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title: Human Survival and ConsciousnessEvolution

author: Grof, Stanislavpublisher: State University of New York Press

isbn10 | asin: 0887065287print isbn13: 9780887065286

ebook isbn13: 9780585075891

language: English

subject Human beings, Consciousness,Human evolution, Human evolution--Religious aspects.

publication date: 1988lcc: BD450.H865 1988eb

ddc: 128

subject:Human beings, Consciousness,Human evolution, Human evolution--Religious aspects.

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Human Survival and ConsciousnessEvolution

Edited by Stanislav Grof

with the assistance of Marjorie Livingston Valier

State University of New York Press

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Published byState University of New York Press, Albany

© 1988 State University of New York

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this book may be used or reproducedin any manner whatsoever without writtenpermission except in the case of brief quotationsembodied in critical articles and reviews.

For information, address State University ofNew YorkPress, State University Plaza, Albany, NY 12246

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-PublicationData

Human survival and consciousness evolution.

Includes index.1. Man. 2. Consciousness. 3. Human evolution.4. Human evolutionReligious aspects. I. Grof,Stanislav, 1931 . II. Valier, MarjorieLivingston.BD450.H865 1987 128 877118ISBN 0887065279ISBN 0887065287 (pbk.)

10 9 8 7 6

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Contents

IntroductionStanislav Grof

vii

OneHuman Survival: A Psycho-Evolutionary AnalysisRoger Walsh

1

TwoTranspersonal VisionFrances Vaughan

9

ThreeThe Transformed Beserk: Unification of Psychic OppositesMarie-Louise von Franz

18

FourOn Getting to Know One's Inner Enemy: TransformationalPerspectives on the Conflict of Good and EvilRalph Metzner

36

FiveModern Consciousness Research and Human SurvivalStanislav Grof

57

SixIndividuality: A Spiritual Task and Societal HazardJohn Weir Perry

80

SevenThoughts on Mysticism as Frontier of Consciousness EvolutionBrother David Steindl-Rast

93

EightJesus, Evolution, and the Future of HumanityJohn White

119

NineThe Buddhist Path and Social ResponsibilityJack Kornfield

135

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TenTransition to a New ConsciousnessKaran Singh

144

ElevenThe Darkness of God: Theology After HiroshimaJames Garrison

151

TwelveThe Incomplete Myth: Reflections on the "Star Wars" Dimensionof the Arms RaceMichael E. Zimmerman

177

ThirteenLaying Down A Path in Walking:A Biologist's Look at a New Biology and Its EthicsFrancisco J. Varela

204

FourteenPacific Shift: The Philosophical and Political Movementfrom the Atlantic to the PacificWilliam Irwin Thompson

218

FifteenSpace-Age and Planetary Awareness: A Personal ExperienceRussell L. Schweickart

239

SixteenNear Death Experiences: Implications for Human Evolution andPlanetary Transformation 251

Kenneth Ring

SeventeenThe Omega ProjectKenneth Ring and Alise Agar

271

EighteenDeath, The Final Stage of GrowthElisabeth Kübler-Ross

274

Contributors 287

Index 293

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Introduction

Contemporary humanity has the dubiousprivilege of being in a role that is unique andunprecedented in the history of our planet. Weare the first species that has developed thepotential to commit collective suicide and todestroy in this catastrophic act all the otherspecies and life on earth. It is a sad irony that thissituation has been made possible by rapidadvances of science and technology, two forcesthat Western peoples have long considered to bereliable means of creating a bright and happyfuture for the world.

In a certain sense, modern science has fulfilledthis promise. It has made discoveries that havethe potential to solve most of the problems thatplague humanity; it can ameliorate diseases,

poverty and hunger, create renewable andinexhaustible supplies of energy, and generateresources that enable an average person to have aliving standard that in earlier times was reservedonly for a privileged few. Within a few centuries,science has made astonishing breakthroughs andhas radically transformed our everyday life. It hasbeen able to release the energies of the atom,build jet airplanes faster than sound andspacecraft that can travel beyond the limits of oursolar system, explore the depths of the oceans,transmit sound and color pictures all over theglobe and across cosmic space, and decipher thegenetic code.

However, all these promising discoveries andinventions have failed to create the desiredsorrow-free future. As a matter of fact, theshadow side of the rapid advances of science isbecoming more evident every day. The greatestscientific triumphsatomic energy,

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electronics, space-age rocketry, cybernetics, laserlight, and the miracles of modern chemistry andbacteriology have backfired and turned into amenace of unimaginable proportions.

Surrounded by all the miraculous technologyapproaching science fiction, humanity seems tobe farther away from a happy and sorrow-freeexistence than ever before. As a matter of fact,the most technologically advanced countriesshow a rapid increase in emotional disorders,suicidal rate, criminality, and drug abuse. Theprospect of a glorious future has been replacedby a set of highly plausible dismal scenarios.

The most drastic and apocalyptic of thesedoomsday scripts is, of course, radicalextermination of life on this planet by an atomicwar and the following radioactive winter. Whilethis nightmarish vision of a possible nuclearholocaust permeates our lives as a perpetual

threat, there are other scripts that are already wellunder way. Although less obvious and dramatic,they are insidiously unfolding in the middle ofour daily existence and could in the long run leadto similar consequences.

We can mention here, above all, the industrialpollution that already endangers life and healthof the population in many areas of the world.Beside such dramatic manifestations as acid rain,toxic dumps, smog, pollution of water, soil andair, and dying of forests (Waldsterben), there isalso the invisible danger of all the pollutants thatwe ingest every day with our foodpreservatives,dyes, artifical sweeteners, hormones, pesticides,herbicides, and disinfectants. We can add to thesethreats the unsolved problem of the radioactivewaste and the danger of nuclear accidents, sodramatically illustrated by the disasters at Three-Mile Island in the United States and Chernobyl inthe U.S.S.R. And there are also several lessimminent doomsday scenarios, such as possible

loss of planetary oxygen by recklessdeforestation and poisoning of the oceanplankton and other flora, destruction of theozone layer of the earth, increase of temperatureand melting of polar ice, the specter of AIDS, andpossible disastrous consequences of geneticengineering.

In view of the dangerous situation in the world,it seems extremely important to understand theroots of the global crisis and to develop effectivestrategies and remedies to relieve it. Most of theexisting approaches focus on factors ofhistorical, political, or economic nature, that aresymptoms of this crisis rather than its causes.Similarly, the

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measures that are being undertaken reflect thissuperficial understanding and are nothing butextensions of the strategies that generated thiscrisis in the first place. As such, they offer verymeager hope for a successful resolution.

Human Survival and Consciousness Evolutionfocuses on an aspect of the global crisis that hasreceived in the past much less attention, althoughit is clearly of paramount significancethe rolethat the human psyche and human nature haveplayed in this unfortunate development. In thelast analysis, the problems we are facing are noteconomical, political, or technological in nature.Considering the available resources and theprogress of science, problems of hunger, poverty,and most disease-related deaths in the world areunnecessary. There is also no real need forsenseless plundering of non-renewable reservesand polluting of vital resources. There exist

means and technological know-how for feedingthe population of the planet, guaranteeingreasonable living standards for all, combattingmost diseases, reorienting industries toinexhaustible sources of energy, and preventingpollution.

What stands in the way are factors intrinsic tohuman nature and personality. Because of them,unimaginable fortunes are wasted in the insanityof the arms race, power struggles, and pursuit of"unlimited growth" and unlimited wealth ofselect individuals and groups. These forcesprevent a more appropriate division of resourcesamong individuals, classes, and nations as wellas reorientation of ecological priorities that arevital for continuation of life on this planet. AsMahatma Gandhi so poignantly pointed out,there is no real shortage in the world; there isenough to satisfy everybody's need, but noteverybody's greed.

Those who have tried to analyze these

problematic forces in the human nature haveoften referred to a dangerous schism that seemsto exist in modern humanity. It has beendescribed in many different waysas an imbalancebetween the precipitous intellectual developmentand emotional maturation of the human race,disproportional evolution of the neocortex inrelation to the archaic parts of the brain,interference of instinctual and irrational forceswith the rational processes, excessive influenceof masculine instrumental thinking andsuppression of feminine intuitive sensitivities,and many others.

Some also emphasize the negative role ofmechanistic science and of the Newtonian-Cartesian paradigm that have portrayed human

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beings as nothing but biological machines andhighly developed animals. This position justifiesthe Darwinian concept of the "survival of thefittest" and endorses self-assertion, ambition, andreckless competition as essentially healthytendencies reflecting the true nature of humanbeings. Mechanistic science has in generalcreated a fragmented and biased world-view thatis incapable of discovering the absolutely vitalneed for, as well as potential for,complementarity, synergy, and cooperation.

Modern consciousness research andtranspersonal psychology brought a fresh andoptimistic perspective into this problem area.According to this view, the factors in humannature that have created the crisis in the worldare not fatally connected with the instinctualnature of human beings and with the hardware ofthe human brain. Human beings are in a difficult

and crucial stage of consciousness evolution andhave the potential to reach eventually undreamtof levels of emotional, intellectual, and ethicaldevelopment. In acient times, this wasdramatically expressed by the NeoplatonistPlotinus, who described mankind as "poisedmidway between the gods and the beasts."Modern versions of the same idea can be foundin the writings of Sri Aurobindo, Teilhard deChardin, Gopi Krishna, and Ken Wilber.

Transpersonal psychology does more than justthrow new light on the problem of the worldcrisis. It also describes a wide spectrum oftechniques by which we can accelerateconsciousness evolution in ourselves and others.These range from ancient spiritual practices ofthe Oriental and Western mystical traditions toJungian psychology, and clinical or laboratorymethods of experimental psychiatry. They makeit possible to confront and integrate the shadowaspects of one's personality, to transcend the

indentification with the body and the ego, and toconnect with the transpersonal domains of one'spsychethe Self and the collective unconscious.The experiences of oneness with other people,nature, and the Universe then lead to increasedtolerance, capacity to love, development of deepecological concerns, and a tendency to seek one'swellbeing in harmony with that of others.

Human Survival and Consciousness Evolutionbrings together original contributions of anumber of prominent representatives of thetranspersonal movement who address theproblem of the global crisis from their uniqueindividual perspectives. The psychologicalpresen-

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tations include the paper by psychiatrist RogerWalsh who gives a brief analysis of the currentworld situation and emphasizes its potential asan evolutionary catalyst. Psychologist FrancesVaughan offers a concise description oftranspersonal psychology and its goals anddiscusses how its understanding of the healingprocess can be applied to the situation in theworld.

The world-known Jungian analyst Marie-Louisevon Franz uses in her article the historicalexample of the Swiss saint, Brother Niklaus vonFlue, to show that Western civilization hasdissociated and disowned the shadow aspect ofthe archetypal figure of Christ and has beenpaying great toll for it in the form of detrimentalreturns of the repressed. However, like BrotherNiklaus, modern humanity can confront,transform, and integrate the inner Berserk.

Similarly, consciousness researcher RalphMetzner emphasizes the integration of theoppositesgood and evil, male and female, andhuman-beastas a means of transformation ofpotentially dangerous aspects of the humanpsyche. Psychiatrist Stanislav Grof draws in hispaper on three decades of his research onnonordinary states of consciousness. Like theprevious two authors, he emphasizes thatviolence in the world has importanttransbiographical roots. His special interest is inthe task of confronting destructive emotionsconnected with the biological birth process,transcending them and mediating access to thetranspersonal domains of the psyche. Jungiananalyst John Weir Perry has discovered in hiswork with individuals experiencing acutepsychotic states that many problems of the worldreflect a misunderstood and misdirected impulseto become a fully individualized human being(Great Man), an ideal which was first realizedhistorically in the person of ancient sacred kings

in different parts of the world. In modern times,this process of individuation can and has to beinternalized in the form of transformativeexperiences, rather than acted out in aconcretized way. While the internalizedindividuation is conducive to greater socialconhesion, harmony, and loving bonds amongpeople, its concretized form is divisive and hasdestructive consequences for society.

A similar situation exists in relation to religion.True spirtuality, found in the mystical branchesof the great religions, such as the Christianmystics, the Sufis, and the Kabbalists, is based ondeep realization of the unity underlying allhumanity and the entire phenomenal world;insights of this nature transcend race, color,culture,

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and church affiliation. The misunderstanding ofmythology and religious symbolism as historicaland geographical references that characterizesmost mainstream religions leads to exclusivityand to religious antagonism, chauvinism, andwars.

Brother David Steindl-Rast explores in his paperthe nature of mysticism. He points out withextraordinary clarity how a unifying mysticalexperience can become divisive when it turnsinto dogmatism, moralism, and ritualism ofmainstream religions. The resultingfundamentalist trends then contributesignificantly to the crisis in the world. JohnWhite then specifically focuses on Christianity,distinguishing its genuine and vital core andoriginal meaning from later distortions andaccretions. Psychologist and meditation teacherJack Kornfield shows how correctly understood

spirituality does not lead to selfish withdrawalfrom the world and indifference to its problems,but to compassion and social responsibility.Karan Sigh combines his profound knowledge ofIndian scriptures and his expertise as a modernpolitician to outline his vision of acomprehensive program that could help to meetthe challenges of the global crisis.

Another group of papers in the book focuses onthe interface between modern technology,spirituality, and depth psychology. Jim Garrison,using a Jungian approach, explores the archetypalimages underlying the problems of the nuclearage and discusses the impact of Hiroshima andNagasaki on the consciousness and ethics ofmodern humanity. Michael Zimmerman uses adepth-psychological approach in his analysis ofanother major issue of our times, the expensiveand dangerous ''Star Wars" Strategic DefenseInitiative (SDI). Biologist Francisco Varelabrings to the problem of the world crisis

interesting insights drawn from his work ininformation and system theory and artificialintelligence. In his brilliant analysis of the trendsof conceptual evolution in Western society,William Irwin Thompson outlines his idea of the"science of compassion," synthetizing mostadvanced scientific thinking and the best of theancient spiritual traditions of the East into aholistic planetary vision. Apollo astronautRussell Schweickart illustrates in his account ofthe mystical experience he had while observingthe Earth from an orbiting spaceship the impactthat space technology might have on humanity'sdevelopment toward planetary consciousness.

Two papers in the book bring in insights from theultimate teacher, death. Thanatologist KennethRing explores the global implications

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of his study of near-death experiences. Hebelieves that their transformative potential is animportant indication that humanity is heading toa higher evolutionary stage described by Teilhardde Chardin as Omega Point. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, world famous pioneer in research of deathand dying then closes the volume with herreflections on death as the final stage of growth.

The ideas expressed in Human Survival andConsciousness Evolution are exciting and bringnew hope into the serious and grim situation weare all facing. Whatever questions one mighthave about the feasibility of inner transformationof humanity and consciousness evolution as aworld-changing force, it might well be our onlyreal hope for the future.

STANISLAV GROF

Chapter OneHuman Survival:A Psycho-Evolutionary Analysis

Roger Walsh, M.D., Ph.D.

The great experiment in consciousness, humanevolution, now stands at a precipice of its ownmaking. That same consciousness whichstruggled for millions of years to ensure humansurvival is now on the verge of depleting itsplanet's resources, rendering its environmentuninhabitable, and fashioning the instruments ofits own self-annihilation. Can this consciousness(we) develop the wisdom not to do these things?Can we foster sufficient self-understanding toreduce our destructiveness, and mature rapidlyenough to carry us through this evolutionarycrisis? These are surely the most crucial

questions of our time, or of any time. Today weface a global threat of malnutrition,overpopulation, lack of resources, pollution, adisturbed ecology, and nuclear weapons. At thepresent time, from fifteen to twenty million of usdie each year of malnutrition and related causes;another six hundred million are chronicallyhungry, and billions live in poverty withoutadequate shelter, education, or medical care(Brandt, 1980; Presidential Commission onWorld Hunger, 1979). The situation isexacerbated by an exploding population that addsanother billion people every thirteen years,depletes natural resources at an ever-acceleratingrate, affects "virtually every aspect of the earth'secosystem (including) perhaps the most seriousenvironmental development . . . an acceleratingdeterioration and loss of the resources essentialfor agriculture" (Council on EnvironmentalQuality, 1979, p. 32). Desertification, pollution,acid rain, and greenhouse warming are among themore obvious effects.

Overshadowing all this hangs the nuclear threat,the equivalent of some twenty billion tons ofTNT (enough to fill a freight train four millionmiles long), controlled by hair-trigger warningsystems, and creating highly radioactive wastesfor which no permanent storage sites exist,consuming over $660 billion each year inmilitary expenditure, and threatening globalsuicide (Schell, 1982; Sivard, 1983; Walsh,1984). By way of comparison, the total amountof TNT dropped in World War II was only threemillion tons (less than a single large nuclearwarhead). The Presidential Commission onWorld Hunger (1979) estimated that $6 billionper year, or some four days worth of militaryexpenditures, could eradicate world starvation.While not denying the role of political,economic, and military forces in our society, thecrucial fact about these global crises is that all ofthem have psychological origins. Our own

behavior has created these threats, and, thus,psychological approaches may be essential tounderstanding and reversing them. And to theextent that these threats are determined bypsychological forces within us and between us,they are actually symptomssymptoms of ourindividual and collective state of mind. Theseglobal symptoms reflect and express the faultybeliefs and perceptions, fears and fantasies,defenses and denials, that shape and misshape ourindividual and collective behavior. The state ofthe world reflects our state of mind; ourcollective crises mirror our collectiveconsciousness.

Attempts to deal with global crises solely bytraditional economic, political, or military meanswill certainly have limited success. If efforts todeal with nuclear weapons, for example, focussolely on establishing equal stockpiles, theunderlying psychological forces that fuel thearms race will go untouched. To cure, or at least

produce significant long-term inprovement,demands more than symptomatic treatment. Itdemands not just food for the starving andreduction of nuclear stockpiles, but alsopsychological understanding and personalsacrifice. Developing understanding may be oneof the most urgent tasks facing our generationand may determine the fate of all futuregenerations.

We have clearly created a world situation thatdemands unprecedented psychological and socialmaturation if we are to survive. Until now, wehave been able to cover or compensate for ourpsychological shortcomings. We have been ableto consume without fear of depletion, discardwastes without fear of pollution, bear

children without fear of overpopulation, andfight without fear of extinction. We have beenable to act out our psychological immaturitiesrather than having to understand and outgrowthem, to indulge our addictions rather thanresolve them, and to revolve through the sameneurotic patterns rather than evolve out of them.But if the world is a stage, it is now no longerbig enough for us to continue playing out ourpsychological immaturities. It is time for us togrow up, and we ourselves have created thesituation which may force us to do so.

This growing up that is now demanded of us, thispsychological maturation, this development ofconsciousness, is a form of evolution. Forevolution is of both bodies and minds, of matterand consciousness (Wilber, 1981). "Evolution isan ascent towards consciousness," wroteTeilhard de Chardin, and this view has been

echoed by Eastern thinkers such as Aurobindo(1963, p. 27), who said that "evolution ofconsciousness is the central motive of terrestrialexistence" and that our next evolutionary stepwould be "a change of consciousness." Thismeans conscious evolutiona conscious choosingof our future, driven by necessity but steered bychoice (McWaters, 1981). Aurobindo said, ''Manoccupies the crest of the evolutionary wave.With him occurs the passage from anunconscious to a conscious evolution" (Elgin,1980). This is not only evolution but it is theevolution of evolution.

Because this psychological maturation isdemanded of us, our global crises may functionas an evolutionary catalyst. And from thisperspective, these current crises can be seen notas an unmitigated disaster but as a challenge, apush to new evolutionary heights. They can beseen as a call to each and every one of us, bothindividually and collectively, to become and

contribute as much as we can. This perspectivegives us both a vision of the future and a motivefor working toward it.

Is this image idealistic? Yes, indeed it is! But thisis by no means bad. Our situation seems todemand nothing less, and idealistic images can bevery helpful if used skillfully. Unfortunately, ourusual use of ideals is far from skillful. We tendto regard them as hopelessly unattainable, and weeither scoff or give up in despair; or we use themas excuses for punishing ourselves when we failto attain them. Either approach only ensuresmore pain and failure.

A skillful way to use ideals is to see them notjust as goals that must be reached, but as guidingimages or visions that provide signposts anddirections for our lives and decisions. Suchimages attract us to actualize them andourselves. This is the way we must view theevolutionary image; we must not automaticallydismiss it as hopelessly idealistic. Rather, weneed to see the possibilities it offers for guidanceand direction, for escaping our current quandary,and for realizing our human potential.Humanistic, transpersonal, Jungian, Eastern, andsome existential psychologists agree that thechallenge of individual maturation andevolutionary advance must be a major humanmotive. "The basic actualizing tendency is theonly motive which is postulated in this system,"said the great humanistic psychologist CarlRogers (1959).

To fulfill this demand may be deeply rewarding.Failing to fulfill it may result not only in a lackof growth, but in a particular kind ofpsychological suffering, a kind which often goesunrecognized. For when these actualizing needsgo ungratified, their effects are subtle,existential, and therefore less easily identified."In general, they have been discussed through thecenturies by religionists, historians, andphilosophers under the rubric of spiritual orreligious shortcomings, rather than by physicians,scientists, or psychologists: (Maslow, 1971).Maslow called them "metapathologies" anddescribed examples such as alienation,meaninglessness, and cynicism, as well asvarious existential, philosophical, and religiouscrises. These are the very symptoms that haveincreasingly plagued Western societies in recentdecades (Yalom, 1980) and that contribute to thegrowing sense of social unrest. The veryimmaturities and failures of psychologicalgrowth from which our global crises stem are

surely central to the prevailing psychologicalmalaise of our time.

A perspective that views these global crises as apotential evolutionary catalyst may help inseveral ways. Research shows that when peopleface a life-threatening crisis they feel a desperateneed to restore self-esteem by attempting toregain mastery of the situation and by findingsome sense of meaning in it (Taylor, 1983).

An evolutionary view meets these needs well. Itprovides a sense of meaning on a grand scaleascale that encompasses the totality ofcontemporary threats, includes individuals andthe entire species, and transcends all traditional,national, and political boundaries. It enhancesself-esteem by seeing our current situation, notas final

proof of human inadequacy and futility, butrather as a self-created challenge to speed us onour evolutionary journey. It motivates us toregain mastery of the situation and demands thatwe fulfill our individual and collective potentialfar more than at any time in history. It alsoprovides an antidote to the metapathologies ofpurposelessness and alienation that have beengrowing in developed countries during recentdecades.

By their own theories of human nature, psychologists havethe power of elevating or degrading that same nature.Debasing assumptions debase human beings; generousassumptions exalt them. (Allport, 1964)

The evolutionary perspective provides ameaningful and inspiring view of ourcontemporary predicament and exalts humannature at the same time.

This perspective has dominated human thought

and action during other periods of greattransformation. Analyses of the few truly majortransformations of human self-image throughouthistory suggest that they all combined a broadsynthesis of knowledge with an evolutionaryview of human kind (Mumford, 1956). Greatthinkers such as Plato and Thomas Aquinas, whosparked transformations, said that the first orderof business for humanity is to align ourselveswith this evolution. But where will thisevolution take us? What is our destiny in theuniverse? To answer this is to go beyondobjective facts and to state our personalphilosophy, our faith, and our world-view.

The two extreme world-views are probablyrepresented by materialism and the perennialphilosophy, the central core of understandingcommon to the great religions. The materialisticperspective suggests that life and consciousnessare accidental by-products of matter, and thattheir evolution is driven by the interplay of

random events and the instinct for survival. Thepurpose of human life and evolution is solelywhat humanity decides it is.

The perennial philosophy, which lies at the heartof the great religions and is increasingly said torepresent their deepest thinking (Huxley, 1944),suggests that consciousness is central and itsdevelopment is the primary goal of existence.This development will culminate in the conditionvariously known in different traditions asenlightenment, liberation, salvation, moksha, orsatori.

The descriptions of this condition showremarkable similarities across cultures andcenturies (Walsh & Vaughan, 1980). Its essenceis the recognition that the distortions of ourusual state of mind are such that we have beensuffering from a case of mistaken identity. Ourtrue nature is something much greater, an aspectof a universal consciousness, Self, Being, Mind,or God. The awakening to this true nature,claimed a Zen master, is "the direct awarenessthat you are more than this puny body or limitedmind. Stated negatively, it is the realization thatthe universe is not external to you. Positively, itis experiencing the universe as yourself"(Kapleau, 1965). A different description can befound in almost any culture. Typical is the claimby an Englishman that to realize our true identityis to "find that the I, one's real, most intimateself, pervades the universe and all other beings.That the mountains, and the sea, and the stars are

a part of one's body, and that one's soul is intouch with the souls of all creatures" (Harman,1979). Nor are such descriptions the exclusiveprovince of mystics. They have been echoed byphilosophers, psychologists, and physicists(Wilber, 1984). "Out of my experience . . . onefinal conclusion dogmatically emerges,'' said thegreat American philosopher William James(1960). "There is a continuum of cosmicconsciousness against which our individualitybuilds but accidental forces, and into which ourseveral minds plunge as into a mother sea."

From this perspective, evolution is a vast journeyof growing self-awareness and a return to ourtrue identity (Wilber, 1981). Our current crisesare seen as expressions of the mistaken desires,fears, and perceptions that arise from ourmistaken identity. But they can also be seen asself-created challenges that may speed us on ourevolutionary journey toward ultimate self-recognition.

Which world-view is correct? Are we solelysurvival-driven animals or are we alsoawakening gods? How can we decide? Bothworld-views give answers which are similar anddifferent: similar in that they both tell us toresearch and explore, different in the emphasis ofour exploration. The world-view of materialismsays to explore the physical universe and therebyourselves; the perennial philosophy says toexplore our own minds and consciousness andthereby the universe.

In practical terms, it is crucial that we do both.Our survival and our evolution require that wedeepen our understanding of both the

universe within and the universe without (Walsh,1984). We are challenged to choose and createour destiny. That challenge demands that werelinquish our former limits and be and becomeand contribute all that we can. It calls on us toplay our full part in the unfolding human dramathat we ourselves have created and asks that wechoose, both individually and collectively,something entirely new: conscious evolution.

In conclusion, hard material necessity and humanevolutionary possibility now seem to converge to create asituation where, in the long run, we will be obliged to do noless than realize our greatest possibilities. We are engagedin a race between self-discovery and self-destruction. Theforces that may converge to destroy us are the same forcesthat may foster societal and self-discovery. (Elgin, 1980).

References

Allport, G. W. (1964). The fruits of eclecticism:Bitter or sweet. Acta Psychologica, 23, 2744.

Aurobindo, A. (1963). The future evolution ofman. India: All India Press.

Brandt, W. (1980). North south: A program forsurvival. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Council on Environmental Quality. (1979). Theglobal 2000 report to the president.Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government PrintingOffice.

Elgin, D. (1980). The tao of personal and socialtransformation. In R. Walsh & F. Vaughan(Eds.), Beyond ego: Transpersonal dimensionsin psychology (p. 253). Los Angeles: J. P.Tarcher.

Harman, W. (1979). An evolving society to fit anevolving consciousness. Integral View, 14.

Huxley, A. (1944). The perennial philosophy.New York: Harper & Row.

James, W. (1960). In G. Murphy & R. Ballou(Eds.), Psychical research (p. 324). New York:

Viking.

Kapleau, P. (1965). The three pillars of Zen.Boston: Beacon Press, 143.

Maslow, A. H. (1971). The father reaches ofhuman nature (pp. 316317). New York: VikingPress.

McWaters, B. (1981). Conscious evolution:Personal and planetary transformation. SanFrancisco: Institute for the Study of ConsciousEvolution.

Mumford, L. (1956). The transformations ofman. New York: Harper Brothers.

Presidential Commission on World Hunger.(1979). Preliminary report of the presidentialcommission on world hunger. Washington,D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Rogers, C. (1959). A theory of therapy,personality, and interpersonal relationships asdeveloped in the client-centered framework. In S.Koch (Ed.), Psychology: The study of a science:Formulations of the person and the socialcontext: Vol. 3 (pp. 184256). New York:McGraw-Hill.

Schell, J. (1982). The fate of the earth. NewYork: Knopf.

Sivard, R. (1979, 1981, 1983). World militaryand social expenditures. Leesburg, VA: WorldPriorities.

Taylor, S. (1983). Adjustment to threateningevents: A theory of cognitive events. AmericanPsychologist, 38, 11611173.

Walsh, R. (1984). Staying alive: Thepsychology of human survival. Boulder, CO:Shambhala.

Shambhala.

Walsh, R., & Vaughan, F. (Eds.). (1980).Beyond ego: Transpersonal dimensions inpsychology. Los Angeles: J.P. Tarcher.

Wilber, K. (1981). Up from Eden. New York:Doubleday.

Wilber, K. (Ed.). (1984). Quantum questions:The mystical writings of the world's greatphysicists. Boulder, CO: New ScienceLibrary/Shambhala.

Yalom, I. (1980). Existential psychotherapy.New York: Basic Books.

Related Reading

Shapiro, D., & Walsh, R. (Eds.). (1984).Meditation: Classic and contemporaryperspectives. New York: Aldine.

Smith, H. (1976). Forgotten truth. New York:Harper & Row.

Walsh, R., & Shapiro, D. (Eds.). (1983). Beyondhealth and normality: Explorations ofexceptional psychological well-being. NewYork: Van Nostrand.

Wilber, K. (1977). The spectrum ofconsciousness. Wheaton, IL: Quest.

Wilber, K. (1980). The atman project. Wheaton,IL: Quest.

Wilber, K. (1983). A sociable god: a briefintroduction to a transcendental sociology.New York: McGraw-Hill.

Chapter TwoTranspersonal Vision

Frances Vaughan, Ph.D.

The Transpersonal Perspective

Transpersonal psychology was born from theshared vision of a group of psychologists whosaw that the predominant psychological theoriesof the time were too narrow to do justice to thefull spectrum of human potentiality. The Journalof Transpersonal Psychology, now in itssixteenth year of publication, was originallyestablished to publish theoretical and appliedresearch, original contributions, and empiricalpapers that expanded the field to includepsychological inquiry into self-actualization,values, states of consciousness, transcendental

phenomena and concepts related to theseexperiences and activities. Gordon Allport(1964) wrote:

By their own theories of human nature, psychologists havethe power of elevating or degrading that same nature.Debasing assumptions debase human beings; generousassumptions exalt them.

The work of pioneers in the field ofconsciousness research such as Charles Tart(1969, 1975a, 1975b), Stanislav Grof (1975),Elmer and Alyce Green (1977), and Ken Wilber(1977), contributed to legitimizing this field inthe 1970s. In recent years, interest in thepsychological investigation of states ofconsciousness and experiences of transcendence,previously the province of philosophy andreligion, has been growing. Definitions of mentalhealth have gradually expanded to includeoptimal states of consciousness. Thus a moreencompassing view of human nature andpsychological development has evolved, andconsciousness has become a central focus for

psychologists concerned with health and well-being (Walsh & Shapiro, 1983).

Since optimum psychological health isinextricably interwoven with other aspects ofwell-being, from a transpersonal perspectivewholeness depends on a balanced integration ofphysical, emotional, mental, existential, andspiritual levels of consciousness (Vaughan,1986). Health is not a static condition that isachieved once and for all, but a dynamic ongoingprocess of optimum functioning and relationalexchange at all levels.

"Transpersonal" means, literally, beyond thepersonal. As the study of human developmentbeyond the ego (Walsh & Vaughan, 1980),transpersonal psychology affirms the possibilityof wholeness and self-transcendence.Transcendence is explored as manifested in andthrough personal experience. A transpersonal

view of human relationships recognizes that weexist embedded in a web of mutually conditionedrelationships with each other and with the naturalenvironment. Any attempt to improve the humancondition must therefore take global, social, andenvironmental issues into account.

In the past, attention to inner development andconsciousness was considered a luxury for a fewindividuals who could afford to seek personalliberation or who chose to renounce the world.Today, however, we are acutely aware that noone can escape our collective destiny, andhumanity as a whole must acknowledge itsresponsibility for the welfare of the planet. Sinceall major threats to human survival are nowhuman-caused, attention to psychological andspiritual development has become a socialnecessity (Walsh, 1984). As human beings, wehave the power to destroy the world, but will wefind the wisdom to preserve it? The greatreligious and spiritual traditions all teach that the

source of wisdom lies within us, and it is humanconsciousness that holds the key to the fate of theearth. Carl Jung (1969) was one of the first tocall attention to the centrality of consciousnessin human development. He wrote that

in the history of the collective as in the history of theindividual, everything depends on the development ofconsciousness. This gradually brings liberation fromimprisonment in "agnoia," "unconsciousness," and thereforeis a bringer of light as well as of healing.

We can no longer afford to ignore the necessityfor both inner work and outer work. Both arenecessary if we are to make wise and informeddecisions affecting the quality of our lives. Theinterdependence of the healthy person and thehealthy society becomes apparent in exploringthe common ground of biological, psychological,and spiritual experience underlying culturaldiversity. We are shaped by our environment, butwe are also the shapers of that environment.

Appreciating the diversity of approaches tohealing and personal growth that are availabletoday can contribute to a better understanding ofdifferent values among different cultures anddifferent levels of consciousness within eachculture. Understanding the common purposeunderlying different approaches to spiritualpractice can also deepen our appreciation of theuniversality of transpersonal experience.

Recognizing the unity as well as the diversity ofhuman experience can also help us find the pathbest suited to our particular needs.

Perception, Knowledge and Wisdom

Perception that focuses on particular objects ofconsciousness and splits the world into subjectand object can be distinguished from vision thatsees the context in which objects exist as well asthe relationships between them. Transpersonalvision allows simultaneous awareness of unity,diversity, and interconnecting relationships.Thus, a primary function pertaining to thetranspersonal domain has been calledvision/logic (Wilber, 1980), emphasizing thecomplementarity of intuitive vision and reason.Knowledge of the transpersonal domain dependson the integration of empirical, rational, andcontemplative perceptions of reality, not on thesubstitution of one for another.

Perceived solely with the eye of reason,

transpersonal vision may appear to be ephemeralor illusory. Perceived intuitively, however, itmay appear to be more real or fundamental thanrational conceptual constructs that attempt toexplain whatever lies beyond the boundaries ofcurrent understanding. Huston Smith (1982)states that

to those who, their hearts having been opened, can see withits eye (the Sufi's "eye of the heart," Plato's "eye of thesoul"), spiritual objects will be discernible and a theisticmetaphysics

will emerge. The final "night vision" which can detect theawefilled holiness of everything is reserved for those whom .. . I have called mystics. . . .

