciliator for over a decade. so much experience in altered and heightened states of consciousness, work with energy in sometimes quite dramatic ways every day (but don’t have the magical orientation around it that most of my colleagues do) and have had a on again off again meditation practice since i was a teenager. also very into ecstatic dance for aout 10 years…..

are we an closer to some good consensus on the central differences between pre nd trans and the role of rationalty in spirituality?

i will check back in tomorrow late afternoon and give this thread it’s due.

happy weekend everyone.

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Julian,

I’m not making any claims to a person’s center of consciousness, but I strongly intuit rational regression in every freakin’ post you make.  You’re starting to hide it again to the naked eye, but it makes it more apparent, to me at least, at your failure to acknowledge it openly, authentically!

You think the way I experience you doesn’t teach me anything?  What am I missing?

Your display of your history in spiritual study and development is no different than someone saying they’re more aware because of their age… while being serious.

My experience has told me if five-ten people are telling me the same thing, then chances are I must be missing something.

I too have regression in streams of awareness… what’s the big deal?

I know your unconscious game; I was raised around it.

You came here to get your shit called, so fucking submit! … slippery bastard. :)

Seth

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

“my position is very simple so far.

all mythologies, metaphysics, magical claims (which we shall define here as anything outside the laws of physics), archetypal beings or symbolic constructs are:

a) taken literally at the prerational level as historic, present or yet to come, facts.
b) shot to pieces as completely non-existent at the rational level (no proof exists for ANY of them)
c) analysed and understood at the transrational level for their metaphoric value and as a beautiful (if partial and often flawed) sign of the extraordinary intuitive symbol generating power of the psyche in it's attempt to interact with the great unknowns of our existence.”

Julian, I am suddenly thinking of an anecdote of one of the well known psychoanalysts, maybe Jung….I can't remember where I read this…but it is about a 'golden scarab'….the analyst had a patient in his office talking about a dream she had had with a golden scarab and she was puzzled by the dream, and I imagine they were looking at the deeper 'symbolic', 'archetypical' aspects of the golden scarab, when there was a thrumming on the window pane of the room they were in.  Mr. Famous Psychoanalyst went to the window, and there was a golden scarab(whatever the heck a scarab is!) bouncing at the window.
“Literally”……Not rationally, and not really significant to anyone outside that room….and who would care…. But indeed, 'it is the word made flesh'….literally….. 

When I was an adolescent, i had a poster on my wall with words from Hermanne Hesse, something like:
“You probably don't appreciate the way a letter wags like the tail of a fish, a bird blows up its feathers and flying away…..but I tell you, with these words god wrote the world.”

One of the elements that has astounded me, beyond anything that I can explain, is that in my own forrays into the mystical/psychotic realm (the matter-anti-matter thingamagiggy) is the “literal” obviousness of this world…..it is a 'code' waiting to be broken, the open secret, hilarious in its obviousness–like seeing the wolves hidden in a picture of landscape drawing all staring out at me/you……or one of those three dimensional pictures that have become popular lately. 

I know that this 'way of seeing' is vulnerable to its own delusions, psychotic and otherwise.  The way these delusions arise and play out, are related I suspect to the 'stage of development of an individual/society's evolution of consciousness', as well as, the amount of 'shadow' work that any individual has done, or is capable of doing when the shift into this 'way of seeing' occurs……I completely agree with you regarding the need to distinguish pre-rational psychosis with trans-rational mysticsm.(or at least, I think that is what you are saying) …. I have spent a lot of time in psychiatric hospitals.  In my medical training, my first exposure was as a summer externe between 1st and 2nd year….and my biggest problem was that all the patients made some kind of sense to me…..and I liked them, painfully caught in deluded, heroic struggles though they often were.   In truth, it was a relief to me that they were staying true to  their experience (however disturbing), while in contrast,   the pompous, (unexamined)  Dr. Oxlade handed out his authoritative diagnoses and prescriptions without any heed to the care of the soul.  Still, some of these patients were pretty far gone, and butt full of Haldol can be a lifeline back to the land of consensus and appropriate functioning…..yes, indeedy, no arguments there.

I am pretty sure, that we all need to spend some time with the discomfort here…..without jumping to any conclusions.  Like Bruce, your mother travelling as a crow, your uncle dreaming this……it that a pre-rational coincidence, or an example of mythical shape-shifting, a kind of telepathy, for which at this point there is no 'rational' explanation.?…. I would say that your mother 'knows' what happened…and still,if she was put under the rational light of psychiatry, and maybe Julian's too, she is a psychotic nutbar, of the harmless variety…..The fact that the golden scarab just happened to be thrumming on the window at that moment, well again, just a bizarre coincidence–'hey make of it what you will, if you must!”, or a deeply personal revelation that this universe is paying attention in an unusual and specific way…….  a way that is forever, unprovable under the rational light of the interogating jury…..  this is what really demands to be looked at…..and looked at with patience and curiosity and openess. and all the time in the world…and with this beautiful thought in mind:

.”..I would like to beg you dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

Marie Rainer Rilke, 1903

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Jane, Seth, Balder - yes, yes and yes! I too see Julian as more rooted in rational than trans-rational thinking even when he tries to describe trans-rational. I am still a neophyte with Integral theory but it encourages me that some of you who are much more knowledgeable than I see this difficulty here…

Jane, a scarab is a kind of beetle, if that helps… :)

You quote from Rainer Maria Rilke's Letters to A Young Poet, Letter #4 which I have blogged here, in case anyone wants to look at the intriguing context of the quote
I really delight in those letters and have blogged a bunch of them…

looking forward to further exploration,

love,

nicole

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Nice one Seth, I like your style ….. and what you're saying rings very true for me too.

Jane ….. a simple yet endless thank you ….. for the beauty and wisdom of what you're expressing ….. and for the example you're setting ….. vis a vis the compassion with which you're holding Julian ….. with this you demonstrate what's at the heart of being a true doctor.

Julian. You began one of your posts to me with  “now you're showing your cards dude :O)”.

So I can in turn say to you:   ….. now you're really beginning to show your perspectives dude

One of the beauties of this we-space is I don't need to overreach myself here …… I am very confident there are people on this forum far more discerning than I who can trace these perspectives of yours to their true Kosmic addresses.

As regards this recent post, I applaud the call for rational integrity / the integrity of rationality that's implicit in it  ….. it's a call I personally welcome, to take (and keep on taking) a fresh look at my belief systems, and what they're based on …… but it's also something you need to apply yourself ….. some of your posts have been liberally sprinkled with irrational statements and fudging ….. not to mention the evasion and obfuscation, both explicit and implicit, demonstrated in the manner of your reponding.

I want to reitterate here that I think there is a wealth of 'golden wheat' contained in your posts, something I'm genuinely, immensely grateful for ….. and … I'm really so happy whenever (well, ok, twice now that can recall) you say something like: “my position is very simple so far” ….. because it means I can then have a look at your position without having to sift out the chaff, to filter out the hyperbole, generalisation and misrepresentation that have characterised many of your longer posts.

So, you said:

“all mythologies, metaphysics, magical claims (which we shall define here as anything outside the laws of physics), archetypal beings or symbolic constructs are: …”

First, I simply don't accept the confines of your perspective ….. that what you refer to as 'magical claims' should by implication only be allowable or acceptable if they are explainable within or by the current laws of physics. As Lauren so adroitly put it on the Spiritual Atheism thread, in reponse to your earlier:

“why the need to believe that unproven unreasonable assertions might be true?”

“Because some things that once seemed absolutely unreasonable have turned out to be true.”

….. or at least, to date, acceptable to and accepted by the scientific community (my take on it).

She also said in that post in response to your earlier:

“there is not any magic (or) mythic material from any culture on the planet that is literallly real”

“While I agree ….. I don't know how anyone could have sufficient perspective and knowledge to determine that all claims of “magic” are in fact prerational magic/mythic-level beliefs. Not without sufficient evidence in every single case.”

Lauren's call for you to answer her points may not be direct, but nevertheless is still there. Balder, on more than one occasion, has been unequivocal in his request for you to answer certain charges he's been making of you, and as far as I can see you  have consistently failed to do so, in effect side-stepping them. (Brings to mind Captain Janeway and her “Evasive pattern Omega Delta 71, Mr. Paris” … or some suchlike.)

Your response to Lauren and  Balder:

“i think the points you two are bringing up begin to get at the heart of what the pre/trans thread i started will hopefully be - a discussion on how we make distinctions between pre and trans. i  look forward to hearing more from you about these ideas specificallly that perhaps go a little deeper into exactly which states/beliefs and why you think should not reside in the prerational camp….”

is a good example of this. You are demonstrably still side-stepping and evading ….. and while I can't speak for others here ….. imo before you made these requests of them you should have, by now, directly answered points and questions already put to you that remain unanswered.

Second, as for your a), b) and c) in reference to:

“all mythologies, metaphysics, magical claims (which we shall define here as anything outside the laws of physics), archetypal beings or symbolic constructs are: …”

a) taken literally at the prerational level as historic, present or yet to come, facts.

I'm fine with this ….. but am concerned by your ongoing insinuations that the way people in this forum refer to and hold the afore-mentioned “… mythologies, metaphysics …(etc)” are inherently prerational ….. or else displaying some kind of green wooliness, as evidenced in your (what comes across to me as) rather scornful claim of unnamed persons not making   “… (good) distinctions out of a kind of pious “respect” or vague allegiance to “possibility” “.

b) shot to pieces as completely non-existent at the rational level (no proof exists for ANY of them)

Your assertion is flawed. You might do better by simply acknowledging that you don't know of any such proof (and this in no way implies that I do) or that your current limited perspective(s) might not allow you to recognise any such proof.

c) analysed and understood at the transrational level for their metaphoric value and as a beautiful (if partial and often flawed) sign of the extraordinary intuitive symbol generating power of the psyche in it's attempt to interact with the great unknowns of our existence.”

Why do you so often seem to need to reduce everything to, or try to make everything fit within, the human psyche? Kind of smacks a bit of a 'given', this.

Btw, doesn't it follow from your reasoning that the psyche itself is one of these “magical claims (which we shall define here as anything outside the laws of physics)”?

All  best,

Lol

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Thank you Lol for your kind regard…..

I am cleaning up the Christmas decorations and was suddenly thinking about another of the million/billion examples of this “way of seeing':  I remember reading about Treya's death, I am not sure which book it was in.  Ken talked about that  there was a great  wind storm that raged outside during her passing.. There was a comment about those winds, how they so often are present with the death of a great soul…..

no thing to prove here, just something to notice…..nothing to hang your hat on…..silly really…


'this way of seeing' is so curious….like the sleight of a wizzard's hand……the cosmic trickster…the wilely coyote…..synchronicity…….acausally connected events…..life outside the rational, cause-and-effect, pool ball  universe…….

Like the time, (one of many) where in great turmoil, feeling lost and abandoned, out cleaning a shed, a paper floated down from a shelf before me:  “Learn to see what is before you and the rest will be revealed.”…..

Or the card that was waiting for me from Jocelyn, at my house the day my room mate was killed in a car accident coming to meet me at the WhaleBone Inn:  “When the clock stops, with your own hands, tell time.”

God is in the details, and, the heart of the divine lies is paradox…..

Julian, I watched your newly posted videos…Nice guitar playing!…..I appreciate your courage and fortitude in putting yourself out here as you are doing….. I am not saying you are wrong, at all….I am just saying that I know what I know and I am open ……And like looking at the colour purple, there is no proving that we are both having the same experience of what purple is…….. but as Alice Walker said, 'it really pisses God off when you don't notice it.'

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

We need to take everything in the context in which it happens… you can’t make concrete rules.  Wait a minute, is that not a concrete rule… fuckin’ paradox! :|

What applies today doesn’t necessarily apply tomorrow.

Now we are all reminded…

Kudos to you ALL!!

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Humbly,
Seth

I forgot to balance it out for the regressing Seth projectors. Yep that includes me! ;)

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

well hello people!

i seem to have created a bit of a mess here.

i apolgize for my absence.

i had a lot of time off over the holidays to be very active in responding and posting, but started work again this week and my girlfriend came back into town so i have not been at my computer as much.

it seems like my brief attempts at getting in quick acknowledgements when i had a second, while promising to return when i could, have come across to some as being avoidant or dismissive.

not so!

i am bummed that we seem no closer to a consensus on the distinctions between pre and trans.

every one i have suggested has apparently been offensive to many. perhaps we need to start from a different square one?

i would love to hear some alternative distinctions, really.

now i hear i am in the midst of a “rational regression” (not sure what exactly that means) and am revealing some deep irrationality in what i have said. there apppears to be some agreement between lol and seth that i am playing a game and am a “slippery bastard”.

nice.

i am sure that you have some well thought out points to offer with regard to integral theory and practice and the distinctions between pre and trans. let's drop the ad hominem shall we?

as to my use of the language of SDi and trnspersonal psychology: green, prerational, mythic, magic, symbolic etc - it seems this has been taken very personally.

i will be more cautious and respectful.

i am still interested in talking about the ideas, theory and practice.

i do apologize for offending people - honestly i didnt think i was in a group that had such allegiance to the ideas i was debunking.

my mistake.

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Julian,

While it seems a number of us may be ganging up on you, Julian, I want to stress that I appreciate what you are attempting to do, and while I may not agree with you on all points, I think the general clarification of terms and experiences you are after will be beneficial to many people.

I believe I am fairly clear on what you mean by prerational and rational, but I'm not yet clear on what you mean by transrational.  I was hoping my description would encourage you to describe your own understanding for us, but now I'll just come out and ask:  What does transrational mean to you, and how does it differ from rationality?

With regard to my suggestion that you may be conflating a particular worldview with a level of cognition, I want to ask some clarifying questions as a way “in” to this discussion.  To start, I would like to ask if you think that there is only one rational, logical interpretation of or explanation for any given phenomenon or event.  This is a fairly simple question, and I can guess what your answer will be, but I want to go slowly and carefully here (if you agree that this is important.)

I deeply resonate with many of the poetic descriptions and reflections offered in recent posts, but I believe that some philosophical precision may be called for at this moment for us to make further progress in this discussion.

Best wishes,

Balder

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

good stuff balder. can we come back to this exact place later. i have just posted and am about to write another to catch up…

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Lol

 i will attempt a point by point here as you seem to think i am avoiding something:


YOU: “all mythologies, metaphysics, magical claims (which we shall define here as anything outside the laws of physics), archetypal beings or symbolic constructs are: …”

First, I simply don't accept the confines of your perspective ….. that what you refer to as 'magical claims' should by implication only be allowable or acceptable if they are explainable within or by the current laws of physics. As Lauren so adroitly put it on the Spiritual Atheism thread, in reponse to your earlier:

“why the need to believe that unproven unreasonable assertions might be true?”

“Because some things that once seemed absolutely unreasonable have turned out to be true.”

….. or at least, to date, acceptable to and accepted by the scientific community (my take on it).

ME:

perhaps you misunderstand me. i said that supposed magic happened outside of the laws of physics, not within them.

well i can't think of a better definition of magic than “occurences that appear to be outside of the laws of physics and cause and effect”. if you have one i would love to hear it.

as to lauren's rebuttal to my question above. it is (and i mean no offense by this) technically illogical. the reasoning here implies that we should believe that unreasonable unprovable assertions might be true based on the fact that certain other things that once seemed unresonable have turned out to be true. this has all sorts of obviously silly implications.

i would also add that there is not a single pre-rational belief about reality that has turned out to be true. the things that have turned out to be true but that once were thought impossible are all in the domain of science - not a single one in the domain of metaphysics or faith. in fact the trend has been in the opposite direction with regard to the kind of unproven unreasonable assertions of the kind to which i was explicitly referring.

furthermore the amazing things we have discovered that would have appeared impossible in thee past were not discovered by faith or belief. this is the second illogicality in the statement about why we should believe unreasonable things.

YOU:

She also said in that post in response to your earlier:

“there is not any magic (or) mythic material from any culture on the planet that is literallly real”

“While I agree ….. I don't know how anyone could have sufficient perspective and knowledge to determine that all claims of “magic” are in fact prerational magic/mythic-level beliefs. Not without sufficient evidence in every single case.”

Lauren's call for you to answer her points may not be direct, but nevertheless is still there. Balder, on more than one occasion, has been unequivocal in his request for you to answer certain charges he's been making of you, and as far as I can see you  have consistently failed to do so, in effect side-stepping them. (Brings to mind Captain Janeway and her “Evasive pattern Omega Delta 71, Mr. Paris” … or some suchlike.)

ME:

now we have the standard burden of proof logical fallacy:

i believe that magic is real.

there is no such thing as magic.

you can't prove that there isn't so there is.

the burden of proff is not on me - this a standard logical fallacy.

in addition, my answer to this is simple: bring me a single claim of magic that has not turned out to be either prerational (which in the integral speak is where “magic” resides, yes?) or scientifically explainable.

i think i have responded to balder and haven't felt “charged” with an ything by him - but am open to anything you or he feel incomplete on.


YOU:

Your response to Lauren and  Balder:

“i think the points you two are bringing up begin to get at the heart of what the pre/trans thread i started will hopefully be - a discussion on how we make distinctions between pre and trans. i  look forward to hearing more from you about these ideas specificallly that perhaps go a little deeper into exactly which states/beliefs and why you think should not reside in the prerational camp….”

is a good example of this. You are demonstrably still side-stepping and evading ….. and while I can't speak for others here ….. imo before you made these requests of them you should have, by now, directly answered points and questions already put to you that remain unanswered.

ME:

actually no - i was not avoiding i just didnt want to get bogged down with pointing out the logical fallacies and thought it might be more skillful to draw out some pre/trans theories that didnt have to do with taking offense and disagreeing with me.

i am side-stepping nothing. i did take an unavoidable break for few days though and i understand how it could have seemed that way.

i actually made this diplomatic reply in an attempt to be inclusive and hear more of her perspective.

YOU:

Second, as for your a), b) and c) in reference to:

“all mythologies, metaphysics, magical claims (which we shall define here as anything outside the laws of physics), archetypal beings or symbolic constructs are: …”

a) taken literally at the prerational level as historic, present or yet to come, facts.

I'm fine with this ….. but am concerned by your ongoing insinuations that the way people in this forum refer to and hold the afore-mentioned “… mythologies, metaphysics …(etc)” are inherently prerational ….. or else displaying some kind of green wooliness, as evidenced in your (what comes across to me as) rather scornful claim of unnamed persons not making   “… (good) distinctions out of a kind of pious “respect” or vague allegiance to “possibility” “.


ME:

Lol perhaps i got it wrong. i thought this was a forum to discuss things through the lens of integral theory. when i use the language you are objecting to it is in the interest of a discussion of theory and practice that a particular vocabulary facilitates.

i stand by my use of those terms and my sense of what might be going on with people's discomfort in making distinctions betweeen pre and trans.

but i do apologize if i have come across as scornful and launching ad hominems. that is not cool.

you are free to disagree with me - and i am excited (again) to hear your points.

sounds a little though like i am being chastized for using integral theory and language on the integral pod! :O)


YOU:

b) shot to pieces as completely non-existent at the rational level (no proof exists for ANY of them)

Your assertion is flawed. You might do better by simply acknowledging that you don't know of any such proof (and this in no way implies that I do) or that your current limited perspective(s) might not allow you to recognise any such proof.


ME:

you misunderstand the context of what you are quoting. this is not a statement of my belief here. this is a statement of what the rational worldview is. period.

thus:

precisely because there is zero empirical proof for certain things, rationality shoots it to pieces as worthless. this is true in some cases (the prerational) but woefully wrong in others (the transrational that rationality cannot see.)

now, we are disagreeing on what belongs in which category. i am pretty clear that you and a couple others take strong exception to how i organize those categories - let's hear how you might do it.

YOU:

c) analysed and understood at the transrational level for their metaphoric value and as a beautiful (if partial and often flawed) sign of the extraordinary intuitive symbol generating power of the psyche in it's attempt to interact with the great unknowns of our existence.”

Why do you so often seem to need to reduce everything to, or try to make everything fit within, the human psyche? Kind of smacks a bit of a 'given', this.

Btw, doesn't it follow from your reasoning that the psyche itself is one of these “magical claims (which we shall define here as anything outside the laws of physics)”

ME:

i am not reducing everything to the psyche at all. i am pointing out that human meaning. mythology and wolrdviews all without exeption have their origins in the psyche. where else would they come from?

as to the suggestion that this is the myth of the given.

nope.

pointing out that mythic beliefs, for example, are a product of the psyche and society is actually a step out of the myth of the given, yes?

it is the myth of the given to accept myths as being handed down (given) from some external divine source.

Lol if you have any other points you feel i have been avoiding please feel free to compile them as you did in this post and i will be happy to respond.

have a great weekend.

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Lol

oops i left out your last question as to the magical nature of the psyche.

the psyche as i am referrencing it here. definitley belongs to the transrational - this has been my point all along.

all UL stuff is hard for the purely rational mind to grasp….

more later.


i trust you are satisfied for the moment?

peace.

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Ooops!  Looks like we posted at the same moment.  My post to you is right above your two recent ones.  I'll read your new ones now…..

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

aah thats not such a good response to the psyche question - i'll have to come back to it - time to work….

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Nice thread, full of energy.

I've been following it, but been unable to write, due to my 4 weeks pleromatic-uroboros who regularly shouts for food.

I have some meta-communication points to make:

The initial question posted by Julian is wonderfull and we could stick to it, or go back to it regularly.

Julian: I like your style, 'cause you are provoking, and your style commands a response. And you don't wine when the response comes.

Jane: the storry about the beatle (scarabe) was from Jung, but I can't say in which book. I think he was explaining the concept of Synchronicity.

Transient: Your response to Julian's post was magistral. I think it was not assimiliated into the discussion and I don't know why. Maybe because it was too clear.

Ma Rig Pa, Balder and Seth: keep fighting! UL will prevail! No sorry… I think Julian is embodying a recognition of the LL and suddenly, UL needs to prove it's knowledge… and that's when troubles comes in.

But then Julian will say”OK, but what have you to say about pre/trans differentiation?”

I fear not much. 'cause I honestly don't get what “trans” is. And I mean cognitively, affectively, psycho-sexually, foodely( a new development line I decided with masha)… I just don't get it.

And I think we all can say what rational is, and how to treat pre. But trans… What is it. I think that I would need a trans definition which encompasses every develepment line of a virtual psychograph.

Patrick

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

nice commentary patrick. gracias…

well i haven't responded to transient because we have gotten so way off topic.

as far as i can tell his is one of the few posts that actually responded with a theoretical stance toward the questions…i will respond below, now that i have time and respite from the slings and arrows of forum madness. yikes!

first off i hope the interested parties got a chance to see my point by point response to Lol. it's about four posts above this one.

next:

wow! you suggest that literal belief in messiahs, archetypes in human form, goblins and fairies is prerational and whoooooaaaaa :O) look out here comes the well who are you to say that brigade LOL- you are being irrational by saying magic is not literally real or that worldviews have something to do with cognitive development, you are being irrational by saying that you don't see the need to believe in unproven unreasonable assertions about reality without evidence…. - totally irrational, i know!  what?

third:

a response to balder's bit about me confusing rational with transrational. as well as the query about worldviews and cognition and the suggestion that i was being irrational to suggest they were connected…….

i have enjoyed our dialog balder - style as well as content. i am confused as to why you chose to use the word irrational in the context of worldviews and cognitive development. being related. nonetheless, i will happily discuss why i think they are related in a moment.

i am going to break this post up because some are objecting to my posts being too long. others of course are objecting to me not responding in enough detail - ah well….

as to the transrational/rational distinction - how exciting we're back on topic!

OK.

so i think that the BIG problem with trying to differentiate prerational and transrrational is, as wilber points out, that most of us tend to think that there are only two options:

a) either rational and irrational - if you are a rationalist.

b) or rational and spiritual - if you are a spiritualist.

as a result, says the pre/trans fallacy, people will tend to make the mistake of

in case a) unwittingly lumping genuinely higher stages (the transrational) of development  into (prerational) degraded or less mature (and therefore less revealing of truth beauty and goodness) stages, with rational reality as the highest stage possible and everything else deemed irrational nonsense.

and in case b) unwittingly lumping (prerational) degraded, less mature (and therefore less revealing of truth beauty and goodness) stages in with genuinely higher stages (the transrational).

there is in both cases a failure to realize the stagewise progression from prerational to rational to transrational and so therefore there is confusion and inaccuracy.

my observation is that in the small percentage of the population that is actually rational, case a) is generally the mistake made. this is unfortunate because a lot of really powerful spiritual practice and philosophy, not to mention psychology and creativity gets shut down and dismissed. goodness, beauty and truth are not served.

and in the spiritual community generally case b) is the mistake made. this is unfortunate because a lot of the   really powerful spiritual practice and philosophy as well as psychological awareness and creative  depth gets obfuscated and hidden both from the spiritual seekers and from the possibly ready-to-pop rationalists by the prerational craziness that  surrounds it. goodness, beauty and truth are not served.

as you know, my in-progress definition for the difference is: the transrational is not at odds with rationality. it stands on it's shoulders. but the prerational cannot survive the light of the rational gaze - and that is a good thing.

what do i mean?

well for example:

i think authentic transrational spirituality (TRS) does not require that one abandon critical thinking in order to believe in anything. but, unlike the merely rational (MR) TRS values the experiential process of exploring the LL in all it's forms (meditative, artistic, psychological, ecstatic…) TRS will then interpret the experience from a mature non-mythic, non-magical perspective that is founded on rational cognition but reaches beyond into symbol and metaphor as well as a healthy awe in the face of the mystery.

TRS does not rely on mythic or magic explanations for the mystery, nor does it deny there being a mystery as does MR, it honestly turns to face it and is comfortable in a state of post-metaphysical wonder.

TRS  is not superstitious or rooted in belief in any literal supernatural events or beings.

One of the strong earmarks for my of TRS is that is arises on the other side of the centauric existentialist initiation (this is str8 wilber) - so it is by definition not a spirituality of consoling metaphysics or narcissistic fantasy.

because TRS has transcended and included the MR it retains all of the best aspects of MR (critical thinking, reason, groundedness in the real world, logic, ego-strength) while going beyond the inability to let go into deeply experiential spaces and the emotions defended against by the ego-defenses, as well as the overly literal lack of depth perception with regard to the LL.

interestingly, both prerational and MR lack the ability to discern depth in the LL. MR thinks there is no depth. prerational thinks it is all depth - from yoga to channeled aliens to tarot cards to jungian psychology to what the bleep to the secret to buddhism to feng shui - all equally deep expressions of spirit, right? wrong.

now of course it is important to say that what i mean here by “prerational” is not complete prerational consciousness - but a prerational approach to spirituality - the famous regressive green relativism, yes?

so to your point (and as a segue into the next):

i think that certain sophisticated metaphorical interpretive abilities, while begun in rational, belong in their higher forms to the transrational (because MR sees no value in interpreting poetry, myth, archetypal experience, spiritual openings. emotional proces etc - it's all nonsense), along with a certain sense of the ineffable mystery touched in deep meditation and other less formal moments. TRS is comfortable enough with the mystery not to rely on metaphysical constructs that are inadequate to the task of explaining it and require unreasonable faith. it is also delighted by systems of understanding and interpreting reality that are built again on the foundation of rationality but go one step further in complexity, intuition,  multidimensionality, metaphor etc..

i think it is a big mistake to conceive of TRS as being a repository for everything from the anecdotal paranormal to astrology to green ideas of idealized tribal wisdom - imo this is classic pre/trans fallacy. and to be more generous, perhaps a lot fo that stuff belongs in the we don't really know category, but i don't think it qualifies as TRS.

talismanic magic, boon bestowing mythic, metaphysical denials or reframings of pain, chaos death, all of these are seen through and relinquished.

for me TRS is hyper intellectual, hyper mystical, post existential, post metaphysical all at the same time - discerning, intuitive, grounded, expansive, rational, poetic etc…

how would you define TRS? all of y'all….

ok next post for the cognitive/worldview stuff and transient's cool post.

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

ok

as to cognitive development and worldviews.

well balder i am open to the point you are suggesting and look forward to hearing it unfolded.

patrick i also enjoyed your closing comment about a multi-line psychograph being necessary.

i am well aware of the inherent dangers of conflating mutliple lines or models - a uniquely integral problem, right?

so with that disclaimer in place, i think that there are certain correlations that are interesting and valid between worldviews and cog dev stages.

now obviously we are clear that the stages before orange in spiral dynamics are prerational in their worldview yes? ancestors, spirits, talismans, magic spells, bearded man in the sky, etc… by the time we get to blue there is of course much more order and a higher level of rationality - but we still have a mythic spireitual belief stucture that is at odds witth rationality and based in superstitious faith in a literalized archetype, right?

so at orange the truly rational is actualized.

i don't see a problem with suggesting that on the micro level concrete operations in the chid corresponds roughly with what is happening at the high end of blue and low end of orange in the macro level.

ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny and all that….i think wilber also explicitly makes connections between personal and cultural developmental stages, no?

it follows then that formal operations would come roughly in at the high end of orange into the low end of green.

this is of course not a totalizing statement, but perhaps a suggestion of correlative altitude in terms of where consciousness is centered…

now of course there is also the problem of pathology in each stage as well as regression if something goes wrong (developmental deficits or trauma) at any stage.

the classic green mem view that wilber criticizes quite harshly has a really hard time with all this stage stuff and especially with the opressive-seeming observation that the myth and magic that a lot of green folks think of as spiritual is actually pre rational, pre concrete operational, red and early blue stuff.

this again is the pre/trans fallacy in spades and part of the problem is that green refuses to acknowledge relative depth and so cannot discenr pre from trans and  it shoots it's own development of authentic transrational and second tier states and stages in the foot.

also, because of the consoling metaphysics of prerational spirituality, it is very appealing and makes a lot of sense (because of the magical cause and effect relationships) to very traumatized people (i am not implying this about anyone here - just to be clear) who are understandably regressing to defend against awareness of the pain, suffering and chaos of the world.

the regressive green new age worldview is  a perfect drug for the crazy world we live in - it creates a wonderful narcissistic (and i use this word technically not pejoratively) paradise in which the “universe” is conspiring to take care of you, provide you with parking spaces and make you wealthy, healthy and soul-mated if you'll only believe and think good thoughts, do the odd tarot card reading and perhaps stay in bed when mercury is retrograde! :O)

this is in many ways anathema to serious spiritual practice and is one of the defenses that said practice should eventually deconstruct.

i side wiith wilber on the position that the cognitive line may be the only line that is necessary (but not sufficient) for driving stagewise growth. so, yes i think cognitive development and worldviews are correlated in certain ways - though there are of course other very important lines that determine worldviews.

i think higher green into yellow is perhaps vision logic. and higher yellow on up would be integral.

i think the spiritual/cosmological worldview we each carry is a profound indicator of several lines, most notably cognitive, psychological and spiritual.

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

transient:

love this:

YOU:

a) What differentiates the prerational worldview from the rational worldview?

The prerational worldview can be modeled rationally, but not visa-versa.

b) How does this reflect in the spirituality of people whose orientation is prerational and how in those who are rational?

Prerational spiritual people tend to:

• 1. Place little or no value on rationality when used to examine (question validity) core religious/spiritualist assumptions.
• 2. Hold  rationality in high regard and status when a “rational” authority figure uses rationalism to bolster core religious/spiritualist assumptions.
• 3. Use rationality in service of prerationality, and thus dishonor the value of rationality.

2 a) Next, what differentiates the rational worldview from the transrational worldview?

The transrational worldview cannot be modeled rationally, but the rational worldview CAN be understood (not mapped or rationally modeled) transrationally.

b) How does this show up in both rational and transrational spiritualities?

Rational spiritual people tend to:

• 1. Place little or no value on transrationality when used to examine (question validity) core religious/spiritualist assumptions.
• 2. Hold  transrationality in high regard and status when a “transrational” authority figure uses rationalism to bolster core religious/spiritualist assumptions.
• 3. Use transrationality in service of rationality, and thus dishonor the value of transrationality.

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

i think your first point here makes sense in terms of being a logical continuation, but i would love to hear more detail on how the transrational understands (but does not map or model) rationality. any examples or are we in the domain of the ineffable here?

otherwise very intersting points - i like the tight structure. i wonder if without extrapolation it might not be possible to tell if it is just a good word puzzle or something we can take to the bank. care to elaborate?

Well of course it is a word puzzle.  You've framed this discussion  that way from the start.  I'm just going along with the game.  I think this whole enterprise is more like a chess game than anything to do with reality-as-lived, but I happen to like chess, so I'm good :o) You take a position, and I take a different position and then we elaborate, expand and defend our positions.  Chess.  Take the results to the bank?  Nah…if any of this pre/trans stuff was bankable (rationally codifiable), Ken Wilber would have done so long ago.  If you're interested in transrational-reality-as-lived, read Jane's fine post above, or any of the others who are coming at it via demonstration rather than explanation.  But still not bankable sad to say, only livable.

i would love to hear more detail on how the transrational understands (but does not map or model) rationality.

Intuitively.  With feeling and passion.  With an integrated bodymind.  Feeling into a situation for the resonances and dissonances.  A full-bodied understanding that includes to some degree, but is not limited by the rational understanding of the mind alone. 

The differences cannot be adequately explained rationally.  They can only be understood transrationally.  Transrational “understanding” is not by nature rational, and thus defies taxonomic categories, cartographies, and all linguistic rational modeling schemes.  The differences are noticed through embodiment and enactment in a case by case, moment to moment way.

J:

this is a bold stance and i see your point, but i can't help but wonder if it is too easy. i think there are really clear rationally discernable differences between the two, as you will see above, and i get that there is an aspect to the transrational which in some ways goes beyond language and categories. in the words of the title of zen teacher katagiri roshi 's book- “you have to say something…”

In the silent presence of Ramana Maharshi: ”Silence is more profound than words”

I appreciate and am in sympathy with your desire to flesh out the question categorically, and will look on with interest and sympathetic skepticism.

———————————————

i would add barely at all from the point of view of the prerational. also having been introduced to the transrational one can use the still intact ratioonal machinery for making good disticntions about the diffferences, yes?

Yes.

———————————————

i think beyond the catgories is a transcend and include affair. in other words one still has access to the category awareness after transcending it….it doesnt go anywhere and can still be used - in fact even more effectively.

IMHO - “more effectively” is about seeing categories as partially arbitrary, secondary overlays artificially dividing a unified reality.  There are no prerational forms, rational forms or transrational forms in existence prior to our categorizations.  Our categorizations are artificial forms arising out of worldviews.  The whole pre/trans matrix is based on a specific Wilberian worldview.  The categories might or might not be useful in a given situation, but they are not accurate descriptions of a-priori reality.

Transrational cognition is transcognitive in a sense.  It is able to navigate through multiple worldviews and paradigms, including the AQAL paradigm and the Bleep paradigm, and the spirit-guide-new-age paradigm, and the reductive materialist paradigm, etc.  It may use many different paradigms to evaluate forms, ways and means within each  current context it finds itself in.  There might be great value in a shared interpretation of disembodied spirits in one context, and not in another, depending on what is being served in a given situation. 

Transrational spirituality is paradoxical to the rational mind, yet simple of flex and flow.  It moves out of and beyond rationality by moving into and through currents of feeling/thought, including what you might categorize as “prerational affect”.  The currents of thought/feeling are tightly interwoven, and what might be usefully categorized as prerational one moment might be be usefully apprehended as rational or transrational the next…or even more usefully, not evaluated in this way at all. 

It just keeps getting more contextually relative the further you go.

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

this did not live up to the promise of your initial word puzzle for me transient.

it sounds a little too pat, quite relativistic by the end, and frankly a little smug.

you end up calling transrational “transcognitive” - huh?

i think i might get the general sense of what you mean, but it sounds suspiciously like you are saying that at the transrational level we forego critical thinking and can see the mystery in all things, from prerational to scientific, to mystic etc…please correct me if i am wrong.

now i agree with this on the one hand, but i think you are leaving out the higher cognitive piece that is actually profoundly concerned with finding and unfolding deeper and more accurate perceptions of truth, beauty and goodness and that recognizes the importance of identifying pathology.

your response ends up in a place that feels very touchy feely green relativistic and seems to arrogantly imply that there is something lesser about rigor and debate and that i am just in it for the chess game…actually i am quite sincere about my inquiry here.

yes i am all for full bodied, experiential, livable spirituality.

unfortunately this is the specifically intellectual board at the integral institute pod in cyber space, so i tend to get excited about talking theory and hashing out intellectual distinctions - it's sort of the limitation of the medium.

but let's get back to some actual points.

can you differentiate what you are saying in your last couple paragraphs from a merely pluralistic green stance?

how do you reconcile healthy critical thinking and the compassionate desire to identify and heal pathology with what you seem to be saying is the transrationasl abiliity to embrace the new age stuff uncondtionally?

lastly where is the place for strong critical thinking in your vision of the transrational?

my sense is that the more we expand into the upper levels, the deeper our roots need to be so we rermain grounded and side step (and/or tend to) the very real pathologies and pretentions of distorted or partial higher stages.

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Well this is getting fun.  Thanks for the game Julian.

————————————-

this did not live up to the promise of your initial word puzzle for me transient.

it sounds a little too pat, quite relativistic by the end, and frankly a little smug.

Ahhh, sorry to disappoint.  I  shall try my best to redeem my potential.

————————————-

you end up calling transrational “transcognitive” - huh?

i think i might get the general sense of what you mean, but it sounds suspiciously like you are saying that at the transrational level we forego critical thinking and can see the mystery in all things, from prerational to scientific, to mystic etc…please correct me if i am wrong.

Ok. You're wrong.  :o)

Aren't I being critical with you? :o)  And at the same time, I am using this opportunity to hone my transrational skills.  I'm trying to both demonstrate and explain by immersing myself in this flowing current.

One of the good things about the founder of Zaadz is that he makes such a point about the simple difference between “either/or” thinking, and “both/and” thinking.  A feature of higher level cognition is functional integration of apparent opposites.  Does it really have to be either/or in regards to critical thinking and apprehension and appreciation of Mystery?  Can't both happen simultaneously?  Perhaps this is one of those paradoxical features that could be used to define transrationality…

————————————-

now i agree with this on the one hand, but i think you are leaving out the higher cognitive piece that is actually profoundly concerned with finding and unfolding deeper and more accurate perceptions of truth, beauty and goodness and that recognizes the importance of identifying pathology.

I honor your passion for truth.  I have no desire to dishonor that, but rather am hoping to show you how you might be doing that yourself.

————————————-
your response ends up in a place that feels very touchy feely green relativistic and seems to arrogantly imply that there is something lesser about rigor and debate and that i am just in it for the chess game…actually i am quite sincere about my inquiry here.

Let me clarify.  I meant that I am in it for the chess game, and that I am sympathetic and skeptical with your inquiry.  If you want to do a more realistic and effective inquiry, can I suggest that you start by inquiring about the wisdom of adopting positional debate as a form of dialog?  The dialog work of David Bohm might be of some use to you.

I'm guessing that the reason my response ”ends up in a place that feels very touchy feely green relativistic” is that I'm talking about the wisdom of the bodymind, and I'm also talking about multiple paradigms.  I had an idea it would elicit this sort of reaction.  It usually does.

Appreciating people for where they are, and engaging them with respect where you find them is not the same as the absolute relativism of the popularized “touchy feely green meme”.  This seems to go with the notion that you have to give up critical thinking to appreciate feelings as useful cognitive capacities in their own right.  What you have to let go of is not any cognitive capacity, but rather an over-identification with it, and an over-reliance on it.

I'm talking about an integration of the body and the mind.  A unification..  Based on what I've read of your somatically oriented background Julian, I can't help but wonder why this apparent lack of trust in the wisdom of the body?  Isn't one of the main precepts of psychedelic therapies, holotropic breathing and somatic approaches, that the body has its own inner healing wisdom?  And that more often than not, the more effective approach to dealing with psychospiritual pathology is getting the critical controlling mind out of the way long enough to let the inner healer do its business?  Does that look like touchy feely relativism?  Not to me.