The divisions between the levels of reality are like one-waymirrors. Looking up, we see only reflections of the level weare on; looking down, the mirrors become plate glass andcease to exist. On the highest plane even the glass isremoved, and immanence reigns . . . looking up from theplanes that are lower, God is radically transcendent . . .looking down, from the heights that human vision can tovarying degrees attain, God is absolutely immanent.

The clarity of this inner vision depends on self-awareness and intuitive insight. Concepts caneither help or hinder the process of awakeningthis level of consciousness that dissolvesboundaries and offers transcendent insight.Depending on how they are used, concepts can beeither stepping stones or obstacles to vision.They serve a purpose in communication, butvision transcends rational understanding. Greatspiritual teachers are individuals of great vision

who can use concepts to communicate theirinsight and wisdom to others.

When inner vision is ignored or obscured, onemay be caught by illusions that constrictawareness of reality. Inner vision is a gift thatrequires only attention for recognition. The lightthat is necessary for vision is ever-present, butanything one fears to see becomes an impedimentto clear vision.

Enlightenment, as a goal of the spiritual path, ispartly a result of awakening vision. Discussingthe question. What is Enlightenment?, JohnWhite (1985) writes as follows:

Enlightenment is understanding the perfect poise of being-amid-becoming.

The truth of all existence and all experience, then, is noneother than the seamless here-and-now, the already present,the prior nature of that which seeks and strives and asks:Being. The spiritual journey is the process ofdiscovering and living that truth. It amounts to the eyeseeing itselfor rather, the I seeing its Self. In philosophicalterms, enlightenment is comprehending the unity of all

dualities, the harmonious composite of all opposites, theoneness of endless multiplicity and diversity. Inpsychological terms, it is transcendence of all sense oflimitation and otherness. In humanistic terms, it is

understanding that the journey is the teaching, that the pathand the destination are ultimately one.

Knowledge of the past, like knowledge of thefuture, depends on selective perception that issubject to change with any shift in perspective.Past and future do not now exist anywhereexcept in the mind; all of the past and all of thefuture are included in the full awareness of thepresent. Any spiritual path can serve as a meansof awakening consciousness when truth is thegoal.

Traditionally the spiritual path leads throughdreams and illusions to knowledge, liberation,and enlightenment, and the awakened mindcomes to know itself in wholeness. The goal maybe apprehended as unity consciousness, or thetruth of existence as intuited by clear vision, freefrom the constricting distortions of partialperceptions. Vision can give a sense of direction

to the journey, intuiting the completion before itis attained.

Wisdom, in contrast to knowledge gathered byempirical or rational investigation, is an attributeof one who, by virtue of inner vision,understands the nature of illusion and duality.Wisdom becomes available when we see thingsas they are. Our task is to remove the obstacles toawareness that limit and distort perception.

Vision can be a resource of inexhaustibleabundance and unlimited possibility that informsthe mind with boundless creativity. Vision seestime and eternity, emptiness and form,consciousness and its objects. Transpersonalvision gives access to an inner source ofguidance and inspiration that transcends narrowpersonal perceptual frames. It is renewed, ratherthan depleted, by being shared. Illumination ofvision occurs naturally when the mind is atpeace. An empty mind and open heart become thematrix of wisdom wherein all possibilities may

be conceived.

Healing and Wholeness

As the journey of a thousand miles begins with asingle step, healing the whole begins with healingourselves, our relationships and our world. Ourinherent capacity for self-healing is empoweredwhen we awaken to the vision of unityconsciousness. We are challenged to seeourselves whole, free from egocentricattachment to form or outcome.

For the first time in history, humanity isconfronting the necessity of seeing the world as awhole. Spirituality must also be addressed inglobal terms. An awareness that transcendscultural distinctions may be essential to humansurvival. The healing vision that sees beyondappearance and duality to the unity of spirit doesnot require belief in a personal deity; it doesrequire a willingness to be aware, moment bymoment, of what is true in our sharedexperience.

The desirability of sharing experiences, not justdoctrines and ideas, is gradually becomingaccepted. If we are to become persons of globalvision, self-knowledge must deepen intoawareness of universal spirituality. AbrahamMaslow said that self-actualizing people arealways involved in something beyond themselves(Maslow, 1971).

The wisdom needed for healing the world cannotbe taught by words alone. It must be discoveredwithin and applied in relationship. As we growtoward wholeness we may become more awareof our shared psychological and spiritualresources. Any situation may be perceived as anopportunity to heal the mind that generatesconflict while caught in the illusion ofseparateness. A mind possessed by illusions canbe healed when it awakens to transpersonalvision.

As we become conscious of wholeness, we canmore effectively participate in the cocreation ofour future. If we would participate in co-creatinga future different from the past, a future thatcould heal the earth, we must begin byenvisioning possibilities. Ken Wilber (1981) hassuggested the following:

For those who have matured to a responsible, stable ego,the next stage of growth is the beginning of thetranspersonal, the level of psychic intuition, of transcendent

openness and clarity, the awakening of a sense ofawareness that is somehow more than the simple mind andbody. To the extent that it does start to occur, there will beprofound changes in society, culture, government, medicine,economics. . . .

[This] will mean a society of men and women who, byvirtue of an initial glimpse into transcendence, will start tounderstand vividly their common humanity and brother/sisterhood; will transcend roles based on bodily differencesof skin, color, and sex; will grow in mental-psychic clarity;will make policy decisions on the basis of intuition as well asrationality, will see the same Consciousness in each andevery

soul, indeed, in all creation, and will start to actcorrespondingly; will find mental psychic consciousness tobe transfigurative of body physiology, and adjust medicaltheory accordingly; will find higher motivations in men andwomen that will drastically alter economic incentives andeconomic theory; will understand psychological growth asevolutionary transcendence, and develop methods andinstitutions not just to cure emotional disease but foster thegrowth of consciousness; will see education as a disciplinein transcendence, body to mind to soul, and regeareducational theory and institutions accordingly, with specialdevelopment; will find technology an appropriate aid totranscendence, not a replacement for it; will use massmedia, instant telecommunication, and human/computerlinkages as vehicles of bonding-consciousness and unity;will see outer space as not just an inert entity out there butalso as a projection of inner or psychic spaces and exploreit accordingly; will use appropriate technology to free theexchanges of the material level from chronic oppression; willfind sexuality to be not just a play of reproductive desire butthe initial base of kundalini sublimation into psychicspheresand will readjust marriage practices accordingly; willsee cultural national differences as perfectly acceptable anddesirable, but will see those differences on a background ofuniversal and common consciousness; . . . will realize fullythe transcendent unity of all Dharmakaya religions, and thus

respect all true religious preferences while condemning anysectarian claim to possess "the only way"; will realize thatpoliticians, if they are to govern all aspects of life, will haveto demonstrate an understanding and mastery of all aspectsof lifebody to mind to soul to spirit. . . .

In short, a true Wisdom Culture will start to emerge. . . .

The vision of a world that is healed and whole,that provides a supportive environment forhumanity and all other forms of life, is a possibledream. We must dare to dream of the qualitiesand values that are needed for healing and well-being. Everyone is given opportunities forservice and creative participation. The challengeof our time is for each of us to do our part increating a world we

would want for everyone. If we fail to chooseour future, we may not have one. The state of theworld, reflecting the state of our collective mind,indicates that we are badly in need of healing.Will we awaken in time to the vision ofwholeness that points the way to continuingcreative participation in sustaining life on earth?Consciousness has, by necessity, become boththe object and the instrument of change.

We must learn to apply what we know abouthealing ourselves to healing the world, andempower ourselves and each other in cocreatingpeaceful evolutionary alternatives to self-destruction. This is not a task that can beundertaken by anyone alone. We can no longerafford to wait for a heroic leader to rescue us.We have learned the hard way that evil cannot beconquered in battle. Conflict perpetuates theproblem. It is, rather, our capacity for vision and

self-transcendence that must be recognized ifpresent danger is to be transformed intoopportunity for renewal. If we persist in our follyof wishful thinking and blaming others for ourpredicaments, we may forfeit the chance to growinto wisdom.

It is not impossible to envision a world where wecan learn to live in harmony, in the light of theperennial wisdom of the great traditions. As weawaken from the dream of being isolated entitiesin a fragmented universe where individualthoughts, feelings, and actions make nodifference, we see that our destiny is shared. Byperceiving the unity of opposites we may beginto envision the emergence of a global spiritualityconcerned with the welfare of the whole ratherthan with particular forms of religious practice.A shared dream of healing and wholeness is nomore improbable than others that we collectivelyentertain.

Each one of us has a unique function in healing

the whole. We can discover it by awakening thetranspersonal vision and seeing things as they are.We have the capacity to turn problems intochallenges and to encourage others to manifest avision of wholeness. We can no longer afford topretend to be children playing while the home weinhabit is being destroyed. We must acknowledgeour responsibility for the world as it is and forchoosing to change. In sharing a vision thattranscends present limitations and inspirescreative imagination, we become thevisionmakers and healers of our time. As welearn to shift the focus of our attention from the

part to the whole, from the content to thecontext, we begin to expand limited perceptionand awaken vision.

Awakening transpersonal vision does not imposea new image on reality or provide ready answersto questions of the way-seeking mind. It doesallow each of us to see for ourselves what istrue. We cannot be satisfied with lies andillusions. We can delude ourselves temporarily,but true vision is not deceived. At times we mayask others for guidance, but ultimately we mustlearn to see for ourselves. Facing our collectivechallenge calls for a willingness to witness thepain of the human condition, to open our heartsand to heal the wounds of deprivationphysical,emotional, mental, and spiritual. Let us begin byenvisioning peace and healing within and amongourselves, that we may extend it in the world.

References

Allport, G. W. (1964). The fruits of eclecticism:Bitter or sweet. Acta Psychologica, 23, 2744.

Green, E., & Green, A. (1977). Beyondbiofeedback. New York: Delacorte.

Grof, S. (1975). Realms of the humanunconscious. New York: Viking.

Jung, C. G. (1969). Four archetypes (R. F. C.Hull, Trans.) In The Collected Works of C. G.Jung, Vol 9, Part I (2nd ed., p. 272). Princeton,NJ: Princeton University Press, Bollingen SeriesXX.

Maslow, A. (1971). The farther reaches ofhuman nature. New York: Viking.

Smith, H. (1982). Beyond the post-modernmind. New York: Crossroads.

Tart, C. (Ed.). (1969). Altered states ofconsciousness. New York: John Wiley.

Tart, C. (1975a). State of consciousness. NewYork: E. P. Dutton.

Tart, C. (Ed.). (1975b). Transpersonalpsychologies. New York: Harper and Row.

Vaughan, F. (1986). The inward arc. Boston:Shambhala/New Science Library.

Walsh, R. (1984). Staying alive: Thepsychology of human survival. Boston:Shambhala/New Science Library.

Walsh, R., & Shapiro, D. (Eds.). (1983). Beyondego: Transpersonal dimensions in psychology.Los Angeles: J. P. Tarcher.

White, J. (Ed.). (1985). What is enlightenment?Los Angeles: J. P. Tarcher.

Wilber, K. (1977). The spectrum ofconsciousness. Wheaton, IL: TheosophialPublishing House.

Wilber, K. (1980). The atman project: A

transpersonal view of human development.Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House.

Wilber, K. (1981). Up from Eden: Atranspersonal view of human evolution. NewYork: Doubleday.

Chapter ThreeThe Transformed Berserk:Unification of Psychic Opposites

Marie-Louise von Franz, Ph.D.

At the core of the relationship betweenindividual transformation and socialresponsibility is the problem of psychicopposites. For, as Carl Gustav Jung once pointedout, ''there always will be the two standpoints:the standpoint of the social leader who, if he isan idealist at all, seeks salvation in a more or lesscomplete suppression of the individual, and theleader of minds who seeks improvement in theindividual only." These two types "are necessarypairs of opposites which keep the world inbalance." 1 Examples of social leaders with orwithout a feeling of responsibility for their

people are to be found everywhere in thelimelight of the mass media. Therefore, I will tryto describe in more detail an opposite example bychoosing our only Swiss saint, Brother Niklausof Flüe, a conscious leader of souls. He was adeeply introverted, solitary hermit who workedonly to improve himself and yet became, all thesame, the political savior of Switzerland.

Niklaus of Flüe was born on March 21, 1417, inthe so-called "Flüeli," the slopes above Sachseln(Unterwalden), the son of an honorable localfarmer, Heinrich von Flüe, and his wife, EmmaRuberta. The fifteenth century was a time inwhich the Catholic church was in a state ofdecay, corruption, and full of inner dissension, afact which led many individuals to concentratemore on the search for inner guidance. Politicallyit was also a bad time in Switzerland, for theoriginal Swiss mountain communities(Urkantone) were completely bled to death anddisintegrated by the bad habit of its male youths

to run away from home and fight in foreignmilitary services

(the so-called Reislaufen). Saint Niklaus himselfdid not take part in such mercenary activities, butwe find his name on the lists of several warlikeexpeditions of his own country.

Apparently, he even became a captain but wassaid to have always tried to prevent unnecessarymassacres and destruction. Around 1447 (whenhe was thirty years old) he married DorotheaWyss and, in the course of time, they had tenchildren. From 1459 until 1462 he functioned asa judge and a member of the Council ofUnterwalden. As a judge he often had to witnessinjustices and cases of bribery, which evoked inhim deep indignation and disgust for all worldlyoccupations. Once, while in court, he had avision of fire flowing out of the mouth of anunjust judge.

When he was about forty five years old, he beganto suffer from a deep depression, with feelings of

resistance against his family and a longing todevote himself completely to his inner religiousvocation. His friend, Heiny am Grund, the localpriest of Kriens, advised him to do some regularprayer-exercises, but that was not very helpful.Finally Klaus managed to get the agreement ofhis wife (he was then about fifty years old) andleft home with the intention of wandering intothe unknown world as a sort of religiousmendicant pilgrim.

But several incidents and an important vision hehad near the Swiss border impelled him to returnhome. There, with the help of his friends andrelations, he built a little hermit's cell about 250meters from his home beside a deep shadowycreek called the Ranft, and he stayed there for therest of his life, fasting almost completely, withthe exception of receiving the host. He had manyvisionary states and slowly acquired such fame asa saintly healer and counselor that often up to sixhundred people were waiting around his cell to

have a word with him.

When Klaus was sixty four years old, he becameinvolved in the famous political incident of themeeting (Tagsatzung) and treaty of Stans onDecember 22, 1947. A conflict had explodedbetween some of the more democratic ruraloriginal Cantons (Urkantone) and the new, morearistocratically ruled town Cantons. Adeclaration of civil war was impending. At thismoment the priest of Kriens, Heiny am Grund,ran through the whole night to Klaus's hermitagein Sachseln and begged Klaus to speak to thewarring parties. Klaus agreed to address the twocamps; he simply admonished the Swiss to keep

peace, to accept the two new town Cantons butnot to expand their territory too far, and to settletheir fight with a treaty. However, he suggestedthat if they were attacked, they should defendthemselves valiantly. And such was the authorityof Klaus that they unwillingly but humblyobeyed him and settled their quarrel. Had therebeen a war, Austria and France would haveinterfered and walked in, and Switzerland wouldmost certainly have disappeared from the mapforever. All of this is not legend, but hardhistorical fact.

The content of the message Klaus delivered wasin itself not very special; it was in a way justcommon sense, something that any old farmercould have said. What had such an unusual effectwas the awe in which everyone held him. Later,Klaus became a counselor of dukes andambassadors in many other political affairs, and

thus actually achieved what Master Kung Fu-tse(Confucius) tried to do in China but failed onaccount of more unfavorable circumstances. Butlet us now turn to the deeper question: What isreally behind such an unusual effect? In my view,an important vision of Niklaus of Flüe revealsmore about this question. The following text isthe description of this vision:

It seemed to him (to Brother Klaus) that a manresembling a pilgrim came to him. He had a stickin his hands, a hat with its brim folded down likea wanderer's hat, and a blue coat. And Klausrealized inwardly that the man came from theEast or from far away. Though the pilgrim didnot say so, Klaus knew that he came from wherethe sun rises in summertime. Then he stoodbefore Klaus and sang the word: "Alleluja."When he began to sing, his voice reverberatedand everything between heaven and earth sangwith him. And Klaus heard three perfect wordscoming from a place of origin and then they were

shut away like with a snapping lock. When heheard these three words he could only speak ofone word. When the pilgrim had finished hissong, he asked Brother Klaus for an alm. Klaussuddenly had a penny in his hand which hedropped into the hat of the pilgrim. And this man(Klaus?) had never known before what a greathonor it is to receive a gift of money in one's hat.

And Klaus wondered who the pilgrim was andwhere he came from. The Wanderer said: "I camefrom there," and did not want to say any more.Klaus stood before him and looked at him. Inthat moment he (the pilgrim) changed shape; heno longer had a hat on, but had a blue or greyishvest and no coat. He was a noble, good-

looking man, so that Klaus looked at him withpleasure and desire. His face was brownish,which gave him a noble look, his eyes black likea magnet, his limbs of eminent beauty. Thoughhe had his clothes on, Klaus could see his limbsthrough them. As Klaus stared at him, theWanderer looked at him too. In that momentgreat miracles happened: the mountain Pilatuscrumbled and became completely flat and theearth opened up so that Klaus felt as though hecould see the sins of the whole world. He saw alot of people and behind them appeared theTruth, but all the people turned their backs to itand in their hearts he saw a great disease, a tumoras big as two fists. This tumor was selfishness,which seduces people so much that they cannotstand the man's (the Truth's) glance, which tothem was like fire so that they ran about in greatconfusion and shame and finally ran away, butthe Truth remained.

And then his (the pilgrim's) face changed like a"Veronica" and Klaus felt a great desire to seemore of him. Then he saw him again as he hadbeen before, but his clothes had changed and hestood before him as if he had on a bearskin, avest and bearskin leggings. The fur wasinterspersed with golden sparks, but Klaus sawclearly that it was the skin of a bear. The bearskinsuited him very well, so that he (Klaus) saw thatit was of special beauty. As he stood before him,so nobly in his bearskin, Klaus realized that hewanted to leave. He asked: "Where do you wantto go?" He answered: "I will go up the country,"and he did not want to say more. When he left,Klaus stared after him and saw that the bearskinshone as when someone moves a well-cleanedsword and one can see its reverberations on thewall. And he thought that this was somethinghidden from him. When the Wandered had goneabout four steps away he turned around, took offhis hat and bowed to Klaus. Klaus realized that

there was such great love in the Wanderer forhim that he was quite smitten and confessed thathe had not earned such love and then he saw thatthis love was in him. And he saw that his spirit,face, eyes, and his whole body was full of lovinghumility, like a vessel brimful of honey. Then hesaw the Wanderer no more, but he was sosatisfied that he did not desire anything more. Itseemed that everything there is between heavenand earth had been revealed to him.

This great vision would need many hours ofinterpretation, but here I can only point out someessential aspects of it. This pilgrim

is obviously an image of what Jung has called theSelf (in contrast to the ego) that is Klaus's eternalinner spiritual core, something like the "innerChrist" in the writings of the mystics. But thoughthe pilgrim sings the Biblical word "Allelujah"(praise to God), his clothes clearly characterizehim as Wotan, a Germanic god of War, Truth,Ecstasy, and of shamanic wisdom. According tosome myths, Wotan was always walking about asa wanderer visiting people, wearing a grey-bluecoat and a wide-brimmed hat and looking veryaristocratic with flaming eyes. Other mythsdescribe that he could constantly change hisshape; therefore he was often called Svipall, thechanging one, or Grimmir, the masked one, orTveggi, the two-fold one. In Klaus's vision, hecomes from the place of sunrise, the symbolicplace from which new illuminations andrevelations from the collective unconsciousarise. This connection is reflected in the saying

that something "dawns on us."

Later in the vision, the wanderer appears aspersonified Truth behind the backs of people.Wotan too had the epithet "Sannr"-true. He wassaid to have second sight and could open allmountains and "see and take what was in them"(Snorri Sturluson). Seen in a Christian context,the Holy Ghost is the Spirit of Truth, but here itis strangely blended with the old Germanic Godof Ecstasy, Love, and Spiritual Devotion. Thispilgrim conveys to Klaus a feeling of knowingeverything between heaven and earth, that is, heimparts to Klaus what Jung called the "absoluteknowledge" of the unconscious, which is typicalfor many experiences of the Self.

But even more, he conveyed to Klaus a feeling ofinfinite love, described as a vessel brimming overwith honey. This motif of the honey reminds oneof a verse in the Brhadaranyaka-Upanishad,which runs: "The Self is honey of all beings andall beings are honey of this Self. Likewise, this

bright immortal person is this Self and that brightimmortal person, the Self (both are madhu-honey). He indeed is the same as that Self, thatImmortal, that Brahman, that All." 2 "And verilythe Self is the lord of all beings, the king of allbeings. And as all spokes are contained in theaxle and in the felly of the wheel, all beings andall those Selfs (of earth, water, etc.) arecontained in the Self."3 Madhu-honey meanthere, as Max Müller explains, an objectivecomplete interdependence or interconnectednessof all things, the same that Jung would call"objective love," in contrast to ordinarysubjective love, which is full of ego projectionsand desires.

But the most amazing and unorthodox motif inthis vision of Brother Klaus is the bearskin thatthe pilgrim wears. It is a detail which againpoints to Wotan who, among other titles, wascalled hrammibear's paw, as the god of theberserkers. In the Old Testament the bearrepresents the dark side of Jahweh, and in Nordicshamanism the bear is the most frequent "helpingspirit" or ally of the shaman. In most northerncountries of Europe, the bear was so sacred informer times that one only spoke of him as "theFather," "the Holy Man," "the Holy Woman,''"the Wise Father," or "the Goldfoot."

For the old Germans to wear a bearskin means tobe a beriserkra berserk. Going berserk was theparapsychological gift inherited in certainGermanic warrior families. It was a divineecstasy, a kind of "holy rage." Such people weresaid to faint and fall to the ground as though they

were dead, while their soul left their body in theform of a bear and was then seen raging in thebattle, killing all enemies, but, sometimes bymistake, also their own people. The basic moodin going berserk was called grimr, whichtranslates as "anger." To go berserk was alsocalled "hamfong," which means changing one'sskin or shape and also shadow or ally(Schutzgeist). To sum this up, the bear aspect ofthe holy pilgrim in Klaus's vision is thedangerous, uncanny animal shadow of the Self.

Jung writes in a letter about this very vision: a"man charged with mana, or numinous man, hastheriomorphic attributes, since he surpasses theordinary man not only upwards but alsodownwards." 4 The vision of the berserk showsthe figure of the inner Christ in two forms: "1. asa pilgrim who, like the mystic, has gone on theperegrinatio animae; 2. as a bear whose peltcontains the golden luster." The latter alludes tothe "new sun" in alchemy, a new illumination.

And Jung continues: "The meaning of the visionmay be as follows: On his spiritual pilgrimageand in his instinctual (bear-like, i.e., hermit-like)subhumanness Brother Klaus recognizes himselfas Christ. . . . The brutal coldness of feeling thatthe saint needed in order to abandon his wife andchildren and friends is encountered in thesubhuman animal realm. Hence the saint throwsan animal shadow. . . . Whoever can suffer withinhimself the highest united with the lowest ishealed, holy, whole. The vision is trying to showhim (Klaus) that the spiritual pilgrim and theBeriserkr are both Christ, and this opens the wayto forgiveness of the great sin which

holiness is." Later in his life Klaus had a frighteningvision of God's wrath, "because this wrath is aimedat him, who has betrayed his nearest and dearest andthe ordinary man for God's sake."

The Christ-Berserk of Brother Klaus's vision thusunites irreconcilable opposites, subhuman wildnessand Christian spirituality, the rage of the warriorand Christian agapelove of mankindand onlybecause Klaus had given space to this inner figurein himself was he able to unite the oppositesoutside, to convince his countrymen to keep peaceinstead of getting swept away into civil war.

In order to understand how this actually works wemust consider certain basic facts of depthpsychology. Let us look at the situation depicted onthe diagram.

The outermost dots, A, A, A, represent the egoconsciousness of human beings. Below is a psychiclayer, B, B, B, which represents the sphere of the

so-called personal unconscious, which is thatpsychic layer that Freud discovered: the sphere offorgotten and repressed

Figure 1.Diagram showing the structure of the unconscious. Aego consciousness,

Bpersonal unconscious, Cgroup unconscious, Dunconscious of large national units, Euniversal

archetypal structures.

memories, desires, and impulses. Below it comesthe layer, C, C, C, which is a kind of groupunconscious, as it manifests in family therapy orgroup therapy; it contains the common reactionsand complexes of whole groups, clans, tribes,etc. Below it we have D, D, D, which would bethe common unconscious of wide nationalunits. We can, for instance, see that Australian orSouth American Indian mythologies form such awider "family" of relatively similar religiousmotifs which, however, they do not share with allof mankind. An example would be the motif ofcatching and weakening a demonic figure of thesun, a motif that we find in the Far East but notin the West. Finally, the center circle, E, wouldrepresent the sum of those universal psychicarchetypal structures that we share with thewhole of mankind, such as the archetypal idea ofmana, the hero, the cosmic god-man, the motherearth, the helpful animal, or the trickster figure,

which we find in all mythologies and allreligious systems.

Whenever an individual works on his ownunconscious he invisibly affects first the group(when he reaches C); and if he goes even deeper,he affects the large national units (layer D), orsometimes even all of humanity (layer E). Notonly does he change and transform himself but hehas an imperceptible impact on the unconsciouspsyche of many other people. That is why KungFu-tse (Confucius) said: "The superior manabides in his room. If his words are well spoken,he meets with assent at a distance of more than athousand miles." 5

The collective unconscious is actually like anatmosphere in which we are all contained and bywhich we are affected. One of the mostimportant images in E, the common center, is theimage of a god-man or cultural hero, which wefind practically in all cultural communities(Christ, Osiris, Avalokiteshvara); let us call it the

symbol of the Anthropôs. In contrast to variousgods, ghosts and demons, who symbolize themore autonomous special impulses in thecollective psyche, Anthropôs represents thataspect of the collective unconscious whichappears integrated in man as his specificcultural consciousness or religion.

There seems to exist a basic law in thedevelopment of religious culturalcommunitiesthe periodic falling apart and decayor renewal and reunion of its elements. Inprinciple, all single instinctual drives, such assexual impulses, aggression, power, or self-preservation, have a physiological and asymbolic, that is psychological or spiritual,aspect. On an archaic level these two aspectswork completely to-

gether; that means that the ritual and physicalactivities and their representatives are one. But inthe course of historical development these twoaspects often tend to get separated; then the ritualand religious doctrines become only rigidspiritual formalisms against which thephysiological instincts revolt. This is a situationof conflict that is needed for the development ofhigher consciousness. But the conflict can alsogo too far and become destructive. This thenrequires reconciliation of the opposites. Such asituation calls for an anamnesis of the originalman, the archetype of man as the Anthropôs, whois at the core of all great religions. In the idea ofa homo maximus, the Above and Below ofcreation are reunited. 6

The Christ-Berserk in Klaus's vision is such aspontaneous emergence of a completeAnthropôs figure which complements the

official incomplete image of Christ. But thisvision of Christ as a berserk overflowing withEros is not an isolated image turning up in anunusual individual, but it reaches back and isconnected with a long hidden historicalcontinuity. There exists, as Jung has shown, anunofficial development of the Christ-figurewithin the whole of Western Christian culture inits two thousand-year-old tradition. In this bookAion,7 Jung points out that in the Apocalypse (5,6) a lamb appears, with seven horns and eyes, amonstrous figure not at all resembling thesacrificial lamb that is traditionally associatedwith Christ. It is praised as victor in battle (17,14) and as the "lion of the tribe of Judah" (5, 5).It looks therefore, as if at the end of time acertain shadow aspect of Christ returns andreunites with his figure, a shadow that Christ hadcast away before. If one compares theecclesiastical image of Christ with that of God inthe Old Testament, he does not seem to incarnatethat God completely. Jahweh himself is of

infinite goodness, just as he shows infinite cruelrage and vengefulness; in contrast, Christincarnates only the former aspect. This probablyis the reason why he himself predicted that, in aprocess of reversal, the figure of Antichristwould rise at the end of the Christian aeon.However, the demonic ram of the Apocalypse isnot an Antichrist figure, it is rather a reborn orreformed or completed Christ symbol, in whichcertain dark vengeful aspects are integrated ratherthan split off.

Perhaps this is a partial return to Jewish ideas ofa belligerent messiah, born out of an anti-Romanresentment. The Christian answer to therealization of the good-evil double nature ofGod was first unequivocal: God is only good andChrist, his incarnation in man,

is only good too. From approximately the year1000 of the Christian era, this symbolic religiousanswer became doubtful. The problem of evilbecame more and more urgent. There existed inthis respect two possibilities: the first of thesewas the official idea that an anti-Christianmovement would arise and undo, on a grandscale, all of the cultural and moral achievementsChrist had brought forth. A second possibledevelopment was also brought up from theunconscious; this was the idea to complete thefigure of Christ into a good and evil figurea trueunion of opposites.

In his Answer to Job 8 Jung proposed that in theApocalypse one could see an image of thissecond development. There appears a womanwith a crown of twelve stars on her head who ispersecuted by a dragon. She gives birth to a malechild but, subsequently, they are both carried

away and disappear in heaven. This seems like avision of a reborn Christ-figure, the anticipationof the collective unconscious of a morecomplete symbol of Self which is no longer splitinto a good and an evil half.

This idea of a more complete Christ-figure alsohaunted the minds of many medieval alchemists.Their "philosophers' stone," which they likenedto Christ, was not just exclusively good; he was aunion of opposites. And more than that, he alsounited spirit and matter, as well as man andanimal. He was not only a savior of souls likeChrist, but a savior of the whole of the nature ofthe macrocosm.

If we look at the outer history of our WesternChristian civilization, this union of opposites hasnot, or at least not yet, been realized. On thecontrary, Europe is split between the so-calledChristian Western half and the openly anti-Christian Eastern half; large parts of the rest ofthe world then side with one or the other. The

openly anti-Christian spiritual development inEurope began in the Renaissance, that is, in thetime of Brother Klaus. It is, therefore, amazingto consider that at that very time, quiteindependently and spontaneously, Klaus'sunconscious brought up a Christ-figure who,like the alchemical stone, unites the opposites.The dark aspect is a berserk, harking back to thepagan Germanic tradition. If we consider whatthat Wotanic German berserk did in the SecondWorld War, we can realize what terribledestructiveness this means when it isautonomous and no longer united with itsopposite. Jung called World War II a Wotanicexperiment and remarked that apparently we arenow preparing for still another Wotanicexperiment, but this time on a world-

wide scale. Such an explosion is only possible ifthe berserk shadow, that is, aggression, remainsautonomous and is not integrated within theinner totality of man.

In confining himself, in his desperate depression,to his hermitage in the Ranft, Brother Klausforced his shadow to remain within, where itbecame amalgamated with the inner Christ inhim. It is worth noting: We cannot integrate suchdivine powers of aggression in our ordinaryselves. All that hopeful benevolent talk aboutintegrating one's aggression is nonsense. We canonly, through our efforts and suffering, bringforth an integration of these forces within theSelf. In other words, we can only integrate ourown personal shadow, but not the collectiveshadow of the Self, or the dark side of thegodhead.

However, by suffering to the absolute extreme

under the problem of opposites and by acceptingit within ourselves, we can sometimes become aplace in which the divine oppositesspontaneously come together. That is whatobviously happened to Brother Klaus; his visionshowed him that in the Self the divine oppositeshad become one and this united figure was nowoverflowing with honey, that is, with love. It is alove which emanates from the total, theindividual man, and not from his differentcomplexes or impulses.

Interesting parallels to this process can be foundin alchemical writings. In a way that greatlyresembles Klaus's vision of the cosmic berserkfilled with honey, many alchemists praised theirphilosopher's stone as a living being emanating"rose-colored blood" or "hue" which has ahealing effect on its surroundings. This is one ofthe strangest images that can be found in thealchemical texts. The Paracelsist, Gerald Dorn,says, for instance, about the philosopher's stone:

(The philosophers) "called their stone animatebecause, at the final operations . . . a dark redliquid, like blood, sweats out drop by drop. . . .And for this reason they have prophesied that inthe last days a most pure (putus = genuine,unalloyed) man, through whom the world will befreed, will come to earth and will sweat bloodydrops of a rosy or red hue, whereby the worldwill be redeemed from its Fall. In like manner,too, the blood of their stone will free the leprousmetals and also men from their diseases. . . . Inthe blood of this stone is hidden its soul, whichis in his blood.'' 9 Another alchemist, HenricusKhunrath, mentions the same blood as that of a"lion lured forth from the Saturnine mountain."10There

we have, like the bear in Klaus's vision, a lionfrom the "Saturnine mountain," also a wildanimal which comes from the places of darknessand depression, but brings forth the healingblood of love. The same Khunrath also speakselsewhere of that "rose-colored Blood . . . thatflows forth . . . from the side of the innate Son ofthe Great World," that is, of an intracosmicChrist-figure who is the ''Healer of all imperfectbodies and men." 11 Unlike the Biblical Christ,he is not only a savior of men, but also like thealchemical Christ, or Lapis, a healer of all nature.

"It seems," writes Jung," as though the rose-colored blood of the alchemical redeemer wasderived from a rose mysticism that penetratedinto alchemy. It expresses a certain kind ofhealing Eros. This Eros emanates from thehomo totus, the cosmic man whom Dorn calledputissimus = unalloyed. This most pure or most

true man must be no other than what he is . . . hemust be entirely man, a man who knows andpossesses everything human and is notadulterated by any influence or admixture fromwithout." He will appear, according to Dorn,only "in the last days." "He cannot be Christ, forChrist by his blood has already redeemed theworld. . . . It is much rather the alchemical saviorof the universe, representing the stillunconscious idea of the whole and completeman, who shall bring about what the sacrificialdeath of Christ has obviously left unfinished,namely the deliverance of the world from evil. . .. His blood is a psychic substance, themanifestation of a certain kind of Eros whichunifies the individual, as well as the multitude, inthe sign of the rose and makes them whole."12

In the sixteenth century the Rosicrucianmovement began, whose motto, "per crucem adrosam," was anticipated by the alchemists. Suchmovements, Jung points out,13 "as also the

emergence of the idea of Christian charity withits emotional overtones, are always indicative ofa corresponding social defect which they serve tocompensate. In the perspective of history, we cansee clearly enough what this defect was in theancient world; and in the Middle Ages as well,with its cruel and unreliable laws and feudalconditions, human rights and human dignity werein a sorry plight." And, we can add, so were thesocial conditions of Brother Klaus's time. Itseems, therefore, that this berserk full of honey,which is Eros, turned up in his vision because, aswe know, Klaus worried very much

about the social injustices and cruelties whichoccurred in his surroundings.

But what kind of love could this be? As Jungstresses, love taken in itself is useless without acertain amount of understanding. "And for theproper use of understanding a widerconsciousness is needed, and a higher standpointto enlarge one's horizon. . . . Certainly love isneeded . . . but a love combined with insight andunderstanding. Their function is to illuminateregions that are still dark and to add them toconsciousness. . . . The blinder love is, the moreit is instinctual, and the more it is attended bydestructive consequences, for it is a dynamismthat needs form and direction." 14 We can see thiswhen mothers love their children so much thatthey suffocate them, or collectively when, out oflove, we try to develop so-called undevelopedcountries by brutally imposing upon them our

ideas and technology. Out of so-called love,innumberable crimes and destruction have beenbrought upon man, and the more sentimentallove is, the more brutal the shadow that followsit. By contrast, in the symbol of the berserk-Christ, the brutal shadow (the bear aspect) isintegrated into the human figure and thus nolonger acts autonomously behind its back.

The whole problem is an ethical one; it is aproblem of differentiating our feelings. Westerncivilizations of late have one-sidedly developedextroverted thinking and sensation in theirtechnology, and introverted sensation-thinking intheir theoretical studies. Intuition is also notquite suppressed because it is needed for findingnew creative ideas. But feeling and the wholeworld of Eros, love, is in a sorry plight indeed. Ieven think that at present everything depends onwhether we succeed in developing our feelingand social Eros or not.

It is psychologically impossible to say what Eros

is, for it is an archetypal power far beyond ourcomprehension. At the bottom of itif we observeit from an empirical anglethere seems to lie aparticipation mystique, what Jung called archaicidentity. It is an unconscious conformity ofcollective ideas or feeling values. On it is basedthe general assumption that what is good for usis also good for the other, that I have the right tocorrect other people, and that altogether the otherperson is basically like myself. This is anoriginal, basic, gregarious, instinctive bondamong all men, but it can even extend to animals,plants, and other outer objects. Even

Christian love of one's neighbor or Buddhisticcompassion are ultimately based on this deep-rooted instinctual condition. The symbolic imageof the Anthropôs, or divine man, contains thisaspect insofar as he is mythologically oftenspoken of as the basic material from which thewhole cosmos was made, like the Purusha inIndia, P'an ku in Chinese mythology, the giantYmir in the German genesis, Gayomart in Persia,or Osiris-Rê in Egypt. The Judaeo-Christianfigure of the first Adam and the second Adam(Christ) also have this aspect. According tocertain Midrashim, for instance, Adam was first acosmic giant in whom all the souls of mankind"were united, like strands in a wick." And Christhas the same function in relation to the Christiancommunity; we are all supposedly brothers andsisters "in Christ."

The phenomenon of archaic identity does not,

however, sufficiently take into account that thereare also great differences among all humanbeings. They manifest in archaic conditions intribal wars between different groups of peopleand sometimes even in chaotic social conditionswhere everybody fights everybody, as was thecase in certain times of interregnum, as J. G.Fraser has shown. This fact of inevitablepersonal tensions and hostilities forces us torecognize that other people are sometimesdifferent and that they do not always behaveaccording to our expectations. This leads to aphenomenon which Jung calls the taking back ofprojections, that is to wake up to the realizationthat certain of our assumptions and judgmentsabout other people are not true for them, butonly for ourselves. Such a realization is still veryrare and I think we are only now at the verybeginning of this wider realization. Especiallywhere there are really great differences, as forinstance between man and woman, or betweenfar-away ethnic groups of people and us, the

search for and the realization of projections is ofparamount importance.

Only when projections are withdrawn, doesrelationship, as contrasted with archaic identity,become possible; however, this presupposespsychological knowledge. We have embassies inforeign countries which are supposed to provideus with such psychological knowledge. Howpoorly that still works is unfortunately well-known. In all pluralistic, democraticallyorganized societies there is an attempt tosomehow regulate the cooperation of differentgroups and individuals without forcing them toadhere completely to the rules of archaiccollective identity. In contrast to the latter,relationship includes

the idea of a certain distance. Jung writes: "oneof the most important and difficult tasks in theindividuation process is to bridge the distancebetween people. There is always a danger that thedistance will be broken down by one party only(intruding into the other's realm of concerns),and this invariably gives rise to a feeling ofviolation followed by resentment. Everyrelationship has its optimal distance, which ofcourse has to be found by trial and error." 15 Weare still probably aeons away from realizing sucha state of free mutual interrelatedness among allhuman beings. A profound respect for the real"otherness" of the other being or ethnical groupis needed as well as the intimacy of a feeling ofidentity. But even this is not yet the ultimatestage of possible development. It is obvious thaton the surface (outer lines of our model) thiswould cause too great a fragmentation orisolation of the conscious individual egos. There

exists another stage, however, which I would liketo call a personal connection of fate throughthe Self with selected people. It is like a return tothe first stage but on a higher, more consciouslevel. It is a relationship with the Self in the otherperson, with her or his totality and oneness ofopposites. Only love and not mind canunderstand the other person in this way. Thisform of love, Jung writes, "is not transferenceand it is more primitive, more primeval and morespiritual, than anything we can describe. Thatupper floor is no more you or I, it means many,including yourself and anybody whose heart youtouch. There is no distance, but immediatepresence. It is an eternal secrethow shall I everexplain it?"16

One could perhaps say that it is a timelessconnection in eternity which, however, in thisworld, in our space-time, appears as thatmysterious something which makes any deep realencounter of two human beings possible. It

occurs when, meeting somebody for the firsttime, one has the feeling that one has "known"the other for all eternity, and this is not an error,as it is sometimes on account of ordinary archaicidentity, but it proves to be true. This kind ofrelationship can appear between people of thesame sex, as for instance in the "eternal"relationship of certain masters with their pupils,but more frequently in the love between man andwoman, who represent the greatest oppositesamong mankind. According to Jung, this latterproblem of relationship lies at the core of allproblems of modern mankind. Either we canbridge these opposites within ourselves or wewill contribute to the explosion of wars outside.

Personal love is the only existing compensationfor the fragmentationeven atomizationof modernsociety. In it the image of the Anthropôs mightreappear again and with it "the Truth" behindpeople's backs, as Klaus saw it in his vision.

Brother Klaus was not at all weak andsentimental. In his consultations, he unhesitantlyuncovered the lies and hidden sins of his clients,but at the same time he did this always with atwinkle of humor in his eyes and with helpfulwarmth. Since these are characteristics of a goodtherapist, Jung has said that Klaus should bemade the patron saint of psychotherapy. It wassomehow the personified Truth of his vision ofthe bearskin pilgrim which acted through him.His love or warmth was always directed towardsthe individual before him, for the relationships ofan individuated person are always uniquefromone unique being to another unique being.

Only within such relationships can our soulcome alive and can the transpersonal Self beconstellated. With it (as the berserk-Christ figureshows) a certain inner dualism in the Self isunited into one.

I am convinced that if Brother Klaus had not hadthis berserk figure behind him he could not haveappeased the meeting of Stans. This berserk is avisible image of that invisible authority whichemanated from him and made the warring partiessettle their conflict. In this way Klaus achievedpolitically more than any ruler or ambassadorcould have done. He is a wonderful example ofhow individual transformation and universalresponsibility can be united. Naturally, BrotherKlaus is a unique example, which we cannotsimply choose to imitate. In everybody's innerevolution these opposites of individualtransformation versus collective responsibilitytake on a different form and nuance.

In the I Ching, 17 in the first chapter on the

creative principle, there is one line which refersto this problem. It is the fourth line, which runs:"Wavering flight over the depths. No blame." andthe Comment runs:

A place of transition has been reached, and free choice canenter in. A twofold possibility is presented to the great man:he can soar to the heights and play an important part in theworld, or he can withdraw into solitude and develophimself. He can go the way of the hero or that of the holysage who seeks seclusion. There is no general law to saywhich of the

two is the right way. Each one in this situation must make afree choice according to the inner law of his being. If theindividual acts consistently and is true to himself, he will findthe way that is appropriate for him.

Compared to such holy sages as Lao-tse orChuang-tse, Brother Klaus is less only as thefigure of a retired hermit. In the first half of hislife, he took part in all the activities of ordinaryouter life; only when an inner call found him, didhe leave the world. At first, he tried arduously to"imitate Christ" and practice the Christian loveof one's neighbor, but then the berserka deeplyintroverted fierce need to follow his own innertruthovercame him. And what was perhaps thegreatest miracle was that the people around himdid not interpret this as madness. Sometheologians tried to criticize him for leaving hisfamily, but the general public all around him andmostly the people of Unterwalden stood up forhim and saw in his retirement the sign of a divine

call and not a sign of social madness orirresponsibility. I think this comes from thehoney-Eros aspect of the berserk pilgrim figurethat these people must have felt in him.

Returning to our sketch, the central sphere of thecollective unconscious is in most religionsrepresented by an Anthropôs figure, a symbol ofa god-man or cosmic man. Thus the berserkrepresents, in a paradoxical way, the greaterpersonality of the Self of Brother Klaus andsimultaneously the Self of the whole collective.In this latter aspect it was and still is today aliving archetype. During World War II, someSwiss regiments had a collective vision ofBrother Klaus standing at the Swiss bordertowards Germany, spreading his arms out toprotect Switzerland from being invaded byHitler. The greater achetypal core of Klaus is, inthis way, still alive today in Switzerland.

Modern zoologists like Konrad Lorenz andinnumerable psychologists write today about the

problem of aggression and how to integrate,abreact, or suppress it. Brother Klaus's visionshows us how he really succeeded in integratingand transforming it. Then it is no longer what wecall aggression but rather a clearly definedseparateness and firmness of the individualwhich succeeds in remaining steadfastly in"himself" and does not succumb to group ormass suggestions. In many collective panicsituations in a nation, everything depends onwhether or not some individuals can keep

their heads and not succumb to the generalparanoiac emotion. That, according to Jung, isthe only way to avoid war.

This is still clearly a very remote goal forhumanity and in the meantime nations andgroups will inevitably go on fighting each other.But one thing seems sure to me: we have reacheda point in history where the differentation ofEros has become of paramount importance,because the world has become so small that wehave to realize we are all in the same boat.

Presented at the Eighth Conference of theInternational Transpersonal Association (ITA) onIndividual Transformation and UniversalResponsibility, August 27September 2, 1983, inDavos, Switzerland.

Notes

1. Jung, C. G. (1975). Letter of October 19,1934. In G. Adler & A. Jaffé (Eds.). Letters, Vol.I. Princeton, NJ: Bollingen Series XLV,Princeton University Press.

2. Brhad Aranyaka Upanishad, II. 54, p. 116.(1900). (M. Müller, trans.). Oxford: ClarendonPress.

3. Ibid.

4. Jung, C. G. (1975). Letter on W. Christ. InLeters, Vol. I.

5. The I Ching or Book of Changes, chapt. 62.(1950). (R. Wilhelm, trans.) Princeton, NJ:Bollingen Series XIX, Princeton UniversityPress.

6. Jung, C. G. (1955). Mysterium coniunctionis.In Collected works, Vol. XIV. Princeton, NJ:Bollingen Series XX, Princeton University Press.

7. Jung, C. G. (1951, 1954). Aion. In Collectedworks, Vol. IX, 1. 2. Princeton NJ: Bollingen

Series XXM, Princeton University Press.

8. Jung, C. G. (1958). Answer to Job InPsychology and religion: West and east.Collected works, Vol XI. Princeton, NJ:Bollingen Series XX, Princeton University Press.

9. Jung, C. G. (1967). Alchemical studies, para381. In Collected works, Vol. XIII. Princeton,NJ: Bollingen Series XX, Princeton UniversityPress.

10. Jung, C. G. (1967). Alchemical studies, para.383.

11. Ibid., para. 384.

12. Ibid., para. 390.

13. Ibid., para. 391.

14. Ibid., para. 391.

15. Jung, C. G. (1975). Letters, Vol. I, p. 53ff.

16. Ibid., p. 298.

17. Op. cit.

Chapter FourOn Getting to Know One's Inner Enemy:Transformational Perspectives on the Conflict ofGood and Evil

Ralph Metzner, Ph.D.

The shadow, the id, the beast, the devil, themonster, the adversarythese are some of the manynames of a psychological complex that is presentin all human beings. We can regard it as a psychicimage that functions as an inner opponent, ouropposite, with whom we struggle and arguethroughout our lives. To reconcile thisopposition has been recognized as a centralchallenge on the part of individuation, or self-transformation. Ancient wisdom of East andWest and modern transpersonal philosophy andpsychology affirm that getting to know these

opposites, seeing them as aspects of our being, isessential to growth and wholeness. C. G. Jung,following Nicholas of Cusa, referred to this asthe coincidentia oppositorum, "the co-incidenceof opposites"the acceptance and reconciliation oftwo polarized facets of our nature. According toNicholas, the dualities in opposition, existingthroughout all of Nature, including humannature, are the wall that makes God invisible toman."

The good/evil or good/bad judgment is oftensuperimposed on other dualities. Whensuperimposed on the duality of male and female,we get sexist attitudes of women as inferior andmen superior, or the reverse. Whensuperimposed on the duality of human andanimal, we get images of monsters, dragons,beasts, and fear of our

own and others' bestial impulses and passions.When this judgment is superimposed onreligious, racial, cultural, or national difference,we get bigotry, racism, chauvinism, and theprejudices that separate and antagonizethe in-group versus the out-group, or the notorious usversus them (Russians/Americans, Nazis/Jews,blacks/whites, etc.).

The good/bad or good/evil judgment is oftensuperimposed on the duality of spirit and matter,or spirit and body, or Spirit and Nature. Thespiritual realm of the human being is thenregarded as good, light, or higher; and thematerial world, the realm of Nature and the bodyis seen as inferior, dark, fallen or sinful.Sometimes, paradoxically, the superimposition isreversed: The Self, or Spirit, is identified with theshadowit is feared or hated. This happens whenwe deny or reject our higher nature, the spiritual

aspect of our being. Paul Ricoeur, in his book,The Symbolism of Evil (1967), has evensuggested that evil is always essentiallyconnected to the sacred; that it is an inversereflection of the sacred. I suggest a more limitedview. For individuals who have an image of Godas a punitive, terrifying, or judgmental deity, anencounter with the divine or higher Self may wellbe traumatic and overwhelming. We see this kindof ego-annihilating encounter portrayed in thestory of Job, or of Jacob wrestling with theangel, or of Saul on the road to Damascus, beingstruck blind by God.

Our task of transformation in relation to thesedualities is integration: We must bring about acoexistence of the oppositesthe male and thefemale balanced in a wholeness that transcendsboth; the human and the animal integrated in apeaceful inner friendship or alliance; the self andits shadow come to terms. We must make friendswith the inner enemy; or, if not friends, then at

least, and at first, we must get to know our inneradversary. We must get to the point where wecan truthfully say, with the Roman poetTerentius, "nothing that is human is alien to me"(nil humanum mihi alienum).

Throughout history people have experienced thisentity that we call evil in many different ways. Acommon thread is the recognition that somethingis wrong. A mistake has been made or somethinghorrible has occurred, or something uncanny,something that threatens reality. This wrong mustbe corrected or dealt with in some way.

Our feeling of wrongness or mistakennessderives from our capacity for judgment.According to Judaic-Christian mythology, theresult of eating the fruit of the Tree ofKnowledge of Good and Evil was

precisely that Adam and Eve, and all humanitydescended from them, acquired this power ofjudgment. 1 While the ability to makediscriminative judgments is undoubtedlyessential to survival, and hence not something tobe eliminated or suspended, spiritual traditionshave consistently pointed out that this judgingtendency is also one of the chief obstacles to adevelopment of clear understanding. Judgment,especially prejudgment, contracts and distortsour perception, as expressed in Christ's parableabout the beam in our eye, to which we areoblivious while we are judging the mote insomeone else's eye. According to the JewishKabbalah, evil occurs when the function ofdiscrimination or judgment (Gevurah) isseparated from its natural complementlovingkindness or mercy (Hesed). The implication isthat discriminative judgment must be integratedwith kindness or compassion for this opposite to

be transformed.

We must discuss various experiences that humanbeings have had of evil, and the processesinvolved in its transformation. In the first sectionOn Integrating the Shadow, we consider Jung'smetaphor for the dark, evil, or destructive aspectof the psyche, and how this transformativeintegration is brought about. In the secondsection we look at the notion that the dark or evilside of our nature is what the conscious self-concept finds unacceptable; the transformationalchallenge is Accepting the Unacceptable. Asdescribed in the third section, From Denial toAffirmation, that which has been denied, negated,repressed, has to be brought into our awarenessand recognized. In the fourth section,Purification and Elimination, we explore theimagery of evil as sin, corruption, defilement,and how this can be transformed. Then, in thesection entitled From Inner Warfare to InnerPeace, we explore different approaches to the

understanding and resolution of inner conflictand opposition. The final section, On FacingOne's Demons, examines the experiential realitybehind the many myths of demons, devils, andevil spirits.

There is a difference between the judgmentgood/bad and the judgment good/evil, athoughthey have in common that they are bothjudgments imposed on experience. Thejudgments we make are a function of ourconditioningof cultural and familiar values thatwe have accepted. The difference is that badsuggests that something is useless, worthless,inferiorto be ignored, or eliminated, or possiblychanged and made better. We are not horrified bysomething we think of as bad. Evil, on the otherhand, is much more dynamic.

It is a force or tendency that actively opposes thegood, that tries to destroy, negate, tear down,kill. It frightens and horrifies us. Traditionally itwas said that the devil, the embodiment of evil,opposes everything we do towardsenlightenment, or tries to block our approach tothe realm of Spirit, Self, and God.

On Integrating The Shadow

The shadow, in Jung's psychology, is described asa ''dark" (meaning unconscious) aspect of thepersonality. It has an emotional charge andpresents a significant moral opposition to theego-personality. Integrating the shadow isregarded as an essential step in the process ofindividuation. We must be able to recognize andacknowledge the existence in ourselves of dark,destructive tendencies.

A much more difficult task confronts us when, as

is often the case, the dark aspects within are notrecognized, and the intense, primitive feelings areprojected onto other people in our environment.They, the others, then are the ones who are bad,evil or dangerous; this permits us to maintainunconsciousness of our own dark aspects. AsJung wrote, "projections change the world intothe replica of one's own unknown face." 2 Theprojections need to be withdrawn: we need to"own" our shadow, so that its destructive impactcan be neutralized within our own psyche. This isundoubtedly one of the most difficult and elusiveproblems we may encounter in our self-examination, or in psychotherapy.

The principal reason for working on integratingthe shadow aspect in ourselves is that we cannotrecognize it for what it is when it is bound up inprojections. This was Jung's analysis of thephenomenon of Hitler and the Germans: Becausethe German people denied the existence of theshadow aspect within themselves, they did not

recognize the incarnation of the collectiveshadow represented by Hitler (C. G. Jung, 1970).Many thousands of Germans, including Jews,simply refused to believe what they heard aboutconcentration camps. And yet clearly, for aperson to be susceptible to being influenced bythe collective shadow, as the Germans wereinfluenced by Hitler, there has to be somecorrespondence in the individual's psychicconstitution. We must have within us some ofthat same tendency. It is this personalcorrespondence that makes us vulnerable toinfection by the collective shadow as expressedby psychopathic

demagogues or propagandists. We need to makeourselves immune to the propaganda of evil.

More current examples of this phenomenon canbe found in the political rhetoric of East andWest. Some American politicians and journalistsfoster the image of the Russians as the "enemy"(the word "evil" has even been used about them),which means that we deny the same behavior andattitudes in ourselves; and Russians, of course,similarly see in us only capitalist warmongers.The dangerous consequences of such delusionalprojections to the peace and stability of the entireworld are painfully obvious. 3

It may seem unbelievable, but it is a fact thatopposites, such as black and white,metaphorically represent the individual and his orher inner opponent; they may occur as symbols indreams and altered state experiences and cancreate conflict. For example, to a member of the

white race, black may symbolize bad or evil. Itmust be remembered that we are dealing with thesymbolic language of the psyche, in which anyform or pattern can be used to stand for any otherform or pattern.

The most immediate conclusion of practicalvalue for self-transformation that one coulddraw from this metaphor is that each of us needsto discover how we symbolize to ourselves theaspect of our personality referred to as theshadow. In some of us it might be a black or darkperson; in others it might be a white person; inyet others, a beast. Their effect on us is whatdefines these images: They frighten, threaten,attack, violate, and oppose us in every way.Those images we find ourselves avoiding ortrying to suppress are precisely the ones we mustbring into the light of awareness.

Accepting The Unacceptable

While it is probably true for most people that the

"shadow" is a kind of aggregate of destructive,violent, and aggressive impulses, this need notalways be the cast. For example, a professionalkiller or psychopathic sadist who consciouslyand intentionally indulges in destructive ormurderous actions, is not expressing the shadowside. Such an individual has no difficultyaccepting and expressing feelings of murderoushatred, and this behavior is not the opposite ofany conscious purpose or conscience in theirpsyche.

For such people, values are reversed, and theycannot recognize or express feelings oftenderness, compassion or kindness. What is inthe shadow, in the darkness of unconsciousness,are the good feelings and impulses. Fortransformation to take place in these people,there must be an integration of these goodfeelings.

We all clearly differ in which of our traits andqualities we regard as unacceptable. For some itmay be sexuality, for others aggressiveness, foryet others, laziness or inertia. One person'sshadow may be quite innocuous and acceptableto another. What makes some part of our natureshadow is not its destructiveness per se; it is thefact that we are unconscious of this aspect. Thatwhich is consciously unacceptable to us, yet livessomehow in the unconscious layers of thepsyche, is what causes problems.

Thus, in some ways, the notion of somethingunacceptable, and therefore hidden, is perhapsmore appropriate than the symbol of the shadow(something dark). One may have a feeling ofrejection or exclusion toward some part of thepsychesome thought, feeling, or impulse. Thispart is excluded from awareness, and from theconscious sense of self, or identity. This alienelement is rejected, split off, separated fromawareness, not acknowledged. In the process ofindividuation it must be acknowledged andassimilated. For wholeness, we need to acceptthe unacceptablea paradoxical challenge indeed!

It is quite likely that this process of splitting offor rejecting may have an influence in theformation of diseases such as cancer. It has beensuggested, on the basis of evidence such as thefantasy processes of cancer patients, that in somecases the disease represents a kind of congealingof a split-off negative emotional charge such asanger, grief, fear, or some other feeling that is

found incompatible with the dominant self-image. 4

The work of R. D. Laing on what he calls "thedivided self" has clearly described the process ofsplitting off parts of oneself, or one's self-image,in psychosis. Such splitting may take the form ofa false self versus a true self, or a good selfversus a bad self. Laing cites examples ofpsychotic patients who experience themselves asmachines or robots, or objects, or animals, ormonsterssomething nonhuman or antihuman(Laing, 1969).

I would like to suggest the term schizon as analternative for shadow in instances where we aredealing with an experience of

rejecting or excluding an aspect of our nature.The splitting-off of the schizon can be seen as adefensive reaction, similar in intent to projectionof the shadow onto another person. We separatethat part of ourselves because we find itunacceptable to the ego, to our conscious self-image. That part of our identity is sent intointernal exile. The schizon, like the shadow, isperceived as a threat to the ego; it is feared,avoided, hated, or denied and ignored. 5

Beside projecting our unacceptable side ontoothers, another common way of dealing with it isto hide it in the unconscious recesses of thepsyche, isolating it from awareness. Freud, whodiscovered this mechanism, called it repressioninGerman, Verdrängung, literally "a pushingaway." In the Basque culture, the word for thisunacknowledged part of our nature that causesus to behave in violent and destructive ways is

oshua, which means "the hidden" (A. Arrien,personal communication). The well-known mythof King Minos, who had an elaborate labyrinthbuilt in order to hide the monstrous, devouringMinotaur, gives expression to this theme. Thefolktale of Bluebeard, who murdered his spousesand kept their skeletons hidden in a closet, towhich he forbade entry, is another metaphor forthis process; this is the prototype of the well-known "skeleton-in-the-closet" motif.

We want to hide this unacceptable part, thisschizon, from ourselves, but we are rarely able tohide it completely from others, because others donot necessarily have the same difficulty in seeingthis aspect of our character. For example, if Ihave a self-image that does not allow me toexpress rage, then I will defensively hide everyurge to express it openly. I will be unconsciousof the feeling of rage, and of my (nonverbal)expression of it. Other people, however, are notlikely to be invested in my image of myself as

being without rage, and they will perceive myfeelings.

This situation is symbolized in the OldTestament story of Cain and Abel. After themurder of Abel, Cain complains that he now hasto hide from the world. But he also wears themark of the murderer. Hiding draws attention toitself. The Jewish midrashim tells us that afterthe murder of Abel, the eye of God, or in someversions, the voice of God, followed Cain allover the world. This is the eye, or voice ofconscience, from which we cannot hide becauseit is the eye of the Self within. From the point ofview of the little self, the

ego-personality, this is the guilty conscience, thevengeful or punitive super-ego.

The eye of God (of Self) sees everything that weare and do. But in relationship to others we wantto hide the schizon, the antihuman behavior,because we cannot face it and we do not wantothers to see it. Traditionally, in religiousmythology, the face of evil is unimaginable andis not to be perceived. This may well underlie theuse of masks or disguises by practitioners of evil,such as Inquisitors, torturers, or the KKK. The"Star Wars" film epics, with mythic insight, showDarth Vader, the personification of evil, wearinga metallic, inhuman mask. The mask turns theperpetrators of evil into faceless nonpersons.They are not recognized, hidden in the shadowsof darkness and concealment, just as our ownunacceptable side is hidden in theunconsciousness of the shadow, or the psychic

exile of the schizon.

For the process of transformation, the symbolismof both shadow and mask underscores theimportance of awareness and recognition. Thatwhich is hidden in the shadow or behind themask, in the depths of our own psyche, must beseen and identified. I cannot integrate someaspect of myself unless and until I can recognizeit for what it is. By recognizing and identifyingevil, we neutralize its power, which is based onconcealment and masking. This is as true ofcollective manifestations of evil as it is of theindividual's intrapsychic process. If there hadbeen more Germans able and willing to callattention to the genocidal death camps of theNazis, that particular holocaust might not havegone as far as it did. The one thing that can stopstate-endorsed torture and murder is to expose itto the eyes of the world: to document and callattention to it, as the work of the AmnestyInternational organization has demonstrated.

As a way of making this theme more concreteand personal, I offer the following exercise inself-awareness: Ask yourself what about yourselfyou most want to hide. What thought or impulsedo you have that you least want anyone else toknow about? Try accepting the possibility thatyou might do that, or be like that. To face theshadow, or the hidden evil side of our psyche,requires courage and inspires humility. Itrequires courage because the dark face isterrifying and destructive. It inspires humilitybecause our self-image and self-esteem aredefinitely diminished by such a confrontation.

From Denial To Affirmation

The question naturally arises as to why it isapparently so difficult for human beings totransform their negative complex, when all thatis needed is to recognize it, identify it, andunderstand it. The reason for the difficulty iswhat Western psychology call unconsciousness,and Indian traditions call avidya, ignorance, not-knowing. These threatening elements of thepsyche remain unconscious and unknownprecisely because we deny that we have them.This points up the important role of denial andnegation in the splitting off of these factors, andtheir repression into unconsciousness.

It was Sigmund Freud who first pointed out thatrepression, the pushing of something into theunconscious, involves a process that is an exactanalogy to the linguistic function of negation. 6

Denial and repression say "no" to the impuse, orthought, or wish that is being repressed ordefended against. In the situation referred toearlier, where we see someone behaving in a waythat we consciously regard as bad or evil, we arelikely to think (and perhaps say), "I could neverdo that." In other words, the thought or impulseis denied. This created a kind of split-off area ofconsciousness referred to as the unconscious, tomaintain that negation and denial. Repressionand denial, repeated countless times in theprocess of growing up and living, create a systemof inhibitions and prohibitions, defensive walls,that can end up being a kind of prison of themind.

We all know the young child, the three- or four-year-old that we once were, and partly still are,who vehemently announces "No, I won't." This isnormal resistance and negation, the egoexercising its power to set its own limits. Inrelation to spiritual development, the function of

negation and resistance is metaphoricallyassociated with the devil. In Goethe's Faust,Mephistopheles introduces himself as "the spiritwho always says 'no'" (der Geist der stetsverneint). Psychologically, when we attempt,through denial, to impose our own ego-will onthe ever-changing life process, we are, in a way,playing the same game as the devil.

This process, experienced mentally as negation,emotionally as rejection and exclusion, andperceptually as a hiding and concealing, is astoppage, a blocking of life-energy flow. Thesum of these blocks and holding patterns thathinder life-energy flow was symbolized byWilhem Reich as the armorthe character armorwhich is also

a muscular armor. According to Reich, thefunction of this armor is to defend the egoagainst unacceptable impulses, to block or negatethe experience and the expression of theseimpulses.

The armor functions as a kind of prison fromwhich we try to break out. Reich was impressedby the extent to which the armoring process leadsto reactions of rage and violence, as the armoredindividual unconsciously tries to break throughthe defensive armoring. In this attempt there is animmense concentration of destructive rage,precisely the kind of behavior that we wouldtraditionally attribute to the devil and regard asopposed to the life force. This is why Reichconcluded that the armor was the source of man'sdiabolical violence. "I seriously believe that inthe rigid, chronic armoring of the human animal,we have found the answer to the question of his

enormous destructive hatred . . . we havediscovered the realm of the devil" (Reich, 1949).

Another perspective on the role of denial andnegation in the conflict of good and eviltendencies can be obtained by considering thenature of lying. In European Christian theologyand folklore, one of the devil's common modesof operating was to sow seeds of doubt, toquestion, to suggest that perhaps it was not so. Inthis way, the devil was the slanderer,undermining people's faith and belief in divinereality. Denying the existence and sovereignty ofGod and the saving efficacy of the Holy Ghostwas regarded as the most serious, unpardonablesin, inspired of course by the devil, the "one whoalways denies." 7

We typically experience the conflict betweengood and evil tendencies in our nature as a kindof struggle between yes and no. A part of usaffirms life and another part of us denies it.Freud identified this struggle between yes and no

as the struggle between the sexual and agressiveimpulses of the animal-like id and the rational,human ego. He argued that it was a necessary andinevitable consequence of civilized existence.The experience of doubt is another yes versus nosituation: When we are in a state of doubt, weare "of two minds" about something. One part ofus believes it, says yes to it; another part deniesit, says no.

We can see that denial per se is not necessarilyevil or destructive. If the impulse is bad ordestructive, then denying it and inhibiting it maywell be the path of the good. In the most basicterms, the word no sets a limit, it defines asituation. Any form or pattern has

a limit or boundary. That boundary says no to afurther expansion of the process within thatform. So the no is necessary to set a limit to theyes. In the struggle between them we experiencethe chronic split in our nature. And we alsogenerate the energy for the process oftransformation. 8

I recommend the following exercise inawareness: Observe what it is you often findyourself denying. What are you saying no to inyourself? The exercise becomes a transformativeone if we then accept those things as part of ourexperience. To accept them does not mean we actout the baser impulses; rather, we accept the factthat we experience them and that they exist. Wecan say yes to the feeling or impulse while sayingno, setting limits, to its expression where notappropriate. Thus both sides are acknowledged.

Purification and Elimination

A variation on the theme of something in usbeing dark like a shadow, or being split off like aschizon, is the common image that something inour nature is covered with dirt, or polluted, ortainted, and needs to be purified. People whohave a strong puritanical upbringing areparticularly susceptible to this metaphor. Indreams, meditations, or psychedelic experiences,they may find themselves dealing with issues ofdefilement, pollution and the corruption of theflesh.

There are many examples of this particularmetaphor in the New Testament. Insane orobsessed individuals were said to be inhabited by"unclean spirits." Jesus drove unclean spirits outof a man and into a herd of pigs. Our sins arecompared to stains on the radiant, pure soul. Thesoul must be "washed in the blood of the lamb,"to remove the stain of original sin. Thismetaphor for evil or sin is linked to ancient

purification taboos and practices.

There are basically two possible postures that weadopt in relationship to something that we find inourselves or in others that we regard as pollutedor impure: either we want to purify and cleanseit, or we want to excrete and eliminate it. Ipropose that the biological excretion of fecalwaste may be the organic and experiential basisfor the judgment of bad in the child. What isexcreted is bad for the body, and young children,through instinct or learning, come to regardexcrement as bad, worthless, to be eliminated.This may also

explain why children and adults, in moments ofanger, refer to bad things or events as "shit."

In some individuals, and in some cultures, thejudgment that something is bad and therefore tobe eliminated becomes a judgment that it is eviland therefore to be feared and condemned. Thereexists a fairly widespread association of thefunctions and organs of excretion with evil andthe devil that has never been satisfactorilyexplained. 9 The great reformer Martin Luther,for example, habitually referred to the devil assomething black and filthy, and he uses homelyGerman anal terminology (bescheissen, etc.) todescribe his recommended attitude toward thedevil.

In some Christian paintings of Hell or the LastJudgment, the devil, chief of the demons, isshown excreting sinners through his anus. Insome branches of Hindu mythology, the origin of

evil is explained as emanating from certain partsof the body of the creator, Brahma, whether it bethe penis, or most often, the anus. In one mythiccycle, human beings are seen as having beencreated as the excretions of Brahma. Somechildren believe that babies come fromdefecation.

According to his metaphor, then, something thatis evil or bad is a blemish, pollution, or feces. Itshould be eliminated before it corrupts theorganism or psyche in which it is found. This isessentially the peculiar rationale that underlay theNazis' bizarre theories of racial purity. Thisgrotesque and genocidal perversion should notcause us to overlook the valid principle thatwaste matter or toxins in any organism orsystem, if retained, become pathological andmust therefore be eliminated for the preservationof health and normal functioning of that system.

The alternative to elimination of somethingputrid and rotten is purification. Purification and

elimination can be regarded as two principalmeans for dealing with corrupt elements in thepsyche. As such, they are aspects of the generalprocess of integrating the shadow andreconciling the opposites.