————————————-

yes i am all for full bodied, experiential, livable spirituality.

unfortunately this is the specifically intellectual board at the integral institute pod in cyber space, so i tend to get excited about talking theory and hashing out intellectual distinctions - it's sort of the limitation of the medium.

Ok.  Game parameter duly noted.

————————————-

but let's get back to some actual points.

can you differentiate what you are saying in your last couple paragraphs from a merely pluralistic green stance?

I've already made a gesture in that direction with the somatic bits.  Now the multiple paradigm angle. 

A “merely pluralistic green stance” as I understand it, is about an absolute relativism.  What I'm talking about is a relative relativism.  ~:o)  You use the phrase “unconditional embrace” in your next question.  That about says it right there.  It's interesting that you would read that into my intent.  “Unconditional” is about as far from my meaning as you can get.

A transrational embodied cognition has the capacity to adopt multiple perspectives as we all know.  To me this means not just the Wilberian 1^st 2^nd 3^rd 4^th etc, but also the multiple paradigms referred to in his integral methodological pluralism.  Flex and flow means moving within the current context.  If the only context you ever find yourself in is Wilberian-integral, then you don't get much opportunity to practice.  If you only make use of the values of one paradigm, you get plenty of chances to dis other competing paradigms, and you're not demonstrating transrational cognition IMHO.  This doesn't mean unconditional acceptance of all paradigms, worldviews, values ect as equal, but rather context dependent.  See the difference?

Contexts within contexts within contexts within contexts, and all with relative values.

————————————-

how do you reconcile healthy critical thinking and the compassionate desire to identify and heal pathology with what you seem to be saying is the transrationasl abiliity to embrace the new age stuff uncondtionally?

By practicing trust in the body's wisdom.

Healing pathology is not the business of the critical mind IMHO.  The disembodied critical mind can be useful at times for discerning practical modalities, and useful for evaluating results, but not so good at diagnosis and prescription.  Healing is inherently a mystery, and feeling-based.  I would say even love-based.  The disembodied critical mind is more often than not at odds with this approach.  All the more so when that function or capacity is being used as a dissociative device, and an identity.

————————————-

my sense is that the more we expand into the upper levels, the deeper our roots need to be so we rermain grounded and side step (and/or tend to) the very real pathologies and pretentions of distorted or partial higher stages.

Agreed.  And grounding for me is the result of an integrated bodymind rather than an over-reliance on the critical mind.

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Transient…luminous again.

There is much to say about your post, but one point retained my attention:

”What you have to let go of is not any cognitive capacity, but rather an over-identification with it, and an over-reliance on it.”

I think this process of “over-identification”, or simply identification is a key part in transrational. KW used to talk about the importance of this phenomenon in “Atman Project”, while explaining stage growth. I am a bit at a loss to fit this process in the AQAL at the moment, as this process is certainly not only an UL one. Personnality/ego is UL, but the “I” is not. With AQAL we tend to put the “I” in UL, as I think The “I”- pure witness- is all over AQAL, which means at all levels and all quadrants.

The capacity to flex and flow as you say, is to be able to relate to all stages and all quadrants. I would say that at a trans level the center of identitiy is not anymore an UL one.

My question is this: It seems transrationnal has been explained here as an ability to use all preceding stages, without beeing totally identified with it, using different maps to know. Is this the only quality of trans? Is this ability it's dominant mode of action? What is it's basis? If it's not this or that, But both/and that, this means there is less identification with reason, but more identification with what?

Basically, less identification with…that's ok, but more identification with what?

Patrick

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

“What you have to let go of is not any cognitive capacity, but rather an over-identification with it, and an over-reliance on it.”

I think this process of “over-identification”, or simply identification is a key part in transrational. KW used to talk about the importance of this phenomenon in “Atman Project”, while explaining stage growth. I am a bit at a loss to fit this process in the AQAL at the moment, as this process is certainly not only an UL one. Personnality/ego is UL, but the “I” is not. With AQAL we tend to put the “I” in UL, as I think The “I”- pure witness- is all over AQAL, which means at all levels and all quadrants.

I'm hardly an authority on AQAL, but it seems to me that all identity structures and capacities can be considered interior-singular.  And as stage-growth progresses, identity does a peculiar thing.  It grows as the circle of care grows, –from me to my group to everyone to everything.  But identity also diminishes in the sense that it goes from uriboric embeddedness to singular ego to minimal ego to emptiness/formlessness. Emptiness wakes up to itself

The capacity to flex and flow as you say, is to be able to relate to all stages and all quadrants. I would say that at a trans level the center of identitiy is not anymore an UL one.

Ok.

My question is this: It seems transrationnal has been explained here as an ability to use all preceding stages, without beeing totally identified with it, using different maps to know. Is this the only quality of trans? Is this ability it's dominant mode of action? What is it's basis? If it's not this or that, But both/and that, this means there is less identification with reason, but more identification with what? 

All that is.  Emptiness

Transient structures, capacities, and intentions that arise and fall away in response to changing conditions.

Taking responsibility for everything and credit for nothing.

Surrender to that which is required in any particular situation, and playing the roles without being the roles.

Identifying with doing and being more than identifying with a particular personality or character(istic).

You live in illusion and the appearance of things. There is a reality. You are that reality, but you don't know it. If you wake up to that reality, you will know that you are nothing, and being nothing, you are everything. That is all. - Kalu Rinpoche

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Well, in contrast to what Julian has said, Transient—you make my heart soar like an eagle, and I thank you….a million times I thank you….

Julian, this understanding cannot by nature be reached through rational discourse, although rational discourse is important, and is not to be denied or discounted.  Simply though, the mystery is beyond our conception…….and yet when YOU know it, you know it…and it is not pre-rational gibberish, or maybe it is, and it doesn't matter….so, it may be back the enlightenment red herring for you……or for me, who knows. 

Balder, I lover the article by Panniker….maybe I will make a pilgrimage to Barcelona sometime….I love to notice so many, utterly beautiful, fellow travellers together with me on this most amazing adventure.

there is light snow here today, and I am off for a ski….. curried caribou for supper….
love Jane

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

so Lol

(patrick this is for you too)

what i meant was something along the lines of - the psyche can be experienced and mapped and has a whole set of scientific studies and methodologies applied to it.

“magic” does not - even after all this time. because by definition magic is not real.

i am not denying the UL.

i am denying the incorrrect literalization of UL phenomena - there is a huge, big, kind of enormous difference!

:OP

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Hi, Julian,

I, for one, appreciate your detailed responses!  Though not all of your sarcasm – since I think you are zinging me for a point I did not make (e.g., accusing you of “being irrational by saying magic is not literally real or that worldviews have something to do with cognitive development.”)  That's not what I said.  The misunderstanding is probably partly my fault, though, since I made my comment on the fly, in a postscript, and did not elaborate on what I meant.  So, I'll try to clarify my point – which, at this point in our conversation, is really more of a question.

I was not saying that it is irrational to think that cognitive development has anything to do with worldviews.  My perspective is just the opposite:  Of course cognitive development influences worldview!  They are intimately related.  What I was saying was that it appeared to me that you were conflating a particular worldview – Western, atheist, secular humanism – with the rational stage of cognitive development in general.  This is why I asked you if you think it is possible to have more than one rational interpretation of a given event, process, or phenomenon.

In some of your posts, it sounds as if you are arguing that spiritual atheism is really the only logical worldview for someone at a rational/transrational stage of development to adopt, and that the only explanation for someone remaining a theist has to do with lack of development in the cognitive or some other line.  For some reason, they are “stuck” in the realm of prerational, mythic belief.  In other words, it seems as if you are saying that there is no rational reason one could possibly and legitimately embrace a theistic worldview.  And I don't think this is a legitimate argument.

I do think that atheism is one possible worldview that a person might rationally adopt, based on the current state of human understanding of ourselves and the Kosmos.  And, in fact, I think that even if one remains within a theistic tradition, s/he will likely end up wrestling with the same strong doubt and run up against the same screen of unsatisfactory, obviously culturally molded “mythic/narcissistic projections” that drives the atheist to reject God altogether, and the theist to enter a Dark Night.  There are mythic, prerational, narcissistically flavored, literalizing and concretizing processes we all engage in as we grow and develop; and there will come a point when we transcend these processes to such a degree that we are able to take them as object, to see them in operation, and to free ourselves (hopefully) from their limiting constraints.  I think the development of Western, scientific, materialistic, atheistic secular humanism represents one way (or one rough constellation of ways) human beings have dealt with this transition, but I do not think it logically follows that the perspectives of this culture are the only logical, rationally defensible ones – and that anyone who chooses to believe that a powerful creative intelligence with personal and impersonal dimensions underlies the whole manifest display of the Kosmos is necessarily wedded to an outmoded, prerational perspective. 

It would be nice, perhaps, if AQAL/Integral had the power to adjudicate which worldview is the legitimate one for any stage of development, but it does not have that capability.  In fact, AQAL has emerged, in part, by tracking these trends across multiple perspectives, cultures, philsophical traditions, and worldviews.

Personally, I chose many years ago to leave theism and embrace a non-theistic worldview, so I am not writing to you as someone who is personally invested in theism being true.  But I have spoken with a great many theists over the years, and have come to respect the rational and even transrational reasons why they have chosen to maintain a theistic perspective.  Of course, many, many folks choose theism for prerational reasons, and I think it is good to issue a challenge to entrenched prerationality.  But to say that atheism is, in fact, the only rational worldview is going too far, in my opinion. 

Best wishes,

Balder

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

ah so glad to hear i misiunderstood you balder. that was confusing.

ok i take your point.  nice nuance on the possible rational perspectives being multiple. do you know of any alternative rational perspectives on theism. by definition doesn't the rational level in integral speak and SDi represent a move beyond mythic belief?

now explain to me how mythic belief in god could have a rational or transrational basis.

it's an interesting idea but i can't see it yet - flesh it out for me.

again the word rational need not be a value judgment. people can be very nice theists, very intelligent theists, very philosophical non-dogmatic theists, but their belief in a mythic god is still by definition of the terms we are using prerational.

show me otherwise.

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

this is a really good clip of dawkins reading from his new book and addressing the difference between himself and his school chaplain - both rapt with wonder at he natural world.

he then goes on to talk briefly about the evolution of religion.

scroll forward past the guy introducing him….

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Hi, Julian,

I am not suggesting that mythic belief in God can have a rational or transrational basis.  That obviously would be incoherent.  I am suggesting that there may also be rational and transrational “theologies.”  The God of these post-mythical theologies will not be the same as the mythical, anthropomorphic Lord of the Universe, although there may be continuity in language and symbol (read differently, unpacked differently, at different altitudes).

As an example, if you'll forgive the short tangent, I'll refer you to the writings of an integrally minded Catholic theologian, Raimundo Panikkar.  If you have sufficient interest, you should check out The Cosmotheandric Principle, Christophany, or The Silence of God.

Panikkar is well-known for his integral vision, which he expresses as the cosmotheandric principle.  He describes reality in terms of the inseparability of the divine, the cosmic, and the human dimensions of Being.  Panikkar sees the divine, not as an object of human knowledge or a unique, Supreme King standing apart from creation, but as the depth dimension to all that exists.

Here's how Gerald Hall summarizes Panikkar's cosmotheandric vision:  “Three assumptions lay behind Panikkar's cosmotheandric vision. The first is that reality is ultimately harmonious. It is neither a monolithic unity nor sheer diversity and multiplicity. Second, reality is radically relational and interdependent so that every reality is constitutively connected to all other realities: 'every being is nothing but relatedness.' There is, if you like, organic unity and dynamic process where every 'part' of the whole 'participates' in or 'mirrors' the whole… Third, reality is symbolic, both pointing to and participating in something beyond itself. We do not have a God separate from the world, a world that is purely material, nor humans that are reducible to their own thought-processes or cultural expressions…”

It is not possible in this short post to give you the full scope of Panikkar's trans/rational theology, but if you are interested, here is a brief article by Panikkar that is worth checking out:  Nine Ways Not to Talk About God.

Best wishes,

Balder

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

well i am glad we are in agreement balder.

and what youare quoting is beautiful.

per my definitions:

“to me TRS is hyper intellectual, hyper mystical, post existential, post metaphysical all at the same time - discerning, intuitive, grounded, expansive, rational, poetic etc…”

this decribes what i read in your post.

what you are talking about is not recognizably religious in the sense that 99% of believers mean it.

it is of course transrational, poetic, intellectual, experiential, complex - i look forward to reading the link…

peace

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

(this could be posted on the new shoot the buddha thread…but I am sticking with this one for now.)
 

There are more paradoxes that arise at every turn.

“we must take something seriously so that we can take it lightly.”

“Sometimes you must stand against something, in order to stand up for it.

And then there are the semantics.  Dawkins waxes on eloquently  (in the video clip provided)regarding the ridiculous God in the old testament, it makes for a good laugh, I disagree with nothing.  He calls himself an atheist.  It looks to me like he is merely developing a transrational view of god.

Shooting the Buddha is a good article.  All of these ridiculous wars spawned by dogma!   Again that hilarious bumper sticker comes to mind, “The karma ran over the dogma.”  I would laugh harder, except the way this is actually playing itself out on the world scene is, and has been at least in recorded history, a tragic vision to behold. Indeed, this is an unfortunate ‘literal' consequence of the power of the written word, and the spoken word as well.  The way humans have been able to sequester information, mistaking human words,  symbols themselves, for the ‘a priori', experiential reality….. I remember in the movie Black Robe, the ability of the Jesuit missionaries to share information by writing it down and passing it back and forth was seen a magical to the aboriginal people encountered. Indeed, for an illiterate person, the hampered or undeveloped communication skill has astounding consequences.  Being able to ‘read and write' is enormously powerful—“literally”.  In fact, I have thought at times how deaf people are often paranoid, how there is a whole world happening around them without them being able to participate in and experience the basic clues that would invite them to be part of it, (let alone missing out on the soulful beauty of sound, “children of a lesser god”)…..Being “literate” in the most ‘literal' way, is a great power.  It is a great gift, and it is a ‘human' gift.  ‘Adams task is to ‘name' things.'  This is no small task.  It is the task of differentiating with words one thing from another in order to know, of looking deeply into the interiorities of being, of  ‘in forming'……

Back to the myth of the garden— Literally, with the task of naming emerged  the division of right and left quadrants(so beautifully articulated by Ken Wilber and others).  There came  into being the inside and the outside, spirit and matter….before the emergency of our ability to name, these two had not differentiated… ‘literally'….'what you saw, was what you got'. There was a deep ‘resonance' in all of creation.  For example: “Literally”, dogs don't lie!  (oh a funny joke, I must use another animal) Chickens don't lie. They have to tell the truth.  They don't have any choice because they don't have the capacity for dishonesty.  The very capacity for dishonesty, duplicity if you will, comes  with the emergence of the capacity for language, and it is enfolded into the evolution of consciousness and expressed in the special form of the human.  The beautiful metaphors for this capacity in Genesis are blatantly ‘literal'.  Adam and Eve ate from the ‘tree of the knowledge of good and evil'…. They could “choose” to be honest or to be deceitful…and this was a new capacity that  was a direct result of linguistic evolution….this was a newly emergent choice that came with the capacity to be ‘literal'.  This is so obvious, and yet it seems obscure or at least not really understood in its significance….like a fish not knowing what water is!

What now appears as ‘pre-rational' preposterous gibberish are all of the rules that somebody made up ‘just to get us started in this newly emergent literal world' , or ‘because they could', or ‘ because they snuck a modicum of power by doing so', or ‘they were bored', who knows really! These rules once established, got accepted and unexamined for eons, and then, of course, there were rules about not examining the rules.   As an example,  just last night, I was talking about ‘food safety' with our new Medical Officer of Health and some medical residents.  We were talking about the issue of donating excess food from supermarkets to  foodbanks….same thing, she said….somebody had to write a policy manual some decades ago, and half the rules have not been examined to see whether there is any merit of safety in them…..and then the rules are taken as law, and we develop a legal system around them and humiliate anyone who questions them. And, ta da!

Here we are, newly minted in this moment, on the local scene or the world scene scratching our head wondering what the bleep do we really know anyway…who the hell wrote all of these ridiculous rules?!…..and what preposterous gibberish has been piling up all around us!…and now, for god's sake, the youngsters are being sent of to shoot each other, and planes fly into building, and Saddam and Hilter and so many other preposterous goofballs who should have been working at a local family restaurant with strict grandmothers keeping them in line, have become maniacs running countries with huge armies….. It is not only these idiots either.  The sadness wrought by the lonely, sexually frustrated priest in these parts is enormous.  The sexual abuse by the clergy, the young children that have been molested and shamed in Sheshatshit….and the consequences of that kind of violation upon the fabric of families and communities…it is as astonishing as it is tragic!   And then if the wounds are not horrendous enough, there come the duplicitous cover ups!….  Thank God for Alice Miller and her work on the poisonous pedagogy….thank God for Fredrik Nietzche…..thank god for every one who has come before this moment in time, and ‘tried in their way to be TRUE'……. Thank God, for the kid who said “the emperor has no clothes.”

This rant erupts out of my fingers onto the key board regularly,  and it would be a great comedy sketch if the story was not so pathetic, and actually evil in its present manifestation!.

So what I actually sat down to write about was ‘shooting the buddha'.  In truth, I  bought that book for its cover, ‘when you meet the Buddha on the path, shoot him.'…

“Shooting the Buddha” is a metaphor for eliminating the external authority figure of god. With this elimination, we are able to ‘take full responsibility for everything'……the preposterous gibberish is decoded…language is examined with the light of rationality—the gift of the orange meme, the scientific paradigm— and thank god, and not a moment too soon!  The various composites of language– rules and beliefs and assumptions—are stripped of the illusion of power….and examined for what they are in the rational light of day. 

But the question then is if the ‘external authority figure of god is eliminated', is that the end of god?  Perhaps the ‘spiritual atheists' would argue that this is so… and I can understand this….but transrationally, this is not the end of the story in my experience.

I love the way Transient has written, “we take responsibility for everything, and credit for nothing.”  This is not some humble-pie, ah shucks!, kind of stance….it is actually a very deep truth.  Even my ‘very clever understanding' of the transrational spirituality, is a ‘given'….even the choice I made to try my best to be honest, was given….in retrospect, everything in my life is a given, an extraordinary unbelievable gift.  All of the material stuff, all of the ‘insight'…..my life has been a connect-the-dots picture, a paint-by-number painting…..But for the grace of God go I…..

I am back again to the 2-sided, 3-dimensional, ‘impossible'—or better to say—transrational, geometric mobeus-like configuration of the universe….  This is a transrational configuration of god/God, me, everything and nothing…it both adds up to everything and it adds up to nothing, and energy was neither created nor destroyed….it is a configuration   where the inside becomes the outside, and the outside becomes the inside….everything becomes nothing, nothing becomes everything……and surprisingly, it is totally “personal”, contexts within contexts, absolute relative relativism all the way down, all the up from the 1P to 8P in integral math… “turtles all the way down”.. 

And amazingly, I am important!  I am a unique resonance of this all-encompassing universe…..there is nobody else in the world, now or forever more, who is me.  It is all up to me to take my self that seriously, to leave no stone unturned, to turn my self inside out…..I (really!, I mean it literally) am the gateway for this process(the spiritualization of matter, and the materialization of spirit) in my life. I can resist or I can flex and flow, it is my choice.  Dissonance or Resonance, or a combination there of, it is my choice.  I can ‘get with the program' or continue with my ‘karma' research into what now appears to be the tragic unfolding of human potential…… I can surrender “my will” (my intention) to god/God, or I can continue to parade around fanning the ‘ego's illusion' of my importance out in the world around me, heedless of the dire consequences upon myself and those around me….well, until, I cannot be heedless anymore, until my heart breaks with a final blow….  And it all turns out to be true: What goes around comes around. The first will be last and the last will be first.  What is bread in the bone will out in the flesh……ooh, there is no shortage of aphorisms to be taken literally…… Nothing is itself without everything else…. And like a long chain of elephants, trunk to tail……a string of mothers(and of course those vestigial heavenly fathers) and babies all the way up and all the way down, we, you and me, are all in this together.  Each one of us is THAT IMPORTANT…..a snap shot of the what really has been happening on the Kosmic scene….through eternity, and into infinity….

It is getting light here, early morning and beautiful day…….I  feel such a tender love for all of it, for all of us…..man oh man, I hope we birth this baby…..we are in the eleventh hour, or so I fear….but then, there are always those surprises!  thank God…. 

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Julian, I am so glad you stayed with the discussion though you felt attacked from all sides. believe me, i have never meant to tear you down. i appreciate all your contributions, you and others here have helped me tremendously to clarify my thoughts and beliefs as well as giving many new thoughts and perspectives to consider…

a friend of mine brought back from india for me a wood-carving of “Namaste” folded hands. when you open the hands there are the gods of wisdom and education. a wonderful gift from one teacher to another! and also, now that i think more deeply about it, a beautiful metaphor from a pre or mythic point, to be appreciated from a trans point of view as an insight on how our Namaste or recognising the divinity, however we understand that divinity to be, in each person enfolds the wisdom or teaching in our “hands”… and of course there are many other ways of interpreting it, it's just another rabbit hole of awe down which we could fall endlessly.

Namaste,

Nicole

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

ok.

**anyone have anything to say on the difference betwen prertional and transrational spirituality or cognition as it relates to wilber’s essay?**

better yet:

***anyone have an example of something they would be comfortable categorizing as prerational and therefore problematic if confused with transrational and why? ***

*anyone have any comments o the reality of a) mental illness being awash in potent spiritual material that is painfully scrambled and prerational in nature and/or b) the recognition of the tendency to regress to prerational ways of viewing reality as a defense against specific trauma or the simple dificulty of our existential condition?*

*anyone recognize the real world problem of alternative spiritual healers who do not know the difference betwen pre and trans confusing the two when faced with these presentations?*

**does anyone observe that as stagewise growth progresses through all levels and lines that previous consoling and pleasing illusions are relinquished (this is not easy) and that in their place are more authentically empowering, good, true and beautiful perceptions/abilities?**

is anyone here familiar with piaget and/or kohut as they relate to wilbers stagewise developmental model?

observe the child who believes in santa.

how wonderful it is.

usually between 6 and 8 years old, as concrete operational cognition (piaget) is coming online, the child doubts santa. the appropriate parenting response is a) to support the illusion while it is enjoyed and b) to support the emergence of rational cause and effect awareness as it arises. in other words - thats right my child, santa is not realy real.

though recognizing that santa is not real is a little disappointing, if the child has adequate resources (levine) has been appropriately mirrored through different age stages (kohut) they will be able to “tolerate the dissapointment” of another little step forward in growing up. for kohut it is the building of this tolerance that constitutes the development of what wilber calls the “self” line.

in addition, what is discovered in surrendering the illusion of santa - is something even better: your parents loved you so much that they created this really fun and magical illusion for you. it was them all along who bought, wrapped, hid the gifts they knew you would love and created the whole game for you!

real awareness of love and orientation in reality as it is is far more valuable and has more depth to it that the illusory fantasy. this is a touchstone of development and is true all the wa up the scale; we sacrifice illusion for reality at every step and it allows more and more awareness, truth, beauty and goodness to emerge. we are unable to surrender the illusion and embrace the reality of the next level when something has gone wrong in the process.

now around this same age, kids will probably question that other fantasy construct - the literal mythic god figure and perhaps the concretized archetype of, say, jesus who was born of a virgin and rose from the dead not unlike quetzalcoatl and dionysus before him.

it is incongruent with concrete operational cogniton to continue believing in magical explanations. this is a technical fact.

we use magical explanations when our minds canot yet see cause and effect. pre-operational children will use magical explanations for just about everything if asked because they do not yet have the cognitve capacity to understand cause and effect.

with cause and effect comes the nascent ability to reason.

with the development of concrete operations comes for the first time - the ability to put oneself (mentally) in anothers shoes.

rationality is thus the begining of genuine empathy and compasion. children i the preop world of magic and myth cannot actually experience compassion and empathy in a meaningful way.

as this cognitive capacity is strengthened we begin to be able to surrender the healthy and natural narcissism that has thus far characterized our very limited relationship to reality. (kohut)

the preoperational stage of cognition can also be called prerational.

at this stage we use magical explanations and interpret reality through narcissistic eyes. we are the center of the universe and all things are interpreted as having special meaning for us, we have a sense of omnipotence and immortailty and we idealize our authority figures intensely as being perfect and powerful.

with the onset of concrete operations, we begin to let go of the narcissistic illusion that has allowed us to tolerate the difficulty of forming a self, we have enough ego-strength to let in the experience of others wothout being threatened by it. we begin to have empathy and basic compassion. we start to realize that we are not omnipotent and we have to accept our limitations and the conventional rules, limits and consequences that are being imposed on us. we surrender magical interpretations of reality more and more in the face of the powerful and accurate cause and effect and reason based skills we are learning.

most of us adults understand this intuitively. when a child gets to be say 9 years old and still believes in santa, we think - something is going wrong here.

if the child is 12 and still thinks that superheroes are literally real, we become worried.

these are signs of prerational, preoperational cognition and that is not age appropriate, therefore there is some kind of pathology. it is intelligent and compassionate to address this and try and get the child some help.

of course there is always play and imagination - but we intuitively get the difference between play and imagination on the one hand and being literallyconvinced of something unreal on the other.
in fact knowing the difference between symbolic representations and literal reality could in extremis be said to be the difference between sanity and mental illness.

now in the realm of religion/spirituality, when the concrete operational child says - i don’t think i real believe in god anymore, we often have a different reaction than we did with santa.

because most parents are caught in a version of the pre/trans fallacy they encourage or even insist that the child maintain certain magical and prerational beliefs - and then call that religion or spirituality.

instead of allowing the natural developmental process to refute the prerational level of the spiritual line (wilber) and because they themselves have not integrated rationality with spirituality in such a way that genuine transrational spiritual levels might emerge and be differentiated from prerational narcissistic magical fantasy, the parents unwittingly stunt the spiritual growth of the child.

later on for the vast majority of people, one of four things happens:

1) they grown up and have serious zealous irrational faith in religion eve though they may be very reasonable in other ways - all of the need for meaning, spirituality, morality, ecstasy etc gets put inot the basket of mythic religious belief.

2) they grow up not questioning religion but letting sleeping dogs lie and playing along with or paying lipservice to religious ideas and the “existence of god” as something important for reasons they can’t reall articulate and try not to think about. the spiritual line is basically deactivated and the cognitive line is not permited to interact with the religious material.

3) they grow up and rebel completely against religious belief and use rationality to the exclusion of the spiritual and often emotional lines.

4) they grow up and romanticize the regression into magical and narcissisic interpretations of reality as being spirituality itself. rationality is the enemy of authentic spirituality for these folks and it is a big taboo to think critically about mythic and magical material. everything non-rational, from literal belief in mythic gods and godesses, to angels,spirit guides, channeled aliens, shamans who can take the shape of animals, the universe organizing itself to provide a parking space because tou were a good boy or girl in the energy you were putting out there, the world being a school in whcih you learn eactly the lesons you need before reincarnating or going to the source (because there really is no such thing as death) - this is all deeply spiritual, meaningful and in contrast to the “negative” interpretaons of the harsh world we live in and the realities of suffering and scientific method and even psychology.

now of course there is a fifth option and it is what i began describing in my initial response to nicole.

the fifth option i am suggesting in response to the PROBLEM of the pre/trans fallacy lies in:

a) cognitive development - so as to stabilize healthy concrete perations and formal operations (piaget observed from voluminous research that less than 35% of adults in industrialized countries stabilized at formal operations!)
b) psychological/shadow work - processing the painful feelings and events that keep us from developing higher and deper stages and keep us enamoured of the reressive defense
c) inquiry-based spiritual practice that is able to see the prerational material for what it is and be fearles in it’s discernment and compassion

so what is formal operations?

well this is the stage that comes after concrete operations.

at formal operations we learn to think more abstractly, symbolically.

for the conop child who has not been indoctrinated, religion is just a bunch of slly nonsense, because it makes no sense. this is healthy and should be supported unless we intend to create the kind of religious confusion that we see all around us.

for the formop child, religion might begin to be interesting as a metaphor. mythology and poetry mght begin to be available to their nascent interpretive intelligence. this is the breeding ground for transrational spirituality.

unfortunately it is usually sqaundered and we end up with one of the 4 above options.

in terms of developmental psychology i think this is properly understood as a developmental pathology - and it is extremely widespread and responsible for untold suffering and carnage on the planet.

formop usually comes in between 10 and 12. you cant teach a child algebra or anything but very literal poetry before this. they just dont have the software running. some never will. most (over 65%) will not fully install it and make the transition to the new operating system.

NOW if we do not have strongly developed formop we cannot healthily develop any of the other stages that wilber and others have postulated.

INSTEAD, if we attempt ot have a spiritual lfe, we will end up with some mix of reressive (technical term) mythic and magic preoperational belief managed by a very confused and incongruous conop cognition that is commited to the magic and mythic material being literaly real and has confused it’s thin grasp on formop metaphor with nonsensical mystification and ends up associating that feeling with “spirituality” - because after all if it doesnt make rational sense, but it gives you that narcissistic (technical term) glowy feeling that everything is perfect and you are taken care of it must be a higher truth.

from this confused perspective, te more cognitive dissonance the better, the more disscoiated from critical thinking and hard reality the better, the mor suggestive of the fantasy world of childhood magic, superhero archetypes and all good idealized enlightened authority figures the better.

this is the new age green meme regressive narcissitic magical pathology that wilber describes and that i started this thread to discuss. this is in part the explanaton for te religious insanity that causes so much destruction and cruelty on the planet in the name of a literal mythic god.

the question remains.how do we differentiate pre and trans? this is one atemt at an answer.

anyone else want to have a go.

remember that ad hominems, accusing me of being overly rational, unspritual, arrogant etc are not actually addressing the question.

the proble as described by wilber in the essay i referred to at the top has many powerful real world ramifications. i am suggesting one wa of understanding it and responding to it.

for me this is not only intellecualy compelling but deeply rooted in compassion and love of the truth, beauty and goodness that emerges as more and more of us take the real journey up the developmental spiral.

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Julian, may your life be filled with golden scarabes thrumming at your window pain/pane….it is delightful watching your clear,incisive mind, your honesty, and your courage….. i

It comes to mind that particularly annoying declaration somewhere in the scriptures, some thing like:
“man does not get into the kingdom of heaven by good deeds, but by the grace of god.”…..that one really pissed me off when I was in grade school.  I can still remember arguing with Reverand Downer , a short bald old Anglican Minister, in my Grade Five religious education class….”you mean to say, that I can be the kindest, gentlest, most compassionate person, and that does not even get me an entrance to the joint.” I might have hmppphhhed, and snorted scornfully,  while inwardly bolstering my 11year old commitment to  have a pure, honest and fearless heart in the face of an a-theistic, unfair and cruel wold….”bring it on, you bastard!”  I might have railed under my breath…….

I have to say, it is interesting what happened…..
I am getting the sense that I cannot add much more to this discussion ….As it turned out, Reverend Downer was right……maybe not for the right reasons, and he might not have known what he was talking about either, (pre-rational being that I am pretty sure he was)…but still things are the way they are…..
This is great discussion, by the way….and you are arrogant too :o)! 
Jane

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

i share your affinity for the poetic and mystic, sister. it is central to my life. it is also in constant dance with the other spiritual gifts of intellect, visceral experience and psychological layer-peeling.

actually, beautiful poetic jane i think that secretly you are more arrogant than i.

i try to contruct arguments and back up my points.

you make proclamations in poetic language as if they are ultimate truths.

richard dawkins gets called arrogant for being a contemporary atheist, i would suggest that the pope is many mnay times more arrogant than dawkins because dawkins backs up what he is saying and the pope relies on an unproven authority.

in other words i think that strrong opinions based in reason and proof are actually  less arrogant than faith-based proclamations.

now i LOVE your poetic style and i wouldnt dream of asking you to change. i say this not as an insult to  you, but my point is that it is more arrogant to make ultimate statements and not argue them coherently than to construct coherent backed up arguments with reference to related theory, no?

funnily enough for a group asssociated around intellectual spiritual discourse like ken wilber's,  taking the time to construct strong arguments and gather data and ask difficult questions and try to find satisfying answers to them comes across as arrogant to some here, while poetic riffs of intuitive asssociation and emotive imagery seem less so.

i have a suspicion that technicallly the opposite is true. but i don't hold it against you. your presentation is a delight. i would happily post that way too were i not interested in unpacking a particular intellectual set of difficulties in contemporary spirituality that i would like to address and work toward resolving.

the ideas i don't find as strong as your gutsy, frank and juicy presentation though.

i like your story about your reverend, but do not see how it “turns out that he was right ” about how one “gained entry into the kingdom of heaven”…..

please exlain.

i am very familiar with the beautiful passage from jung in his book synchronicity about the scarab.

nonethelees the idea of synchronicity has been turned into an oversimplified narcissistic (technical term) talisman of divine intervention by the new age and lost it's original meaning.

jung for all of his wisodm also has a demonstrably prerational tendency at times - something wilber has expressed in multiple places.

but seeing as it seems that the pre/trans distinction is lost and unanknowledged by most here, it might be better to let someone else start a new thread.

may your days be likewise filled with whatever inspires, awakens and spirals you to your highest potential jane.

be well
~julian

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

“funnily enough for a group asssociated around intellectual spiritual discourse like ken wilber's,  taking the time to construct strong arguments and gather data and ask difficult questions and try to find satisfying answers to them comes across as arrogant to some here, while poetic riffs of intuitive asssociation and emotive imagery seem less so.
…..i have a suspicion that technicallly the opposite is true. but i don't hold it against you. your presentation is a delight. i would happily post that way too were i not interested in unpacking a particular intellectual set of difficulties in contemporary spirituality that i would like to address and work toward resolving.”

The thing is Julian, I am 'interested in unpacking a particularly intellectual set of difficulties in contemporary spirituality that I would like to address and work toward resolving'….more than you might ever imagine….. I have seen enough burnt babies in morgues, young people hanging off ceiling, bashed and battered people and I have been pushed to the extreme limits of my capacity to bear witness… the headlines, the news, the state of the environment, none of this makes me think that outside the sphere of my work, anybody, but anybody has figured out the situation any better than I have…..and that includes Ken with his beautiful maps and IQ of one million….. My poetic writing style is my best approximation of staying present with and expressing what I am seeing……. this is not an accident, a sleight of hand, but the way that I see……

That you do not really take this way of seeing seriously (perhaps because it is not 'rational') is an issue with being able to have this discussion with you about trans-rational spirituality.  I am not denying the issues you raise regarding what bothers you about  the new agers/boomeritis crowd…..and so on….I am saying there is a larger way to see this…. …and this really is part of the puzzle, not just a whimsical, possibly distracting, even if lovely way of communicating….

Jane

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

again - i love it jane - and i respect it.  truly - your soulfulness shines through.

and of course you are interested in finding solutions to the problems that interest you in your world. i was making no totalizing statement about you as a person or in the world - i was talking about in this thread.

there is that little matter of the kingdom of heaven and how you know that it turns out your reverend was right about how one gets into it, no?

do you see my point? you didnt repsond to this, and it was what your post turned on in rebuttal to something i was saying in mine.

you really go there in this beautiful way but make statements like that as if they are truths.

i take you totally seriously.

and i think that there is a lot of fanciful stuff mixed in with your powerful observatiions that you are asking (and mostly getting) to be accepted on faith becuase you can write about it emotively.

i don't buy it, much as i enjoy and respect your poetic prose and think you are probably an amazing force for beauty and goodness in the world and in the lives of those who know you.

the arguments are often still fragmentary and go in and out of being logically sound.

I.M. not so H.O. :O) - the default position of these things being beyond my limited rational method is a massive cop out. it is a position retreated to when lacking in strong arguments or when unable to back up an emotive belief. while i wholeheartedly agree that certain aspects of transrational experience are by definition beyond words and categories, most of what people have attempted to paint with that brush in this thread is hardly of that order.

this goes for your reverend and his scriptural certainty about how one gets into the kingdom of heaven too.

see you on the kill the buddha thread, or whatever else people choose to talk about next.

:O)

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

I am back at work, and if I have time, I can certainly talk more about the kingdom of heaven, and my little reverand some more…Indeed, I have been writing about this for a long time, and it is probably time to publish the book…..it takes a while to talk about….and it is a narrative….and it is also a metaphor….perhaps I will just get the book finished/published and send you a copy… I am in no way avoiding what 'you' considered the last post to be pivotal on,  but another story to add onto my pile of stories is not likely going to make a difference if you and I do not share an understanding about why I am telling them.  What I hear is that  you think my stories are not addressing the points you are concerned about,  and  you think their emotional presentation is compelling and charismatic but basically undermining the rational discussion that you are trying to conduct…..basically, we are not talking the same language, though we might be trying to talk about the same problems….  and I know that the language is 'literally' on of the biggest parts of this puzzle.  I wrote about this extensive a few posts ago, and I assummed that you either did not take the post seriously, or you did not read it at all….correct me if I am wrong…..

I also think it may be presumptuous to assume that this particular thread is 'wrapped up'….Do you have control over this thread?  Although, we(you and I) are having major problems here communication effectively….These major problems are, IMHO, exactly the major problems that need to be turned towards and addressed….I just don't know what else to do, except continue piling up my stories, and being concerned that you will consider me to be spamming on your thread…. (God knows, we have had that problem over at IN more than I care to go into)
sincerely, and interested Jane

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

jane, i do not feel that we are having major communication problems. i have pointed something out  (about the kingdom of heaven and you assertion about how “it turns out” one gets into it) that you are still not responding to, instead you tell me i am presumptuous.

this is unfotunately the general tone and pattern of the thread of which i have grown weary.

i am wrapping up my contributions to the thread. anyone else is welcome to continue.

i feel i have made as complete a contribution as i can.

the distinctions as to pre and rans that i have invited are not forthcoming, which is fine.

you must agree jane that i have given this thread blood and energy beyond the call of duty, why ask for more?

start a new thread if you have any ideas about what comes next.

love to you.

take care
~j

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

thanks too for your lucidity on the differences in language and focus.

and yes i must admit sometimes i get lost in the eclectic punctuation and stream of consciousness free-association and have a hard time making out your point.

nonetheless i love your style and soulfulness thouugh i think you try to sneak by a lot of emotive material as if it is ultimately true.

would love to see your obviously rich layers of experience and perception distilled down into a book.

would enjoy seeing you prepping for it on this board by starting a thread that might reveal or inform your starting point or central idea.

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Julian wrote: “there is that little matter of the kingdom of heaven and how you know that it turns out your reverend was right about how one gets into it, no?

do you see my point? you didnt repsond to this, and it was what your post turned on in rebuttal to something i was saying in mine.”

To ddress my little reverend and the kingdom of heaven, I will first acknowledge that 'the kingdom of heaven” is a metaphor for the state of non-dual awareness.  Even a glimpse of it, is enough to set a person on the seeker's path….
So my little reverend quoted the bible saying something to the effect. “Man will not get into the kingdom of heaven by deeds alone, but by the grace of god” 
The pentacostals say something to the effect: “In order to enter the kingdom of heaven you must accept Jesus Christ as your lord and saviour.”
Ken Wilber says:
“……at this very point where absolutely everthing seems wrong, everything spontaneously becomes right.  When the individual truly sees that every move he makes is a move away, a resistance, then the entire machination of resistance winds down. When he sees this resistance in every move he makes, (the above mentioned 'deed') then, quite spontaneously he surrenders resistance althogether.  And the surrendering of this resistance is the opening (the grace of god) of unity consciousness, the actualization of no-boundary awareness. He awakens, as if from a long and foggy dreams, to find what he knew all along: he, as a separated self, does not exist. His real self, the All, was never born, will never die. There is only Consciousness as Such in all directions, absolute and all-pervading, radiant through and as all conditions, the source and suchness of everything that arises momnet to moment, utterly prior to this world but not other than this world.  All things are just a ripple in this pond; all arising is a gesture of this one.”,

or as TS Eliot said:
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”

However flawed and deluded and fixated the early Christians, indeed, all of humanity really, have been about the nature, rules and regulations of the 'unknown', 'who the 'big guy in the sky is'  and so on—all of this must be seen with a great tenderness, as a recognition of the deepest yearning that god has to know God, in and through every one of us…..this is consciousness becoming conscious of itself.  Learning to see the I with the eye, that you need both the I and the eye to see…..it all starts to sound like tongue twisters….oh, playing the fool in front of the sober eyes of the jury!  My lot in life, perhaps….it has gotten much easier since I stopped taking rejections and misunderstanding  personally.