From Inner Warfare to Inner Peace

In some of our experience, the duality of goodand evil is felt as a defensive stand-off, aseparation, a gulf, a rejection. We areunconscious of the shadow aspects, blind to ourfaults, we want to

separate from that in us which we feel is rotten.In other phases of our experience, there is a moreactive struggle or conflict going on. We maylove and hate simultaneously, or feel bothattraction and aversion toward the same object orperson. We may be in turmoil as our fears andinhibitions struggle with impulses of lust oraggression. In meditative states, or dreams, orpsychedelic visions, we may witness what seemslike a clash of opposing tendencies in our psyche,like armies battling in the night.

The task of personal transformation is to turnthis inner warfare to inner peace. We need tocome to terms with "enemies," both inner andouter. The clashing opposites must be reconciled.Forces, tendencies, and impulses that are lockedin seemingly endless conflict must learn tocoexist. I used to believe one had to make friendswith the inner enemy, the shadow self. I now feel

that making friends is perhaps not necessary, thatthis "other side" of our nature may always stay inopposition to our true nature. We may want tokeep this figure, to function as what Castaneda'sDon Juan calls a "worthy opponent," for warriortraining. But we need to understand this enemy.Making friends with the inner enemy may bepossible. Getting to know him or her is essential.

All spiritual tradition agree that the seeds ofwarfare, the violent, destructive forces are withinus, as are the peaceful, harmonizing forces. AHindu teacher, Swami Sivananda, writes, "theinward battle against the mind, the sense, thesubconscious tendencies (vasanas), and theresidues of prior experiences (samskaras), ismore terrible than any outward battle" (Perry,1971, p. 397). A text by one of the fathers of theEastern Church, from the Philokalia, states,"there is a warfare where evil spirits secretlybattle with the soul by means of thoughts. Sincethe soul is invisible, these malicious powers

attack and fight it invisibly" (Perry, 1971, p.410). The good Christian, in order to be saved, isexhorted to battle temptations, to ward offdemonic invaders and harmful externalinfluences. A poem by the Persian Sufi Rumistates: "We have slain the outward enemy, butthere remains within us a worse enemy than he.This nafs (animal self, or lower self) is hell, andhell is a dragon. . . ." (Perry, 1971, p. 397). I citethis imagery because it illustrates howwidespread, across many religious traditions, isthis symbolism of inner warfare.

As a psychologist, I have been investigating themany metaphors used to describe thetransformation process in order to determine

their origin. 10 I pose the question: How does thefeeling of being in a state of inner conflict arisein us in the first place? And I suggest partialanswers to this question from three differentperspectives: the personal/developmental, theevolutionary/historical, and thetheological/mythical.

The personal/developmental basis for theexperience of conflict may very well be (in part)the phenomenon of sibling rivalry in earlychildhood. Competition between brothers andsisters for the attention and approval of theparents and other adults is extremely common.This competitive attitude may be maintained intoadulthood and carried over into personal andwork relationships with peers. Alternatively, itmay be internalized, so that one feels that there isan inferior and superior self-image competingand struggling with each other. The founder of

gestalt therapy, Fritz Perls, called this theconflict between top dog and underdog.

There are numerous myths about bitter andprotracted competition between rival brothers,such as Cain and Abel, or Osiris and Seth, andstories about hostile sisters, such as Cinderella,or the daughters of King Lear, that illustrate thistheme of sibling competition. From theperspective of the psychology of transformation,we interpret such stories as referring to aninternal process. Both the good sibling and thewicked sibling are aspects of our own nature. Inthe words of the English Boehme discipleWilliam Law, ''You are under the power of noother enemy, are held in no other captivity, andwant no other deliverance but from the power ofyour own earthly self. This is the murderer of thedivine life within you. It is your own Cain thatmurders your own Abel."11

In addition to its childhood origin in siblingrivalry, this theme of inner conflict also has

probable evolutionary and historicalantecedentsthe age-old, long-continuingstruggles between tribes and societies forterritory and economic survival. The cutthroatcompetition of the haves and the have-nots is adeeply ingrained factor in the consciousness ofthe human race. Whether humanity, as a species,can transform this territorial and economiccompetition into peaceful and cooperativecoexistence is perhaps our most difficultchallenge.

Going even further back into mammalianevolution, one could speculate about thepossible residue in human genetic memory of themillions of years of competitive interactionbetween predators and prey. The ecologist PaulShepard has argued that the predator

carnivores developed a different sort ofconsciousness, a different kind of attention fromthe prey herbivores, related to their different livesof hunting or escaping (Shepard, 1978). Predatorintelligence is searching, aggressive, tuned tostalking and hunting. Prey intelligence iscautious, expectant, tranquil, but ready forinstant flight. I suggest that these different stylesof awareness, these opposing modes of relating,form a kind of substrate to the human experienceof aggressors (predators) and victims (prey). Dowe not still hunt, prey on and victimize ourfellow humans for survival? Do we not still, inthe paranoid mode, vigilantly watch for threats,prepared to flee or defend?

In the human imagination, the encounter with theshadow is often experienced as a confrontationwith a dangerous beast. When the ideal-ego feelsattacked by a monster who emerges out of the

unconscious, it feels like a victim.Transformation involves realizing that this ideal-ego is also the beast, the aggressor, the predator.We are both the hunter and the hunted. When werealize this, then the two can make peacefirstwithin, and then in external relationships. In thefinal days, when planetary transformation iscompleted, according to ancient prophecies, "thelion and the lamb shall lie down together";erstwhile victims and aggressors will coexistpeacefully.

The third perspective on the origin of the innerconflict is theological/mythical. Many ancientmythologies offer a cosmic story of the worldinherently split by discord and strife. Heraclitussaid: "War (of opposites) is the father and king ofall." In the Zoroastrian religion of ancient Persia,competition between the forces of light anddarkness was given a most dramatic expression:Here we find the myth of the long-drawnstruggle, and alternating rulership of the world

between Ahura-Mazda, the Light Creator, andAhriman, the Prince of Darkness. This Zorastrianconception of a fundamental cosmic dualismundoubtedly had a profound influence on boththe Jewish and the Christian religions. TheManichaeans and Gnostics were particularlyaffected by this myth, with their strong emphasison the fundamental duality of the Creator and theparallel duality of the created cosmos. 12

In this complex of conflict and warfare, made upof personal, evolutionary, and mythologicalelements, we find the story of man's inhumanityto mandestructiveness, violence, cruelty, sadism,intentional injury, and violation of another'sphysical or psychological integrity. Recalling theearlier discussion of judgment, I offer the

following perspective on these manifestations ofhuman evil: They represent a combination ofjudgmentalism with violent rage. The judgmentis expressed and acted upon in a destructive andaggressive way. Those who are judged bad, orevil, or opposite, are attacked and destroyed.

To put it another way, the judgment that isrendered serves as a rationalization for the nakedexpression of rage. The rationalization may beliterary or aesthetic, as with the Marquis de Sade;or it may be spuriously racial or genetic, as withHitler's genocidal holocaust; or it may bereligious, as with the torturers of theInquisitionthe pattern is everywhere the same.The conflict of the judge-persecutor with thejudged victim is perhaps the most vicious of allthe warring opposites we know. This variant isalso played out within the psyche: We areourselves the punitive judge (in Freudian terms,

the superego) and the punished victim ofpersecution (psychologically, the guilt-riddenego).

For transformation to take place, we need tolearn to become wise, impartial judges ofourselves, not punitive, vindictive judges. Andagain, we must start by realizing that theopposing enemies, the clashing and competingforces, are all withinboth the judge and theaccused, the jailor and the prisoner, theexecutioner and the condemned.

On Facing One's Demons

In traditional and contemporary folk religions,demons are the relatives of the devilthey arepersonifications of evil forces, of alien anddestructive influences and impulses. They aredefinitely regarded as something outside of us,something not-self. In primitive or nativecultures, living in a state of "participationmystique" with Nature, demons, like giants,

often represent the destructive, violent energiesof hurricanes, storms, lightning, wildfires,avalanches, floods, earthquakes, or volcaniceruptions. By inventing or imagining livingbeings, whether spirits or demons, who guidethese forces, their terrifying character issomehow made more tolerable.

Conversely, our own inner states may at timesfeel to us to be out of control, like the forces ofNature. We then find it natural to describe theseinner states as analogous to these forcefulaspects of Nature. We speak of someone as a"tempestuous character," or of

being in a "stormy mood," or "flooded withgrief," or having a ''volcanic explosion" oftemper. Our inner life, like Nature around us,seems at times to be dominated by violent,clashing energies that seem alien andoverwhelmingly powerful to us. This is oneaspect of the experience of the demonic.

In the East, both Hindu and Buddhist mythologyoffers a somewhat different perspective ondemons, or asuras, also known as "angry gods,"or "titans." In many myths, the asuras are seen asplaying a kind of counterpart role to the goodgods, or devas. They are the opponents of thegods, analogous to a kind of cosmic Mafia, withvalues opposite to those of normal humans andgods. In the Buddhist Wheel of Life, whichsymbolically portrays six different types of livesone can be born into, the world of asuras is oneof the six worlds, one possibility for existence.

Buddhists say these demons are dominated byfeelings of pride, jealousy, and anger, and areengaged in perpetual competitive struggle andconflict.

From a psychological point of view, we are inthis world of demons when we are dominated byfeelings of pride, jealousy, anger, andcompetitive struggle. The mythic picture of theasuras is shown to us as a kind of reminder ofhow our feelings, our thoughts, and ourintentions create the kind of reality in which welive. The chaotic, murderous existence of thedemons and of humans dominated by demons, isan external consequence of an inner state. 13

In Western culture, the concept of demon has aninteresting history. For the Greeks and Romans,the "daimon" (Latin "genius") was not evil at allbut was a protective spirit, a divine guardian,something like what later European folklorecalled the "guardian angel." Socrates was wont tosay that he would converse with his daimon in

order to obtain guidance. It is only under the laterinfluence of Christianity that the word demoncame to connote something malevolent ordestructive. As is well known, Christianitytended to turn old pagan gods such as Pan andDionysus into devils or demons.14

Generally speaking, there appears to be a muchgreater tendency in the Western, Judaic-Christiantradition to polarize good and evil as absoluteopposites. Only the three monotheistic religionshave a concept of an evil deitythe devil or Satan,who opposes God and the spiritual aspirations ofhuman beings. In the Asian traditions and in theEgyptian and Greek polytheistic religions, wemore often find a pluralistic view that accepts amultitude of different perspectives

and states of being of various origins and values.And although there may be numerous harmfulspirits, demons, and enemies, there is not onepersonification of all evil. There are gods ofdeathHades, Pluto, Yama, Marabut these are notlike the devil or Satan.

The figure of Satan, at least in Western culture,has all the traits and qualities that are part of ourshadow or unacceptable side. He is the liar, theslanderer, the destroyer, the deceiver, the tempter,the one who brings guilt and shame, theadversary, the unclean and dark one, who deniesand negates everything that enlarges and enhanceslife, who opposes everything that we value andhold most sacred. 15

In Jungian terms, the devil represents orembodies the collective shadow of the entireWestern Judaic-Christian civilization. He is anamalgamated projection of the shadow image of

all the thousands and millions of individuals whohave believed in him through the centuries. Aswith other projections, by attributing darkimpulses and feelings to the devil, someone not-self, one is relieved of any responsibility forthemas expressed in that most classic of allexcuses, "the devil made me do it." Satan existsin the same sense that the ancient gods andgoddesses exist and live in the psyches ofindividuals who express their qualities andcharacteristics, whether consciously orunconsciously. The legion of forms and namesthat the devil can take, the many variations onthis theme of clashing opposites, are a tribute tothe creative imagination of human beings.

This is the multifarious figure whose featurescan be detected somewhere behind the persona-mask of every man and woman. It is the beastthat haunts every beauty, the monster that awaitsevery hero on his quest. But if we recognize,acknowledge, and come to terms with it, a great

deal of knowledge formerly hidden, unconscious,in the shadows, becomes conscious. When werecognize this devil as an aspect of ourselves,then the shadow functions as a teacher andinitiator, showing us our unknown face,providing us with the greatest gift of allself-understanding. The conflict of opposites isresolved into a creative play of energies andlimitations.

Notes

1. Modern psychobiological research suggeststhat this kind of primitive emotional valuejudgment may be mediated by the mid-brain, orlimbic

system, also known as the "mammalian brain,"which controls emotional reactions of "fightor flight" in animals and humans. See CarlSagan's The Dragons of Eden (New York:Ballantine Books, 1977) and Melvin Konner'sThe Tangled Wing (New York: Holt,Rinehart & Winston, 1982), for a discussionof the emotions and the limbic system in thebrain.

2. C. G. Jung, "The Shadow," in Aion (CollectedWorks, Vol. 9, II, Bollingen Series XX.Princeton University Press, 1968), p. 9. Othersignificant discussions of the nature of evil, froma Jungian perspective, may be found in EdwardEdinger's Ego and Archetype (New York:Penguin Books, 1972); and in Archetypes, byAnthony Stevens (New York: Quill, 1983). Twoother books that have influenced my thinking onthis subject are Ernest Becker, Escape from Evil

(New York: Free Press, 1976), and DavidBakan, The Duality of Human Existence(Chicago: Rand McNally, 1966).

3. There are some hopeful signs that thedivisiveness of this kind of delusional projectionand paranoia is beginning to be understood anddiscussed. In early 1983, a conference was heldin San Francisco, called "Faces of the Enemy,"on the perceptions by Russians and Americans ofeach other. See The Tarrytown Letter(Tarrytown, NY, 10591), No. 38, April 1984;and Evolutionary Blues (Box 40187, SanFrancisco, CA 94140), especially the interviewwith Robert Fuller.

4. See a most interesting paper by Philip Lansky,M.D., "Possibility of Hypnosis as an Aid toCancer Therapy," in Perspectives in Biology andMedicine, Vol. 23 (3), Spring, 1982. If this viewis correct, it would help explain the otherwisemysterious processes of "remission" thatsometimes occur, as well as the sometimes

healing effects of imagery processes in cancer,pioneered by Dr. Carl O. Simonton. Differentindividuals would have different capacities toaccept the unacceptable parts of their nature, andthis would affect healing and recovery.

5. What I am calling "schizon" here, to drawattention to the split-off character of this psychicfragment, is called by Jung, and Freud, a"complex." Jung writes, "We can take it asmoderately certain that complexes are in fact'splinter psyches.'" (C. G. Jung, "A Review of theComplex Theory," in The Structure andDynamics of the Psyche (Collected Works, Vol.8, Bollingen Series XX, Princeton UniversityPress, 1969), pp. 96-98.

6. In his paper "Negation," first published in1925, Freud wrote that "a repressed image orthought can make its way into consciousness oncondition that it is denied." S. Freud. GeneralPsychological Theory, New York: LiverightPublishing Co., 1935., pp. 213-214.

7. The English word "devil" comes from theLatin diabolus, which in turn is derived from theGreek diaballein, to slander or lie, literally "tothrow (ballein) across (dia-)." In English folk-speech we have the interesting phrase "to putsomething over" on someone, meaning to lie ortrick themwhich still reflects this etymologicalorigin.

8. The Russian teacher G. I. Gurdjieff made astrong case for the notion that the conflict ofopposites within human consciousness, thestruggle between "yes" and "no," generates a kindof friction, and this friction

provides an energy necessary for "work ononeself." (P. D. Ouspensky, In Search of theMiraculous. New York: Harcourt, Brace &Jovanovich, 1965), pp. 32-33.

9. Norman O. Brown devoted a major portion ofhis study of psychoanalysis and historyLifeAgainst Death (Middletown, CT: WesleyanUniversity Press, 1959)to an exploration of themeanings and implications of anality. W. D.O'Flaherty, in The Origins of Evil in HinduMythology (Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress, 1977), discusses Indian myths that seehumans as emitted from the anus of Brahma, theCreator. Stanislav Grof, in his Realms of theHuman Unconscious (New York: E. P. Dutton,1976), has described excremental visions in LSDtherapy that derive from memories of the birthexperience. In his paper "Perinatal Origins ofWars, Totalitarianism, and Revolutions:

(Journal of Psychohistory, Vol 4., No. 3,Winter, 1977), Grof applies his LSD findings tothe phenomena of the concentration camps. Thefolklorist Alan Dundes, in his book Life is Like aChicken Coop Ladder, has examined andpresented German folklore and literature forevidence of anality as a trait of the Germannational character, with significant implicationsfor an understanding of the Nazi holocaust.

10. Ralph Metzner, Opening to Inner LightTheTransformation of Human Nature andConsciousness (J. P. Tarcher, 1986). Myanalysis of transformation metaphors hasbenefited greatly from the philosophical work ofGeorge Lakoff and Mark Johnson, MetaphorsWe Live By (University of Chicago Press, 1980),who have made a strong case for the ubiquity ofimplicit metaphors in everyday speech andthought.

11. Quoted in A. K. Coomaraswamy, "Who isSatan and Where is Hell?" in Selected Papers,

Satan and Where is Hell?" in Selected Papers,Vol. 2., ed. Roger Lipsey, Bollingen SeriesLXXXIX, Princeton University Press, 1977.

12. See Mircea Eliade, History of ReligiousIdeas, Vol. I, (University of Chicago Press,1978), pp. 302-333, for Zoroastrianism, andVol. II, pp. 387-395, for Manichaeism.

13. The Buddhist Wheel of Life, which plays aparticularly important role in the TibetanBuddhist tradition, shows a circle divided intosix sections, or "worlds." (Francesca Freemantle& Chögyam Trungpa, trans., The Tibetan Bookof the Dead. Boulder, CO: Shambhala, 1975).These worlds may be regarded as symbolizing (1)different incarnations or lifetimes of humanbeings, or (2) different personality types, or (3)different states of consciousness that anyonecould find themselves in.

14. A. K. Coomaraswamy, in Selected Papers,Vol. 2 (See note 11), writes "Agathos and Kakosdaimons, fair and foul selves, Christ and Anti-

daimons, fair and foul selves, Christ and Anti-Christ, both inhabit us, and their opposition iswithin us. Heaven and Hell are the dividedimages of Love and Wrath in divinis, one inGod, and it remains for every man to put themtogether again within himself." An excellentdiscussion of the concept of daimon in classicalantiquity, and how this may be understood interms of depth psychology is in M.-L. vonFranz's Projection and Re-collection in JungianPsychology: Reflections of the Soul. (La Salle,IL., Open Court, 1980).

15. The history and meaning of the figure of thedevil has inspired numerous studies, of which Imention the following two books by Jeffrey B.Russel: The DevilPerceptions of Evil FromAntiquity to Primitive Christianity (Ithaca:Cornell University Press, 1977); and SatanTheEarly Christian Tradition (Ithaca: CornellUniversity Press, 1981). A doctoral dissertationwith interesting findings was written by EliotIsenberg, "The Experience of EvilAPhenomenological Study." (California Instituteof Integral Studies, 1983).

References

Jung, C. G. (1970). The fight with the shadow. InCivilization in transition. Collected works, Vol.10 (pp. 218-226). Bollingen Series XX.Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press.

Laing, R. D. (1969). The divided self. New

York: Pantheon Books.

Perry, W. N. (Ed.). (1971). Treasury oftraditional wisdom, New York: Simon &Schuster.

Reich, W. (1949). Ether, god and devil (p. 120).New York: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux.

Ricoeur, P. (1967). The symbolism of evil. NewYork: Harper & Row.

Shepard, P. (1978). Thinking animals: Animalsand the development of human intelligence (pp.11-13). New York: Penguin/Viking Books.

Chapter FiveModern Consciousness Research and HumanSurvival

Stanislav Grof, M.D., Ph.D.

One of the most significant implications ofmodern consciousness research for psychiatryand psychotherapy has been an entirely newstatus and image of the human psyche.Mechanistic science has portrayed consciousnessas an epiphenomenon and product of highlydeveloped matterthe brain. The traditional modelof the human psyche that dominates academicpsychiatry is personalistic and biographicallyoriented. It describes the newborn as a tabula rasa(an erased tablet or clean slate) and putsexclusive emphasis on postnatal biographicalinfluences on the individual.

The observations of the last few decades havedrastically changed our understanding of therelationship between consciousness and matterand of the dimensions of the psyche. They showconsciousness as an equal partner of matter, orpossibly even supraordinated to matter, andcreative intelligence as inextricably woven intothe fabric of the universe. In the light of thesenew discoveries, the human psyche appears to beessentially commensurate with all of existence.The modern scientific world-view is thus rapidlyconverging with that of the great mysticaltraditions of all ages (Huxley, 1944).

I will describe here this new image of reality andof human nature in the light of more than threedecades of research of nonordinary states ofconsciousness that I have conducted in Prague,Czechoslovakia, and in the United States.Although I will focus primarily on the data frommy own research, the conclusions are directlyapplicable to other fields studying human beings

that have accumulated observations incompatiblewith the mechanistic world-view, such as

Jungian psychology, anthropology, laboratoryconsciousness studies, and thanatology (Grof,1983, 1985; Ring, 1980, 1984).

The observations and data to which I will refercame from two major sourcesapproximately twodecades of psychedelic research with LSD andother psychoactive substances and ten years ofwork with various experiential nondrugtechniques. Since the issues related topsychedelic drugs belong to the mostcontroversial topics in the world and areassociated with many misconceptions, I mustemphasize that this work, both in Europe and inthe United States, was government-sponsoredand medically supervised research conducted inthe Psychiatric Research Institute in Prague,Czechoslovakia, and in the Maryland PsychiatricResearch Center in Baltimore, Md., respectively.Its various aspects have been descibed in several

other publications (Grof, 1976, 1980; Grof &Grof, 1980).

Participants in the psychedelic research programscovered a very wide range, from normalvolunteers, through various categories ofpsychiatric patients, to individuals dying ofcancer. The nonpatient population consisted ofclinical psychiatrists and psychologists,scientists, artists, philosophers, theologians,students, and psychiatric nurses. The patientswith emotional disorders belonged to variousdiagnostic categories; they includedpsychoneurotics, alcoholics, narcotic drugaddicts, sexual deviants, persons withpsychosomatic disorders, borderline cases, andschizophrenics. In the cancer study that includedover 150 patients with advanced forms ofmalignancy, the objective was not treatment ofcancer, but relief from emotional and physicalpain and change of the attitude toward deaththrough deep mystical experiences induced by

psychedelics (Grof & Grof, 1980).

The data are based on more than 4,000psychedelic sessions that I have conductedpersonally, and from records of over 2,000sessions run by my colleagues in Czechoslovakiaand in the United States. The two differentapproaches that were used in this work are calledthe psycholytic and the psychedelic therapeutictechniques; they differ in their treatment stategiesand in their underlying philosophies (Grof,1980).

The original motive for the use of LSD and otherpsychedelic drugs was to explore their potentialto intensify, deepen, and accelerate thetherapeutic process in Freudian analysis.However, when I started using LSD as atherapeutic tool, it became obvious that not onlythe practice of psychoanalysis but also its theoryhad to be

drastically revised. Without any programming,and against my will, patients were transcendingthe biographical domain and exploring areas ofthe psyche uncharted by psychoanalysis andacademic psychiatry. Moreover, majortherapeutic changes did not occur in the contextof the work on childhood traumas that are somuch emphasized in psychoanalysis, butfollowed powerful transbiographical experiencesthat mainstream psychiatry sees as symptoms ofmental illness and tries to suppress by all means.

Since this research involved a powerful mind-altering drug, it is quite natural to question towhat extent it is legitimate to use it as a sourceof data for a psychological theory. There hasbeen a tendency among professionals to see theLSD state as a "toxic psychosis" and theexperiences induced by the drug as a chemicalfantasmagoria that has very little to do with how

the mind functions under more ordinarycircumstances. However, systematic clinicalresearch with LSD and related psychedelics hasshown that these drugs can best be understood asunspecific amplifiers of mental processes. Theydo not create the experiences they induce, butactivate the deep unconscious and make itscontents available for conscious processing. Theobservations from psychedelic sessions have,therefore, general validity for the understandingof the human psyche.

I have been able to confirm this during the lastdecade during which my wife Christina and Ideveloped a nondrug experiential technique thatwe call holotropic therapy (Grof, 1987). Itcombines controlled breathing, evocative music,and focused body work. In systematic work withthis approach, we have been seeing the entirespectrum of experiences characteristic ofpsychedelic sessions. When the phenomenadescribed in this article can be triggered by

something as physiological as hyperventilation,there can be no doubt that they reflect genuineproperties of the psyche.

In the experiential work with and withoutpsychedelics, it soon became obvious that thetraditional biographical model used inpsychoanalysis was superficial and inadequate todescribe the broad spectrum of importantexperiences that became available through thesetechniques. It was necessary to create a newmodel of the psyche that would be much moreextensive than the one generally accepted inacademic psychiatry. In addition to thebiographical-recollective level, the newcartography includes the perinatal realm

of the psyche focusing on the phenomena of birthand death, and the transpersonal domain.

The experiences of all the abovecategoriesbiographical, perinatal, andtranspersonalare quite readily available to mostpeople. They can be observed in sessions withpsychedelic drugs, various forms of experientialpsychotherapy using breathing, music, dance, andbody work, and quite regularly in dreams.Laboratory mind-altering techniques such asbiofeedback, sleep deprivation, sensory isolationor sensory overload, and various kinestheticdevices (the "witches' cradle," or the rotatingcouch) can also induce many of these phenomena(Grof, 1983).

There exists a wide spectrum of ancient andOriental spiritual practices that are specificallydesigned to facilitate access to the perinatal andtranspersonal domains. For this reason, it is not

accidental that the new model of the psycheshows great similarity to those developed overcenturies or even millennia by various greatmystical traditions.

The entire experiential spectrum has also beendescribed by historians, anthropologists, andstudents of comparative religion in the context ofvarious shamanistic procedures, aboriginal ritesof passage and healing ceremonies, death-rebirthmysteries, and trance dancing in ecstaticreligions. Recent consciousness research has thusmade it possible for the first time to seriouslyreview ancient and non-Western knowledgeabout consciousness and to aim for a genuinesynthesis of age-old wisdom and modern science.

The Recollective-Biographical Level of thePsyche

For the majority of people, the domain of thepsyche that is most readily available in deepexperiential therapy is usually the recollective-

biographical level and the individualunconscious. Although the phenomena belongingto this category are of considerable theoreticaland practical relevance, it is not necessary tospend much time on their description. Most ofthe traditional psychotherapeutic approacheshave already explored this level of the psyche.There exists abundant professional literaturediscussing nuances of psychodynamics in thebiographical realm.

The experiences belonging to this category arerelated to significant biographical events andcircumstances of the life of the individual

from birth to the present. On this level of self-exploration, anything from the life of the personinvolved that is an unresolved conflict, arepressed memory that has not been integrated, oran incomplete psychological gestalt of somekind, can emerge from the unconscious andbecome the content of the experience.

Encounter with Birth and Death: Dynamics ofBasic Perinatal Matrices

As the process of experiential self-explorationdeepens, the elements of emotional and physicalpain can reach extraordinary intensity. They canbecome so extreme that the person involved feelsthat he or she has transcended the boundaries ofindividual suffering and is experiencing the painof entire groups of unfortunate people, all ofhumanity, or even all of life. It is not uncommonthat people whose inner processes reach this

domain report experiential identification withwounded or dying soldiers of all ages, prisonersin dungeons and concentration camps, persecutedJews or early Christians, mothers and children inchildbirth, or even animals who are attacked bypredators or tortured and slaughtered. This levelof the human unconscious thus clearly representsan intersection between biographical experiencesand the spectrum of phenomena of atranspersonal nature.

Experiences on this level of the unconscious aretypically accompanied by dramatic physiologicalmanifestations, such as various degrees ofsuffocation, accelerated pulse rate, palpitations,nausea and vomiting, changes in the color of thecomplexion, oscillation of body temperature,spontaneous occurrence of skin eruptions andbruises, or tremors, twitches, contortions,twisting movements and other striking motormanifestations. In psychedelic sessions andoccasionally in nondrug experiential sessions or

in spontaneously occurring states of mind, thesephenomena can be so authentic and convincingthat the person involved can believe that he orshe is actually dying. Even an inexperienced sitteror witness of such episodes can perceive them asserious vital emergencies.

On the biographical level, only persons whoactually have had a serious brush with deathwould be dealing with the issue of survival orimpermanence. In contrast, when the innerprocess transcends biography, the problemsrelated to suffering and death can entirely

dominate the picture. Those individuals whosepostnatal life history did not involve a seriousthreat to survival or body integrity can enter thisexperiential domain directly. In others, thereliving of serious physical traumas, diseases, oroperations, functions as an experiential bridge tothis realm. This is particularly true for suchbiographical situations or events that involveinterference with breathing. Thus, reliving ofchildhood pneumonia, diphtheria, whoopingcough, or near drowning can deepen into thereliving of the suffocation experienced at birth.

A profound confrontation with deathcharacteristic of these experiential sequencestends to be intimately interwoven with a varietyof phenomena that are clearly related to theprocess of biological birth. While facing agonyand dying, individuals simultaneously experiencethemselves as struggling to be born and/or

delivering. In addition, many of the physiologicaland behavioral concomitants of these experiencescan be naturally explained as derivatives of thebirth process. It is quite common in this contextto identify with a fetus and relive various aspectsof one's biological birth with quite specific andverifiable details. The element of death can berepresented by simultaneous or alternatingidentification with sick, aging, or dyingindividuals. Although the entire spectrum ofthese experiences cannot be reduced just toreliving biological birth, the birth trauma seemsto represent an important core of the experientialprocess on this level. For this reason, I refer tothis domain of the unconscious as perinatal.

The term perinatal is a Greek-Latin compositeword in which the prefix peri- means around ornear and the root -natalis denotes relation tobirth. It is commonly used in medicine todescribe processes that immediately precedechildbirth, are associated with it, or immediately

follow it; medical texts thus talk about perinatalhemorrhage, infection, or brain damage. Incontrast to the traditional use of this word inobstetrics, I am applying the term perinatal toexperiences. Perinatal experiences occur intypical clusters whose basic characteristics arerelated through deep experiential logic toanatomical, physiological, and biochemicalaspects of those clinical stages of birth withwhich they are associated.

In spite of its close connection to childbirth, theperinatal process transcends biology and hasimportant psychological, philosophical, andspiritual dimensions. It would be anoversimplification to interpret

it in a mechanistic and reductionistic fashion.Certain important characteristics of perinatalexperiences clearly suggest that they are muchbroader phenomena than simply the reliving ofbiological birth. Experiences related to the death-rebirth process have important transpersonaldimensions and are conducive to profoundchange in the individual's philosophical andspiritual belief system, basic hierarchy of values,and general life strategy.

Deep experiential encounter with birth and deathis typically associated with an existential crisis ofextraordinary proportions during which theindividual seriously questions the meaning of hisor her life and existence in general. This crisiscan be successfully resolved only by connectingwith the intrinsic spiritual dimensions of thepsyche and deep resources of the collectiveunconscious. The resulting personality

transformation and consciousness evolution canbe compared to the changes that have beendescribed in the context of ancient death-rebirthmysteries, initiation to secret societies, andvarious aboriginal rites of passage. The perinatallevel of the unconscious thus represents animportant interface between the individual andthe collective unconscious or between traditionalpsychology and mysticism.

The experiences of death and rebirth that reflectthe perinatal level of the unconscious are veryrich and complex. Sequences related to variousstages and facets of biological birth are typicallyintertwined or associated with a variety oftranspersonal experiences of a mythological,mystical, archetypal, historical, sociopolitical,anthropological, or phylogenetic nature. Thesetend to appear in four characteristic experientialpatterns or constellations. There seems to exist adeep connection between these thermatic clustersand the clinical stages of childbirth.

Connecting with the experiences of the fetus invarious stages of the biological birth processfunctions as a selective stencil which providesexperiential access to specific domains of thecollective unconscious that involve similar statesof consciousness. It has proved very useful forthe theory and practice of deep experiential workto postulate the existence of four hypotheticaldynamic matrices governing the processes relatedto the perinatal level of the unconscious and torefer to them as Basic Perinatal Matrices (BPM).

First Perinatal Matrix (BPM I.): The Amniotic Universe

This important experiential matrix is related tothe primal union with the maternal organismtothe original state of intrauterine existence duringwhich the mother and child form a symbioticunity. If no noxious stimuli interfere, theconditions for the child can be close to optimal,involving security and continuous satisfaction ofall needs. The basic characteristics of thisexperience are transcendence of the subject-object dichotomy, strong positive affect (peace,serenity, tranquillity, and oceanic ecstasy),feelings of sacredness, transcendence of spaceand time, and richness of insights of cosmicrelevance.

The specific content of these experiences can bedrawn from situations that share with it lack of

boundaries and obstructions, such asidentification with the ocean and aquatic lifeforms or with interstellar space. Images of natureat its best (Mother Nature) and archetypal visionsof heavens and paradises also belong to thiscategory. It is important to emphasize that onlyepisodes of undisturbed embryonal life areaccompanied by experiences of this kind.Disturbances of intrauterine existence areassociated with overwhelming fear, paranoia, andimages of underwater dangers, pollution,inhospitable nature, and insidious demons fromvarious cultures.

Second Perinatal Matrix (BPM II.): The Experience of Cosmic Engulfment and Hell

This experiential pattern is related to the veryonset of delivery and its first clinical stage.Initially, the intrauterine existence of the fetus isdisturbed by alarming chemical signals and laterby mechanical contractions of the uterus. The

fetus is periodically constricted by uterinespasms, while the cervix is still closed and doesnot allow passage.

Reliving of the very onset of biological birth isexperienced as imminent vital danger and threatof enormous proportionscosmic engulfment.Overwhelming feelings of free-floating anxietylead to paranoid ideation and perception.Intensification of this state typically results in theexperience of a terrifying vortex or whirlpoolsucking the subject and his or her worldrelentlessly to its center. Frequent experientialvariations of this theme are those of beingswallowed by an archetypal beast, entangled by amonstrous octopus or python,

or ensnared by a gigantic mother spider. A lessdramatic form of the same experience is thetheme of descent into the underworld andencounter with demonic creatures.

When reliving the first clinical stage of deliveryin a fully developed form, the individual faces asituation that can best be described as no exit orhell. He or she feels stuck, encaged and trappedin a claustrophobic nightmarish world, andcompletely loses connection with linear time.The situation feels absolutely unbearable, endlessand hopeless. It seems, therefore, quite logicalthat these individuals frequently identifyexperientially with prisoners in dungeons orconcentration camps, victims of the Inquisition,inmates in insane asylums, or with sinners in helland archetypal figures representing eternaldamnation. During the deep existential crisis thattypically accompanies this state, existence

appears as a meaningless farce or theater of theabsurd.