Julian, you seem to have gone absent for a day or two….I am in some kind withdrawal….it is interesting how intoxicating these conversations are for me; I suspect for many of us.
Just more compulsions I need  to let go of perhaps, but  still, I love it when I am not alone in this magnificent cathedral of the big blue sky….
Jane

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

i think this will be last post on this thread. thanks so much for the opportunity to polish the presentation of these ideas and to practice my imperfect akido skills.

anyone interested might see my most recent blog post: Santa, Jesus, Wilber, Kohut and Piaget, if they want to:

* read ken wilber's 1995 pre/trans fallacy essay
* or find out more about jean piaget, the unparalleled acknowledged master of cognitive developmental theory and research,
* heinz kohut the post-freudian developer of self-psychology and expert on narcissism and how the self develops, 
*or peter levine the contemporary trauma healing expert who works from both a biological and psychological foundation.

see  you all on the kill the buddha thread.

and i will leave the board open for anyone else to start a new dialog.

peace out !

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Things have certainly moved on apace since I last posted. I'm hugely grateful for the discussion that's been taking place, especially over the last three days, as I'm now getting a clearer picture of what transrational might look like. For this I want to pay particular tribute to Transient, Jane and Julian.

This next bit partly relates to the issue of ad hominem attacks. Julian and I have exchanged emails in the last couple of days. I  requested of him that I be able to copy here my second email to him … primarily to publicly clear the air a little … but also to save me about an hour's typing! He was happy  for me to do so.

The first bit is the email to which I'm responding ( it's the second of his mails, and the “this” in it refers to his initial one):

“Re: dude

it's funnt i sent this right before i saw the plethora of me bashing posts - but had fun responding and trying to clarify…

be well brother

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Sorry folks, something strange going on …. the last part of my post didn't materialise, then my laptop crashed. Probably some magical occurence or other. It looks like the mising part is lost, I'll see what  can do about it tomorrow. C'est la vie.

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

nevertheless you are a true gentleman Lol.

be well

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

what seems to have been a little lost in my fiery dialog here at I-I is that for me, this is a theoretical think tank.

my sense coming in was that this would be a group of very wilber savvy, integrally oriented folks who had done a lot of work and were comfortable with basic wilber ideas like the pre/trans fallacy (1995) and their implications, as well as his ubiquitous and scornful critique of green relativism and the way the new age has taken over transpersonal psychology.

therefore i have been very direct in how i think the theory is best interpreted and applied as a springboard for thinking about how to create more effective approacches, which for me is the integral ethos and raison de etre.

instead it has turned into a debate about wether or not old world religion and new age spirituality are largely prerational and inadequate to stagewise growth and transrational transformation.

i woiuld have thought this point would be square one.  i don't really see how anyone can be serious student of this body of work and not agree with the above statement.

sam harris therefore is not integral enough by an AQAL standard, but adds a truthful set of observartions that remain partial and that it is our job to transcend and include in a more integral way.

seeing the problem of the myth of the given acknowledging the disaster of religion in the 20th century, growing weary of the dangerous and self-indulgent silliness of the new age, i had hoped to brainstorm something more effective.

unfortunately for me, this may not be the disccussion board to “go there” on.

as for all of the particpants on a personal level i send you my gratitude, love and best wishes.
~julian

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Interestingly, Julian, I am sitting propped in my bed right now, (no sleep last night alas and now too tired) with No Boundary and Integral Psychology opened at various pages……all relevant to this discussion.  I have read most of Wilber's books, and I am pretty familiar with the theory, in fact I love it.  When I discovered Wilber two or three years ago, I gobbled up his books non-stop.  Thank God for Ken and his beautiful mind…..

Before you wrote this, I was wondering what makes my writing so suspect to you regarding having  a pre-rational emotive agenda, while Ken gets a by.  I would agree that his punctuation is not as ecclectic, and maybe he does not tell his own personal stories the same way(well, except in One Taste and so on), and granted he knows more words and has read a library or two more books than me,  but listen to this passage:  “Since unity consciousness is of the timeless moment, it is entirely present now.  And obvioulsy, there is no way to reach now. There is no way to arrive at that which already is . ….This seems an odd or at least a frustrating conclusion, especially since we have just spent so much time exploring some of the practical ways we could contact other levels of the spectrum……”No boundaries Or
“In the wake of this extraordinary linguistic turn, philosophers would never again look at language in a simple and trusting way.  Language did not merely report the world, reprsent the world, describe the world. Rather, language creates worlds, and in that creation is power. Language creates, distorts, carries, discloses, hides, allows, oppresses, enriches, enthralls.  For good or ill, langugage itself is something of a demigod, and philosophy henceforth would focus much of its attention on that powerful force. From linguistic analysis to language games, from structuralism to poststrcturalism, from semiology to semiotics, from linguistic intensionality, to speech act theiory—postmodern philosophy has been in large meansure teh philosophy of language, and it pointed out—quite rightly—that if we are to use language as a tool to understnd reality, we had better start by looking very closely at that tool.” Integral Psychology….

So I read that and I say to myself, hey, that is just about exactly what I was saying in my long post above, which I will repost here again for you to look at: 
 

There are more paradoxes that arise at every turn.

“we must take something seriously so that we can take it lightly.”

“Sometimes you must stand against something, in order to stand up for it.

And then there are the semantics.  Dawkins waxes on eloquently  (in the video clip provided)regarding the ridiculous God in the old testament, it makes for a good laugh, I disagree with nothing.  He calls himself an atheist.  It looks to me like he is merely developing a transrational view of god.

Shooting the Buddha is a good article.  All of these ridiculous wars spawned by dogma!   Again that hilarious bumper sticker comes to mind, “The karma ran over the dogma.”  I would laugh harder, except the way this is actually playing itself out on the world scene is, and has been at least in recorded history, a tragic vision to behold. Indeed, this is an unfortunate ‘literal' consequence of the power of the written word, and the spoken word as well.  The way humans have been able to sequester information, mistaking human words,  symbols themselves, for the ‘a priori', experiential reality….. I remember in the movie Black Robe, the ability of the Jesuit missionaries to share information by writing it down and passing it back and forth was seen a magical to the aboriginal people encountered. Indeed, for an illiterate person, the hampered or undeveloped communication skill has astounding consequences.  Being able to ‘read and write' is enormously powerful-“literally”.  In fact, I have thought at times how deaf people are often paranoid, how there is a whole world happening around them without them being able to participate in and experience the basic clues that would invite them to be part of it, (let alone missing out on the soulful beauty of sound, “children of a lesser god”)…..Being “literate” in the most ‘literal' way, is a great power.  It is a great gift, and it is a ‘human' gift.  ‘Adams task is to ‘name' things.'  This is no small task.  It is the task of differentiating with words one thing from another in order to know, of looking deeply into the interiorities of being, of  ‘in forming'……

Back to the myth of the garden- Literally, with the task of naming emerged  the division of right and left quadrants(so beautifully articulated by Ken Wilber and others).  There came  into being the inside and the outside, spirit and matter….before the emergency of our ability to name, these two had not differentiated… ‘literally'….'what you saw, was what you got'. There was a deep ‘resonance' in all of creation.  For example: “Literally”, dogs don't lie!  (oh a funny joke, I must use another animal) Chickens don't lie. They have to tell the truth.  They don't have any choice because they don't have the capacity for dishonesty.  The very capacity for dishonesty, duplicity if you will, comes  with the emergence of the capacity for language, and it is enfolded into the evolution of consciousness and expressed in the special form of the human.  The beautiful metaphors for this capacity in Genesis are blatantly ‘literal'.  Adam and Eve ate from the ‘tree of the knowledge of good and evil'…. They could “choose” to be honest or to be deceitful…and this was a new capacity that  was a direct result of linguistic evolution….this was a newly emergent choice that came with the capacity to be ‘literal'.  This is so obvious, and yet it seems obscure or at least not really understood in its significance….like a fish not knowing what water is!

What now appears as ‘pre-rational' preposterous gibberish are all of the rules that somebody made up ‘just to get us started in this newly emergent literal world' , or ‘because they could', or ‘ because they snuck a modicum of power by doing so', or ‘they were bored', who knows really! These rules once established, got accepted and unexamined for eons, and then, of course, there were rules about not examining the rules.   As an example,  just last night, I was talking about ‘food safety' with our new Medical Officer of Health and some medical residents.  We were talking about the issue of donating excess food from supermarkets to  foodbanks….same thing, she said….somebody had to write a policy manual some decades ago, and half the rules have not been examined to see whether there is any merit of safety in them…..and then the rules are taken as law, and we develop a legal system around them and humiliate anyone who questions them. And, ta da!

Here we are, newly minted in this moment, on the local scene or the world scene scratching our head wondering what the bleep do we really know anyway…who the hell wrote all of these ridiculous rules?!…..and what preposterous gibberish has been piling up all around us!…and now, for god's sake, the youngsters are being sent of to shoot each other, and planes fly into building, and Saddam and Hilter and so many other preposterous goofballs who should have been working at a local family restaurant with strict grandmothers keeping them in line, have become maniacs running countries with huge armies….. It is not only these idiots either.  The sadness wrought by the lonely, sexually frustrated priest in these parts is enormous.  The sexual abuse by the clergy, the young children that have been molested and shamed in Sheshatshit….and the consequences of that kind of violation upon the fabric of families and communities…it is as astonishing as it is tragic!   And then if the wounds are not horrendous enough, there come the duplicitous cover ups!….  Thank God for Alice Miller and her work on the poisonous pedagogy….thank God for Fredrik Nietzche…..thank god for every one who has come before this moment in time, and ‘tried in their way to be TRUE'……. Thank God, for the kid who said “the emperor has no clothes.”

This rant erupts out of my fingers onto the key board regularly,  and it would be a great comedy sketch if the story was not so pathetic, and actually evil in its present manifestation!.

So what I actually sat down to write about was ‘shooting the buddha'.  In truth, I  bought that book for its cover, ‘when you meet the Buddha on the path, shoot him.'…

“Shooting the Buddha” is a metaphor for eliminating the external authority figure of god. With this elimination, we are able to ‘take full responsibility for everything'……the preposterous gibberish is decoded…language is examined with the light of rationality-the gift of the orange meme, the scientific paradigm- and thank god, and not a moment too soon!  The various composites of language- rules and beliefs and assumptions-are stripped of the illusion of power….and examined for what they are in the rational light of day. 

But the question then is if the ‘external authority figure of god is eliminated', is that the end of god?  Perhaps the ‘spiritual atheists' would argue that this is so… and I can understand this….but transrationally, this is not the end of the story in my experience.

I love the way Transient has written, “we take responsibility for everything, and credit for nothing.”  This is not some humble-pie, ah shucks!, kind of stance….it is actually a very deep truth.  Even my ‘very clever understanding' of the transrational spirituality, is a ‘given'….even the choice I made to try my best to be honest, was given….in retrospect, everything in my life is a given, an extraordinary unbelievable gift.  All of the material stuff, all of the ‘insight'…..my life has been a connect-the-dots picture, a paint-by-number painting…..But for the grace of God go I…..

I am back again to the 2-sided, 3-dimensional, ‘impossible'-or better to say-transrational, geometric mobeus-like configuration of the universe….  This is a transrational configuration of god/God, me, everything and nothing…it both adds up to everything and it adds up to nothing, and energy was neither created nor destroyed….it is a configuration   where the inside becomes the outside, and the outside becomes the inside….everything becomes nothing, nothing becomes everything……and surprisingly, it is totally “personal”, contexts within contexts, absolute relative relativism all the way down, all the up from the 1P to 8P in integral math… “turtles all the way down”.. 

And amazingly, I am important!  I am a unique resonance of this all-encompassing universe…..there is nobody else in the world, now or forever more, who is me.  It is all up to me to take my self that seriously, to leave no stone unturned, to turn my self inside out…..I (really!, I mean it literally) am the gateway for this process(the spiritualization of matter, and the materialization of spirit) in my life. I can resist or I can flex and flow, it is my choice.  Dissonance or Resonance, or a combination there of, it is my choice.  I can ‘get with the program' or continue with my ‘karma' research into what now appears to be the tragic unfolding of human potential…… I can surrender “my will” (my intention) to god/God, or I can continue to parade around fanning the ‘ego's illusion' of my importance out in the world around me, heedless of the dire consequences upon myself and those around me….well, until, I cannot be heedless anymore, until my heart breaks with a final blow….  And it all turns out to be true: What goes around comes around. The first will be last and the last will be first.  What is bread in the bone will out in the flesh……ooh, there is no shortage of aphorisms to be taken literally…… Nothing is itself without everything else…. And like a long chain of elephants, trunk to tail……a string of mothers(and of course those vestigial heavenly fathers) and babies all the way up and all the way down, we, you and me, are all in this together.  Each one of us is THAT IMPORTANT…..a snap shot of the what really has been happening on the Kosmic scene….through eternity, and into infinity….

It is getting light here, early morning and beautiful day…….I  feel such a tender love for all of it, for all of us…..man oh man, I hope we birth this baby…..we are in the eleventh hour, or so I fear….but then, there are always those surprises!  thank God…. 

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

wondering if anyone here actually read the pre/trans fallacy essay? could be part of why my posts caused such a ruckus. [perhaps it will sound less arrogant and mean coming from the man himself.

here is wilber talking about it in the context of his transition into what he calls wilber two - a movement beyond his previously romantic period into dealing with scientific and ontological realities that hiw previous position couldnt handle:

“None of them has received quite the attention, or caused quite the controversy, as “The Pre/Trans Fallacy,” so perhaps I should begin my commentary there. I discovered the pre/trans fallacy by looking at my own mistakes. By looking, that is, at why the Romantic viewpoint seems at first to make so much sense–and why almost everybody seems to start their study of spirituality with a Romantic viewpoint–and yet it cannot handle the actual data and evidence of phylogenetic and ontogenetic development. The general Romantic view is fairly straightforward: infants, and dawn humans, start out immersed in an unconscious union with the world at large (and the pure Self)–peacefully embedded in a type of primal Paradise (either a literal earthly Eden, a foraging ecological wisdom, or an infant fusion “with the mother and the world in bliss”). Through subsequent development, this primal paradise is necessarily lost as the rational-ego emerges from this primal Ground, breaks and fragments this “nondissociated” state, and creates thereby a world of sin, suffering, ecological catastrophe, patriarchal brutality, and general malevolence. But the self (and humanity) can drop its overly analytic, divisive, and fragmented stance by returning to, and recapturing, the wholeness of the original embeddedness (but now in a mature and conscious form, or on a higher level). The original wholeness, now combined with analytic capacities, will result in a renewed heaven-on-earth, ecologically sound and balanced, and usher in a liberated nondissociated consciousness, which is spiritual in the deepest and truest sense.”

” A highly critical, occasionally skeptical, and sometimes even polemical attitude must be our constant companion on the road to any sort of truth. The commodity most lacking in spiritual circles seems to be, indeed, a healthy skepticism, possibly because it is confused with lack of faith, a stance which, if understandable, is deeply misguided.”

” Finally, the pre/trans fallacy says that in any recognized developmental sequence, pre and trans are often confused. It does not say, childhood is nothing but pre. As I just explained, there are types of transient access to spiritual states even in the infantile self. Rather, the pre/trans fallacy is meant to call attention to the massive types of confusion that occur even in fully recognized developmental sequences. For example, researchers from Piaget to Kohlberg to Gilligan agree that moral judgment moves from preconventional to conventional to postconventional modes. The pre/trans fallacy simply says that, given this recognized sequence, preconventional and postconventional are often confused, simply because both are nonconventional. And we have to look no further than the general New Age movement to find abundant evidence of preconventional impulse being confused with postconventional liberation; prerational self-absorption being confused with postrational freedom; preverbal hedonism confused with transverbal wisdom. Alas, it is almost always the Romantic orientation, with its sincere but deeply confused elevationism, that drives the entire display, with self-obsession elevated to Self-realization, divine egoism exalted as divine liberation, and rampant narcissism paraded as transcendental freedom.”

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

i would be fascinated to hear anyone's point of view on differentiating prerational and transrational spirituality after having read some of the above material.

wilber's book of essays called the eye of spirit is also invaluable here.

for me the implications, since coming into contact with this aspect of his work about 7 years ago have been enormous and exciting to say the least!

i think i am realizing that part of problem in this thread - besides my personality of course, is the lack of reference to wilber for the defintions and context of the terms being used - this resulted in me sounding arrogant for using and discussing them.

here is a another great quote from him on different meanings of “spirituality.”

Four Meanings of “Spiritual”

“If we focus for a moment on states, levels, lines, and self, we will find that they appear to underlie four of the most common definitions of “spirituality.”

In Integral Psychology, I suggest that there are at least four widely used definitions of spirituality, each of which contains an important but partial truth, and all of which need to be included in any balanced account: (1) spirituality involves peak experiences or altered states, which can occur at almost any stage and any age; (2) spirituality involves the highest levels in any of the lines; (3) spirituality is a separate developmental line itself; (4) spirituality is an attitude (such as openness, trust, or love) that the self may or may not have at any stage.^[20]

We have already discussed some of the important ingredients of those usages. We have particularly examined the idea of spirituality as involving peak experiences or altered states (#1). Here is a quick review of the other three.

Often, when people refer to something as “spiritual,” they explicitly or implicitly mean the highest levels in any of the developmental lines. For example, in the cognitive line, we usually think of transrational awareness as spiritual, but we don't often think of mere rationality or logic as spiritual. In other words, the highest levels of cognition are often viewed as spiritual, but the low and medium levels less so. Likewise with affects or emotions: the higher or transpersonal affects, such as love and compassion, are usually deemed spiritual, but the lower affects, such as hate and anger, are not. Likewise with Maslow's needs hierarchy: the lower needs, such as self-protection, are not often thought of as spiritual, but the highest needs, such as self-transcendence, are.

This is a legitimate usage, in my opinion, because it reflects some of the significant developmental aspects of spirituality (namely, the more evolved a person is in any given line, the more that line seems to take on spiritual qualities). This is not the only aspect of spirituality–we have already seen that states are very important, and we will see two other aspects below–but it is a factor that needs to be considered in any comprehensive or integral account of spirituality.

The third common usage sees spirituality as a separate developmental line itself. James Fowler's stages of faith is a well-known and well-respected example (Fowler, 1981). The world's contemplative literature is full of meticulously described stages of contemplative development (again, not as a series of rigid rungs in a ladder but as flowing waves of subtler and subtler meditative experiences, often culminating in causal formlessness, and then the breakthrough into permanent nondual consciousness [Brown, 1986; Goleman, 1988]). In this very common usage, the spiritual line begins in infancy (or even before, in the bardo and prenatal states), and eventually unfolds into wider and deeper spheres of consciousness until the great liberation of enlightenment. This is yet another important view of spirituality that any comprehensive or integral theory might want to take into account.