Third Perinatal Matrix (BPM III.):The Experience of Death-Rebirth Struggle

Many important aspects of this experientialmatrix can be understood from its associationwith the second clinical stage of childbirth. Inthis stage, the uterine contractions continue, butthe cervix is now dilated and allows a gradualpropulsion of the fetus through the birth canal.This involves enormous struggle for survival,crushing mechanical pressures, and often highdegrees of anoxia and suffocation. In theterminal phases of the delivery, the fetus canexperience intimate contact with biologicalmaterial such as blood, mucus, urine, and feces.

From the experiential point of view, this patternis rather rich and ramified. Beside actual realisticreliving of various aspects of the struggle in thebirth canal, it involves a wide variety of

phenomena that occur in typical thematicsequences, and is related with deep experientiallogic to anatomical, physiological, andbiochemical aspects of the birth process. Themost important of these aspects is a sense ofbeing involved in a fight of titanic proportions,sadomasochistic experiences, intense sexualarousal, demonic episodes, scatologicalinvolvement, and encounter with fireall occuringin the context of a determined death-rebirthstruggle.

The specific images involve mythological battles ofenormous proportions involving angels and demons orgods and Titans, raging elements of nature, sequencesfrom bloody revolutions and wars, images involvingpornography and deviant sexuality, violence, satanicorgies and Sabbath of the Witches, crucifixion and ritualsacrifice.

Fourth Perinatal Matrix (BPM IV.): The Death-Rebirth Experience

This perinatal matrix is meaningfully related to the thirdclinical stage of deliveryto the actual birth of the child.In this final stage, the agonizing process of the birthstruggle comes to an end; the propulsion through thebirth canal culminates and the extreme buildup of pain,tension, and sexual arousal is followed by sudden reliefand relaxation. After the umbilical cord is cut, thephysical separation from the mother is complete and thechild begins its new existence as an anatomicallyindependent individual. As in the case of the othermatrices, some of the experiences belonging hererepresent an accurate replay of the actual biological

events involved in birth, as well as specific obstetricinterventions. The symbolic counterpart of the finalstage of delivery is the death-rebirth experience.

Paradoxically, while only one step from a phenomenalliberation, the individual has the feeling of impendingcatastrophe of enormous proportions. This frequentlyresults in a determined struggle to stop

the experience. If allowed to proceed, thisexperience involves a sense of annihilation on allimaginable levelsphysical destruction, emotionaldebacle, intellectual defeat, ultimate moralfailure, and absolute damnation of enormousproportions. This experience of ''ego death"seems to entail an instant merciless destructionof all previous reference points in the life of theindividual.

The experience of total annihilation and "hittingthe cosmic bottom" is immediately followed byvisions of blinding white or golden light ofsupernatural radiance and beauty. It can beassociated with astonishing displays of divinearchetypal entities, rainbow spectra, or intricatepeacock designs. The individual experiences adeep sense of emotional and spiritual liberation,redemption and salvation. He or she typicallyfeels freed from anxiety, depression, and guilt,

purged and unburdened. This is associated with aflood of positive emotions toward oneself, otherpeople, and existence in general. The worldappears to be a beautiful and safe place and thezest for life is distinctly increased.

The concept of perinatal matrices makes itpossible to relate a variety of psychopathologicalsyndromes quite naturally to the anatomical,physiological, and biochemical aspects of theconsecutive stages of biological birth. It alsoreveals new powerful mechanisms of healing andpersonality transformation that are not availablein traditional psychiatry and psychotherapy.These interesting implications of the new modelhave been discussed in detail in another context(Grof, 1985).

Beyond The Brain: Transpersonal Dimensions ofThe Psyche

Experiential sequences of death and rebirthtypically open the gate to a transbiographical

domain in the human psyche that can best bereferred to as transpersonal. The perinatal levelof the unconscious clearly represents an interfacebetween the biographical and the transpersonalrealms, or the individual and the collectiveunconscious. In most instances, transpersonalexperiences are preceded by a dramatic encounterwith birth and death. However, there exists alsoan important alternative; occasionally, it ispossible to access experientially varioustranspersonal elements and themes directly,without confronting the perinatal level. Thecommon denominator of this

rich and ramified group of transpersonalphenomena is a feeling that consciousness hasexpanded beyond the usual ego boundaries andhas transcended the limitations of time and space.

In ordinary states of consciousness, weexperience ourselves as existing within theboundaries of the physical body (the body image)and our perception of the environment isrestricted by the physically and physiologicallydetermined range of our sensory organs. Bothour internal perception (interoception) andexternal perception (exteroception) are confinedby the usual spatial and temporal boundaries.Under ordinary circumstances, we can experiencevividly and with all our senses only the events inthe present moment and in our immediateenvironment. We can recall the past andanticipate future events or fantasize about them;however, the past and the future are not available

for direct experience.

In transpersonal experiences, as they occur inpsychedelic sessions, self-exploration throughnondrug experiential techniques orspontaneously, one or more of the usuallimitations appear to be transcended. Experiencesof this kind can be divided into three largecategories. Some of them involve transcendenceof linear time and are interpreted as historicalregression and exploration of the biological,cultural, and spiritual past, or as historicalprogression into the future. In the secondcategory, experiences are characterized primarilyby transcendence of the ordinary spatialboundaries rather than temporal barriers. Thethird group is characterized by experientialexploration of domains that in Western cultureare not considered part of objective reality.

In nonordinary states of consciousness, manypeople experience very concrete and realisticepisodes which they identify as fetal and

embryonal memories. It is not unusual underthese circumstances to experience (on the levelof cellular consciousness) full identificationwith the sperm and the ovum at the time ofconception. Sometimes historical regressiongoes even further and the individual has aconvinced feeling of reliving memories from thelives of his or her ancestors, or even drawing onthe memory banks of the racial or collectiveunconscious. On occasion, individuals reportexperiences in which they identify with variousanimal ancestors in the evolutionary pedigree, orhave a distinct sense of reliving dramaticepisodes from a previous incarnation.

Transpersonal experiences that involvetranscendence of spatial barriers suggest thatboundaries between the individual and the rest ofthe universe are not fixed and absolute. Underspecial circumstances it is possible to identifyexperientially with anything in the universe,including the entire cosmos itself. Here belongthe experiences of merging with another personinto a state of dual unity or assuming anotherperson's identity, of tuning into theconsciousness of a specific group of people, orof expansion of one's consciousness to such anextent that it seems to encompass all ofhumanity. In a similar way, one can transcend thelimits of the specifically human experience andidentify with the consciousness of animals,plants, or even inorganic objects and processes. Itis even possible to experience consciousness ofthe entire biosphere, of our planet, or of theentire material universe.

In a large group of transpersonal experiences, theextension of consciousness seems to go beyondthe phenomenal world and the time-spacecontinuum as we perceive it in our everyday life.Here belong numerous visions of archetypalpersonages and themes, encounters with deitiesand demons of various cultures, and complexmythological sequences. Additional examples arereports of appearances of spirits of deceasedpeople, suprahuman entities, and inhabitants ofother universes. Among the most interestingexperiences in this category are visions ofabstract archetypal patterns and universalsymbols (cross, ankh, yin-yang, swastika,pentacle, or six-pointed star), which are oftenassociated with deep insights into their meaning.

Many people have also described experiences ofthe energies of the subtle body known frommystical and occult literaturethe flow of chienergy through the meridians as they are depictedin ancient Chinese medicine, arousal of the

Serpent Power (Kundalini), activation of variouscenters of psychic energy or chakras, and visionsof colorful auras. In its furthest reaches,individual consciousness can identify withcosmic consciousness or with the UniversalMind. The ultimate of all experiences appears tobe identification with the Supracosmic andMetacosmic Void, the mysterious primordialemptiness and nothingness that is conscious ofitself and contains all existence in a germinal andpotential form.

Transpersonal experiences have many strangecharacteristics that shatter the most fundamentalassumptions of materialistic science

and of the mechanistic world-view. Researcherswho have seriously studied and/or experiencedthese fascinating phenomena realize that theattempts of traditional psychiatry to dismiss themas irrelevant products of imagination or as erraticfantasmagoria generated by pathologicalprocesses in the brain, are superficial andinadequate. Any unbiased study of thetranspersonal domain of the psyche has to cometo the conclusion that these observationsrepresent a critical challenge for the Newtonian-Cartesian paradigm of Western science.

Although transpersonal experiences occur in theprocess of deep individual self-exploration, it isnot possible to interpret them simply asintrapsychic phenomena in the conventionalsense. On the one hand, they form anuninterrupted experiential continuum withbiographical-recollective and perinatal

experiences. On the other hand, they seem to betapping directly, without the mediation of thesensory organs, sources of information that areclearly outside of the conventionally definedrange of the individual.

The reports of people who have experiencedepisodes of embryonal existence, the moment ofconception, and elements of cellular, tissue, andorgan consciousness abound in medicallyaccurate insights into the anatomical,physiological, and biochemical aspects of theprocesses involved. Similarly, ancestralexperiences, racial and collective memories inthe Jungian sense, and the past incarnationmemories, frequently bring quite specific detailsabout architecture, costumes, weapons, art,social structure, and religious practices of theculture and period involved, or even concretehistorical events.

People who experience phylogenetic sequencesor identification with existing life forms not only

find them unusually convincing and authentic butalso acquire extraordinary insights concerninganimal psychology, ethology, specific habits, orunusual reproductive cycles. In some instances,these experiences are accompanied by archaicmuscular innervations not characteristic ofhumans, or even by such complex performancesas enactment of a courtship dance.

Individuals who experience episodes ofconscious identification with plants or parts ofplants occasionally report remarkable insightsinto such botanical processes as germination ofseeds, photosynthesis in the leaves, the role ofauxins in plant growth, exchange of water andminerals in the root system, or pollination.Equally common is a convinced sense ofconscious identification with inanimate matter orinorganic processesthe water in the ocean, fire,lightning, vol-

canic activity, tornado, gold, diamond, granite,and even stars, galaxies, atoms, and molecules.

There exists another interesting group oftranspersonal phenomena that can be frequentlyvalidated and even researched experimentally.Here belong telepathy, psychic diagnosis,clairvoyance, clairaudience, precognition,psychometry, out-of-the-body experiences,traveling clairvoyance, and other instances ofextrasensory perception. This is the only group oftranspersonal phenomena that has beenoccasionally discussed in the past in academiccircles, unfortunately with a strong negative bias.

From a broader perspective, there is no reason tosort out the so-called paranormal phenomena asa special category. Since many other types oftranspersonal experiences quite typically involveaccess to new information about the universethrough extrasensory channels, clear boundary

between psychology and parapsychologydisappears, or becomes rather arbitrary when theexistence of the transpersonal domain isrecognized and acknowledged.

The philosophical challenge associated with theobservations described hereformidable as it maybe in itselfis further augmented by the fact that,in nonordinary states of consciousness,transpersonal experiences that correctly reflectthe material world appear on the samecontinuum and are intimately interwoven withothers whose content, according to the Westernworld-view, is not part of objective reality. Inthis context we can mention the Jungianarchetypesthe world of deities, demons,demigods, superheroes, and complexmythological, legendary, and fairytale sequences.These experiences can even impart accurate newinformation about religious symbolism, folklore,and mythical structures of various cultures aboutwhich the person previously had no knowledge.

The ability of transpersonal experiences toconvey instant intuitive information about anyaspect of the universe in the present, past, andfuture, violates some of the most basicassumptions of mechanistic science. They implysuch seemingly absurd notions as relativity andthe arbitrary nature of all physical boundaries,nonlocal connections in the universe,communication through unknown means andchannels, memory without a material substrate,nonlinearity of time or consciousness associatedwith all living organisms (including loweranimals, plants, unicellular organisms andviruses), and even inorganic matter.

Many transpersonal experiences involve eventsfrom the microcosm and macrocosmrealms thatcannot be directly reached by human sensesorfrom periods that historically precede the originof the solar system, formation of planet earth,appearance of living organisms, development ofthe central nervous system, and appearance ofHomo sapiens. This clearly implies that in a yetunexplained way each human being contains theinformation about the entire universe or all ofexistence, has potential experiential access to allits parts, and in a sense is the whole cosmicnetwork, as much as he or she is just aninfinitesimal part of it, a separate andinsignificant biological entity.

Transpersonal experiences have a very specialposition in the cartography of the human psyche.The recollective-analytical level and theindividual unconscious are clearly biographical

in nature. The perinatal dynamic seems torepresent an intersection or frontier between thepersonal and transpersonal. This is reflected in itsdeep association with birth and deaththebeginning and end of individual human existence.Transpersonal phenomena reveal connectionsbetween the individual and the cosmos that are atpresent beyond comprehension. All we can say isthat somewhere in the process of confrontationwith the perinatal level of the psyche, a strangequalitative Moebius-like shift seems to occur inwhich deep self-exploration of the individualunconscious turns into a process of experientialadventures in the universe-at-large, whichinvolves what can best be described as cosmicconsciousness or the superconscious mind.

As Ken Wilber has demonstrated in his writings(Wilber, 1980, 1983), introducing transpersonalexperiences into psychology creates a conceptualbridge between Western science and perennialphilosophy. It also throws new light on many

problems in history, anthropology, sociology,psychology, psychiatry, philosophy, andcomparative religion.

While the nature of transpersonal experience isclearly fundamentally incompatible withmechanistic science, it can be integrated with therevolutionary developments in various scientificdisciplines that have been referred to as theemerging paradigm. Among the disciplines andconcepts that have significantly contributed tothis drastic change in the scientific worldview arequantum-relativistic physics (Capra, 1975,1982), astrophysics (Davies, 1983), cybernetics,information and systems theory (Bateson, 1972,1979), Sheldrake's theory

of morphic resonance (Sheldrake, 1981),Prigogine's study of dissipative structures andorder by fluctuation (Prigogine, 1980) DavidBohm's theory of holomovement (Bohm, 1980),Karl Pribram's holographic model of the brain(Pietsch, 1981; Pribram, 1971), and ArthurYoung's theory of process (Young, 1976).

The expanded cartography described here is ofcritical importance for any serious approach tosuch phenomena as psychedelic states,shamanism, religion, mysticism, rites of passage,mythology, parapsychology, thanatology, andpsychosis. This is not just a matter of academicinterest; as I have mentioned earlier, it has deepand revolutionary implications for theunderstanding of psychopathology and offersnew therapeutic possibilities undreamt of bytraditional psychiatry.

This general description of the new cartography

of the human psyche that has emerged from thestudy of nonordinary states of consciousnessleads us to an exploration of its implications forthe current global crisis.

Psychological Roots of the Current GlobalCrisis

The observations from modern consciousnessresearch clearly indicate that a psychologicalapproach limited to analysis of biographicalfactors, such as childhood history, psychosexualtraumas, and dynamics of interpersonal relations,is not sufficient for understanding the motivationof human behavior. The biographical events donot represent the primal causes but areconditions for the emergence of deeper forces ofa perinatal and transpersonal nature.

The perinatal level of the unconscious and thedynamics of the death-rebirth process represent arepository of difficult emotions and sensations.They function as an important source of various

forms of psychopathology and of powerfulimpulses and motivations of an irrational nature.An individual who is under a strong influence ofthe negative perinatal matrices approaches life ina way that is not only unfulfilling but also, in thelong run, destructive and self-destructive.

People who gain experiential access to theperinatal level of the unconscious typicallyreport that this domain is responsible for whatcan be called a "rat race" or "treadmill" existence.The perinatal forces tend to introduce intohuman life an unrelenting drive toward

linear pursuit of future goals and insatiablehunger for power, status, fame, and possessions.This is typically associated with an inability toreally enjoy the fruits of these pursuits and withgeneral disatisfaction with oneself and one's life.In this context, it is not uncommon that theindividual responds to a triumphantaccomplishment by depression. This is whatJoseph Campbell has described as "getting to thetop of the ladder and finding that it was againstthe wrong wall."

The life experience of a person dominated byperinatal forces is influenced by the memory ofthe trauma of birth to such an extent that his orher emotions in everyday situations reflect theconfinement in the birth canal more than they dothe current circumstances. Because of that, theindividual never experiences the present momentand the present situation as fully satisfying. Like

the fetus who is trying to escape from theclutches of the birth canal into a morecomfortable situation, such a person will alwaysexpect satisfaction from the achievement ofsome future goals. Since these goals are, in thelast analysis, surrogates for the psychologicalcompletion of birth, reaching them never bringsthe expected satisfaction.

An individual who lives under the spell of theperinatal domain of the unconscious seesexistence from the narrow perspective of myself,my family, my religion, my country. From thispoint of view, other people, groups, and nationsare perceived as competitors, the world as apotential threat, and nature as something that hasto be conquered and controlled. Although thereexist considerable variations in the degree towhich this attitude manifests itself in differentindividuals, this pattern is certainly sufficientlycharacteristic that most of us recognize it.

On the collective and global scale, this frame of

mind generates a philosophy of life thatemphasizes strength, competition, and self-assertion, and glorifies linear progress andunlimited growth ("the bigger, the better"). Itconsiders material profit and the increase of thegross national product to be the main criteria ofwell-being and measures of the living standard.This ideology and the resulting strategies bringhumans into a serious conflict with their natureas biological systems and into dissonance withbasic universal laws.

Biological organisms depend critically onoptimum values: More vitamins, morehormones, more calcium, or more water is notnecessarily better than fewer vitamins, fewerhormones, less calcium,

and less water. Similarly, higher temperature orblood level of sugar is not better than lowertemperature or blood level of sugar. If the largestbody size and weight were the goal of evolution,the dinosaurs would still be around and would bethe dominant species.

The strategy imposed on the individual byperinatal dynamics is thus unnatural anddangerous. In a universe the nature of which iscyclical, it enforces linearity and the pursuit ofunlimited growth. In addition, the resultingapproach to existence disregards the ecologicalimperative and does not recognize the urgent andabsolutely vital need for synergy,complementarity, and cooperation.

Moreover, analysis of the experiences andimagery of people who connect with the perinatallevel in the context of the death-rebirth processsuggests that this domain of the unconscious is

an important source of what Erich Fromm calledmalignant aggression (Fromm, 1973). Theemotions and drives originating here find theirexpression on the individual scale in acts ofviolence, sadism, criminality, and murder, and onthe collective scale in such manifestations ofhuman nature as totalitarian regimes, wars,bloody revolutions, genocide, and concentrationcamps. The connections between individual, aswell as social, psychopathology and the dynamicsof perinatal matrices are fascinating and veryconvincing. I have discussed them at some lengthin one of my books (Grof, 1985).

However, the observations from modernconsciousness research offer more than justfascinating new insights into human problemsand a diagnostic contribution to theunderstanding of the global crisis. They alsosuggest new possibilities of approaching thedangerous situation in the world in a way thatcould influence its psychological roots. The

clues here come from the study of the changesthat occur in those individuals who havesuccessfully confronted and neutralized theperinatal forces and connected experientiallywith the transpersonal level of the psyche.

Examples can be found in the deep experientialwork using psychedelics or techniques developedby humanistic and transpersonal psychology, andby the great spiritual traditions of the world.Identical changes have also been described byAbraham Maslow in his study of individuals whohad spontaneous mystical experiences (or "peakexperiences") and as a result moved in thedirection of what he called "self-actualization" or"self-realization" (Maslow, 1964).

People who move psychologically from thedominance of the negative perinatal matrices (thememory of the survival struggle in the birthcanal) to that of positive perinatal matrices(memory of nourishing perinatal and postnatalexperiences) and of the transpersonal domains ofthe psyche tend to be deeply transformed by thisexperience. The interaction of the fetus with thematernal organism is equivalent to theinteraction of the adult with all of humanity, allof nature, and the entire universe. Prenatal andperinatal experiences thus represent a prototypeand template for the adult perception andexperience of the world. The nature and qualityof the perinatal matrix influences will shape aperson's attitude to other people, to the world,and to existence in general. Profoundtranspersonal experiences then move theindividual out of the narrow framework ofidentification with the body-ego and lead to

feeling and thinking in terms of cosmic identityand unity with all creation.

An individual who connects experientially withthe positive perinatal matrices and with thetranspersonal domain feels a great increase ofzest and joy in life and develops a capacity todraw satisfaction from many ordinary situationsand activities such as simple human interactions,creative work, admiration of nature and art,playing, eating, sleeping, and lovemaking. This istypically associated with deep awareness of thecritical importance of the spiritual dimension inthe universal scheme of things.

The person involved in such a process usuallyretains interest in creative activity and enjoys itmuch more than before. At the same time, thereis much less emotional dependence oncomplicated schemes, fantasies, and future plansas the source of satisfaction. In this state ofmind, it becomes obvious that the ultimatemeasure of the standard of living is the quality of

the life experience and not the quantity ofmaterial achievements.

At the same time, the level of aggression isdrastically reduced and the individual developstolerance toward others, reverence for life, andappreciation for the adventure of existence. Theconcept of human life as a life-and-deathstruggle for survival gives way to a new image ofa cosmic dance or divine play. The criticalimportance of synergy, cooperation, harmony,and ecological concerns is deeply felt andbecomes self-evident.

The aggressive and controlling attitude towardnature (Mother Nature) reflected the precariousexperience of the fetus with the

maternal organism in the process of delivery. Thenew values and attitudes are based on theexperiences of the prenatal or postnatalinteraction with the mother (''good womb" and"good breast" if there were no seriousinterferences during these two periods). They arecharacterized by a strong emphasis on themutally nourishing, symbiotic, andcomplementary nature of all relationships incontrast to the exploitative and competitivenature of the old value system.

It becomes obvious that the universe is a unifiedweb, of which we all are meaningful parts. It is,in principle, impossible to do anything to otherpeople, to other nations, or to nature, withoutsimultaneously doing it to ourselves. Thinking interms of all of humanity, all of life, and the entireplanet clearly has to take priority over interestsof individuals, families, religious and social

groups, political parties, nations, and racesshould life on this planet survive. The hopeless"us and them" attitude has to be replaced by aclear realization that we are facing a problem ofa collective nature that only a determinedcooperative effort can solve.

It seems clear that if large numbers of people indifferent countries of the world felt, thought, andacted along these lines, our chances of survivalwould increase. To achieve this, we mustcomplement our efforts in the world oftechnology that has given us instruments ofawesome power by placing an equally strongemphasis on the technology of humantransformation. The resulting changes in humanconsciousness would make it possible for us touse the fruits of modern science constructivelyand with wisdom.

The broad spectrum of techniques that canincrease self-understanding and facilitateconsciousness evolution includes a variety of

ancient spiritual practices, as well as modernapproaches developed by humanistic andtranspersonal psychology. Some of them couldbe integrated into education, others could findtheir way into mass media, or be communicatedin various art forms. However, the ultimatesuccess or failure of this approach will dependon the determined and focused effort of each ofus and the willingness to add to our externalactivities in the world a systematic effort at self-exploration and inner transformation.

Whatever questions or doubts one may haveabout the feasibility of this strategy as a world-changing force, it could well be our only realchance under the present circumstances. It isdifficult to imagine that the crisis in the worldcan be solved with the same attitudes

and strategies that were instrumental in itsdevelopment in the first place. And since, in thelast analysis, the current global crisis is theproduct and reflection of the stage ofconsciousness evolution of humanity, a radicaland lasting solution is inconceivable withoutinner transformation and a move toward globalawareness.

Presented at the Ninth Conference of theInternational Transpersonal Association (ITA)entitled Tradition and Technology inTransition, April 1985, Kyoto, Japan.

References

Bateson, G. (1972). Steps to an ecology ofmind. New York: Ballantine Books.

Bateson, G. (1979). Mind and nature. NewYork: E. P. Dutton.

Bohm D. (1980). Wholeness and the implicateorder. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Capra, F. (1975). The tao of physics. Berkeley:Shambhala.

Capra, F. (1982). The turning point. New York:Simon & Schuster.

Davies, P. (1983). God and the new physics.New York: Simon & Schuster.

Fromm, E. (1973). The anatomy of humandestructiveness. New York: Holt, Rhinehart &Winston.

Grof, S. (1976). Realms of the humanunconscious. New York: E. P. Dutton.

Grof, S. (1980). LSD psychotherapy. Pomona,CA: Hunter House.

Grof, S. (Ed). (1983). Ancient wisdom andmodern science. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

Grof, S. (1985). Beyond the brain: Birth, death,

Grof, S. (1985). Beyond the brain: Birth, death,and transcendence in psychotherapy. Albany,NY: SUNY Press.

Grof, S. (1987). The adventure of self-discovery. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

Grof, S., & Grof, C. (1980). Beyond death.London: Thames & Hudson.

Huxley, A. (1944). Perennial philosophy. NewYork: Harper & Row.

Maslow, A. (1964). Religions, values, andpeak-experiences. Columbus, OH: Ohio StateUniversity Press.

Ring. K. (1980). Life at death: A scientificinvestigation of the near-death experience. NewYork: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan.

Ring, K. (1984). Heading toward omega: Insearch of the meaning of the near-deathexperience. New York: William Morrow.

Pietsch, H. (1981). Shufflebrain. Boston:

Houghton Mifflin.

Pribram, K. (1971). Languages of the brain.Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Prigogine, I. (1980). From being to becoming:Time and complexity in the physical sciences.San Francisco: W. H. Freeman.

Sheldrake, R. (1981). A new science of life. LosAngeles: J. P. Tarcher.

Wilber, K. (1980). The atman project. Wheaton,IL: Theosophical Publishing House.

Wilber, K. (1983). Eye to eye. Garden City, NY:Anchor Press, Doubleday.

Young, A. (1976). The reflexive universe:Evolution of consciousness. New York:Delacorte Press.

Chapter SixIndividuality:A Spiritual Task and Societal Hazard

John Weir Perry, M.D.

If we trace the historical evolution ofindividuality through the medium of its psychicrepresentation in myth and ritual, we gain a newperspective on current issues related to themeaning of this term. Today, we defineindividuality with the simple phrase, "self-determination," implying the accomplishment ofone's unique self-hood by fulfilling one'spotential abilities using whatever method onechooses, with an ultimate goal of integration andwholeness. In ancient and traditional cultures,however, the individual's role was defined bycollective agreement; one fulfilled one's duties

according to one's place in the social structure. Inthis historical approach, it is, of course,precarious to make general assumptions aboutcultures, yet in myth and ritual the evolution ofindividuality is clearly represented.

My interest in this approach grew frompsychotherapeutical observations of persons invarious degrees of turmoilfrom the vividimagery in dreams of ordinary cases in practiceto the visionary states or spiritual emergencies ofdeeply disturbed people. In these latter instances,the imagery arising from the psychic depths isfound to have parallels in ancient myths andrituals, and this led me to undertake an extensivestudy of ancient historical ceremonial practices.Although these disturbed states are regarded inpsychiatry as "psychotic," they are not merelydisorderly chaotic confusions. On the contrary,they reveal a process with regular features,involving experiences of death and birth, worlddestruction and creation, and

messianic callings that include ideas of culturalreform and sacred marriages.

In both the ancient practices and in theexperiences of people today, the imagery of aspiritual center is prominent, a center from whichorder and organization are produced either in theindividual psyche or in the whole society. Inthese ancient practices, it is impressive toobserve the strong emotional investment ofhonor and reverence toward the representation ofthis center. It is in the historical development ofthe representation of this spiritual center that wefind the clearest evidence of the step-by-stepevolution of individuality. This image of aspiritual center is, of course, what Jung hascalled the "archetype of the Self,"characteristically represented as a quadratedcircle or mandala that combines or unites orreconciles the opposites.

The ritual figure of the Great Man or Uniqueman as ruler initially occurred in the context ofthe first appearance of the true city cultures ofthe Urban Revolution, which took place in fourgreat river valleys of the Near and Far East; theNile, the Tigris-Euphrates, the Indus, and theYellow River, in the third and secondmillennium B.C. Here, the term city meant aculture organized according to the functions andspecialized occupations of its inhabitants, asopposed to the earlier clan structure, in whichorganization had been framed in family systems.

In these Bronze Age city states, the Unique Manwas often ceremonially represented as a sacralking with divine attributes, and his function wasplaced at the cosmic axis or world center, at themid-point of the world image. The world wasregarded as kingdom, the kingdom as the world.These sacral kings were usually personificationsof the center and of the very life of the kingdom,as its soul, so that whatever happened to the king

also happened to the entire realm. Thus, thesociety was usually regarded as a corporate bodywith the king as its very heart and soul. Examplesof the sacral kingship in the ancient Near Eastafford the clearest parallels to the renewalprocess seen in the visionary states of today,while those in the Far East present the most vividimagery of the theme of the center.

The New Year Festivals for rejuvenation of theking and the kingdom in the city kingdoms ofMesopotamia exactly followed the groundplan ofthe renewal process: taking place at the center,re-

versing time to the beginning of creation, usingthe symbolic death and rejuvenation of the king,the ritual combat between order and chaos, thereenthronement of the victorious king and hishieros gamos of sacred marriage, and reading thedestinies as a reaffirmation of the will of thegods and the society's allegiance to it. Thetemple's stage tower represented a worldmountain and cosmic axis called Dur Anki, theBond of Heaven and Earth. In the early Sumerianyears, the king was called Lugal, the Great Man,playing the role of the god of the high sky asupholder of order, and that of the storm god aswarrior and chief executive.

Egypt's festivals of reenthronement followedroughly the same pattern, but its kingship wasnoteworthy for ascribing absolute divinity to thePharaoh: he was Horus, god of the light of thesky, and Horus was the Pharaoh in the early

dynasties. As Giver of Life and Giver of Order,his Ka (soul) provided the Kas for all hissubjects, who thereby participated in his life ashe did in theirs. As the source of life, order, andsoul for the realm, the king's position in thescheme of things was at the center, his throne setupon the Primordial Mound that represented thespot of land from which all creation spread infour directions; his capital city, Memphis, wasset at the midpoint of the Egyptian worldbetween the Two Lands, Upper and Lower Egypt.The kingship was also dual in another sense; asHorus, the Pharaoh ruled the realm of the living,while the recently deceased king was transfiguredinto Osiris, who then reigned over the realm ofthe dead, the ancestors.

India, too, though in much later centuries, had itssacral kingships in which the monarch's personwas regarded as a composite of eight divinities.As Chakravartin, Wheel King, his rule wasuniversal. The rites of enthronement and

reenthronement emphasized centrality and alsorebirth, vividly and explicitly dramatized by hisassumption of the cowl of the chorion and of theamnion, and of the waters of the amniotic fluidof the foetal state.

Among the ceremonial expressions ofsovereignty in the ancient world, the Chineseritual is outstandingly satisfying both spirituallyand esthetically. Its cosmological setting is asource of delight to modern evolutionists with asystems theory approach, such as JosephNeedham, who said of it that there was no beliefin a creator acting from outside, but this cosmoswas a self-contained, self-organizing system. Inthese purely naturalistic terms "the harmoniouscooper-

ation of all beings arose, not from the orders of asuperior authority external to themselves, butfrom the fact that they were all parts in ahierarchy of wholes forming a cosmic pattern,and what they obeyed were the internal dictatesof their own natures." This was the model uponwhich the manner of governing in the earliestdynasties was founded. "Heaven" was a barelypersonified presence presiding over the cosmos,and the "Son of Heaven" was sovereign but didnot actively rule this confederacy ofprincipalities.

In the Bronze Age, this Heaven was understoodto be made up of the spirits of the departed royalancestors, the Ti, acting as a composite whole;only the sacral kings posessed a soul that wouldbecome immortalized as a Ti. The ideogram forTi was a vertical phallus, suggesting thegenerative, life-giving function of such ancestral

spirits, not unlike the role of Osiris in Egypt.

The theme of the Great Individual was suffusedthroughout this ideology of the kingship.Heaven, T'ien, was, in its earliest written formrepresented by the character in Figure 1,obviously signifying the Great man, theconglomerate embodiment of the Ti. It is nowwritten as in Figure 2. In the second dynasty (firstmillennium B.C.), the Chou, the sacral king wasrepresented by the character in Figure 3, theGreat Man, now with his feet planted on theground. He was T'ien-tse, the Son of Heaven,and participated in the nature of Heaven itself asspokesman and mediator. This meant that theaccumulated experience of the ancestors wasembodied in the person of the sacral king. TheSon of Heaven alone, as the ruling member ofthe dynasty, could assume the title of Wang, theking, as his special prerogative. According tolater philosophers, Figure 4 represented a cosmicaxis with Heaven, man, and Earth united through

the person of the king, a beautiful rendering ofthe role of the center.

Among the many indications of the centralposition of this sacred figure there wasconsistent emphasis on its being not only amidpoint but also a north-south axis. The nameof China was written in characters implying this,as seen in Figure 5: Chung Kuo, the "MiddleKingdom," "center" as a rectangle traversed by avertical line as an axis, "kingdom" as a squareenclosure containing lines indicating thekingship.

The capital cities of the Shang and ChouDynasties (second and first millennium B.C.)were laid out in the manner represented in Figure6. Each was a quadrated square or rectangularcity with avenues

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

Figure 4

and gates oriented to the cardinal directions, andin the center, the king's palace, facing south on an

axis dividing the populace into two moieties orhalves, according to lineage. In front of the placeon one side was the Temple of the Ancestors,important to the function of mediator, and on theother side, the Altar of Earth, concerned with thefeminine principle of increase and life-giving.Here, then, was a Yang and Yin, Heaven andEarth, division in these two sacred places, templeand altar, on either side of the axis.

A little later on, the realm that is the earth, thatis, the whole world, was represented in thebronze cosmic mirrors of the Han Dynasty (theend of the first millennium B.C.) as seen inFigure 7,

Figure 5

Figure 6

called TLV design. The Middle Kingdom wasseen as a square with gates in the cardinaldirections (the T's), and marks near the peripheryof the design (the V's), indicating that there is animplied cross here with limbs extending out, the

L's suggesting a swastika perhaps. These areas,the Four Seas, in the four directions wereconsidered the realms of the barbarians, thechaos that was the king's task to bring into theorganization of the ordered world as hiscosmocratic function. The Son of Heaven had hisposition at the center, indicated by a burnishedmound.

Also, in the dimension of actuality, the kingdomhad roughly the shape of a quadrated circle withthe four sacred mountains in the cardinaldirections and a fifth at the center, which had acertain ritual significance at that time. Thecentrality, the quadrating of space, and the strictordering and balancing of design werethoroughly represented in these symbolic forms.These mandala patterns antedated the Tibetanones by many centuries.

A very interesting further representation ofcentrality was the ceremonial building for thefunctions of the king, which was the

Figure 7

Ming-Tang, the "Hall of Light" or "Hall ofBrilliance," where he performed his kingly rituals(Figure 8). It was "square below" representingearth, and "round above'' representing the domeof the sky, where he would observe the nightheavens and keep track of time and the seasons. Itwas all surrounded by a Pi moat, which signified

Heaven again. In the central building was anaudience hall where the Son of Heaven would siton his throne with the Pole Star at his back,facing south. In early times, this was surroundedby four square chapels; later there were eight, andupstairs was the round observatory platform. Aking of very early times had the custom ofmaking ceremonial rounds of the entire kingdomby going to the five holy mountains, not toexplore, but to confirm his active relation to thefour quarters of the realm and "to spread hisvirtue among them."

It was not too long before the kings consideredsuch a routine wearisome, and instead theytravelled only to the four gates of the capital city.Finally, they did all this in the Ming-Tang alone,making the rounds of the four quarters and alsoof the seasons and the months. This wasconsidered a function of the king as "master oftime" and "master of space." He faced the southwith the Pole Star at his back, toward which the

stars of heaven turn and circulate around it. Thatwas the function of the sacral king; like the Pole

Figure 8

Star, the people would turn their gaze upon himand the life of the realm would circulate abouthim, so to speak, and thus "remain calm anddocile," in harmony.

Scholars have recently discovered that thesekings of the Shang and early Chou Dynasties

were also considered shamans. They were knownas "rain kings" for some while, but that was theleast of their functions. They also had the abilityto fly like shamans into the heavens, and theycould traverse earth, water, and air at will. Theyhad powers of divination and prognosticationand they also apparently had healing powers. TheShang bronzes, which have been unearthedduring the last century, have animals sculptedaround them, facing each other in pairs. Recentstudies of these animals have found that they arethe helping animals of the shaman, the ones whogive him shamanic powers. Therefore, to havebig bronze cauldrons, made so exquisitely, withmany animals around them, was designated thespiritually effective powers of the sacral king.

The monarch was also a father figure: he had abenevolent role, to care for the people and hecarried the responsibility for their well-being.The sage kings of antiquity, of the legendary firstdynasty, the Hsia Dynasty of the end of the third

millennium B.C., were exemplars of thisparticular kind of virtue, or responsibility, ofcaring,

and of nonassertionwu-weigoverning withoutasserting heavy-handed or authoritariandominance.

There is something about this mythic psychologythat is always evanescent; the evolutionaryprocess is relentless. This whole ceremonialsystem became desanctified very soon. For it tobe sacred or sanctified meant that the archetypalconviction or dynamic was in it. At that time, thekingship was filled with potential for the future.It was a psychologically pregnant state about togive birth to many particular attributes ofconsciousness that would follow in thesucceeding centuries, but which were firstrepresented merely in symbolic form or in ritualceremonial. The myth and ritual were essential togive new meaning for a new lifestyle in that kindof urban society. But the habit throughouthistory is that myth arises in times of

bewilderment among new conditions and givesthe necessary guidelines for psychic energies innew culture forms. Then gradually thepersonifications or representations of thoseimages become desanctified and secular.

The fate of this mode of governing was mostclearly represented in the histories of Egypt andof China, where the prerogatives and privilegesof royalty were increasingly mimicked by thearistocracy. Petty princes and rulers of thecomponent states comprising the realm tookthese attributes upon themselves. They governedmore and more autonomously, built equallymagnificent palaces and tombs for themselves,and gathered large armies to assert their growingpower. In this way, the sacred potency andprestige of the status of the "Great Individual"was gradually diffused from the center andbecame more and more secularized. Ambitionand greed for expanding land and mountingwealth led to unceasing wars between these

nobles.

The Egyptian experience is noteworthy. In theirFeudal Age, the latter part of the thirdmillennium B.C., a kind of prophetism appearedthat was to recur in Israel almost two thousandyears later on the same model. Wise men such asIpuwer lamented the lawlessness, marauding, andprevailing poverty, and placed the blame for thischaos squarely on the Pharaoh for not carryingout the duties of his function; this introduced thevision of a messianic hero who would restore thevirtues of the ideal of the kingship. Anothersignificant development was the democratizationof the role of Osiris in the mortuary cult. In theearly dynasties the king alone had the privilege ofbeing transfigured into Osiris; but soon thearistocracy, instead of

merely accompanying the monarch on hisjourney after death, began to assume the right tobe similarly transformed, and finally the commonman could buy the same funerary procedure to"become an Osiris" at his death. Thesephenomena graphically portray the diffusion ofthe attributes of the center downward andoutward to the members of the society.

In China, much the same sort of history occurredtwo thousand years later. During the first half ofthe first millennium B.C., the Chou dynastygradually lost its authority in all but name, and aFeudal Age followed in which the parts stroveagainst each other at the expense of the welfareof the whole. Times of dire distress and intensesuffering among the people resulted, as crops andmanpower were appropriated for the warringarmies of the various states in their powerstruggles against one another. However, in

China's "Times of Troubles," in the midst of hermost critical years when the very survival of theculture was seriously threatened, a remarkablephenomenon took place. A strong move towardhealing was undertaken by the gifted visionariesof the "Hundred Schools" of the philosophers,consisting of efforts at a reexamination of thebasic principles of governing and of societalcohesion by spiritual cultivation. Certain of theirdoctrines were influential in redefining theconcept of individuality.

In spite of the public image of Confucius as anadvocate of a sort of Victorian propriety, he wasone of the great revolutionaries of history,championing a new concept of democracy, aprinciple that possessed a mystique comparableto that of the Tao among the Quietists. Thisvirtue (force) called Jen, usually misleadinglytranslated as "supreme virtue," actually meanshuman-hearted compassion or loving caring.Under its influence, the society would function

as one great family in which all men would bebrothers; this was the origin of "brotherly love."When asked about perfect knowledge, Confuciussaid it was "to know all men,'' and about perfectvirtue he said it was "to love all men." He alsooriginated the concept of the Golden Rule, andof the equality of all men, including even the"barbarians," an idea too preposterous to beaccepted at the time.

A century later, Mencius, the foremost followerof Confucius, taught that selflessness can leadone to an identification of the self with theuniverse so that one can realize that the myriadthings of the cosmos are all within us. By suchspiritual cultivation, all men are

capable of becoming sage kings like the greatexemplars of the kingship, Yao and Shun.Mencius was a perceptive psychologist whotraced the dynamics of societal relationshipsbetween rulers and ruled to its origins within thefamily system, between parents and children.Goodness, he said, was innate.

Mo-tse was an opponent of the Confucian schoolwho proclaimed a doctrine of universal love,Chien Ai, a virtue to be developed by cultivatingspirituality. He argued that the model of thefamily was not universal enough, and that allmen should hold an equal love for one another.He was a pre-Christian Christian.

The Taoists were also opponents of theConfucian teachings, declaring that thosescholars talked too much, and that the more onetalks of virtues of love and loyalty andbenevolence, the more one betrays the fact that

one does not yet have them. Following the Wayof Nature, no such admonitions are required.Cultivating the Light in this spirit, the SpiritualCenter is found inside; it does not need arepresentation in the center of government.

These doctrines reveal the insight that societalharmony, once believed to emanate only from thebenevolence generated by the Son of Heaven atthe center of the world, can be cultivated fromwithin the individuals composing the society.The center of order and integration, onceexpressed in the myth and ritual of the kingship,can be found inside oneself. Order need not beimposed from above if it is evoked from within.Once more I find a remarkable parallel to thevisionary experience called psychotic, whichtypically starts with imagery of power anddominance and with concerns of inordinateprestige, but ends with equally compellingconcerns for the capacities for a lovingrelationship in the life of the individual and in

society.

This level of spiritual sophistication and insightwas not reached by the cultures of the ancientNear East, who spent their energies in warring.Sumer disappeared as mysteriously as it hadarrived; Akkad overran Sumer, but was in its turntaken over by the Assyrians until both mergedinto the empire of Cyrus of Iran. None had thechance to reach the full cultural maturity ofChina; and it was left to Israel to accomplish thetask of inward realization and internalization ofthe kingship. In Israel, many centuries ofvisionary work by its prophets began with thedesire for the restoration of the ideal of the sacralkingship in a strong ruler but evolved into themore

subtle concept of a messiah who would be aspiritual shepherd of the people. Jesus broughtthe various elements of this long tradition into arefined expression of a purely inward andnonpolitical image of his Davidic kingship,characterized by the ethic of agape, a love of allthe members of this Kingdon of God for oneanother.

In India, too, Gautama the Buddha had to decidewhether to follow the career of a Chakravartin,a Universal King, for which he was born andraised, or of an Enlightened One, for which heprepared himself by his meditation under the BoTree. He, too, of course, advocated a way of lifecharacterized by compassion and kindlinesstoward all beings. Both this Buddhahood and thisChrist nature represent the perfected form of theinner sacral kingship as a psychic reality.

Thus, through a history of myth and ritual, the

evolution of the concept of individuality is seen.At the beginning of the Urban Revolution, thespiritual center was externalized in the figure ofthe sole Great Individual, the sacral king. As itgradually diffused among the members of thearistocracy, this form of individuality becamesecularized and desanctified to willful self-seeking. Under the duress of crises, as societiesbecame increasingly chaotic, prophets andvisionaries perceived the dynamic of the inwardrealization of the center and its kingly myth andritual forms. This internalization marked thebeginning of the full democratization of theserituals, and raised the need for a new principle bywhich order might be preserved in societalstructure. For this the visionaries perceived thedynamic of living fellowship and compassion asan absolute prerequisite to make the newindividuality work.

This historical account clearly demonstrates thatindividuality is safe and healthy for society only

if it is kept in balance with societal concerns andif the motive of personal power is compensatedfor by an equally strong motive to care forothers.

Needless to say, the problems we face todaygrow out of a definition of individuality that hascome to mean mere self-seeking, and ademocracy that has altogether lost its meaning.Especially in America, individuals live inseparateness, even isolation. In our competitivesystem, we seem to think one must be out foroneself. Once again, the parts are functioningwithout regard for the interests of the whole.Immense numbers of people grow up withoutany sense of belonging to a community and sothey lack feelings of loyalty and caring;

crime, visible and invisible, mounts. One of theprincipal difficulties is that the mention of lovein any but the most personal framework hasbecome sentimentalized, emasculated, relegatedto a Sunday school brand of ephemeralidealization. Whole books are written on statesof consciousness and their psychology, whereinone finds no mention of love. Yet love remainsthe most essential dynamic in the healthyfunctioning of society.

Presented at the Ninth Conference of theInternational Transpersonal Association (ITA) onTradition and Technology in Transition, Kyoto,Japan, April 1985.

Chapter SevenThoughts on Mysticism as Frontier ofConsciousness Evolution

Brother David Steindl-Rast, PH.D.

I like to think about mysticism as a particularfrontier of consciousness evolution. It is underthis aspect that I would like to explore theproblem of mysticism with you today. In the firstpart of my talk, I will focus on some general anduniversal features of the mystical quest. In thesecond half, I will focus on its Christian version,specifying what makes a certain form ofmysticism Christian. But obviously, even indiscussing the most general aspects of mysticism,I will already be speaking as somebody standingin the Christian tradition. It will not be adiscussion of absolutely pure mysticism, if

something like that is at all possible. Rather, Iwill be looking at mysticism as somebody whodiscovered it primarily through the Christiantradition. However, I have been very fortunate tobe exposed to other mystical traditions,particularly the Buddhist and the Hindu one. Thishas broadened and deepened my own view ofmysticism.

Today's confrontation with mysticism will be avery personal task for you. Of course, if you facethe frontiers of consciousness in the right way,you always make it personal, you always applywhat you see to your own life. But when FritjofCapra, for instance, speaks about physics, that isa field of knowledge out there. It is optional towhat degree you personalize your insights. Whenwe speak about

Presented at the month-long seminar on Frontiers ofConsciousness Research coordinated by Christina andStanislav Grof, Esalen Institute, May 1985.

mysticism as a field of investigation out theresomewhere, we have already missed the point. Itis your own mysticism that we are talkingaboutor else it is nothing at all.

The mystics are not a special kind of humanbeing. But every human being is a special kind ofmystic. The challenge for you is to discover assoon as possible what particular kind of mysticyou are. Find where your own mysticalexperience lies and explore that. What I amtelling you comes out of my own experience andwants to reach your experience. That is theimportant thing. Allow your own experience toresonate with what I put before you. Askyourselves here, step by step, "Is this true for me?Does this ring true for me?" If it does not ringtrue, please speak up. We are cooperating here.Each one of us has to make a contribution so thatin the end, we will be able to speak about

mysticism in terms that are meaningful for all ofus here. It will become clear as we go along thatwe are speaking about the mental realm in whichall of us are one, the point where we all areconnected. At the same time, we are speakingabout the very experience that shows us what istrue, the experience from which we take thestandard for what we mean by "real." Our mysticexperience is the point where we are all one. Andit is at the same time the measure, the standardfor what is real. Therefore, it is only on this basisthat we can ever agree on what is true or real.Mystic awareness is the deepest anchor forhuman solidarity. But more of this later.

Our next step must be to remember our ownmystical experience. It is necessary that youremember a moment in which you yourself hadthe kind of experience that we call mystical. Wewill explore this experience together as we goalong, but we need something to work with. Soyou need to have your own experience clearly in

mind. Whatever I say can then be checked outagainst this experience. Therefore, the first step isthat you clearly remember an experience that willqualify. Remember a moment that stands out inyour memory as making life meaningful.Something of which you would say, "Well, forthat kind of experience it is worth being alive."That would be sort of the lowest commondenominator. You ought to be able to say, "Atthat moment life made sense." Even if you say,"For me, most of the time, life makes no sensewhatsoever," there surely was a moment when itseemed to make sense. That is the moment wewant to latch onto. For some this is a rareoccasion.

Another person may say, "I don't know which oneto choose, I'm just showered with this kind ofexperience. I wallow in it, it comes fifteen timesin one day." That does not make any difference.What matters is for you to remember a momentin which life made sense. That will be ourstarting point.

And in order to prime the pump I will read you ashort passage that many of you will be familiarwith. It comes from a well-known play, EugeneO'Neill's "A Long Day's Journey into Night."You do not have to know the play or the plot inorder to appreciate this passage. Edmund istelling Tyron about this kind of experience. He isslightly drunk at the time, which makes it easierfor him to talk about it. See if your own memoryassociates with what Edmund says.

You've just told me some high spots in your memories.Want to hear mine? They're all connected with the sea.

Here's one. When I was on the Squarehead square rigger,bound for Buenos Aires. Full moon in the Trades. The oldhooker driving fourteen knots. I lay on the bowsprit, facingastern, with the water foaming into spume under me, themasts with every sail white in the moonlight, towering highabove me. I became drunk with the beauty and singingrhythm of it, and for a moment I lost myselfactually lost mylife. I was set free! I dissolved in the sea, became white sailsand flying spray, became beauty and rhythm, becamemoonlight and the ship and the high dim-starred sky! Ibelonged without past or future, within peace and unity andwild joy, within something greater than my own life, or thelife of Man, to Life itself! To God, if you want to put it thatway. And several other times in my life, when I wasswimming far out, or lying alone on a beach, I have had thesame experience. Became the sun, the hot sand, greenseaweed anchored to a rock, swaying in the tide. Like asaint's vision of beatitude. Like the veil of things as theyseem drawn back by an unseen hand. For a second there ismeaning! Then the hand lets the veil fall and you are alone,lost in the fog again, and you stumble on toward nowhere,for no good reason.

Some of this ought to ring a bell within us. Thatis the great thing about a poetic statement: Thekey words are all there. "I lost myself."

Maybe this is the only key phrase of which youcan say, "I know what he is talking about. In thatmoment I lost myself." Or, as T. S. Eliot puts it,"Lost in a shaft of sunlight." You see this shaftof sunlight coming out of a cloud, and looking atit you lose yourself. You look into somebody'seyes, and you just drown in them and loseyourself in this vision. "I lost myself." Or, "I wasset free,'' For a moment I was set free. It was likecoming out of a cage. Most of the time I amcaged, in my own cage. I am my own cagekeeper. But for a moment I am out, I am free.For some unknown reason I go right back intothe cage. Maybe I feel safer there. But we allhave moments when we come out of the cage, "Iwas set free." Or another key phrase: "I dissolvedin the sea. I became white sails." I dissolved inwhat I saw. I became one with everything that Isaw. That is often an aspect of our mysticexperience. "I belonged." "I belonged" may be

one of the most important key phrases. Most ofthe time we feel that we are somehow left out.We are standing outside. There is all thiswonderful world and life going on, and we aresomewhat alienated from it, outsiders, as it were.But for a moment we belong. We are a part ofthat great dance, everybody welcomes us;everything welcomes us. "I belonged withoutpast or future." That is another aspect of ourmystic moments: Time seems to fall away. Timestands still. It is what Eliot calls a "moment inand out of time." It is in time and yet it is out oftime. "I belonged within peace and unity and awild joy, within something greater than my ownlife or life itself . . . to God if you want to put itthat way." We will not bring God in as yet. Weare not ready for that. But we will come back toit.

I will now give you a definition for "mysticexperience." You may find it in any dictionary. Itis nothing very special. But it will be helpful as a

working definition. Mysticism in the broadestsense is "the experience of communion withUltimate Reality." Each of these three points isimportant. It is an experience. Mysticism is nottheory but practical experienceyour own. And itis a special kind of experience, namely, anexperience of communion. That communionaspect is very important. What stands in theforeground of your particular experience may becommunion in a limited sense. You mayexperience deep communion by sharing with oneother person or with an animal, with a pet. Youmay be focusing, for example, on a momentwhen you lost your pet and found it again. Thatmay

be one of those mystical moments. But this kindof experience always implies a greatercommunion, it always implies a communion thathas no limits. That is why we speak ofcommunion with Ultimate Reality. Now let usgo through that definition point by point.

Experience is a helpful word, but it hides its owntraps. Experience is a highly inflated term today.When I speak of experience, you may think, "Ohwow, this must be one of those big bangers, but Ihave never had one of those." But what isimportant here, when we speak of experience, itnot its magnitude. What is important is that youbecome aware of something. Awareness is whatwe are after here. This awareness may have comesuddenly and overwhelmingly, but it may alsohave come ever so gradually. My favorite imagefor this is the coming of spring. Sometimesspring comes suddenly, with a big bang.

Yesterday it was still winter, but today spring isin the air. Spring came overnight. In other years itcomes so gradually that you can not even saywhen it came. A long drawn-out battle was goingback and forth. But eventually it is spring. Youdo not know how it came, but all that matters isthat spring is here. And so all that matters is thatyou eventually become aware deep within you ofultimate communion. Whether it came with onesudden explosion or very, very slowly does notmake any difference. Remember: Awareness iswhat counts no matter how it seeps into yourconsciousness.

You may not notice when you are passing thatborder of consciousness. Sometimes when youpass into another country you have to check yourpassport and undergo all sorts of border controls.Then there is no question where you are. But atother times you just pass through on the train.Nobody checked your passport, but there you are.Frontiers are not always the same. You may have

passed a frontier of awareness without notice.The important thing is that you have passed it.And the awareness that concerns us here isexperiential awareness of communion.

But "communion" is another one of thoseinflated words today. The perfect community isone of the most alluring mirages in our time.Well, what concerns us here is rather a deepsense of belonging. We may have that sense ofbelonging without ever finding its externalexpression in a closely knit community. Whatmatters is our awareness that we belong. We arenot aliens, outcasts, orphans in this world. Kabir,the great mystic poet says:

We sense that there is some sort of spirit that loves Birds and animals and the antsPerhaps the same one who gave a radiance to you In your mother's womb.Is it logical you would be walking around entirely orphaned now?

Remember your life in the womb. Something putyou together; something fashioned you there;something brought you out; something saw youthrough. Is it possible that that one would leaveyou orphaned now? That is the mystical insightof belonging. Before anything else, you belong.Is it imaginable that you should no longerbelong? Is it imaginable that you should really beorphaned now? When you ask yourself thatquestion and at least begin to doubt that youshould be orphaned now, then you are movingfrom alienation to belonging.

Belonging and alienation, that is the polarityabout which we are talking. That polarity is the

pivot of our spiritual life. One pole is alienation.We all know what that is. We know what it feelslike: being cut off from everything, fromourselves, from anything that has meaning, fromall others. And the opposite pole to alienation isbelonging. All that ultimately matters in our lifeis movement from alienation to belonging, oftenwith many setbacks. This has always been theessential struggle of spiritual life. But we need avocabulary that makes sense to us today.Alienation is our contemporary word for whathas been called sin and, therefore, thecontemporary word for salvation is belonging.Sin and salvation have become jargon words, andwe may as well declare a moratorium on them. Iam only referring to these terms because we donot want to lose the connection with the waypeople have been speaking about the samerealities in the past. For us, "sin" is not a helpfulword because our notion of sin has becomelimited to "do's and don'ts." Originally, the termreferred to alienation from self, from others,

from the divine reality within and beyond us. Forus, today, the word alienation conveys preciselywhat tradition calls "sin." And if you think of''belonging" in its ultimate, fullest sense, thenyou also know what "salvation" means. That iswhat we long for, namely, belonging, wholeness,communion with our own true self, with allothers, with the divine.

This reference to communion with the divineleads us to the third element of our definition ofmysticism as "experience of communion withUltimate Reality." If we had problems with theterms "experience" and ''communion," theseproblems are compounded when we come tospeak of Ultimate Reality, or the divine, or God.We could avoid misunderstandings by speakingof Ultimate Reality rather than God. All thosewho feel comforable with the word "God" willcertainly agree that God is the Ultimate Reality.But there are many whom the term God makesuneasy, and often for good reasons. Yet,speaking of Christian mysticism, we shall have toface the notion of God sooner or later. Why notdo so right now?

We must not start out with what someone elsehas told us about God. We have to rediscoverGod from within. And there we discover God as

the one to whom we belong. That is all. Beforewe know anything about God, we know God.This is true for every one of us. We know God asthe one to whom we belong. Anyone who usesthe word "God" correctly uses it in this sense. Ifit is used in any other sense, you are the judges ofhow this word is to be used because you know itfrom experience. Each one of us knows Godfrom experience. The word "God" is a label, wedo not need to use it. We could talk aboutreligion forever without using the word God.But it can be a helpful word. It links our ownexperience with all the theistic traditions. Wemust start with our experience. But it helps tolink that experience with what millions of peoplehave experienced and spoken about in the theistictraditions of the world. Thus, we can profit fromwhat others have experienced. You can compareyour own experience with the experience ofothers if you have this key word. But do notallow anybody to give you this term God loadedalready with lots of notions. Discover its content

for yourself!

I would like to read you the short description ofone of those discoveries of God. It comes fromthe autobiography of Mary Austin. It is amazinghow often you find that kind of experience in theearly parts of autiobiographies. And it isimportant for you to find it in your ownautobiography. So Mary Austin says here:

I must have been between five and six when this experiencehappened to me. It was a summer morning, and the child Iwas had walked down through the orchard alone and comeout on the brow of a sloping hill where there were grass and

a wind blowing and one tall tree reaching into the infiniteimmensities of blueness. Quite suddenly, after a moment ofquietness there, earth and sky and tree and wind-blowngrass and the child in the midst of them came alive togetherwith a pulsing light of consciousness. To this day I can recallthe swift inclusive awareness of each for the wholeI in themand they in me and all of us enclosed in a warm lucentbubble of livingness.

Now up to this point there is nothing new. Weknow it from our own experience. We have heardit in Eugene O'Neill's experience. But nowcomes the reason why I am reading this particularpassage to you. Because Mary Austin describesso wonderfully the discovery of God. "Iremember the child looking everywhere for thesource of this happy wonder and at last shequestioned: 'God?' because that was the onlyawesome word she knew." So we have twomoments here. First, the discovery of Godthenputting the word on it. Experience is the realdiscovery. Then there is this awesome word that

does not fit anywhere else, so now you try thisword on your experience. You ask yourselfthat isthe first stage"God?" Could this experience haveanything to do with God? And then, "deep inside,like the murmurous ring of a bell, she heard theanswer, 'God, God.'"

That simply means "okay, that will fit." Let us trythat word. "How long this ineffable momentlasted I never knew. It broke like a bubble at thesudden singing of a bird. And the wind blew andthe world was the same as everonly never quitethe same." (From The Unattended Moment, byMichael Paffard, London, SCM Press Ltd.,1976.)

That is a discovery, the passing over a frontier ofconsciousness. From here you cannot go back.You have discovered something that you canexplore from here on forever. Mysticism is the"exploration into God." Christopher Fry coinedthat expression. In his play, "A Sleep ofPrisoners," he says, "Affairs are now soul-sized,

the enterprise is exploration into God." This iswhat life is all about: exploration into God. It islike opening your eyes. There it is, the land towhich you belong. This is where you are athome. And now you can spend the rest of eternityexploring this territory.

This is where the religious traditions come in.They all start from mystical experience. There isnot one religious tradition in the world that startsfrom anything else. Often it starts historicallywith the mystical experience of the founder orreformer. Always it starts psychologically withthe mystical experience of the believer. This isthe starting point. And the end point of everyreligion in the world is the same. The goal ofevery religion is to make all experience ultimatebelonging and act accordingly. That would beheaven. But if religion is this unifying force, if itstarts with our deepest unity and leadssupposedly to the point where everything will bean unfolding of this oneness, how come thereligions are such divisive factors in the world?In other words, how does one get from themystic experience that is within to the religionsout there? How does one get from religiousexperience to religious tradition, from Religion

to the religions? You know the answer. It is notonly a process, something that happens out there.You know from your own experience howmystic experience inevitably turns into doctrine,ethics, and ritual, the key elements of everyreligious tradition. Let us check this out.

Mysticism is the heart of religion. Admittedly so.The heart of every religion is the religion of theheart. You know the heart of religion fromexperience. But how does one get from the innercore of religion to its paraphernalia out there?The answer is: inevitably! You inevitably getthere somehow or other, even in your ownprivate religion. There are certain things that thehuman mind inevitably does with any experience.Applied to our mystical experience, the mindturns it inevitably into doctrine, ethics, and ritual.Let us look more closely to see how thishappens.

The first thing is that your intellect swoops downon your experience and starts interpreting it. You

can not help that. When you were trying toremember your own mystic experience a littlewhile ago, you were already beginning tointerpret it. You said something about it toyourself. And by this interpretation, you began toform a religious doctrine. That is where religiousdoctrine begins. This process is inevitable.Wherever there is experience, there must beinterpretation of that experience. We can not helpit. Our mind works that way. And that is whatdoctrine is, interpretation of religiousexperience.

Every religion contains an element of doctrine. Itmay be merely rudimentary, or it may be highlyelaborate. Even your private religion inevitablycontains its own doctrine. If you had a long timeto work with it, that doctrine will be moreelaborate. In young religion it will be simpler. Ifa religion has lasted for millennia, you canimagine that a lot of interpretation has happened.At first, doctrine is closely linked with theexperience which it interprets. The experience isstill very much alive, and you can continue toreinterpret it. The next generation is already a bitremoved from that experience. It is interpretingthe interpretation of the original experience. Andonce you have twenty seven generations, eachone is interpreting the interpretation of aninterpretation of an interpretation. We get furtherand further removed from the originalexperience. You cannot help that. But theinterpretation, the doctrine, should continuously

be linked with your own mystical experience inorder to stay alive.

As children, many of us were exposed to all sortsof doctrines about God without anybody everencouraging us to discover God first-hand withinourselves. This is an injustice, a deprivation.When religion's teaching is no longer linked withyour own experience, doctrine turns intodogmatism. By dogmatism I mean a hardeneddoctrine, a doctrine that is no longer alive, thatjust sits there. Doctrine, as the interpretation ofyour mystic experience, is necessary. But italways has the tendency to deteriorate intodogmatism. (Please understand that dogmatismand dogma are not necessarily connected. Dogmais simply meant to pin down a doctrine in a formthat says, "Well, this one we have settled; now letus go on and continue to explore." Dogma ismeant to be a firm sort of stepping stone on theway to further exploration.) Any doctrine candeteriorate into dogmatism. The great task of the

intellect is to keep religion healthy byconfronting and connecting again and againdoctrine and mysticism with one another.

So much for the intellect. But your will (yourwillingness, not your willfulness) also has itstask. Just like your intellect, your will doessomething with every experience. Whenever youexperience something, your will says, "This isnice; let's go after that," or else "I don't want tohave anything to do with that!" We are concernedwith these two possibilities when we speak of thewill. But unfortunately, it is not as simple asthat, because our intellect and our will workclosely together. After your mystic experience,your will

may say, "Wow, this limitless belonging, that'sterrific! It's all I ever wanted. Let's go on afterthat." But your intellect warns you, "Be careful,you're going out on a limb, you don't know whatall the implications are. Not so fast!" Your willis willing to commit itself, but you are fearful.Here we are suddenly in the realm of ethics, ofmorals. The realm where fearfulness strugglesagainst commitment to limitless belonging, thatis the arena of morality. That is why morality isanother element of every religion.

If I really belong in the way in which I haveexperienced it in my mystic moments, then I mustdraw certain consequences. But fear draws a linesomewhere. In your wonderful mysticalmoments you were not drawing lines betweeneducated and uneducated. You were not drawinglines between black and white. You were notdrawing lines between male and female, even

between human and nonhuman. You are notdrawing any lines. And if you belong to all, thenyou have obligations towards all. At the momentof your mystical experience, you happily acceptall these obligations. Ethics, morality, is simply aspelling out of how to live when you take yourultimate belonging seriously.

Inevitably, we begin to formulate ourobligations. After all, we do not live in avacuum, but in society. When morality is firstformulated, it is still alive. You can still go backto the experience and understand what you meantby the formulation. But life goes on. Time goesby. The "do"s and "don't"s, once formulated, donot change. But now you have moved to adifferent spot. You would not express yourobligations in the same way today. But there theystand, these "do"s and ''don't"s, and they are nolonger connected with your deepest sense ofbelonging. When that happens, moralitydeteriorates into moralism.

Just as we distinguished doctrine fromdogmatism, we can distinguish morals frommoralism. Morals is the expression of ourcommitment to belonging. When thatcommitment is formulated, the formation has atendency to harden until the expression hardens.Difference sits out there by itself, unconnectedwith experience. It can even come intocontradiction with the living experience ofbelonging. The more you have had to do withformalized religion, the more you could giveexamples of morality coming into contrast withwhat that very religion preaches. To avoidmoralism, you have to

continuously go back to the experience at theroot of religion. Morality has to be judged byyour mystic experience.

But that is only one half. The mystic experience,if you really want to keep it pure and healthy, hasto be judged by morals. The confrontation worksboth ways. If you want to have a healthy spirituallife, you have to allow for this interplay. It takestoo long to reinvent the wheel. In religion, just asin other areas of human life, certain inventionshave been made that can help us a great deal.Explorers check their findings against what otherexplorers have found. It would be a veryimpoverished life if you had to do everythingyourself. At this point, I would put in a plug forreligious traditions. All of them have their realproblems, but they also have a great deal ofwisdom that has accumulated. I certainly wouldnot advise you to take it all, unchecked; that

should be clear by now. But you might benefit byallowing yourself to be formed by tradition, justlike artists are formed by a tradition before theyset out to make their own discoveries. That is adelicate task.

There is a third area in which religion springsfrom the mystical experience, namely, ritual.There is no religion in the world that does nothave some sort of doctrine. There is no religionin the world that does not have some sort ofmoral teachings. And there is no religion in theworld that does not have some sort of ritual. Buthow does ritual arise from your mysticexperience? Just as the intellect interprets theexperience, and the will commits you to it, soyour emotions, your feelings, celebrate thatexperience. And that is where ritual comes in.

Ritual is, first and foremost, a celebration oflimitless belonging. Check this out against yourown experience. Some of the rituals out there, inthe traditional historic religions, may look

bizarre. But you may have anniversarycelebrations of a deep spiritual experience. Well,there you have a ritual calendar, like mostreligions have. You may keep going back to theplace where that experience overwhelmed you.Well, there you have the ritual of pilgrimage. Letus say it happened at the beach. Every beach inthe world is now a sacred place for you becauseit always brings back that experience. Or a treebecomes in that way a sacred tree for you. Ritual,when it is alive, is the celebration of mysticexperience. It is a remembering that makes theexperience present again. But ritual candeteriorate into ritualism. That happenswhenever the ritual action no longer

leads you back to the experience, but becomes anend in itself. You know no longer why, you justgo through the motions. That is the way it hasalways been; that is the way it is supposed to bedone; and so you go through this ritual; and itdoes not do anything for you. That is ritualism.But ritual, rightly understood, is meant to leadyou continuously back, not only to somethingthat happened in the past, but to your own mostintimate mystical experience.

Allow me to summarize briefly what we haveseen so far. First, we came to agree on a workingdefinition of mysticism as "experience ofcommunion with Ultimate Reality" (with God, ifyou can use that term). This definition is basedon our own experience. It can be checked outagainst your own experience, for we are allmystics. The mysticism of which we are speakinghere, the religion of the heart, is the heart of

every religion. But the question arises, how dowe get from the experience of communion withUltimate Reality to all those religions around uswith their specific historical, cultural, andtheological peculiarities?

My answer is that different times and differentplaces have provided different conditions forinterpreting, applying, and celebrating the mysticexperience. This resulted in the variety ofreligions in the world. All of them, however,spring from the same seed, the mystic experience.And all of them ripen towards the same harvest,the full fruition of the mystic awareness inhuman society.

The essence of mystic awareness is a sense ofultimate belonging. The various religiousdoctrines come about as this mystic awareness isvariously interpreted by the human intellect. Themoral systems of different religions come aboutwhen the human will draws more or less radicalconsequences for human behavior from the

mystic awareness of our belonging together. Andreligious ritual in its many forms comes aboutwhen human emotions celebrate the awareness ofultimate belonging, utilizing the different meanswhich different cultural settings offer.

The health and vitality of a given religiondepends on the constant interplay betweendoctrine, ethics, and ritual on the one hand andthe mystic awareness of the believer on the other.Where this interplay dries up, doctrine hardensinto dogmatism, ethics into legalism, and ritualinto ritualism. Only the continuous renewal of agiven religious tradition from its mystical corecan keep it alive and aware of what

religion essentially is, namely, "exploration intoGod" at the frontier of human consciousness.