Viewing spirituality as a relatively independent line also explains the commonly acknowledged fact that somebody might be highly developed in the spiritual line and yet poorly–or even pathologically–developed in other lines, such as interpersonal or psychosexual, often with unfortunate results.^[21]

The fourth usage is that spirituality is essentially an attitude or trait that the self may or may not possess at any stage of growth, and this attitude–perhaps loving kindness, inner peace, charity, or goodness–is what most marks spirituality. In this usage, you could have, for example, a spiritual or unspiritual magic wave, a spiritual or unspiritual mythic wave, a spiritual or unspiritual rational wave, and so on, depending on whether the self had integrated that wave in a healthy or unhealthy fashion. This, too, is a common and important usage, and any integral account of spirituality would surely want to take it into consideration.^[22]

Two general claims: One, those four major definitions are indeed common definitions of “spirituality.” They are not the only uses, but they are some of the most prevalent. And two, those four common uses arise because of the actual existence of states, levels, lines, and self, respectively. People seem to intuitively or natively grasp the existence of states, levels, lines, and self, and thus when it comes to spirituality, they often translate their spiritual intuitions in terms of those available dimensions, which gives rise to those oft-used definitions.

Those definitions of spirituality are not mutually incompatible. They actually fit together in something of seamless whole, as I try to suggest in Integral Psychology. We can already see, for example, that any model that coherently includes states, levels, lines, and self can automatically give a general account of those four aspects of spirituality. But in order to see how this would specifically work, we need one more item: the four quadrants. (The four quadrants are not to be confused with the four uses of spirituality; the number four in this case is coincidental.) But the four quadrants are crucial, I believe, in seeing how the many uses of spirituality can in fact be brought together into a more mutual accord.”

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

jane i just saw this but am running out the door to work - will get back to you on it and send you warmth in the meantime…
~j

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Hi Julian, I loved your posts.  read them all in one go (which took some time) This whole topic is so importand. If I may jump in here there is one point about the pre/trans fallacy that I want to add as I haven't  seen it being in mentioned in this thread. I think that Ken's thinking about Pre- and Trans Spirituality has changed after the latest development of his book “Integral Spirituality”. What I am referring to is his differentiation between states and stages in the new version of the Wilber Combs lattice.

In contrast to before, where Ken placed the whole development of consciousness on line leading from the Archaic to the Nondual, so to say, he now talks about a horizontal line of spiritual states (Gross, Subtle, Causal, Nondual) that everyone can experience (completely independent if one is at a pre-rational or in a post-rational stage of development) and a vertical line of the evolution of consciousness. (archaic-magic-mythic-rational-pluralistic-integral-super integral). This new model of a horizontal line and a vertical line changes the whole discussion about pre- and transrational spirituality because the spiritual states stay always the same!!!  I only interpret them differently at a magic state of consciousness or at a rational or transrational stage of consciousness. Ken even talks about there being two forms of enlightenment -  horizontal enlightenment  and vertical enlightenment and that a true integral enlightenment has to include both of them.

I am curious what your thoughts about this are.
 

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Dear Tom, thanks so much for this contribution and for prompting me to read that article. I thought i had but it strikes me as new so maybe i hadn't… as well as the importance of the horizontal/vertical, which is vital, I also really appreciated Ken and Andrew discussing the importance of integrating all three persons, First, Second and Third, I, Thou and It, in order to have a healthy integral spiritual. I liked the end of the article on the Shadow work too.

Love,

Nicole

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Dear Tom, thanks so much for this contribution and for prompting me to read that article. I thought i had but it strikes me as new so maybe i hadn't… as well as the importance of the horizontal/vertical, which is vital, I also really appreciated Ken and Andrew discussing the importance of integrating all three persons, First, Second and Third, I, Thou and It, in order to have a healthy integral spirituality. I liked the end of the article on the Shadow work too.

Love,

Nicole

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

wonderful contribution tom!

yes that is an excellent point.

this also goes back to the “four meanings of spirituality” piece that i have quoted somewhere on these threads yesterday.

though the spiritual states may remain constant and are experiencable by anyone, anywhere, anytime, the other half of the story - as you point out, but that i would emphasize, is that the interpretation and therefore belief structure and worldview that arises in relationship to the experience of the spiritual state is 100% a reflection of one's stage of development; archaic, magic, mythic, rational, pluralistic, integral.

as such, the pre/trans distinction still stands because if you are de facto at a a prerational stage (archaic, magic or mythic) particularly in your spiritual and/or cognitive line (and we all start from square one, right?) then you will interpret the great spiritual truths in a prerational way.

the pre/trans fallacy still stands regardless of wilber-combs (which is a beautiful evolution of the model) because people still confuse pre and trans interpretations of spirituality and that is where the worldviews/belief structures come from and  the problems are.

one of the reasons wilber distanced himself from the field of transpersonal psychology is the ubiquity of the pre/trans falllacy there. one of the reasons wilber rips so hard on unhealthy green is the ubiquity of the pre/trans fallacy there, too.

the way forward for integral thinkers/practitioners is to keep developing strong rationality and healthy transrationality in ourselves and others to counteract the pervasive prerational interpretations of spirituality in both old world religion and new age spirituality.

for people who already have a spiritual temperament, the only thing that is disspelled by the healthy rationa gaze is prerationality. if we are already at the pluralistic level, as are most people on zaadz and in the LOHAS community it serves, but with the classic green suspsicion of healthy rationality commbined with a reggressive tendency to romanticize the prerational and confuse it with the transrational, a healthy dose of rationality combined with a post-metaphysical spiritual  practice is one powerful key that opens the door of genuoine transrational, second tier consciousness.

as much as we like to posture, we aint there yet.

if you have regressed to prerational spirituality and in that aspect of your being have put aside rational cognition, out of trauma, developmental pathology or existential angst, in order to be consoled and feel protected - and this is a stage that most spiritual westerners inevitably go through, then your worldview will have in it a basic confusion about the distinctions between pre and trans. this is more common than we'd like to admit.

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

” A highly critical, occasionally skeptical, and sometimes even polemical attitude must be our constant companion on the road to any sort of truth. The commodity most lacking in spiritual circles seems to be, indeed, a healthy skepticism, possibly because it is confused with lack of faith, a stance which, if understandable, is deeply misguided.”
                                                                                                                            wilber

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

“And we have to look no further than the general New Age movement to find abundant evidence of preconventional impulse being confused with postconventional liberation; prerational self-absorption being confused with postrational freedom; preverbal hedonism confused with transverbal wisdom. Alas, it is almost always the Romantic orientation, with its sincere but deeply confused elevationism, that drives the entire display, with self-obsession elevated to Self-realization, divine egoism exalted as divine liberation, and rampant narcissism paraded as transcendental freedom.”

                                                 wilber

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

“The universe is paying attention to each one of us, specifically. ”

I am pretty sure, Julian, that you  do not agree with this statement.  I imagine that you would call  a person who was convinced of the above, whether they were convinced though religious faith or direct personal experience, 'pre-rational' in the spiritual line of development.  I am pretty sure that you would commit this statement to the pile of other pre-rational transgressions  that new agers/mythic believers/and fundamentalist evangelists spout off and that must be discarded to move into the transrational realm.

I would also guess that  for you, the red flag of 'narcissim' raises its ugly head and warns you that anyone who actually believes 'the universe is paying attention to each and every unique individual'  is having an infantile regressive fantasy akin to the insistent belief in Santa Claus well after the age-appropriate piaget developmental stage has expired.  I am pretty sure that you would say that the above  “belief “is rampant in the mean green meme, marvelous ME, boomeritis buddhism crowd, and that if they would wake up from this  belief that further development up the spiral would become possible.

Have I got that right?

I would also guess that you would not consider that any 'transrational spirituality' would include an understanding that “the universe is paying special attention to each unique person”…..

Have I got that right? 

Jane

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

jane i sense that the position you are delineating here is one that you find very offensive.

threesuggestions:

1) let's look at what you are saying in light of the theory at hand in this thread - wilber's pre/trans fallacy essay. let's step back and see if it is what the theory says, rather than what you assume i  would say.

2) any interest in exploring why you find the postion you are ascribing to me offensive?

3) i have been clear throughout the thread what i think our square one starting point could be with reference to defining pre and trans. are you interested in refining, nuancing or reinterpreting my exigesis of the essay as it relates to the developmental map we are discussing and then applying it to the example you are raising?

i think this could be great.

sincerely
~julian

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Julian,
I am not easily offended, certainly not by the consideration that you might not believe that the universe is paying attention to each one of us.  I am okay with you believing whatever it is that you believe, and I am sure that you have good and considered reasons for believing as you do.
However, I have not been sure that I have understood what you believe.  I think in a lot of these interchanges, you are not laying your cards out on the table so to speak.  The post you are referring to is an attempt on my part for me to understand the position you are taking, so that the dialogue can continue. 
Still, I am happy to address this little assignment of yours….though you will have to rewrite the questions, so that they don't include any pressumption on your part, of offense on mine.

Also, I have actually on many occassions in these threads gone into considerable detail about how I believe the universe is very 'personal'.  I don't think you have read all of my posts, or you may be reading them with a particular set of blinkered glasses on….in any event, I don't think you have heard what I have said.  I am relieved that Keith seemed to understand, and I suspect most of the others have as well.  This may mean, of course, that you know something that the rest of us have not figured out yet, or with all due respect, there is also a possibility that it may be the other way around. 

In any event, I can take your assignment to be:  “look at the statement “the universe is paying attention to each one of us” and evaluate it with consideration of the pre/trans fallacy.”   If you agree that that would cover it, I will get back to you with that.  Indeed, I would be interested in your answer to that assignment as well.

Jane

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

“The universe is paying attention to each and every unique individual.”

 Discuss the value of this statement from the pre-rational, rational and the transrations perspectives.

In the pre-rational world views, the early efforts of human consciousness to answer the big questions of ‘who are we?' and ‘how did we get here?', we did the best we could.  I remember the story of how ,Dr. Harvey an early physician,  finally figured out that the heart was pumping blood in a ‘circular way' around the body; he figured out circulation.  Before that, the heart was thought to work as ebb and flow, empowered by the four humors.  Ah, there are so many examples of this pre-modernity explanation versus modern scientific explanations.  It is endearing.  The whole idea that there should be a rational explanation to everything was also slow to develop. Indeed, there was a pre-pre-rational state where everything was just accepted the way it was, without even wondering about the deeper nature. This is still true for me in lots of ways.  There are things that I have no understanding about, things that might be explained on the discovery channel or by Quirks and Quarks, but that I am prepared to accept as a given without dissecting out the rational, cause and effect explanation.  I still don't actually understand computers, though I know the binomial theorem is important, and so is the concept of on/off, a gate of 1/0, which creates a grid through which energy floods….and then there are those silicon microchips, and processors…oh dear, and the ability to send messages instantaneously around the world……unbelievable really….and then that these messages can effect change where they land, transpose themselves into altered landscapes miles away, like even something as simple as a cookie recipe– Holy cow….beam me up Scotty!!!….. It might not be long before we actually figure out the matter/anti-matter thingamaggigy at the rate we are going…..

It makes me really think hard about what ‘information' is.   ‘In form' versus ‘out form'. The left side of the quadrants versus the right side of the quadrants.

The ‘out form' is the solid bits, the books, the light, the chair, the apple.  The specific physical reality which is a ‘condition' of reality, like ‘ice' is a condition of water. 

The ‘in form' is the thought, the vast empty darkness, the memory, the tension of any life coiled in various ways, out of sight and sometimes out of mind, hidden and encoded waiting for until there is a time for its expression into the ‘out form'. 

In the pre-rational world, there was no expectation that anything should ‘make rational sense'.   With the same kind of fresh innocence of Byron Katie's ‘loving what is', people just accepted life most often without even knowing that they were doing any ‘accepting' .  Life was the way it was, Like a fish in water, not knowing what what is.  From this blanket unconscious acceptance, certain associations were made with time, seasons, natural rhythms and so on.  

For instance, the Innu calendar, a lunar calendar, has all the months named such that they reflect the arrival of snow, salmon, berries etc.  Until the last century, the Innu lived in the beige meme with a deep acceptance of the natural rhythms of what was.  “they had a name for the bend in the river', but not the river, and certainly not water as H2O.   Where did the birds go to? ‘over the mountain to some far off place'  where did the salmon come from? “from off in the ocean in a far off place”.  Where did the caribou come from? “over at the George River, and before that the great caribou spirit, Atik”  The Innu lived in a kind of primordial awe, I imagine like a child on Christmas morning.  Every day was a new gift, and every partridge was new gift from the creator. The Shaman had shaky tents, and could communicate with Atik-the caribou spirit.  They had certain arrangements understood with Atik, regarding how caribou remains (bones in particular) must be treated in order to continue resonating in ‘favour' with this spirit and receiving the gift of ‘caribou' needed to sustain their lives etc..  This kind of “resonance” communication was used to find hunting parties in far off places in the country, or find caribou herds and so on.  From a rational perspective, this ‘kind of communication' seems silly.  A rationalist would say that these primitive people were under a misunderstand, or misinterpreting simple co-incidences. How this kind of communication takes place does not make any sense on a rational level, it seems like more ‘hocus-pocus' just waiting for a ‘rational world view' to shine an explanation on it.  

I am suddenly thinking of the slaughter of the Aztecs by the Spaniards, how a very few Spaniards could trot and kill off the big Aztec Kahuna, and completely destroy a civilization because the Aztecs, for all their advances, did not have a plan B of how to fight if their leader was killed, having assumed that he was invincible and therefore would not be killed.  This kind of pre-rational belief pattern is not much different than the pope and the Roman Catholic Church, with the doctrines of infallibility…or the belief pattern that underlies most monarchies.

These clashes are interesting, almost like a game of rock paper scissors.  There is popular movie, I can't remember which one, when some attacker appears for a fight wielding a big dangerous looking sword, only to be met by the protagonist non-chalantly drawing a gun and shooting him. It is comedy, the movie, but like so much else there is a tragic truth in it too.  World views are disrupted and discarded like a  the game of rock/paper/scissor without having been mined for their particular gifts, gifts that might provide more information for our trans-rational understanding of the nature of reality.

So back to the original statement.  “the universe is paying attention to each and every one of us”.  Said in another way, “Nothing is itself without everything else.” 

Our  present world view, so far is a flatland world view, flatland physics.  It is a world view that is caught in the ‘cause and effect' rationalist perspective of the way that things happen.  Even the ideas that “angels and demons” are ‘in here' is part of this flatland world view.  It acknowledges that these entities are constructs of and individual mind, constructs that might be shared with others through a cause and effect mechanism, and that they can be seen as beautiful poetic expressions of an ‘inner world' that inhabits the landscape behind my eyes when I close them, but not the land in front of my eyes, the ‘out there' when I open them. 

For the Innu and their ‘pre-rational' world view, the inside “behind your closed eyes soulscape” was understood as intimately related to the outside “in front of your opens eyes landscape”.   There was no expectation of any incongruencies between these two world, they resonated in harmony, for the most part.  (I say for the most part, because there was evidence recently of ‘dark' shaman-shaman who were using their powers not to benefit the whole community, but to control and take what they wanted, creating, in effect, 'dissonance'.  A shaman would often have several wives and demand that young girls be given to him, for instance if he met a hunting party in country. If his demands were not meant, he could conjure bad luck and gloom to the uncooperative party. As a result,this was disturbing many otherwise happy campers.   It is my understanding that these ‘dark shaman' actually frightened and pissed off Innu community and that this was happening more and more in the past 150 years. I believe that it was this disturbance that made the Innu susceptible to the pre-rational beliefs that would next be imposed on them by the Roman Catholic Priests.  I think they believed that Jesus was more powerful that the local Shaman.  The priest thus freed them from any local tyranny that a dark shaman might have been exhibiting.  This put a damper on the effect of a dark shaman—who was probably a typical, authoritarian  egomaniac with power gone to his head.  (the Jimmy Baker's, George Bush's, Idi Amin's, Saddams, Pinochets, Hilter's of the Innu world.—ah yes, I smell an archetypical pattern rearing its ugly head)

The Catholic Priests turned out to be just as bad, in many ways.  They brought with them linguistic skills, reading writing', but they also brought with them their horrible and warped views of sexuality.  My sense of the Innu people, pre contact, was that they were a tantric people with no sense of body or sexual shame anywhere in their culture.  The priests largely were as un-tantric as could be…and in fact were largely a bunch of pedophiles who fucked, sodomized, defiled and shamed more young people than one might ever imagine.  This is known as the 'trail of tears' in aboriginal circles.  This unmitigated and horrendous sexual abuse is one of the greatest tragedies in the Innu culture, in my opinion, and one that still requires an phenomenal healing in order for the community to begin to regain any form of function.   In the 10 years that I was the family doctor in the community of Sheshatshit, I listened to stories from everyone, at all level about the depth and the humiliation of this abuse, from people my age and younger. Now the sexual abuse has become generational, and the victims have become perpetrators, and then adding in the pornography and the influences of the present outside world, …..and it is a difficult, difficult situation…..

Am I answering the question: the universe is paying attention to every one of us…Pre/rational/trans…..I will continue.

I have explained on several threads, my best effort at the geometrical configuration of the universe, using my own system of integral physics.   I wish I had MichaelD here to help me with making some graphics for this…as any still life configurations don't work.

Here are some basics: I am a reality tunnel.  I am that little ‘hypersphere of dimensions' that Stephen Hawking refers to. Three dimensions are 1. intension(left sided expression/ speed of light squared (c2)(right sided expression). 2. distance: infinity(left sided)/miles etc (right sided), 3. time: eternity(left sided)/minutes/hours etc(right sided)

The symbol of the uroborus, the snake that eats its own tail is a symbol of eternity. Actually in right-sided language, eternity is now 13.8 years and counting.

Similarly, infinity is the distance of all across and including all of the universe.  It is the distance that the speed of light multiplied by  the speed of light covers in an instant. All of these wonky measurements of what happens at the edges of the universe are important. This includes the math of zeros, the math of absolutes, the integral math of all perspectives.   Distances come together. Parallel lines meet.  The universe curves back upon itself.  the inside becomes the outside…etc

I am pretty sure that “i” am the alpha point and “i” am the the ‘omega' point. And I think that ‘you' are too.  “The center is everywhere, the circumference is nowhere.”  Again, the activity that is going on in ‘me' (either consciously or not) is the materialization of spirit, and the spiritualization of matter.   The universe “out there” is intimately connected to the universe “in here”, and there is a free flow of information, one side of spirit/matter “in forms the other”.   This does not mean that “i” have created the universe, but it does mean that I am intimately connected with it.  It also means that I can choose  ‘my' intension to resonate with the whole(accepting what is)…. ‘getting with the big picture program, so to speak'.  At this point, when I am a clear and unobstructed ‘reality tunnel' the shift in perspective called ‘non dual awareness' or ‘enlightenment' can happen.  When I become nothing, I can see everything arising.  Everything becomes nothing, nothing becomes everything. 

I am the first to admit, I am an accidental tourist in this Kosmos.  I mostly grew up in a dysfunctional family, pissed right off at the ridiculous patriarchal crap fed down to me from my father, and any aquiescence by my mother, the Presbyterian church, Reverend Downer, and the small minded, small town, suffocating view of Collinwood Ontario in the early 1970's.  Defiantly, and sick to death of all of the utter bullshit regarding ‘god' and ‘obediance' and the tyranny of these pre-rational, mythic belief structures (as Rousseau said, “Born free, yet everywhere men are in chains.”)  I set out to live a proper life, godless, and ethical, and morally upright, and at the same time owning all mythical structures as important, somewhat fanciful descriptions of a rich inner life.

In spite of all of that, my life blew apart. Literally, it blew apart, inside and out…. And what remains is more mysterious than anything I could have ever imagined. I must get back to my story again, (I will post this on my blog)….but it is a beautiful day, cold, but beautiful.  Rosie wants to go off on a ski, so that is what I will do first….

So this is my best attempt at ‘integral physics' today.  I have also looked up the word physicist….yes, that is what I am: an integral physicist….where are all the smarty-pants around here?….I need some help trying to translate all of the myths into literal physics: “the word made flesh”….and the 1^st law of thermodynamics, energy is neither created or destroyed (or damn, is that the second law)…….

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

“And we have to look no further than the general New Age movement to find abundant evidence of preconventional impulse being confused with postconventional liberation; prerational self-absorption being confused with postrational freedom; preverbal hedonism confused with transverbal wisdom. Alas, it is almost always the Romantic orientation, with its sincere but deeply confused elevationism, that drives the entire display, with self-obsession elevated to Self-realization, divine egoism exalted as divine liberation, and rampant narcissism paraded as transcendental freedom.”

I agree.  But who makes the call?  Some have argued the same things are coming out of I-I itself, with the Stuart Davis show capitalizing on flagrant narcissistic displays and fratboy humor, I suppose in order to be spiritual and cool.

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Julian, Although you have not written directly to me regarding my latest questions, I have wandered over to look at your video blogs.  The last one is your declaration of a god with in, a statement regarding how angels and demons are not 'out there', but 'in here'. 

'Out there' is a prerational view, 'in here' is a rational view. I am sure all the orange psychiatrists in the world would be comfortable with this.  I am pretty sure Dawkins et al would be happy with the 'in here' version too.

So the question is: Where does god reside in a transrational view ?

Another question is: Is it possible to reconsider that 'in there/out there' puzzle without succumbing to the supremely egoic narcissistic stuff  of the 'marvelous me, boomeritits buddhism crowd?

I appreciate your video and your blood and sweat effort, which I will take personally to some extent, to pry me loose from what  I imagine looks to you to be my hidden agenda of 'pre-rational' beliefs.   But I might as well declare it right now, for all intents and purposes:  I do believe in Santa Claus.  No I don't believe in the sleigh, and the reindeers and the instantaneous arrival down chimneys.  However,I do remember that feeling of 'pre-rational' awe on christmas morning as a 4 year old, when my parents had done the Santa Schtick, and i believed in him 'literally'.  It was fun. Now, honestly, I still have that same awe, sometimes about ordinary things, easily explainable in the scientific paradigm.  But not just that either.  I mean, I have that awe in the magical sense, a deep mysterious awesomeness, embedded in the deepest knowing that the big guy is watching over me, and playing with me, and taking care of me, and you, and the squirrel at my feeder.  Metaphorically, I can call this  “Santa Claus,”  I recognize that you would more likely call it  “a deeply held psychotic delusion,” or “prerational gibberish that I tell myself because I am neurotic and filled with the fear of death”.  It does not really matter.  It is still there, and in fact, is strong and clear in me all the time. 

Here is an example:  When my sister Jocelyn died, at the age of 33, unexpectedly, no cause ever determined, after a weekend of dancing at the universal dances of peace-some Sufi thing, I was absolutely devastasted.  I was at my office in Sheshatshit on that Tuesday morning just getting started  with my patients, and my secretary put her boyfriend though on the phone.  “Jocelyn has died.”  Four hours later, I was with my youngest son David flying from Happy Valley to Toronto with a plane change in Deer Lake.  In Deer Lake, with David in my arms, I was walking down the nearly empty corridor in the terminal, when a beautiful little girl with blonde ringlets suddenly broke away from her mother, and giggling and laughing ran off  coming towards me.  “Come back here, Jocelyn,” her mother  said laughing,  as this beautiful little girl ran off by me, giggling as she went.  When the mother got near to me, I said to her, “your little girl's name is Jocelyn.?”  And she smiled and nodded and went off to chase down her little girl.
Now, of course, this can be explained very easily, rationally.  The woman with her girl was going somewhere on the plane, so was I, we passed each other on the corridor.  Jocelyn is not that unusual a name, her little girl happened to be called Jocelyn.  Or it could be that I did not hear correctly.   Or , 'pre-rationally' in my grief was having auditory hallucinations and projecting all of that on to the world outside me.
And beyond even that–so what, even if my awesome Santa Claus 'knowingness'  is right. It does not take away the grief and the utter sadness from  the death of of my  beautiful sister, or anyone else.  A heart break is a heart break and all the Santa Clauses in the world don't take that away, at least for me, I don't think for any of us….   I don't know what happens after death, I don't imagine we persist in any recognizable version of our present selves, if at all.  I don't believe that one 'good' set of actions will  take me to a place in the sky with angels and harps, and a bad set take me somewhere else.  But I do know that we are embedded in a mystery far more amazing than I am capable of knowing.  I don't think we can hang our hat on Santa magic. And at the same time, I don't think we can see the big picture clearly enough to really know the far reaching effects of many of our willful actions. Still, brailling blindly with the future ahead of us, i I know it is up to us to  learn to be responsible for  ourselves, and our world, and to live and love with compassion for everything and everybody around us.  It is not up to me to balance the scales.  But it is up to me to live a just life and to stand up  when I think there is injustice.  It is important for me to do all that I can to love openly, fully and passionately. Even though,I don't know, and can't know the half of it.. I do know that I am responsible for living my most authentic life, for being honest and true to myself and to others, not because it guarantees me a spot in heaven, (I couldn't care less about that—especially if that idiot from the old testament is roaming around there.  Please give me the big sleep!)  but because it is the right thing to do, and I know this.

I also recognize and appreciate the courage you have in your declarations, in facing the abyss, in not backing down.  I think this is very important, and I respect you deeply as you travel your path.

Namaste
Jane

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

 PS when i refer to the 'big guy taking care of me'—this is a metaphor for the great sentient, loving, compassionate, mystery that is connected into me, inside and out, closer than the bone…. I am not referring literally to a god in the sky with a beard, you know, red sweat shirt, long white beard, that guy….no that guy is probably  the same one in the sleigh with the reindeer, and in my humble opinion, I would say he is a delusion….although he is having a pretty good run at it all the same. ;)

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

dear jane, thanks - you are luminous, your experiences and openness are humbling…

namaste and love,

nicole

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

jane, i have made no direct attempts to pry you loose from anything.


most of what i have expressed directly to you is how beautiful i find your words and intentions.

this remains true here too!

i think again - that my attempt to clarify terminology ended up being taken personally by those who felt offended by their self-identifying certain aspects of their belief structure pre -rational based on what i was saying.

this made me the “bad guy” and we are still no closer to a working definitioon from anyone of the difference between pre and trans, frankly because i think most of the participants in the conversation would rather keep them merged.

i am still open to hearing any distinctions that anyone has to offer.

:O)

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Julian,
It is  at an interesting loggerhead, this discussion. 
Thank you for appreciating my writing and intention.
In truth, it is probably me who is trying to pry you loose from something.  My attempt to pry you loose  may be construed as a deeper arrogance, just as you suggested.  Though I can understand why this might appear to be so, this is not my intension either….Nor do I really know that you require any 'prying'.  Indeed, we all know what we know when we know it, and that is as good as we can do. 

I watched the I love Huckabees movie last night.  It is about this very loggerhead: even down to the non rational clunker of trying to rationally explain 'coincidences'.  I laughed.    It is almost the animated movie script for this whole discussion, IMHO.

Anyway, thank you for engaging as you have….it has been interesting for me.
Jane

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Hello All ~

What a thread!   Just read through it in it's entirity.
I thouroughly enjoyed everyone's contributions.

It's probably too late now, but I wanna grope around on the floor
and pick up the original strand of this thread -

Okay, got it!  Now I'm serpenting, head down, through the metta-mines
into the clearing…..

Whooo.
Made it.

Julian ~

I am VERY IMPRESSED with your work here.

This synthesis of development will yield some really great stuff.

What if we backed up a bit further and started with a good solid
understanding of the Pre/Trans Fallacy in general?
Then it might be easier for Prerational and Transrational Spirituality
to emerge?

xo
cree

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

nothing would make me happier in this thread cree!

wanna get us started?

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

jane i watched huckabees recently too - what fun and yea it's a good allegory for the back and forth here….

peace to you
~j

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Wilber defining the Pre/Trans Fallacy:

“The essence of the pre/trans fallacy is itself fairly simple: since both prerational states and transrational states are, in their own ways, nonrational, they appear similar or even identical to the untutored eye.”
“And once pre and trans are confused, then one of two fallacies occurs:
In the first, all higher and transrational states are reduced to lower and prerational states.”
<snip>
On the other hand, if one is sympathetic with higher or mystical states, but one still confuses pre and trans, then one will elevate all prerational states to some sort of transrational glory ”

There is an obvious need for a solid understanding of prerational, rational, and transrational.
Also, it should be appreciated that there is some difficulty in defining the transrational with rational language.

I'd like to compile a few real gems from this thread here..

Julian:
“What differentiates the prerational worldview from the rational worldview?”

Transient:
“The prerational worldview can be modeled rationally, but not visa-versa.”

Julian:
“Next, what differentiates the rational worldview from the transrational worldview?”


Transient:
“The transrational worldview cannot be modeled rationally, but the rational worldview CAN be understood (not mapped or rationally modeled) transrationally.”

Julian:
“Last (and most challenging for us) What is the difference between prerational and transrational worldviews?”


Transient:
“The differences cannot be adequately explained rationally.  They can only be understood transrationally.  Transrational “understanding” is not by nature rational, and thus defies taxonomic categories, cartographies, and all linguistic rational modeling schemes.  The differences are noticed through embodiment and enactment in a case by case, moment to moment way.”

and this important point from another post by Transient:
“Wilber is masterful at using the language of rationality to express transrational “insights”, and then proceeds to get very annoyed when they are inevitably co-opted by lower-elevation critics who consistently misunderstand him. He’s amazingly smart about perspectives, and equally naïve about the way people will misuse codified systems. He talks about what a perilous situation we are in when WMDs become available to lower meme individuals and groups, then proceeds to do the analogical equivalent himself by codifying “transrational insights”. Any closed system must develop a coherent defense by virtue of its coherence. The overvaluing of coherence for its own sake generates the need for defense.”


Balder answers the same questions this way:

I”n pre-rational awareness, we may think affectively and by association, rather than through the use of inductive reasoning.  The pre-rational worldview may be coherent, but its coherence is on the level of resonance and reflection, meaningful correspondences, affective associations, and so on.  This field of “coherence” may appear seamless and holistic, but it is pre-rational.”


“In transrational awareness, we may return to a holistic sense of things, but our holistic perspective now encompasses rationality and the ability to relate the items of our awareness through complex logical relationships.  In transrational awareness, while we can use logic, we can perceive the limitations of our logical constructs, as well as the limits of our pre-rational, affective associations.”


“My understanding is that at the upper limits of rational awareness, we are capable of seeing and thinking from multiple perspectives at once.  We move from a somewhat linear perspective of cause and effect, to more open and decentered forms of reasoning.  We may be able to think things through using classical “excluded middle” logic, but we also have access to “included middle” logic (built on models of transcendence and inclusion).  I see this as the “vision logic” stage.”


“In transrational awareness, we can become aware of connections that transcend or run deeper than normal causal chains, but in this case, the perspectives which disclose particular causal chains are seen as subsets of a more encompassing awareness.”


End of quoting.

These are all fantastic descriptions of the pre/trans positiions.

As I see it the Pre/Trans Fallacy is so much more than a spiritual problem.  It causes trouble up and down the spiral.



In Julian's blog, he puts forth a response to the problem of the pre/trans fallacy:

“a) cognitive development - so as to stabilize healthy concrete operations and formal operations (piaget observed from voluminous research that less than 35% of adults in industrialized countries stabilized at formal operations!)
b) psychological/shadow work - processing the painful feelings and events that keep us from developing higher and deeper stages and keep us enamoured of the regressive defenses.
c) inquiry-based spiritual practice that is able to see the prerational material for what it is and be fearless in it’s discernment and compassion.”



I like this, Julian.
I think it's absolutely crucial to start at the beginning - with early development.
In order to explore early beginnings, we have to have a solid understanding of the pre/Trans Fallacy because it is inevitably the first obstacle we encounter when trying to build an objective framework for early development or even interpret research in this field. (Growth to Goodness vs Recaptured Goodness as Wilber discusses in Integral Psychology.)

I'd find it very interesting and helpful to take each of the above proposed by Julian and see how they are affected by the pre/trans.

xo
cree

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Hi Julian,

*                                              *                                              *                                              *                     

Hi Julian

I’ve been reviewing what I wrote (to you) in my truncated post of the other night and have decided not to try and re-member the half that was lost, partly because it does now seem quite possible that we’ve each been misinterpreting what the other has been meaning in certain instances and in certain crucial ways. Looking back I can see things I’ve said that haven’t been expressed as clearly as I’d intended and that you seem to have taken to mean something I wasn’t attempting to convey.

As an example, when I quoted (what you’d written): “all mythologies, metaphysics, magical claims (which we shall define here as anything outside the laws of physics), archetypal beings or symbolic constructs are: …” 

responding to it with:

“First, I simply don't accept the confines of your perspective ….. that what you refer to as 'magical claims' should by implication only be allowable or acceptable if they are explainable within or by the current laws of physics.”

What I meant by “what you refer to as 'magical claims' ”, and what I was objecting to, was that you have clearly been including under the umbrella term “magical claims” the alleged (my qualifier) 'attainment' of ja.lus, otherwise known as 'the rainbow body', by both Buddhist and Bonpo practitioners of Vajrayana alike.

As an example of this, here’s something from one of your posts, with what I’ve been objecting to highlighted:

“now i know about swami rama and the tibetan monks who can affect varous bodily functions in ways we find impossible ….. but it is a big leap from that to uncritically accepting their metaphysical beliefs or that anecdotal unevidenced accounts of various magical occurences at death might be real”

I have never, and never would, think of relate to or describe the alleged phenomenon ja.lus as being magic, magical or a magical occurrence, although the latter is what you were clearly doing in what’s quoted above.  And that‘s been one bone of contention.

Another has been your sometimes direct assertion, sometimes insinuation, that people on this forum, and you’re clearly including me in this, are either directly holding magic and myth to be literally true or open to the possibility of what you consider examples of them to be literally true. As evidenced by the highlighted parts of what you’ve written here (and I have no problem at all with the first two sentences):

“mythic belief, superstition and failures to understand the difference between literal reality and symbol are prerarational. no amount of wishful thinking about deep faith will make this different. no amount of green relativism or tolerance or loyalty to the possibility of magic and myth being literal or of very special monks from other exotically ancient cool cultures  meditating hard enough to literally become archetypes that transcend the laws of physics and reason just because we have a childlike longing to live in a world where anything is possible will change this!”

What it boils down to is this. Things that I’ve referred to, such as the (alleged) phenomenon of  ja.lus, or yogis supposedly being able to sit upright in meditation for sometimes up to four days after what we ordinarily accept as ‘death’ has occurred, you clearly see as examples of magic and myth (or at least you assert them to be magic and myth) being taken or believed in literally — whereas I don’t see them or relate to them as being magic or mythical.

You place these phenomena, whether they’re alleged or otherwise, evidenced or unevidenced, firmly in the magical / mythic category (which if my understanding is correct makes belief or acceptance of them prerational) … and I most definitely do not.

Let me explain why.

First I’d like to quote from the Sam Harris article you provided at the beginning of the Killing the Buddha thread, to set a context.

“In many respects, Buddhism is very much like science. One starts with the hypothesis that using attention in the prescribed way (meditation), and engaging in or avoiding certain behaviors (ethics), will bear the promised result (wisdom and psychological well-being). This spirit of empiricism animates Buddhism to a unique degree.”

This “spirit of empiricism” isn’t confined just to the form of Buddhism that seems to be being referred to here, the one that people in general are most familiar with, namely Sutrayana Buddhism as practised in the Theravadin tradition. This spirit of empiricism simply has to be adhered to rigorously in the practice of Vajrayana Buddhism, otherwise progress through the carefully delineated stages will not be made.

In the practice of what is known as “Highest Yoga Tantra” within Vajrayana Buddhism there are two main stages, known commonly as ‘Generation Stage’ and ‘Completion Stage’. The minimum entry point requirement for practising the methods contained within these two stages is a thorough intellectual understanding of Emptiness / Sunyata (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagarjuna#Philosophy ), which is traditionally arrived at by employing the Seven Point Logical Reasoning derived from Nagarjuna‘s “Middle Way” philosophical system, plus having stabilised experience of ’space-like Emptiness’ through meditating on the results of employing this highly rational approach.

The Generation Stage, put simplistically, involves visualising oneself in symbolic form, in full knowledge that it is a symbol and what is symbolised by it. Before one ‘generates’ oneself as this form, one practices a meditation which recapitulates (if I’m using the word correctly here) what Vajrayana Buddhism teaches are the stages of dissolution of the internal/subtle elements, plus consciousness, and the energy winds they are connected with, that occur during the death process, from gross to subtle to extremely subtle.

The reason I’m referring to this is because Wilber uses these stages in his diagram depicting the Major Stages of Meditative States (http://www.flickr.com/photos/slark/43744868/in/set-939928/) ”What Is Integral Spirituality”, page 45.

The 5 skandhas relate to the subtle elements, the 80 gross mental conceptions relate to gross mind/prana, the (minds of) ‘white appearance’, ‘red increase’ and ‘black near-attainment’ relating to more and more subtle mind/prana, arriving at Turiya, synomynous with Clear Light, extremely subtle mind/prana.

The yogi’s experience of this meditation practised at this stage deepens through practice over time. It also forms the basis for the yoga of sleep, as similar stages of dissolution occur naturally in the process of falling asleep.

The Completion Stage, put simplistically, involves working with the subtle channels, the subtle energy winds and something that could be translated as essence. As the yogi or yogini passes through the various stages he / she gains permanent stability in them. The yogi or yogini of this level is said to be able to successfully maintain the integrity of their meditation throughout the death process, starting with the gross signs of death, which we simply call ‘death’.

Now … I don’t need to … and I’m not asking or requiring you or anyone else to believe that this works or what I’ve referred to actually can occur. The reason I’ve gone into such detail is to demonstrate that there is a context, given credence by a practical and pragmatic training that utilises a rigorous scientific methodological approach, which can be tested by anyone at all wishing or willing to put it to the test ….. a context for what I related in my post on the Spiritual Atheism thread when I said:

“There are supposedly many documented cases of Tibetan lamas sitting upright unaided in meditation posture for days after being considered dead, and then when, from their tradition's perspective at least, their subtle consciousness moves on, the body slumps.”

Similarly with the alleged phenomenon of ja.lus. I am not at liberty to say anything about it at all except that it is seen as the end-point of a similarly rigorous, empirically based path of practice of Ati Yoga, or Dzogchen, which again is open to anyone who has the capacity or is willing to develop the capacity, to put to the test.

My simple point is that none of what I’ve been describing has anything to do with magic or myth or the prerational ….. whereas it seems, to me at least, quite clear that when you talked of “accounts of various magical occurences at death” you were referring to what I’d mentioned of “lamas sitting upright unaided in meditation posture for days after being considered dead” and the alleged phenomenon of ja.lus.

So the methods, structures and developmental stages that pertain to the phenomena I originally mentioned (requiring me to eat my hat because I couldn’t come up with any evidence of them), whether the phenomena have ever occurred or not, clearly belong on the trans side of the divide ….. this is supported by Wilber’s model ….. whereas you seem to be placing the phenomena that are purported to be the end point of said methods etc. on the pre side of the divide.

You said at the end of one of your posts:

”pre/trans fallacy - and if you think i am doing it in reverse i am open to hearing why.”

This is why … or at least, why I think why : )

All best,

Lol 

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Weirdness still happening, but fortunately this time only to the start of the above post. It should have started:

Hi Julian,

In the spirit of sorting out “unfinished business” I’m going to try re-submiting my follow up to the dismembered post of January 9^th. Here goes….

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

“My simple point is that none of what I’ve been describing has anything to do with magic or myth or the prerational ….. whereas it seems, to me at least, quite clear that when you talked of “accounts of various magical occurences at death” you were referring to what I’d mentioned of “lamas sitting upright unaided in meditation posture for days after being considered dead” and the alleged phenomenon of ja.lus.

So the methods, structures and developmental stages that pertain to the phenomena I originally mentioned (requiring me to eat my hat because I couldn’t come up with any evidence of them), whether the phenomena have ever occurred or not, clearly belong on the trans side of the divide ….. this is supported by Wilber’s model ….. whereas you seem to be placing the phenomena that are purported to be the end point of said methods etc. on the pre side of the divide.”