An image that I have sometimes used to illustratethe relationship between the mystic experienceand religious tradition is that of a volcaniceruption. There is that hot magma gushing forthout of the depth of the earth. And then it flowsdown on the sides of the mountain. The longer itflows, the more time it has to cool off. And themore it cools, the less it looks like fire. At thebottom of the mountain, you find just layers andlayers of rock. No one would think that this wasever bright, hot, fiery. But along comes themystic. The mystic pokes holes through theselayers and layers of rock until the fire gushesforth again, the original fire. Since each one of usis a mystic, this is our task. But as we rise to ourresponsibility, we will inevitably clash with theinstitution.

The question is: Do we have the grace and thestrength and the courage to take on our prophetictask? You see, the mystic is also the prophet.And the prophetic stance is a double one. Itdemands a double courage, the courage to speakout and the courage to stay in. It takes a gooddeal of courage to speak out, not necessarily withwords. Often a silent witness is much more of awitness. By word or by silence, the prophetspeaks out. It is difficult enough to speak out andthen to get out as quickly as you can, to say yourthing and run. But the second half of theprophetic stance is to stay in, stay in thecommunity against which you have to speak out.But it will not do to stay in and to blend with thewoodwork, to stay in and lie low. That is notprophetic either. The most difficult thing isdemanded from us: to stay in and to speak out.Nothing less will do.

To stay in would be easy if we could disappear.To speak out would be easy if we could get out.

But then you would no longer be a prophet, youwould merely be an outside critic; that hashappened to many tired prophets. They havebecome outside critics. As long as they wereprophets within, they had leverage; they wereable to change things. Now, on the outside, theysay the same things, but it does not phaseanybody anymore. But to stay in and speak outmeans crucifixion. The staying in is symbolizedby this cross because you stay in; you can not goanywhere else. It is rammed into the ground, andit is the vertical post of the cross. The horizontalpost symbolizes the speaking out. It happens tofit in the Christian

tradition very nicely. But the cross of the prophetis there in every tradition.

This leads right into the second great question ofour topic: What is it that makes mysticismChristian? Mysticism is a phenomenom that wefind in all the great religious traditions. It is abasic human phenomenon. Every human being isa mystic, although some may be more talentedthan others. Some may have developed thatcapacity further than others; but basicallymysticism belongs to every human being. It isuniversal. Now, among the many different formsof mysticism, we find also Christian mysticism.Why do we call it Christian? What makes itChristian? We could answer that mysticism isChristian when it is related to the person of JesusChrist in one way or another. That is enough fora starting point.

It seems important to me to start out in this way,

because this definition allows for degrees. Aparticular form of mysticism may be more or lessChristian depending on the extent to which it isconnected with Jesus Christ. But to the degreesto which it has some relationship to Jesus Christ,we have a right to call a given mysticismChristian. No one has a monopoly on JesusChrist. Therefore, nobody has a monopoly onChristian mysticism. It is not as if somebodycould tell you: "This is Christian mysticism, butnow you have crossed the line, and it is no longerChristian mysticism. You have passed out of it,you have fallen." We are not setting up a tidybox, but are establishing a relationship to aradiant center that radiates indefinitely. Theremay be areas that are just barely touched anddimly lit by this particular light, yet receive thefull impact of another light. We can get twilightzones. If we speak about it in this way, weremain closer to actual reality than if we try toimpose a more rigid definition.

If mysticism is Christian to the degree to which itis related to Jesus Christ and if our task is tospeak about Christian mysticism, then obviously,we have to speak about Jesus Christ. Threeaspects under which this topic relates to frontiersof consciousness evolution will be particularlyimportant to us. One is the fact that mysticism assuch is a frontier experience, as we have alreadydiscussed. The second is that Jesus Christ is apioneer of consciousness. The third aspect willform the background to our investigations. Itconsists of the fact that biblical scholarship in thesecond half of the twentieth

century is passing a frontier with far-reachingconsequences for Christian counsciousness.

Biblical scholarship today has renounced theambition to achieve a detailed biography ofJesus. The available data is simply insufficient todo so. But we can achieve something far moreimportant: we can reconstruct quite reliably whatkind of person Jesus was. There is considerableinterest today in the Jesus before Christianity.The image that emerges shows us Jesus as apioneer of human consciousness, and thisprecisely on the frontier of mysticism. Theimpact of Jesus can be understood as a newphase in the human "exploration into God."Moreover, his life's work and teaching stands andfalls with mysticism. It hinges on "the experienceof communion with God"Jesus' own and that ofthe people to whom his message is addressed.

We can get our teeth into this topic by asking

two basic questions about the Jesus beforeChristianity. What did he actually teach? Andhow did he teach? Let me anticipate the answers.(Scholars are practically unanimous on these twopoints.) The gist of Jesus' message is theproclamation of the Kingdom of God. And hismost characteristic teaching method is inparables. But now we will have to unpack thecontent of these two succinct answers and seewhat trail Jesus blazed across frontiers ofconsciousness, allowing others to follow.

Mark, the earliest of our extant Gospels,summarized the teaching of Jesus in Chapter1:15. He puts it all in a single verse so that youreally get the gist. And this is what he says:"Jesus came . . . proclaiming the Good Newsfrom God and saying, 'The time is fulfilled, theKingdom of God is at hand. Be converted andbelieve the Good News.'" "The time is fulfilled."That means "now." Do not wait for anything else.Now is the moment"The Kingdom of God is at

hand." At hand means right here. Here and now,that is the setting for the proclamation. This isthe time, this is the place. do not look foranywhere else; do not wait for any other moment.This is it! (Now you are cornered.) And nowcomes the message: "Be converted and believethe Good News!''

If you look that up in your King James version, itwill say "Repent ye, and believe the gospel." Thatis a very problematic translation for us today.Repentance means, for most of us, making up forwhat we have done wrong. And gospel means,for us today, the gospel book. So you get the ideathat Jesus told us to make up for our sins

and then believe what is written in that book.Unfortunately, that is a widespreadmisunderstanding. And what a misunderstanding!What would be new about Jesus' message if thatwere what he meant? And what would be goodabout it? What Jesus is really saying is this: Hereand now God's saving power has been mademanifest. Put your trust in it and let it turn yourwhole life around!

The word Mark uses for conversion means acomplete change of heart. It means a turningupside down of our habitual way of thinking andliving. What, then, does Kingdom of God meanto warrant such a world-shaking response? Theanswer to this question leads us right back intothe realm of mysticism and helps us understandhow Jesus expanded the frontiers ofconsciousness. Biblical scholarship today isquite unanimous on the meaning of Kingdom of

God in the message of Jesus. It does not mean aplace, a realm, like the British Empire. Nor doesit mean a communityall those who belong toJesus as king. Nor does it mean God's reign orpower in the abstract. On the contrary, it refers tothe most concrete, experiential reality. Kingdomof God means for Jesus God's saving powermade manifest.

When we understand the term Kingdom in themessage of Jesus as "God's saving power mademanifest," then we can readily see how relevant itis in our context of Christian mysticism. In ourown experience, when do we experience "God'spower" and "salvation"? If we understand theseterms correctly, the answer will be: in our alivemoments, in those mystic moments, about whichwe spoke already. How, then, do terms like''God's power" and "salvation" link up with ourcontemporary experience? We might prefer toavoid the term God. Today, it often causesconfusion if you introduce this term. But on the

other hand, we are talking here in terms ofChristian tradition, of Jewish tradition. That iswhy we must try to understand the terminologyof that tradition.

When do we today experience what may be theequivalent to God's saving power? I wouldsuggest that it is in those moments when we are"overpowered," as we say, by an overwhelminginrush of aliveness. Remember the examples Iread to you from Eugene O'Neill and MaryAustin. Those were moments in which peoplewere overpowered. And we too, if we remembersimilar moments, know that we were carriedbeyond the frontiers of our normalconsciousness by a power, a saving power.Remember, it is like being

let out of a cage. A power beyond ourselves isfreeing us, liberating us, pulling us out fromdrowning.

Normally, we focus narrowly on this life-savermodel when we think about being saved. Thebasic idea is that you are in trouble andsomebody pulls you out. Remember how manyadvertisements play on this particular concept ofsaving: You are in trouble, and we will save you.First we show you how you are in trouble, andthen we will show you how you can be saved byour product. Even the dog faints when you takeoff your shoes! And then comes the deodorantthat will save you. These are the two parts ofevery advertisement. First they show you thatyou need salvation; then they show you how youcan be saved.

But that is not the only notion of saving. In fact itis one that we rarely use in everyday language.

More often we speak of saving money, savingenergy, saving water, or the like. There is adifferent concept of saving behind this. You arenot saving the water from drowning or moneyfrom being in trouble! Saving in this contextmeans not wasting. But not wasting is only thenegative aspect. The positive aspect is affirmingthe valueof every penny, of every ounce ofenergy, every drop of water. And that aspect ofsaving is most important in our mysticexperiences. Suddenly we are saved fromalienation. (Remember alienation stands in ourterminology today for all that we need to besaved from.) Suddenly we find our valueaffirmed. That is what saves us. We are at home.We are not orphans. We are not outcasts. Webelong. Thus we experience, in our bestmoments, a saving power, a power that liberatesus by affirming us.

We walk taller now that we are affirmed. We aremore truly ourselves now that this saving power

has been made manifest to us in our experience.That is in itself a conversion, a turning, athinking upside down. Most of the time we lie asif we were alienated, but now we know that webelong. And this manifestation calls us to furtherconversion. If we could live out, in everymoment of our daily life, what we experience,what we are aware of in our mystical moments,that would be conversion. Life lived in thatpower would altogether change the world.

On the basis of this experience you canunderstand Jesus as a person who hasexperienced profound intimacy with God, aperson who experienced communion with God'ssaving power. How he goes around and tellseverybody, "Haven't you experienced that? It's a

reality here and now, this Kingdom of God, themanifestation of God's saving power. The time isfulfilled. The kingdom is at hand. Put your trustin that awareness; that is all you need to do. And,above all, live accordingly. That's conversion."But this Good News is too good to be true. Thatis why we do not live by it. Nor do we live byour own best experiences. We have them and anhour later we almost forget that sense ofaliveness. We suppress it again. We doubt it.Maybe it was just an illusion. Our mysticawareness is too good to be true. We repress it.But Jesus says, "Don't forget it. This is reality.Live accordingly!" That message reverberates inso many ways throughout the whole NewTestament.

And that is why Jesus teaches in parables. Thereis no other teacher in the history of religion whotaught so predominantly in parables. Jesus taught

most typically in parables; not exclusively, but somuch so that Mark can say that he taught only inparables. That he never taught in any other wayexcept in parables is an exaggeration. But parablewas the most typical way. That is why it is soimportant for us to understand what a parable is.It is a very simple teaching device. It can be alittle story, it can be somewhat longer, or it canbe just a very short saying like a proverb. Theway some proverbs work gives us a good ideahow a parable works. Take this one for example:"Early bird catches the worm." That is commonsense. You can observe it if you get up earlyenough. Later on, most of the worms are gone.Late comers do not get any. You may haveobserved that many times, but it did not meanmuch to you. But then one day, you find yourselfcoming late to lunch at Esalen, and you do notget anything. Or maybe you go to a record shopand that new record is sold out. All of a suddenyou remember that early bird catching a worm.Your situation has nothing to do with birds, nor

with worms, but it has a lot to do with the truththat lies behind the proverb.

That is the way a parable starts out. It remindsyou of a common sense observation. Often itstarts with, "Who of you does not know that?"Who of you who is a parent does not know howparents feel towards their children? Who of youwho has ever baked bread does not know howyeast works? Who of you has ever lostsomething and does not know to what extent onegoes to find it again? The "who of you" appealsto the audience and says, "Don't you all knowthis anyway?'' This is part one of every parable.Who of you does

not know that the early bird catches the worm?Something as commonplace as that. Then comespart two. That is the response of the audience.The audience says, "Well, obviously, that'scommon sense. Isn't it?" And then comes partthree, and that is, in the best examples, justsilence. But sometimes it is spelled out, and it isthe part in which Jesus says, "Ah, so it's commonsense, okay. Well then why don't you actaccordingly?" Whoops, now you are caught!

Let us look at an example to see how thisteaching method of parable works. Most parablesdeal with the kingdom, but this one is told inanswer to a question. The question is this: If I amsupposed to love my neighbor as myself, who ismy neighbor? We call this the parable of thegood Samaritan. You have all heard it, I am sure.To call this parable the story of the goodSamaritan is like telling a joke and giving it a

title that spoils the whole point of the joke. Forthe Jews at the time of Jesus, there was no suchthing as a good Samaritan. The only goodSamaritan was a dead Samaritan, as we wouldsay today. The Samaritans were the absolutelybad ones. And besides, the story is not about theSamaritan. That is another problem. The story isabout a man who fell among the robbers. (This isa handy rule of thumb: In parables, as in jokes,you always have to identify with the first personmentioned, otherwise you do not get the point.You may get something else out of it, as in thestory of the "good" Samaritan. All sorts of good,interesting teachings have been based on it. But ifyou want to know what Jesus said, follow therule for any folk tale, joke, or folksy saying;namely identify with the first person mentioned!)

Well, then, someone asks, "Who is myneighbor?" and Jesus tells this story. There was aman (that's you!), who went from Jerusalem toJericho, and he fell among robbers. Between

Jerusalem and Jericho one can still fall amongrobbers today. The road leads through a steepcanyon, and all sorts of things can happen to youthere. So this man falls among robbers, who beathim and strip him. They steal whatever he has,and let him lie there half dead. It is veryimportant that this man is only half dead. Thatmeans he is still half alive and can see what isgoing on. Remember, you are this man. Parablesare not told from the helicopter perspectives, butthrough the eyes of the first person mentioned.

So you are lying there and somebody comes by.Suddenly you know who is your neighbor. Yourheart cries out, "This is my

neighbor; he ought to help me!" But he walks byon the other side of the road and you lie there.Then somebody else comes by. Again you cryout, "Help me. I'm your neighbor!" But this one,too, walks by. You are still lying there hopingsomebody will recognize you as a neighbor andact accordingly. Who comes by next but aSamaritan! Well, do you want this outcast to helpyou? Yes, of course, aren't we all neighbors?And, lo and behold, this dirty Samaritan does actneighborly. So Jesus asks, "Who showed himselfyour neighbor?" And the answer is, well, the onewho helped me. Can you hear the silence thatfollows? In that silence Jesus is turning thetables on you. If he is your neighbor when youare in trouble, is he still your neighbor when heis in trouble?

I came across a wonderful contemporary versionof that parable. When I told to a group in New

Zealand what I just now shared with you, aJosephite Sister in the audience said: "Wow, thishappened to me. I was driving from Auckland toHamilton not too long ago, and I got terriblytired. All of a sudden I find that my car is on thewrong side of the road. I stopped right there. Ipulled over onto the curb (facing the wrongdirection), and I said, 'I am going to sleep a little.Driving like this is too dangerous.'" She wakesup, and somebody is knocking on the window.Just waking up, she is totally confused and rollsdown the window, contrary to all precautions.There is a man in a leather jacket, and he says,"Are you all right, dear? Move over, you are onthe wrong side." In her confusion she movesover. He sits down, pulls her car in the rightdirection, and says, "You seem to be in pretty badshape. Where are you going?" "Hamilton," shesays. "We'll give you an escort.'' So this nun inher veil drives into Hamilton escorted by amotorcycle gang in leather.

Jesus proclaims the saving power of God mademanifest among us, and he appeals to commonsense. This common sense should really bewritten with capital "C." It is our common sense;we have it in common. And it has something todo with sensing. These are two very importantaspects of Christian mysticism: emphasis onCommunity and emphasis on the senses. Andboth are contained in the notion of CommonSense.

It is to this common sense that Jesus alwaysappeals. This fact is important in understandingJesus and the mystic breakthrough that happenedto him and through him. Ask yourself, to whatauthority did Jesus appeal? The answer is tocommon sense. When you go to

churches and hear sermons, you may get theimpression that he appealed to God's authoritylike the prophets of old. But on closerexamination, Jesus never uses the typicalprophetic formula, "Thus says the Lord. . . ." Hedid not simply appeal to God's authority and leastof all to his own authority. (People who do thathave never much of a following. For that reasonalone we can be sure that he did not do it.) Heappealed to the divine authority in the hearts ofhis hearers, to Common Sense.

That is what gets Jesus into trouble; that is howthe whole historical crisis in Jesus' life cameabout. Someone who appeals to common sensenecessarily gets in trouble with the authorities.To both religious and political authorities,nobody is more suspect than persons who havelearned to stand on their own two feet andempower others to do the same. That is Jesus.

And that is the mystics. The mystics continuouslyget in trouble with religious authorities, butoften also with political authorities. By histeaching and by the very way he lives, Jesusdrives a wedge between common sense andpublic opinion. He appeals to common sense andblows the pretense of public opinion to pieces.That is why Mark relates that common peoplesaid, "Wow, this man speaks with authority, notlike our authorities." You can imagine how theauthorities felt about it and how they reacted:"This man has to die!"

This is also the way the Gospels present it to us.Remember, we said that religion starts withmysticism and eventually hardens into doctrine,morals, and ritual. That is why in the gospels,you have Jesus somewhat schematically set overagainst three groups of the authorities: thescribes (who stand for doctrine), the lawyers(who stand for the law), and the pharisees (whostand for ritual). The gospels in themselves and

the rest of the New Testament showand wewould know it even if they did not show itthatthere were excellent holy scribes and lawyers andpharisees. But they are turned into types, andthese types still exist today. In every church youcan meet the scribes, the lawyers, and thepharisees, and we find them within our ownheart. They stand for the dead letter over againstpersonal experience, for legalism over againstaction that springs from a live sense ofbelonging, for ritualism over against acelebration of life as a whole. But Jesus gets introuble not only with the religious authoritiesbut also with the political authorities. They

make common cause in the end and wipe himout. That is where the cross comes into the storyof Jesus.

After the fact, we can interpret the cross in manyways as it has been interpreted by the Christiantradition. But you miss the point if you do notpay attention to how it came about historically.Jesus had to die because he broke throughfrontiers of consciousness, because he brokethrough frontiers of what it means to bereligious. We better ask ourselves if we have thecourage to stand up for common sense againstpublic opinion. You run a frightening risk whenyou let yourself be caught by the parables. Once Isay "yes" to common sense, why do I not liveaccordingly? Why do I not live with the alivenessof my best moments? Why do I make all theseconcessions to public opinion? Why do I notstand on the authority of God within me? Why

do I bow to the authorities? And there are manyhidden authorities. Just think of peer pressure.There are all sorts of authorities to which webow. And why? If you do not, you end up whereJesus ended up, on your own cross, inevitably.

That is the shattering end of the life of Jesus.This man still comes through so beautifully insome of the earliest writings as one of whomothers could say, "Wow, this is what we wouldlike to be if we were really ourselves." He livesout of those mystical moments, and we do not.We just have them once in a while, and then webetray them again. He lives out that reality.Therefore, he is wiped out. Dead. Historicallythat is the end of his story.

But then comes an event that is not in history andnot out of history, an event that marks the edgeof history; that event is called the resurrection.You cannot tell the story of Jesus fairly withoutreferring to the resurrection. It is not merely anappendix. Without it, nothing that has happened

since and not even the picture that we have ofJesus, makes any sense. But what is thatresurrection? How can we reconstruct whatreally happened?

Let us go back to the earliest report. The earliestreport tells us that he dies on the cross. They takehim down, they bury him hastily because it is theeve of the great feast, and soon after the feastwomen find the tomb empty. Womenthat wasvery embarrassing to the earliest church becausewomen had no right to testify. Women had novoice in court. There was no such thing as afemale witness. Yet, women were the firstwitnesses of the resurrection, and their testimonywas accepted. That marks a change in the wholestatus

of women. They had (and still have) a long wayto go, but from the beginning tradition knew thatwomen were the first to find the tomb empty.And they believed that Jesus, whom they had seendying and dead, was alive. That went far beyondany account that the tomb was empty. At thetime, even those who said that his body had beenstolen admitted that the tomb was empty.

Some people look now at this tomb, see it emptyand say, "Well, he must have been stolen." Otherssee the same empty tomb and believe. They say:"Now we understand! Why should we seek theliving one among the dead? This man was lifepersonified. He showed us what it means to bealive. It stands to reason that he isn't here amongthe dead." And then comes the question: ''Whereis he, if he isn't here?" "He is hidden in God,"says an early answer (Col. 3:3). God is alsohidden. And yet, we experience the power of

God. Jesus is with God, hidden in God, and hecontinues to empower us with God's power.Thus, the shattered followers of Jesus came torealize that the kind of life he lived is strongerthan death. And two thousand years later theworld still reverberates from the shock wave oftheir faith in his resurrection.

What makes all this extremely exciting for ustoday is that we too are confronted with theempty tomb in an altogether new way. (Again,that is one of those frontiers we have brokenthrough in this century.) How are we confrontedwith the empty tomb of Jesus? You may haveheard about the so-called Shroud of Turin. Thatis a remarkable piece of historic evidence. It is alinen sheet about fourteen feet long that wasused to enfold a corpse. The body was lying onhalf of the sheet, and the other half was foldedover the body. This linen sheet bears some faintmarks. With the naked eye you can just barelymake out the imprint of a body. But when the

shroud was photographed for the first time at thebeginning of our century, the negative showed apositive image. In other words, what you have onthat sheet is a sort of negative. Its positive showsmany details of the face and the body.

After careful study, several pathologistsconcluded that the image derives from the bodyof someone crucified in a manner identical tothat recorded of Jesus in the Gospels. A fewyears ago, a team of scientists examined theshroud for several days and nights with the mostmodern methods. The verdict is that the imagewas not produced by any method known to ustoday. Some scientists ventured

the hypothesis that the image must have beenproduced by something like a miniature atomicblast emanating from the dead body before decayset in.

So there was a crucified body wrapped in thisshroud, and then before decay set in, there wassome sort of miniature atomic blast, and thebody was gone. This is our version of the emptytomb. It is our confrontation with the question,"Where is he?" Obviously, he is not here. Andjust as with the empty tomb, two thousand yearsago, there are those who say, "It must be a fraud."And there are those who look at the sameevidence and believe. The evidence cannot provehis resurrection. At best it can trigger faith thatthe life this man lived and evoked in others isstronger than death. But that is a lot!

What Jesus proclaimed as the coming of God'sKingdom, the Church throughout the ages

proclaims as the Resurrection of Jesus theChrist. Both proclamations have the samecontent: God's saving power made manifest.There is the mystic core of the Christian religion,the volcanic eruption of a new beginning. Andnow the whole process begins all over again,inevitably. The encounter with Jesus isinterpreted, and experience hardens into doctrine.The implications of Jesus' all-embracing love areformalized and harden into morals. Theyremember how he celebrated life when he atewith them and drank with them, and they turn thisbreaking of bread into ritual.

And so you have again and again the Christ-likefigures within the church getting into the sametroubles that Jesus got into with his religiousauthorities. And yet the Good News is handed onto us through the church, in the church, and inspite of the church. That is where you find allthese saints who lived such Christ-like livesthroughout the centuries up to our own time.

But you also find the pharisees, the lawyers, andthe scribes in that same church. When we asked,"What is one who accepts being a mystic to dowith religion?" my answer was, "You have theresponsibility to make religion religious, becauseleft to itself it will deteriorate into somethingthat is irreligious." Now we ask, "What is aChristian to do who recognizes what Christ is allabout?" And the answer is, "Well, spend the restof your life making the Church Christian." It iscalled the church of saints and of sinners. It isalso the church of the mystics and the church thatgives mystics a hard time. That is where

we are. Let us be realistic. But at the heart of thischurch is the mystic element, which is whatmakes it tick, the very inheritance of Jesus. Topenetrate to this mystical core is again and againthe ultimate frontier experience of Christianmysticism.

Chapter EightJesus, Evolution, and the Future of Humanity

John White

The human race is quickly coming to one ofhistory's great dividesperhaps the most criticalever. It will be upon us by the end of the century.If we are to survive it, people must see that thesituation is not simply political or sociologicalor cultural. It is biological.

All life on planet Earth is threatened withextinction from a number of sources. There is thethreat of nuclear, biological and chemicalwarfare. There is the threat from pollution of theair, land and sea. There is the threat from wastingnonrenewable resources. There is the threat fromdrought and famine due to human interferencewith the ecosystem. If these are unchecked, even

the planet itself could end up as nothing morethan another asterioid belt.

All of these threats are man-made. All of themoriginate in the minds of people. Our behavior isa manifestation of our thinking and emotions,and in turn our thoughts and feelings aredependent upon our state of consciousness. Werecognize the threat to life that these forms ofbehavior contain, yet we persist stubbornly in ourways. Why? It is not that we lack the knowledgeof what is threatening our existence. It is simplythat the problem goes deeper than intellectualknowledge. Our present world situation is one inwhich we exhibit life-threatening irrationalbehavior. That in turn is due to what we mightcall "a crisis of consciousness."

If this is so, the solution can be stated verysimply: change consciousness. Survivaldemands a change of consciousness. Not onlysurvival, but also evolution. As I survey naturaland cultural history,

I see increasingly complex forms of life cominginto being in order to express more fully theconsciousness behind creation itself. The grandtheme of history is evolution, and it is a story ofevermore refined forms of life emerging withever-increasing degrees of consciousness.

Evolution is always at work. That means now,today. And what I see today, in addition to thethreats to life, are signs that nature is mobilizingits resources to resist physical extinction in thispart of the universe. It is mobilizing its resourcesfor a quantum leap forward. The signs that pointin this direction are many. Although the mediatend to make them look like confusion, upheavaland strife, I see in them a deeper significance.

The growing restlessness among people as theysearch for new answers and new understanding isbascially taking the form of exploring their ownconsciousnessand that, to me, is a very healthy

sign indeed. Of course, these explorations oftentake a naive or violent pathway. The strident,angry voices of many so-called liberation groupsare to be expected as the disenfranchised come tomature awareness. The mainstream ofexploration, however, is an increasing interest inpsychic and spiritual development. As I see it,this is an indication of a deep impulse to healthwhich is working beneath the obvious symptomsof sickeness in the body of humanity. And theseapproaches are being taken by young and oldalike in the interest of expanding theirconsciousness. They are signs of a greatawakening going on around the globe.

This great awakening is the way nature will resistman's irrational behavior. Nature will resist theextinction of life here by evolving lifeforms thatknow how to live sanely because theirconsiciousness will have changed.

I call this survivolution. And I see it happeningmost dramatically at the human level. Many of

the events in the news today are, from myperspective, preliminary signs that a higher formof life is emerging, just as the Cro-Magnonpeople superceded the Neanderthal race.

What is coming to pass today, as you read aboutit in the news, is not a generation gap or acommunication gap, as some mediacommentators say. Rather, it is a species gap. Anew species is making its way onto the planetandin the face of a threatening dominantspeciesis asserting its right to live. Thisinevitably brings it in

conflict with the dominant species. And thatdominant species is a dying species.

Paleontologists tell us that during the age ofdinosaurs, little tarsier-like creatures lived. Theystayed small and under cover because the greatlumbering dinosaurs would easily crush them todeath otherwise. So in order to survive, theyremained small and "on the fringe," so to speak.Then, when the dinosaurs died off, these smallcreatures emerged from cover into the open andbegan to grow, to evolve into primatesin fact,into the first manlike creatures.

But evolution did not end there. And so whenlife reached the level of human development, oneof the earlier races, the Neanderthal, wassurpassed by the Cro-Magnon. This spelled doomfor the Neanderthal. Cro-Magnon people were anevolutionary advance, a higher form of life. Theirphysique was taller and more massive. They had

superior tool-making ability and were the world'sfirst artists, as their cave painting demonstrates.Altogether they showed a superior degree ofconsciousness.

I see the world scene in terms that parallel this.The chaos and confusion and social unrestaround us are signs of what I choose to call"moral evolution." Sri Aurobindo described it asa journey toward perfection; Teilhard de Chardinspoke of noogenesis and a movement toward theOmega point. Whatever the name, there is arising chorus of voices around the globedemanding widespread social reformpolitical,educational, nutritional, medical, ecological,judicial, economic, agricultural, religious. Itessentially amounts to a call for culturalreformationindeed, transformationbeyond allracial, national, ethnic, religious, sexual andcaste concerns. All this and the greatlyaccelerated interest and exploration inpsychotechnologies, spiritual disciplines and

sacred traditions are manifestations of a new,more intelligent species coming into existenceand attempting to develop a unified planetaryculture.

As such, the emerging species is meeting withresistance from the dominant species. It was everthus. That is how evolution works. Homosapiens, I think it accurate to say, is in stasis andis rapidly nearing the end of its life cycle.Everywhere we lookin western society, atleastinstitutions have become overgrown,outmoded and are breaking down. Culture isgoing into convulsions. Government, education,economics, religion, citiesthey are eitherexploding in

violence or grinding to a halt and becomingmoribund, empty shells that no longer serve avital purpose suited to the needs of people.

Biologically speaking, a dying species is adangerous species. It is prone to go mad and tolash out in blind, massive fury that violentlybrings down its edifices upon it and anything elsearound. The new species can see this happeningand, like the little creatures in the Age ofDinosaurs, has until lately remained under coverand on the fringes of a society that is entering itsdeath throes.

But now the new breed is emerging from cover.As an historical epoch draws to a close, what canbe seen around the planet is this: a mighty leapforward in survivolution is happening, and theresult is a vast sorting-out process amongpeople. Amid the confusion and upheaval, theyare trying to discover what species they belong

to. The larger dimensions of this process are notrecognized at present by most evolutionaryforerunners, or else those dimensions are onlydimly intuited by them. The process is stillfragmented and leaderlessan Aquarianconspiracy. And their numbers are still quitesmall in proportion to world population.Nevertheless, higher intelligence is workingthrough them, calling them to self-recognition oftheir role in advancing the fabric of life.

Outwardly, of course, these mutant humansresemble the older form. The difference isinward, in their changed mentality, in theirconsciousness. The result, as I said, is a speciesgap.

Now, it can be terribly painful and anxiety-provoking to stand with one foot in the oldworld and one foot in the new. But themarvelous and hopeful thing is that nature, in itsinfinite wisdom, has given us the means toparticipate consciously in our own evolution.

We can become, in a sense, co-creators with thecosmos. We can systematically work onourselves in a safe, reliable manner that can helpus to make a quantum leap over the species gap.

That is what meditation and other spiritualdisciplines are all about. The test of their value iswhether they are in tune with the biologicalimperative to evolve, to advance the refinementand intensity of consciousness on Earth.

The perennial argument against utopia, againstthe development of the New Age, against thecoming of the Kingdom, has been: human nature.We are forever flawed, the argument goes. Butmy reply is this: human nature is changing.There is an evolutionary advance taking place inthe world today as a new and higher form

of humanity takes control of the planet."Control," of course, means living in respectfulrecognition of intimate interdependence. It meansliving harmoniously with the planetand thereforesurviving the coming global crises while theolder species dies out from a massive overdoseof irrationalism. Quite simply, the new breed ispsychologically adapted to the altered conditionsnature is imposing as it restores the balance thatthe Homo sapiens ignored for so long.

Homo noeticus is the name I give to theemerging form of humanity. Noetics is a termmeaning the study of consciousness, and thatactivity is a primary characteristic of members ofthe new breed. Because of their deepenedawareness and self-understanding, thetraditionally imposed forms, controls andinstitutions of society are barriers to their fulldevelopment. Their changed psychology is based

on expression of feeling, not suppression. Theirmotivation is cooperative and loving, notcompetitive and aggressive. Their logic ismultilevel/integrated/simultaneous, notlinear/sequential/either-or. Their sense of identityis embracing-collective, not isolated-individual.Their psychic abilities are used for benevolentand ethical purposes, not harmful and immoralones. The conventional ways of society do notsatisfy them. The search for new ways of livingand new institutions concerns them. They seek aculture founded in higher consciousness, aculture whose institutions are based on love andwisdom, a culture that fulfills the perennialphilosophy.

Although Homo noeticus is the name I give tothe new form of humanity, to the offspring ofman, there have been other names proposed, andcertainly others before me have suggested theemergency of a higher humanity. Aurobindo,Teilhard de Chardin, Nietzsche and Gopi Krishna

are notable among them. Occult traditions suchas Theosophy and Anthroposophy also state itexplicitly. One of the most memorablestatements of this view was given by R. M.Bucke on the last page of his classic CosmicConsciousness:

. . . just as, long ago, self-consciousness appeared in thebest specimens of our ancestral race in the prime of life, andgradually became more and more universal and appeared inthe individual at an earlier and earlier age, until, as we seenow, it has become almost universal and appears at theaverage of about three yearsso will Cosmic Consciousnessbecome more and more universal earlier in the individual life

until the race at large will possess this faculty. The samerace and not the same; for a Cosmic Conscious race willnot be the race which exists today, any more than thepresent race of men is the same race which existed prior tothe evolution of self-counsciousness. The simple truth is,that there has lived on the earth, "appearing at intervals," forthousands of years among ordinary men, the first faintbeginnings of another race; walking the earth and breathingthe air with us, but at the same time walking another earth,and breathing another air of which we know little or nothing,but which is, all the same, our spiritual life, as its absencewould be our spiritual death. This new race is in act of beingborn from us, and in the near future it will occupy andpossess the earth.

For the majority of westerners, however, themost familiar term for this experience was givento it two millennia ago by Jesus of Nazareth.

When Jesus spoke of himself, why did heprincipally use the term "Son of Man?" Otherscalled him the Son of God, but Jesus most oftenreferred to himself as the Son of Man, theoffspring of humanity. Moreover, he told those

around him that they would be higher than theangels and that those things which he did, theywould do also, and greater (John 14:12).

The reason for this is that Jesus was aware ofhimself as a finished specimen of the newhumanity which is to comethe new humanitywhich is to inherit the earth, establish theKingdom, usher in the New Age. His missionand his teaching have at their heart thedevelopment of a new and higher state ofconsciousness on a specieswide basis rather thanthe sporadic basis seen earlier in history when anoccasional adept or avatar such as Buddha orKrishna appeared. His unique place in history isbased upon his unprecedented realization of thehigher intelligence, the divinity, the Ground ofBeing incarnated in himthe ground which is thesource of all Becoming.