Very nicely done, Lol.  I have virtually no experience with what you have described.  I had not even heard of most of what you mentioned before reading the last chapter of “Grace and Grit.”  In this chapter, Wilber doesn't use analytical models.  He just reports his experience of watching his wife die in much the same manner that you seem to be describing.  Clearly, Wilber is not pre-rational.  What he describes may sound magical, except that it seems it actually happened.  Logic might not be able to describe what happened at Treya's death, but it nonetheless appears to have happened.  Frankly, I find the magical quality of it quite stunning, and mostly because it is a true story that allows me to think beyond the realm of rational constructs.  To be free from merely rational (that is, not irrational, but rational and then something more) thinking…well it's just lovely, isn't it?

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Lol i hear you and we disagree on this point.


 stand by what you quoted of mine here:

“now i know
about swami rama and the tibetan monks who can affect varous bodily
functions in ways we find impossible ….. but it is a big leap from that
to uncritically accepting their metaphysical beliefs or that anecdotal
unevidenced accounts of various magical occurences at death might be real”

regarding grace and grit, keith. yes i have read it. it is beautiful. the death scene is gorgeous and the book is way early in wilber's theoretical evolution.

i just happen to be one of those people who refuses to acccept emotive and/or heroic anecdotal accounts of events that seem to support metaphysical beliefs at death as being free from wishful thinking, altered state immersion, and emotional (albeit beautiful and meaningful) transport.

Lol i have immense respect for the depth and rigor of the traditions you are referencing - this does not free them from the cultural baggage and magic/mythic material that is part of their old world beauty that, and as wilber says,  “cannnot be sustained in modern and  postemodern awareness- not critically, phenomenologically, psychologically, or scientifically …”

and he continues:

“Although the premodern experiences of Spirit—by the great shamans,
saints, and sages—were as authentic as authentic can get, the interpretations
they gave those experiences were of necessity clothed in the fabric of
their own time. And that fabric, in light of Spirit's own subsequent
displays, is now a bit worn and threadbare. The premodern
interpretative frameworks all tended to be to be mythic, metaphysical,
substance-oriented, and postulated a pantheon of pre-existing ontological structures
(whether in the form of a Great Chain of Being or the form of a Great
Web of Life)—which, ironically, is an interpretive framework that
amounted to a type of higher, spiritual, transpersonal myth of the given—exactly
the epistemology so effectively deconstructed by postmodernism—so that
the typical new-paradigm approaches exalting such frameworks are
actually advancing an epistemological prejudice no longer capable of
generating respect.”

i think we are back around to the reason wilber came up with the pre/trans fallacy observation in the first place, which was to try and make sens of the mistakes of his romantic spiritual period.

the romantic approach suggests that we have fallen from some premodern glory that needs to be regained.

not so says all of wilber's work after atman project:

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Julian: “Lol i hear you and we disagree on this point. ….. (I) stand by what you quoted of mine here:

“now i know
about swami rama and the tibetan monks who can affect varous bodily
functions in ways we find impossible ….. but it is a big leap from that
to uncritically accepting their metaphysical beliefs or that anecdotal
unevidenced accounts of various magical occurences at death might be real”

It's nice to be heard : ) ….. and I hear you disagree ….. but  you have side-stepped rather than answered my charge.

You say you stand by what I have quoted of yours, re-quoted above.

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

“and I question whether it necessarily is/was the case that their ' … experiences were of necessity clothed in the fabric of their own time'.”

I might say that the experiences, if they are of a timeless, eternal (insert culturally programmed terminilogy here) are what they are and have always been.  It's the descriptions (such as indicated in the previous parenthetical reference) that are clothed in the fabric of their own time.

The problem, it seems, is finding the right clothing that is stylish enough for our time.  It seems everybody wears jeans and tee-shirts.  Even if they wear business suits to work or belly shirts and tattoos and piercings to clubs or saffron robes or black-and-white habits or collars, vestments, crystals and beads, and burkas, at some point, the jeans and tees come out.  I like to keep it simple.  We need jeans and tee-shirts spirituality that anybody can wear comfortably.

 Then again, maybe we need to just strip down to our underwear! Everybody wears… underwhere?  OK, some freaks don't wear underwear.  So let's go deeper.  Let's get naked;-)

Actually, in terms of what I seem to be drawn to in terms of spiritual concepts, that is precisely (under)where I seem to be heading (uh oh! head in the pants again!).  The tendency for me these days is to just surrender it all, throw out all the conceptual structures that have built up over at least this lifetime, and to see if there is something unlimited and structureless that requires no concepts and can't even be conceptualized.  No matter what kind of underwear, it will eventually give you a wedgie!

Keith

Keith

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

I agree with Lol that we should not be too quick to dismiss any reference to paranormal events associated with the deaths of spiritual adepts as pre-rational fantasy.  Particularly when the type of events indicated are well-documented within the tradition, and when they are associated with the development of transrational, transpersonal cognitive and spiritual capacities in fairly concrete ways.  To do so would be to indulge, in my view, in the rational/materialist tendency to reduce all trans- phenomena to pre- status.

At the very least, if a highly sophisticated contemplative tradition states that certain practices lead to certain concrete results, and outlines the steps for achieving those results (in exquisite detail), a rational, scientific approach would be to seek out individuals who have reached this level of development, or to take up the injunctions oneself and find out directly.  It may be that some of the explanatory models associated with the “fruit” of these practices are in need of updating and post-modern retrofitting, but that is quite different from asserting that these claims are simply empty fables without any connection to reality.

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

I have a feeling I am going to start getting bogged down in semantics on this thread, and clever philosphical argruments that are predicated on other arguments that I have never entirely understood.

Julian, in the categories to list things under,  I would again list all of your spirituality(as I understand it) as a 'rational spirituality'.  It is a highly evolved one, and clearly you have rigorously done your homework, and explored your path fearlessly and with integrity.  At the same time, there is nothing in  the way that you incorporate myth or life experiences or shifts in perspective that does not make perfect rational sense to me at least.  You clearly are satisfied with the explanations that you have found for events that have left other people incredulous, and your acceptance of the 'uncanny' without adding too much investigative energy into it keeps the energy away from discovering anything that you really cannot explain in your life, or explain in others lives.

I am trying imagine  my life's experiences  as interpreted through your rational eyes.  This is what I have come up with:   A large part of my 'spiritual experience' would be classified as delusional….and the unusual and horrific events leading up to these experiences would be classified as 'uncanny', and the nature of these would also contribute to the psychosis of post traumatic stress disorder.  The gullible, yet intelligent, ground of my premorbid personality  would of course have been tilled and fertilized by my pretty amazing, yet unarguably dysfunctional childhood.  Much of my interpretations of what happened in these experiences  would be attributed to my interest in reading and studying others with similar experiences and then being influenced by these people who also were entrapped by the 'pre-rational' belief systems–all this  creating, in effect,  a kind of delusion a deux….a trois etc…. 

….and that is okay, I guess…..but it does not make for much of an exploration of 'transrational'….

I don't think in your world view there is a 'transrational'.

Again, not from me this time, but from Grof, he has noticed the 'synchronicities' speeding up and coming closer together in many clients that are circling the 'spiritual emergency' drain……  If all of these synchronicities are just a fluke, or not really present, or  indeed, explainable from a rational world view, then, I would agree that spiritual aetheism is  the way to go, and that the universe is not personal, not paying attention, that indeed, it is up to us as humans to be the loving presence in each other's lives,  to accept that there is no god, no big picture, and to learn to live with each other in a compassionate, humanistic, aetheistic framework.   Indeed, the latter is not such a horrible framework, it is a lot better than what we are managing with right now, blowing each other up and so on.  I could settle for that, I really could……I am okay with death being the end…..i am okay with all meaning being relative…in truth,    I love people, I regard our connections as precious and beautiful, we are all mysterious no matter how we look at it…..

and still…….I am convinced that there is more to it than this. 
In fact, I actually think something is going to happen to you, and you are going to shift your perspective.  I apologize if this sounds condescending or patronizing, or just plain childish and pre-rational……I think you are 'Julian on the way to Damascus'…. but don't ask me about any of the details, I haven't got a clue about these. . 
Anyway, be sure to let us know if the lightning bolt strikes you….:)
And remember to breathe through you left nostril to stay grounded(or is it your right? i can never remember! ha, ha,)

Jane

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

hi jane

glad to see your beautiful contributons persist!

i disagree - for me there is most defeinitely a transrational spirituality but it is by definition beyond words and concepts and not something that for this reason you will see in my writing per se.

it has somethhing to do with deeply absorbed states of meditative expansion, insight into the non-dual paradoxical nature of existence, overwhelmingly universal compassion, an intuitive sense of the relatinships between consciousness, knowledge, evolution, suffering etc that is just beyond my rational grasp…..

the religious and new age mythic and magic concepts (including anecdotal paranormal events)  seem to me either a) altogether distinct from this, or b) distorted and incomplete interpretations of this.

i would also point out that ideas like synchronicity, karma, reincarnation and destiny are actually attempts at making rational sense of the universe in a round about and often logically incongruent way - this does not imo qualify them as transrational….the standard sleight of hand is to say that intuitive transrational higher state experiences that very special people hacve had somehow prove these banal metaphysical assertions that sound to me mostly like wishful thinking and an attempt to do what aan watts calls “trying to wrap up a gallon of water with paper and string…”

i love stan grof's work but differ with him and most of his boomer psychedelic new age  friends (like mckenna or liz greene for example) on some of the finer points.

respect
~j

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

in other words:


with regard to the transpersonal i am of the mystic persuasion and hold that most attempts at putting transpersonal experiences into words are highly problematic.

old world religion and new age spirituality being two fine examples that illustrate my point.

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

“i would also point out that ideas like synchronicity, karma, reincarnation and destiny are actually attempts at making rational sense of the universe in a round about and often logically incongruent way - this does not imo qualify them as transrational….the standard sleight of hand is to say that intuitive transrational higher state experiences that very special people hacve had somehow prove these banal metaphysical assertions that sound to me mostly like wishful thinking”

Who wants to keep reincarnating?  I'd rather just die once and be done with it!  Julian, if that damned sword of yours was any good you would have killed me permanently lifetimes ago;-)

OKOK….it's much deeper than that, but just having fun, so please don't kill me.  I didn't really want to create that reality;-)

Keith

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

even if i could and did julian (oops i mean keith) , we'd just come back reincarnated as an eternally huckabesian yin yang of mirrored opposition….

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

“even if i could and did julian (oops i mean keith) , we'd just come back reincarnated as an eternally huckabesian yin yang of mirrored opposition…”

As if we haven't?  :-)))

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Julian wrote  “for me there is most defeinitely a transrational spirituality but it is by definition beyond words and concepts and not something that for this reason you will see in my writing per se.'

That statement must be the equivalent of the 5th amendment in transrational circles if I ever heard one.! –that which can be spoken about is not that which we are speaking about if we are speaking about it….. hmmm, this has been said before….and those boomerititis folks get it, they always seem to know what that means!….. but I don't buy it. I think we can talk about it….I think Jana Dixon is even trying to do the biochemistry of it….and enlightenment, hmmmph, probably more common that a lot of mat sitters and deep meditators might imagine out in the work-a-day world…..

Oh, so  I persist on….compulsively….yes, a poet and a paradox at heart….. and actually, I think I am doing a really good job at moving the mountain one teaspoon at a time…..

Work with me baby!
love Jane

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

“….and enlightenment, hmmmph, probably more common that a lot of mat sitters and deep meditators might imagine out in the work-a-day world…..”

Uh oh!  That's not even gonna fly over this cuckoo's nest.  I prefer not to underestimate the significance of enlightenment, whatever that is.  I think there may be a lot of people who are getting glimpses of it and seeing it as something that is accessible.  But the likes of Arjuna Ardagh's “transluscents” do not strike me as more than watered down, boomeritis enlightenment.

Sorry, Jane, but I have to wholeheartedly disagree with that statement.

Keith

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

I live in a remote place, and have spent a lot of time with some very 'ordinary' people who  live in a deep sense of non-dual arising.  One of my greatest teachers was a little trapper's wife named Phoebe Riche–and she spent her whole life in these parts, living simply, paying attention, a heart broken open in gratitude for every small miracle.  Perhaps this is not 'enlightenment'—but perhaps it is.  I know what you mean about the glimpses…….I also think there are people in surprising places that stablize in this state, never making a big deal out of it.  Never knowing there is a big deal to be made.  There could be a discussion of pre-rational/transrational enlightenment I suppose…..people understand this state as they do….but my hidden point is that there is a 'pre-rational sacred cow feeling' about admitting to, sharing, owning these experience of non-dual arising.  As if there is a secret society, and a hush-hush aura about who is in and who is not. I wonder why this is……   
 

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Julian wrote: “the religious and new age mythic and magic concepts (including anecdotal paranormal events)  seem to me either a) altogether distinct from this, or b) distorted and incomplete interpretations of this.”

I want to clarify something here.  My arguments around the “status” of anecdotal paranormal events have not been intended to be read as examples of “transrationality,” in itself.  I have simply been arguing against the suggestion that giving credence to paranormal events is necessarily pre-rational.

I agree that many traditional models and explanations of these things may have mythic elements, or at least may be inadequate representations of what is going on.  But apparently our current rational worldview is also challenged when it comes to explaining them – and so its adherents often resort to blanket dismissals and scorn.

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

very good nuance balder - i'll take it.

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Okay. I have to comment. I hope this is an okay place. I just want to offer a little clarity about the pre / trans (or, to be more precise, the relationship between magic and mythic and rational and trans). This might require a little perspective stretching, but it'll be fun. Promise. ;)

(Also, I'm not much on Wilber, but I think this corresponds to his system.)

Mythology and magic ARE real, in the same way that the rational is real, and doesn't get abandoned once you reach the transrational stage. They are merely REAL WITHIN THOSE LEVELS. And those levels ought still be accessible, no? Just because someone is transrational doesn't mean they abandon the rational as 'wrong.' In the same way, just because someone's rational doesn't mean they should disparage myth or magic as 'wrong.' They're not. Again, mythic and magic phenomenon / experiences are LITERALLY real, albeit real within the mythic / magic contexts.

Does that make sense?

I can try to put it another way. These magic or mythological events / experiences / phenomenon are SYMBOLIC from the rational point of view, but from the magical or mythical points of view (which, again, should still be accessible, just as the rational is still accessible, and can still be entered into, even if you're capable of transrational cognition), they're actually real. This should be obvious: within the magic and mythological stages, 'symbol' has no correspondent; it makes no sense. And so within that context, these phenomenon are real. Literally.

And denying this amounts to attempting some kind of (impossible) psychological dismemberment, which is far more schizoid and wrong-headed than any naive New Age-y belief. ;)

Now, most of us operate almost wholly within the rational framework. For most of us it's hard - if not impossible - to get wholly back into those mythological or magic stages (a few people here seem still capable, though. Jane?), but I'd venture that there are still skilled people - healers and shamans and the like - who are capable of re-entering these ancient states and, sometimes, of bringing others with them. And from within those states, again, and for those people, 'real' magic or myth occurs. It's just that from outside those states - from our usual rational perspective - it's symbolic nonsense.

Again, though, this doesn't mean that what happened isn't legitimate or wasn't 'true-for-that-state.' In the same way that it would be sort of absurd (if not impossible) to reject the rational once you've tasted the transrational, it's foolish to think that those earlier stages can be somehow annihilated or rejected or cut-off.

Anyway. I hoped that helped. Again, I'm an utter agnostic when it comes to Integral theory, but I must say it does, sometimes, come in useful.

And all of you? Amazing. Reading through this thread was a delight.

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Just a follow-up note. This is why I think religion is important, and why I'm so skittish about Integral theory. To my mind, a healthy, rich, fully-developed spirituality embraces and honors and recognizes all those prior stages. My understanding of magic and myth informs my life in ways that science and reason - and even 'symbolic' mythology - couldn't begin to touch. (I understand some people get along just fine without being awake to these parts of themselves; I'm just not one of them. ;) )

One of the things that bothers me about Integral theory is the privileging of reason and the transrational, as if they're somehow superior or 'better' than the experience of these earlier, more ancient, rooted stages. Again, for me, attempting to snip off or deny these structures does them - and you, as well as your spiritual development - a severe injustice.

Okay. I'll be quiet now. Thank you, again, all of you, for being here.

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Hi Siona

Thanks for your contributions. The book is very fresh in my mind so I’d like to comment on your critique of Wilber.

I’m not 100 percent sure I like it either, and there is always the purely subjective element, like where he (seriously? Tongue in cheek?) explained to his collaborator that it had to be the W-C Lattice rather than the C-W Lattice because Wilber-Coombs “sounds so much better!” I thought, “yeah, if you’re Wilber!” Lol personally WC always makes me think of a toilet as it would anyone British or steeped in British vocab.

Anyway, regarding the development - again, I have to wonder about the way where we are is pretty near the top :) so I’m still thinking about it. Whether we like it or not, though, there are development stages very clearly in terms of physical, cognitive etc. I don’t know about you, Siona, but while I think babies and kids are adorable and teens are fascinating I never ever feel the slightest bit tempted to return to an early stage of any kind of development. Wearing diapers or going through puberty again or believing in Santa Claus is not a goal for me.

The beauty of a trans approach is incorporating the strengths of earlier stages without getting bogged down in the hopeless mires of relying on magical thinking, etc.

A healthy rich spirituality like a healthy rich intellect or whatever can discern that yes while that reality is true for the person, you have a grip on the fact that Santa isn’t really out there on a sleigh and parents are buying the gifts, and a deep understanding of why the Santa myth is so important. That of course takes more than the UL quadrant - you need all the other three.

Namaste,

Nicole

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Nicole, integral philosophy aside, because I’m aligned with Siona’s views with it … there is a distinction to be made between trans-rational and integral. A person can be trans-rational but not very integral. Transcending is one thing, but transcending and including is quite another.

Healthy Inclusion of previous stages of development does not mean you’re blinded by them.

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Siona: “To my mind, a healthy, rich, fully-developed spirituality embraces and honors and recognizes all those prior stages.”

I find that to be a very pithy summation of a genuinely integral spirituality.  :)

Siona: “One of the things that bothers me about Integral theory is the privileging of reason and the transrational, as if they're somehow superior or 'better' than the experience of these earlier, more ancient, rooted stages.

I think it's natural for people at integral - at least early integral - stages to be more fascinated with the growing tip of the evolutionary process. But as Seth says, transcend and include is where it's at in terms of integral.  If anyone is “snipping off or denying” previous stages of development then there are simply not using a truly integral framework.

arthur

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Siona has a point, and Arthur and I were talking about it yesterday…There is definitely a very agentic and rational bent to integral theory as it's discussed at present. Possibly it's a strategy to make it more palatable to “serious” movers and shakers in the world. Partially, I know it's a reaction to green-meme sentinmentality about native cultures, romanticizing the past and “old ways.”

The tendency is to exclude more than is necessary. However, I sense that as the idea of integral philosophy spreads amongst the educated and spiritual folks, it will become less dogmatic and agentic and blossom into a more vibrant tapestry of various people's bodies of works on the subject. Agency is always first to get there, and the coming communion will even things out.

We all have a lot of integrating to do. We're just at the tip of the iceberg at the moment.

Liz

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

Arthur and Liz and Siona,

Agreed. When I first started reading and posting at the Multiplex I felt I had to cut off my artistic and intuitive sides. Rational pegging of things ruled. But lately I feel this is changing, definitely here at I-I Zaadz but also somewhat at the Multiplex. RAM is also a nice counterpoint to the dryness of bareboned frameworks. The integral community is evolving, simply by reaching inside ourselves and adding flesh to the bone.

Pelle

Re: Prerational and Transrational Spirituality: The Difference Is

i didn't read it as transcend and exclude at all, but seth and others, you are much more knowledgeable about integral theory, and i am the neophyte.

in any case, i am not interested in integral theory or anything else as an end by a means toward growth. exclusivity has no attraction for me nor does an overly cerebral approach. integral practice has more potential because of its stated (whether or not it is successful in actually being like this) priority of drawing on so many kinds of learning and practice, rather than hoping that meditation, or understanding, or depth work, by itself without any support, will
be your salvation.

i look forward to continuing to read and learn with you and others.

namaste,

nicole