The Armaic term for the Greek word "Christ" isM'skekha, from which we get "messiah." It is atitle, not a last name, and although it is

conventionally translated as "anointed," it reallymeans "perfected" or ''enlightened" or "the idealform of humanity." Thus, Jesus was an historicalperson, a human becoming; but Christ, theChristos, is an eternal transpersonal condition ofbeing to which we

must all someday come. Jesus did not say thatthis higher state of consciousness realized in himwas his alone for all time. Nor did he call us toworship him. Rather, he called us to follow him,to follow in his steps, to learn from him, fromhis example, to live a God-centered life ofselfless compassionate service to the world as ifwe were Jesus himself. He called us to share inthe new condition, to enter a new world to beone in the supramental Christ consciousnesswhich alone can dispel the darkness of our mindsand renew our lives. He did not call us to beChristians; he called us to be Christed. In short,Jesus aimed at duplicating himself by fosteringthe development of many Jesuses. He aimed, asthe New Testament declares, to make all one inChrist. And who is Christ? St. Paul tells us thatChrist is the Second Adam, the founder of a newrace.

The Kingdom is within us. Divinity is ourbirthright, our inheritance, nearer to us than handand foot, but the eye will not see and the ear willnot hear. Jesus called people to awaken, tochange their ways, to repent. The very first wordshe spoke to humanity in his public ministry were,"The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God isat hand; repent, and believe in the gospel." (Mark1:14, Matthew 4:17) This is his central teachingand commandment.

But notice that word: repent. Over the centuriesit has become misunderstood and mistranslated,so that today people think it merely meansfeeling sorry for their sins. This is an unfortunatedebasement of Jesus' teaching. The Aramaicword that Jesus used is tob, meaning "to return,""to flow back into God." The sense of thisconcept comes through best in the Greek wordfirst used to translate it. That word is metanoiaand, like tob, it means something far greater thanmerely feeling sorry for misbehavior. Metanoia

has two etymological roots. Meta means "to gobeyond,'' "to go higher than." And noia comesfrom nous, meaning "mind." It is the same rootfrom which Teilhard de Chardin developed histerm, noosphere, and from which the wordnoetic comes. So the original meaning ofmetanoia is literally "going beyond or higher thanthe ordinary mental state." In modern terms, itmeans transcending self-centered ego andbecoming God-centered.

This is the central experience Jesus sought for allpeople. This is the heart of Jesus' life andteaching, although it is now largely absent fromthe institutional Christian churches. Metanoiaindicates a change of mind and behavior based onradical insight into the cause and

effect of one's previous actionsinsight arisingfrom entry into a condition beyond the realm oftime, space and causality. Metanoia is thatprofound state of consciousness which mysticalexperience aims atthe state in which we transcendor dissolve all the barriers of ego and selfishnessthat separate us from God. It is the "summumbonum" of human life. It is the state of directknowing, immediate perception of our totalunity with God. St. Paul said it very simply: therenewing of your mind in Christ.

In its best sense, then, metanoia means a radicalconversion experience, a transformation of selfbased on a new state of awareness, a new state ofconsciousnesshigher consciousness. It meansrepentance in its most fundamentaldimensionthat of "a turning about in the deepestseat of consciousness," as Lama Govinda phrasesit. That turning-about is for the purpose of

rebinding or re-tieing ourselves to the divinesource of our beingthe source we have lostawareness of. That is what religion is all about.Re ligare: to tie back, to tie again. That is truerepentancewhen we "get religion" in the sense ofbecoming aware of our inescapable ties to God,the creator, preserver and redeemer of thecosmos.

When we are rebound to God, the true meaningof sin becomes apparent. Sin means literally"missing the mark." Sin is not merelymisbehavior. It is transgression of divine law orcosmic principle. It is a failure to be centered inGodto be "off target." Religion, then, is in itstruest sense an instrument for awakening us tothe evolutionary process of growth to godhood,which is the aim of all cosmic becoming. Whenwe are guilty of sin, we are fundamentallymissing the mark by failing to be God-consciousand all that it means for our behavior andthought.

Thus, the world is indeed in sin, but there is noremedy for it except to change consciousness.For in truth, God does not condemn us for oursins; rather, we condemn ourselves by our sins.And thus forgiveness by God is not necessary; itis there always, as unconditional love, the instantwe turn in our hearts to God. As A Course inMiracles puts it, forgiveness must be offeredfrom ourselves to the world for all the offenses,real or imaginary, we have stored in our heartswith rancor, bitterness and longing for revenge.That is the turning point; that is when egotranscendence truly begins and the glory of Godstarts to be revealed. To understand all is toforgive all. God understands all and forgives alland loves all. Love is

therefore the greatest "revenge" we can seekagainst enemies and those who treat us spitefullyand wrongly. Is that not precisely what Jesustaught?

There will never be a better world until there arebetter people in it, and the means for attainingthat are democratically available to everyonethrough the grace and unconditional eternal loveof God. If that grace and love were to bewithdrawn for even an instant, the entire cosmoswould be annihilated. To become aware of thatfact is no easy task. But there is no substitute forgrowth to higher consciousness: recognition thatall is God and there is only God. The metanoiaprocess, when completed, results in a state ofawareness that Jesus himself had when he said: "Iand the Father are one."

That is what Jesus taught anddemonstratedcosmic consciousness, the Christic

state of mind, the peace that passethunderstanding, the direct experience of divinitydwelling in us and all things, now and forever,creating us, living us, preserving us, urging us onto ever more inclusive states of being so that "hethat believeth on me, the works that I do shall hedo, and greater than these shall he do." (John14:12)

The institutional Christian churches tell us thatJesus was the only Son of God, that he incarnatedas a human in order to die on the cross as apenalty for our sins, and thereby save the world.But that is a sad caricature, a pale reflection ofthe true story. It turns Jesus into a magical fairytale hero and Christianity into a cult ofpersonality. The significance of incarnation andresurrection is not that Jesus was a human like usbut rather that we are gods like himor at leasthave the potential to be. This is the secret of allages and all spiritual traditions. This is thehighest mystery. The Christian tradition, rightly

understood, seeks to have us all become Jesuses,one in Christbeyond all the darkness of mind thatresults in the evil and suffering so widespread inthe world. Jesus himself pointed out this is whatthe Judaic tradition, which he fulfilled, is allabout when he said, "Is it not written in your law,'I said, you are gods'?" (John 10:34).

Jesus showed us the way. He demonstrated in hislife and explained in his teaching that we all havethe potentialthe God-given rightto enter theKingdom, to be healed of our sense of separationand alienation, to overcome sin and fear ofdeathall of which are rooted in the egoic self-senseand to become whole and holy. We all havethis potential, given not by "my" Father but, asthe Lord's Prayer

says, by our Father. Jesus showed in his life, hisdeath and his resurrection that we are eternalcelestrial beings whose home is the universe. Heshowed that heaven is a present reality, not afuture reward. He showed that the death of thebody is not the destruction of our consciousness,that the Christ consciousness which embodieditself in the man Jesus transcends the known factsof physics and biology, and actually controlsconventionally understood physics and biology.He showed that the Christ consciousness was, isand ever shall be present among us, faithfullycalling us to reunion, world without end, for it isthe source of all creation. So rather than sayingthat Jesus was the Christ, it is more accurate tosay: the Christ was Jesus.

The significance of Jesus, therefore, it not as avehicle of salvation but as a model of perfection,which we must seek to become. This is why the

proper attitude toward him is one of reverence,not worship. Jesus showed us the way to a higherstate of being and called upon us to realize it, tomake it real, actualindividually and as the race.This is the true meaning of being born againdyingto the past and the old sense of self through achange of consciousness. To enter the Kingdomwe must die and be born again, we must becomeas a little child. From the perspective ofmetanoia, the meaning of Jesus' injunction isclear. To re-enter the state of innocence thatinfants exhibit, we do not merely regress to aninfantile level, forsaking our mature faculties.Instead, we progress through transcendence ofthe illusion of ego and all its false values,attitudes and habits. We enter a guileless state ofmind without forsaking the better qualities ofadulthood. We optimize, rather than maximize,childhood, becoming childlike, not childish.Superficial values and capriciousness areoutgrown, so that we function in the service of atranscendent purpose, offering our life's work to

God moment-to-moment rather than seekingself-glorification and some consoling distantreward in this world or the next. We discoverthat heaven and hell are not remote places; theyare states of consciousness. Heaven is union withGod, hell is separation from God, and thedifference is not measured in miles but insurrender of ego and self-centeredness.

Jesus showed us the way to the Kingdom, but hewill notindeed, cannotmagically take anyonethere. That depends on your own effort. And eventhen, the timing is unknown. God's grace is stillthe final factor in crossing the planes ofconsciousness. Nevertheless,

the effort should be made, must be made. Likethe climber who went up Mt. Everest simplybecause it was there, sooner or later every humanbeing will feel a call from the cosmos to ascendto godhead. That is our historical love affair withthe divine. And as Jesus said, if you ask forbread, you will not be given stones. Knock and itshall be opened unto you.

There is no way to enter the Kingdom except toascend in consciousness to the Father. That iswhat the Christian traditionand, indeed, everytrue religionis all about: a system of teachings(both theory and practice) about growth to higherconsciousness. That is the key to the Kingdom.But this, by and large, has been lost to theunderstanding of contemporary Christendom.Instead, Jesus and the Bible are idolized, andheaven is said to be located somewhere in outerspace. Awareness of inner spaceof consciousness

and the need to cultivate itis sadly lacking.

The original form of baptism, for example, wasapparently an initiatory practice in which thepersona convert who would have been an adultprepared through study of spiritualdisciplineswas held under water to the point ofnearly drowning. This near-death experience waslikely to induce an out-of-body projection suchas many near-death experiencers report today.The baptized person would thereby directlyexperience resurrectionthe transcendence ofdeath, the reality of metaphysical worlds and thesupremacy of Spirit. He would receive adramatic and unmistakable demonstration of thereality of the spiritual body or celestial body thatSt. Paul speaks of (apparently referring to hisown personal experience with out-of-bodyprojection) in I Corinthians 15:40-44. Thedegenerate forms of baptism practiced todayeventhose involving bodily immersionare tragicdebasements of the original purpose and meaning

of baptism in the Judeo-Christian tradition.(However, I am not implicitly advocating areturn to it because much safer, less riskiermethods of inducing out-of-body projection areavailable today. The present symbolic use ofbaptism is justifiable if it is supplemented withnecessary understanding of its true but esotericsignificance.)

Matthew 11:29-30 suggests other spiritualpractices which Jesus taught to his disciples andan inner circle: "Take my yoke upon you . . . myyoke is easy." The word "yoke" is conventionallyunderstood to mean ''burden" or "work."However, it is better understood in the sense ofSanskrit yug, meaning "to yoke or join." It is theroot

from which "yoga" comes, and yoga is a systemof spiritual practices designed to acceleratepersonal growth and development, physically,mentally and spiritually, so that the yogi attainsunion with the Divine. That yoking with Godwas precisely the aim of Jesus' teaching. Thus,esoteric Christianity understands the verses tomean "the practices I prescribe for growth toChrist consciousness."

So long as people believe in an unbridgable gulfbetween themselves and that which Jesusdemonstrated, Christianity will not haveaccomplished its mission. So long as the focus ofattention remains on a naive, romanticized imageof the historical person Jesus rather that on histranspersonal Christic demonstration of how tobridge the gulf between God and humanity,Christianity will not have carried out itsfounder's intent. "Building bridges"that should

be the main thrust of Christianity. Interestingly,this is explicitly acknowledged in the RomanCatholic tradition because its supreme authority,the Pope, is technically termed the PontifexMaximus, which is Latin for "supremebridgemaker." Again, however, the keepers ofthis tradition have not retained understanding ofthat which they retain.

At present, Christianity tends to demand blindfaith, rote words and mechanical behavior. Thisleaves people empty and unfulfilled. But thecosmic calling we humans have will not bedenied forever, despite the ignorance of religiousinstitutions. The Holy Spirit, the life force, willsimply move on to new forms, leaving fossilsbehind.

But if the human potential that Jesusdemonstrated is understood to be within us, ifthe capacity to grow to godlike stature is directlyexperienced by all Christendom as the key to theKingdom, then Christianity will fulfill its

purpose by encouraging people to evolve, totransform themselves, to rise to a higher state.For we are not simply human beings. We are alsohuman becomings, standing between two worlds,two ages. The marvelous thing about us asnature-becoming-aware-of-itself-as-God is thateach of us has the latent ability to take consciouscontrol of our own evolution, to build our ownbridge, and thereby become a member of the newage, the new humanity. As St. John recorded thewords of Jesus during his visionary experienceon Patmos, "Behold, I make all things new."(Rev 21:5)

In the course of this change, there are stages thatcan be presented in a simple formulation: Fromorthonoia to metanoia through par-

anoia. We grow from orthonoiathat is, thecommon, everyday state of ego-centered mindtometanoia only by going through paranoia, a statein which the mind is deranged (that is, takenapart) and rearranged through spiritual disciplineso that a clear perception of reality might beexperienced. Conventional western psychologiesregard paranoia as a pathological breakdown. Itoften is, of course, but seen from thisperspective, it is not necessarily always so.Rather, it can be breakthroughnot the finalbreakthrough, to be sure, but a necessary stage ofdevelopment on the way to realizing theKingdom.

Paranoia is a condition well-understood bymystical and sacred traditions. The spiritualdisciplines that people practice under theguidance of a guru or master are designed to easeand quicken the passage through paranoia so that

the practitioner does not get lost in the labyrinthof inner space and become a casualty.

Because metanoia has by and large not beenexperienced by the founders of westernpsychology and psychotherapy, paranoia has notbeen fully understood in our culture. It is seen asan aberrated dead end rather than a necessaryprecondition to higher consciousness. It is notunderstood that the confusion, discomfort andsuffering experienced in paranoia are due entirelyto the destruction of an illusion, ego. The less wecling to that illusion, the less we suffer.

The world's great spiritual systems, however,understand the psychology of this situation verywell, and have developed procedures for curing itby disburdening people of their false self-image,their false identity. It is no accident that society'smodels of the ideal human being include manysaints and holy people. These self-transcendent,God-realized individuals have been revered formany reasons: their compassion, devotion and

serenity, their inspirational words of wisdom,their virtuous service to the world. What hasbeen their motivation? Each of them, in his ownway arising from his particular culture ortradition, has discovered the secret of the ages,the truth of the saying, "Let go and let God."When the ego-sense is relaxed, when a sense ofthe infinite and eternal replaces our usual narrowself-centeredness with all its passing,unsatisfying fantasies, there is no longer a mentalbasis for fear, hatred, anxiety, anger, attachment,desire. Instead, the perfectly harmoniousfunctioning of the cosmos operates throughusand the cosmos is always in balance, always atpeace with itself.

The Christian message is essentially a call to beuniversala call to become cosmically conscious.It is a call to place God at the center of ourselves,not through blind faith but through insightfulawareness, not through rigid adherence to ritualand dogma but through graceful expression ofcosmic principles. It is a call to "be as gods."

Thus, Jesus could speak of what is called "theSecond Coming" as the end of the age, the end ofhistory, the end of the world. Waking up fromthe illusion of ego, from the dream of worldlylife, into God-conscious reality does indeed endthe world. It ends the world not as globaldestruction but as transcendence of time, spaceand causality. Thus also, those Christianpreachers who are predicting Armageddon andthe end of the world soon may be rightbecauseour culture is indeed critically close to globalholocaustbut if they should prove to be right,

they will be right for the wrong reasons.

For in the deepest sense, there is no SecondComing at all. The Bible does not speak of "two"comings. Aramaic scholar Dr. Rocco Errico,points out the actual meaning of the phrase is"the coming of Christ." This is confirmed by thepassage in Matthew that reports Christ never lefthumanity: "Lo, I am with you always even untothe end of the world." (Matthew 28:20)

Thus, the final appearance or coming of Christwill be a worldwide spiritual appearance, freefrom all physical limitations. Errico writes, "Atthat time, the consciousness of mankind willhave been raised to a spiritual level so that everyeye will see nothing but good. Man will realizethe spiritual life and kingdom, and at the comingof the Christ, the whole world will recognizehim. His kingdom will be established and theworld will be ready to receive him."

Today the world stands critically close to global

holocaust. But a problem cannot be solved at thelevel that generated it. The solution to theproblem of history, therefore, will not be foundwithin historythat is, within the state ofconsciousness which generated history and thenightmare of contemporary world affairs. It isego which generates time, temptation andtrouble.

The answer to this emergency is emergence. Theonly way out of history into the Kingdom ofGod, the only way out of our precarious worldsituation into a New Age is a change ofconsciousness, a transcendence of the false senseof self from which all destructive humanbehavior arises. Only metanoiathe emergence ofChrist-in-uscan provide the means wherebyreality is seen clearly and an

enlightened global cuture is possible. And that isprecisely what is happening right now.

The Son of Man showed us the way to that higherstate of beingthe same beckoning evolutionaryadvance that other enlightened teachers ofhumanity have shown us at other times andplaces. I do not mean to present Jesus as the solepath to cosmic consciousness. That would befurther debasement of his teaching. We have alsobeen taught by Buddha and Krishna, by Lao Tsuand Moses, Mohammed, Rama, Zoroaster,Quetzalcoatl, Guru Nanak, Mahavira. The humanrace has been guided by many other evolutionaryforerunners who have given us the world'sreligions, sacred traditions, spiritual paths,metaphysical philosophies and occult mysteryschools. They have differed in various emphasesand in cultural orientations, but the core truth ofthem all is the same: Thou shalt evolve to a

higher state of being and ultimately return tothe Godhead which is your very self, your ever-present Divine Condition prior to allconditions, names and forms.

We have the teachings and prophecies from thesechannels of truth. We have the technicalinstruction in their holy scriptures. We haveinformation of the most advanced sort frommany equally valuable sources, but we have notput it into practice.

This hardness of heart, this resistance to theevolutionary urge, has brought us to what I seeas the most critical juncture in our history. Thename of the game is survivolution, but no one isguaranteed a place in the Kingdomwithin thespace of a lifetime, at least. Nature can be pitilesswith regard to the individual. Floods,earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tidal waves,tornadoes, hurricanes, drought, pestilence andfamine are no respecters of person or place. It isthe species that counts. That is the way evolution

works. Many trials and tribulations are ahead forus as we learn to play the cosmic game ofevolving in consciousness. There will be manycasualties among those who are slow to adapt inthese accelerated-learning times. It has alwaysbeen that way. The species that does not learn toadapt to new conditions goes the way of thedinosaur. But what comes afterward has alwaysbeen an evolutionary advance.

If Planet Earth should end up as just a blindingflash in the night sky, or as a sterile piece of rock,from the cosmic point of view it will be the lossof just one lifebearing planet circling a minorstar in a middle-sized galaxy among the billionsof galaxiesjust an

evolutionary experiment that failed. There arebillions of other worlds where evolution ofintelligent lifeforms is probably going on. Thatterminal flash for the earth can happen, but itneed not. The source of our being is calling to usthrough innumerable forms and channelsthroughnature and through enlightened teacherscalling usto awaken to our true identity and to carry thatknowledge forward in the emergence of a higherform of life. Salvation, liberation orenlightenment is possible for us at everymomentand that is the key to avoiding speciessuicide and to transforming, rather thandestroying, the earth.

But the choice is always ours. We can listen tonature in its many forms and learnor we can shutourselves off from the information and warningsthat the cosmos is always giving us. Nature maybe pitiless, but it is not unloving. Like a stern but

compassionate parent who wants its children togrow up wise and strong, nature gives us hardlessons. But they are always intended for ourbenefit.

We live in a benevolent universe that nourishesus far better than most realize. But real learningcan take place only in a condition of freedom.School is nearly out for Homo sapiens. If wesurvive the coming holocausts, it will surely be abetter world, a New Age. And we can survive.We are free to survive and evolve. Nature wantsus to survive and evolve. But the choice isalways ours.

Chapter NineThe Buddhist Path and Social Responsibility

Jack Kornfield, Ph.D.

One of the most important questions we come toin spiritual practice is how to reconcile serviceand responsible action in the world with ameditative life based on nonattachment, lettinggo, and coming to understand the ultimateemptiness of all conditioned things. Do thevalues that lead us to actively give, serve, andcare for one another differ from the values thatlead us deep within ourselves on a journey ofliberation and awakening? To consider thisquestion, we must first learn to distinguishamong four qualities central to spiritualpracticelove, compassion, sympathetic joy, andequanimityand what might be called their "near

enemies." Near enemies may seem to be veryclose to these qualities and may even be mistakenfor them, but they are not fundamentally alike.

The near enemy of love is attachment.Attachment masquerades as love. It says, "I lovethis person as long as he or she doesn't change.I'll love you if you'll love me back. I'll love thatif it will be the way I want it." This isn't love atallit is attachmentand attachment is very differentfrom love. Love allows, honors, and appreciates;attachment grasps, demands, needs, and aims topossess. Attachment offers love only to certainpeople; it is exclusive. Love, in the sense that theBuddha used the word metta is a universal,nondiscriminating feeling of caring andconnectedness, even toward those whom we maynot approve of or like. We may not condone theirbehavior, but we cultivate forgiveness. Love is apowerful tool that transforms any situation. It isnot passive acquiescence. As the Buddha said,"Hatred never ceases through hatred. Hatred only

ceases

through love." Love embraces all beings withoutexception, and discards ill will.

One near enemy of compassion is pity. Instead offeeling the openness of compassion, pity says,"Oh, that poor person is suffering!" Pity sets up aseparation between oneself and others, a sense ofdistance and remoteness from the suffering ofothers that is affirming and gratifying to the ego.Compassion, on the other hand, recognizes thesuffering of another as a reflection of one's ownpain: "I understand that; I suffer in the same way.It's a part of life." Compassion is sharedsuffering.

Another near enemy of compassion is grief.Compassion is not grief. It is not an immersionin or identification with the suffering of othersthat leads to an anguished reaction. Compassionis the tender readiness of the heart to respond toone's own or another's pain without grief or

resentment or aversion. It is the wish to dissipatesuffering. Compassion embraces thoseexperiencing sorrow, and eliminates cruelty fromthe mind.

The third quality, sympathetic joy, is the abilityto feel joy in the happiness of others. The nearenemy of this state is comparisonour need toconclude that we are superior to, inferior to, oreven equal to someone else. This need to assessourselves in relation to someone else'sexperience, or to look for affirmation in relationto someone else's life is a source of pain anddelusion in the mind. Sympathetic joy is thesource of great personal happiness; it embracesthose enjoying happiness and discards dislike andjealousy.

The near enemy of equanimity is unintelligentindifference or callousness. We appear serene ifwe say, "I'm not attached. I don't care whathappens anyway because it's all transitory." Wefeel a certain peaceful relief because we

withdraw from experience and from the energiesof life. But true equanimity is not a withdrawal;it is a balanced engagement with all aspects oflife. It is opening to the whole of life withcomposure and with balance of mind, seeing thenature of all things. Equanimity embraces theloved and the unloved, the agreeable and thedisagreeable, and pleasure and pain; it eliminatesclinging and aversion.

Although everything is empty, we neverthelesshonor the reality of form. As Zen Master Dogensays: "Flowers fall with our attachment, andweeds spring up with our aversion." Knowingdeeply that all

will changethat the world of conditionedphenomena is insubstantial, we are fully presentand in harmony with it.

Attachment, pity, comparison, and indifferenceare all ways of backing away from life out offear. Spirituality is not a removal or escape fromlife. It is seeing the world with a deeper visionthat is not self-centered, a vision that seesthrough dualistic views to the underlyinginterconnectedness of all of life. It is thediscovery of freedom in the very midst of ourbodies and minds.

In the Eightfold Path the Buddha talks aboutRight Thought or Right Aspiration, which hasthree aspects. The first is cultivating thoughtsthat are free from desire, discarding transitoryexperience, and developing a sense of innercontentment. The second is cultivating thoughtsfree from ill will and resentment; this means

cultivating thoughts of compassion andgentleness. The third is cultivating thoughts freefrom cruelty; this means nourishing the forces ofkindness and active love within us. With a senseof Right Aspiration we can use all the differentsituations we face as stepping stones. This is thethread that unites all the moments of our lives.Each moment becomes an opportunity.

While in India, I spoke with Vimala Thaker aboutthe question of meditation and activity in theworld. Vimala had worked for many years inrural development and land redistributionprojects when, as a result of her longtime interestin Krishnamurti's teachings, she began to teachmeditation and devoted many years to this. Shehas recently returned to development work and tohelping the hungry and homeless, teaching muchless than she once had. I asked her why shedecided to go back to the type of work she hadbeen doing years before. She replied: "Sir, I am alover of life, and as a lover of life, I cannot keep

out of any activity of life. If there are people whoare hungry for food, my response is to help feedthem. If there are people who are hungry fortruth, my response is to help them discover it. Imake no distinction."

The Sufis have a saying, "Praise Allah, and tieyour camel to the post." Pray, but also make sureyou do what is necessary in the world. Meditate,but manifest your understanding of this spiritualexperience. Balance your realization ofemptiness with a sense of compassion andimpeccability to guide your life.

Seeing emptiness means seeing that all of life islike a bubble in a rushing stream, a play of lightand shadow, a dream. It means

understanding that this tiny planet hangs in theimmensity of space amidst millions and billionsof stars and galaxies, that all of human history islike one second compared to the billions of yearsof earth's history, and that it will all be over verysoon and no one is really going anywhere. Thiscontext helps us to let go amidst the seemingseriousness of our problems, and to enter lifewith a sense of lightness and ease. Impeccabilitymeans that we must realize how precious life is,even though it is transient and ephemeral, andhow each of our actions and words affect allbeings around us in a most profound way. Thereis nothing inconsequential in this universe, andwe need to respect this fact personally and actreponsibly in accordance with it.

One could make a very convincing case forsimply devoting oneself to meditation. Does theworld need more medicine and energy and

buildings and food? Not really. There are enoughresources for all of us. There is starvation andpoverty and disease because of ignorance,prejudice, and fear, because we hoard materialsand create wars over imaginary geographicboundaries and act as if one group of people istruly different from another group somewhereelse on the planet. What the world needs is notmore oil, but more love and generosity, morekindness and understanding. The mostfundamental thing we can do to help this war-torn and suffering world is to genuinely freeourselves from the greed and fear and divisiveviews in our own minds, and then help others todo the same. Thus, a spiritual life is not aprivilege; it is a basic responsibility.

But there is also a convincing argument fordevoting oneself entirely to service in the world.I have only to mention the recent horror ofCambodia, the violence in Central America, thestarvation in Africasituations in which the

enormity of suffering is almost beyondcomprehension. In India alone, 350 millionpeople live in such poverty that one day's workpays for only one meal. I once met a man inCalcutta who was sixty-four years old and pulleda rickshaw for a living. He had been doing it forforty years and had ten people dependent on himfor income. He had gotten sick the year beforefor ten days; within a week money ran out andthey had nothing to eat. How can we possibly letthis happen? Forty children per minute die fromstarvation while twenty five million dollars perminute are spent on arms. We must respond. Wecannot hold back or look away. We have painfuldilemmas to face. Where should we

put our energy? If we decide to meditate, evenchoosing which type of meditation to practicecan be confusing.

The starting point is to look directly at suffering,both the suffering in the world and the sufferingin our own hearts and minds. This is thebeginning of the teaching of the Buddha, and thebeginning of our own understanding of theproblem of world peace. At this moment on ourplanet, there are hundreds of millions of peoplewho are starving or malnourished. Hundreds ofmillions of people are so impoverished that theyhave little or no shelter and clothing, or they aresick with diseases that we know how to cure, butthey cannot afford the medicine or do not haveaccess to it.

For us to look directly at the situation is not aquestion of ceremony or of religion. We have amandate to look in a very deep way at the sorrow

and suffering that exists now in our world, and tolook at our individual and collective relationshipto it, to bear witness to it, to acknowledge itinstead of running away. The suffering is so greatthat we do not want to look. We close our minds.We close our eyes and hearts.

Opening ourselves to all aspects of experience iswhat is asked of us if we want to do something,if we want to make a change, if we want to makea difference. We must look at the world honestly,unflinchingly, and directly, and then look atourselves and see that sorrow is not just outthere, external, but it is also within ourselves. Itis our own fear, prejudice, hatred, desire,neurosis, and anxiety. It is our own sorrow. Wehave to look at it and not run away from it. Inopening ourselves to suffering, we discover thatwe can connect with and listen to our own hearts.

In the heart of each of us, a great potential existsfor realizing truth, for experiencing wholeness,for going beyond the shell of the ego. The

problem is that we become so busy and lost inour own thinking that we lose our connectionwith our own true nature. If we look deeply, wediscover that the wholeness of our being comesto know and express itself both throughmeditation and through sharing ourselves withothers, and the course to take is very clear andimmediate. Whether it is an inner or an outerpath, it has enormous power to affect the world.

I spend most of my time teaching meditation. Afew years ago, when many thousands ofCambodian people were fleeing the violence intheir homeland only to face starvation anddisease in refugee

camps in Thailand, something in me said, ''I'vegot to go there," and so I went. I knew the peopleand a few of the local languages. After beingthere for a short time, trying to assist, I returnedto this country to guide intensive meditationretreats. I did not deliberate much at the timeabout whether or not I should go to work in therefugee camps. I felt that it had to be done, and Iwent and did it. It was immediate and personal.

The spiritual path does not present us with astylized pat formula for everyone to follow. It isnot a matter of imitation. We can not be MotherTheresa or Gandhi or the Buddha. We have to beourselves. We must discover and connect withour unique expression of the truth. We mustlearn to listen to and trust ourselves.

There are two great forces in the world. One isthe force of killing. People who are not afraid tokill govern nations, make wars, and control much

of the activity of our world. There is greatstrength in not being afraid to kill. The othersource of strength in the worldthe real strengthisin people who are not afraid to die. These arepeople who have touched the very source of theirbeing, who have looked into themselves in such adeep way that they understand and acknowledgeand accept death, and in a way, have already died.They have seen beyond the separateness of theego's shell, and they bring to life the fearlessnessand the caring born of love and truth. This is aforce that can meet the force of someone who isnot afraid to kill.

This is the power Gandhi called satyagraha, theforce of truth, and the force that he demonstratedin his own life. When India was partitioned,millions of people became refugeesMuslims andHindus moved from one country to another.There was horrible violence and rioting. Tens ofthousands of troops were sent to West Pakistanto try to quell the terrible violence, while Gandhi

went to what was then East Pakistan. He walkedfrom village to village asking people to stop thebloodshed. Then he fasted. He said he would takeno more food until the violence and insanitystopped, even if it meant his own death. And theriots stopped. They stopped because of the powerof love, because Gandhi cared aboutsomethingcall it truth or life or whatever youwishit was something much greater than Gandhithe person. This is the nature of our spiritualpractice, whatever form it may take. Livingaligned with truth is more important than eitherliving or dying. This understanding is the source

of incredible power and energy, and must bemanifested through love, compassion,sympathetic joy, and equanimity.

One of the exquisite experiences of my travels inIndia was going to the holy city of Benares by theGanges River. Along the river bank are ghatswhere people bathe as a purification, and thereare also ghats where people bring corpses to becremated. I had heard about the burning ghats foryears and had always thought that being therewould be a heavy experience. I was rowed downriver in a little boat, and up to the ghats wherethere were twelve fires going. Every half-hour orso, a new body would be carried down to thefires as people chanted "Rama Nama Satya hei,"the only truth is the name of God. I wassurprised. It was not dreadful at all; it waspeaceful, quiet, and very sane. There was as arecognition that life and death are part of the

same process and therefore death need not befeared.

There is a deep joy that comes when we stopdenying the painful aspects of life, and insteadallow our hearts to open to and accept the fullrange of our experience: life and death, pleasureand pain, darkness and light. Even in the face ofthe tremendous suffering in the world, there canbe this joy, which comes not from rejecting painand seeking pleasure, but rather from our abilityto meditate and open ourselves to the truth.Spiritual practice begins by allowing ourselves toface our own sadness, fear, anxiety,desperationto die to the ego's ideas about howthings should be, and to love and accept the truthof things as they are.

With this as our foundation, we can see thesource of suffering in our lives and in the worldaround us. We can see the factors of greed,hatred, and ignorance that produce a sense ofseparation. If we look directly, we can see the

end of suffering because its end is anacknowledgement and a clear understanding ofthe oneness of light and dark, up and down,sorrow and joy. We can see all these thingswithout attachment and without separation.

We must look at how we have created andenforced separation. How have we made this aworld of "I want this; I want to become that; thiswill make me safe; this will make me powerful?"Race, nationality, age, and religion all enforceseparation. Look into yourself and see what is"us" and what is "them" for you. When there is asense of ''us," then there is a sense of "other."When we can give this up, then we can give upthe idea that strength comes from

having more than others, or from having thepower to kill others. When we give this up, wegive up the stereotype of love as a weakness.

There is a story from the Zen tradition about anold monk in China who practiced very hardmeditation for many years. He had a good mindand became very quiet, but never really touchedthe end of "I" and "others" in himself. He nevercame to the source of complete stillness or peaceout of which transformation comes. So he wentto the Zen Master and said, "May I please havepermission to go off and practice in themountains? I have worked for years as a monkand there is nothing else I want but to understandthis: the true nature of myself, of this world."And the master, knowing that he was ripe, gavehim permission to leave.

He left the monastery, took his bowl and a fewpossessions, and walked through various towns

toward the mountains. He had left the last villagebehind and was going up a little trail when thereappeared before him, coming down the trail, anold man carrying a great big bundle on his back.This old man was actually the Bodhisattva,Manjusri, who is said to appear to people at themoment that they are ripe for awakening, and isdepicted carrying the sword of discriminatingwisdom that cuts through all attachment, allillusion, and separateness. The monk looked atthe old man, and the old man said, "Say, friend,where are you going?" The monk told his story."I've practiced for all these years and all I wantnow is to touch that center point, to know thatwhich is essentially true. Tell me, old man, doyou know anything of this enlightenment?" Theold man simply let go of the bundle; it droppedto the ground, and the monk was enlightened.

That is our aspiration and our taskto put it alldown, to drop all of our clinging, condemning,identifying, our opinions and our sense of I, me,

mine. The newly enlightened monk looked at theold man again. He said, "So now what?" The oldman reached down, picked up the bundle againand walked off to town.

We want to put it all down, which means also toacknowledge where it begins. To see sorrow, tosee suffering, to see pain, to see that we are all init together, to see birth and death. If we are afraidof death and afraid of suffering, and we do notwant to look, then we cannot put it down. Wewill push it away here and will grab it againthere. When we have seen the nature of lifedirectly, we can

put it down. Once we put it down, then withunderstanding and compassion we can pick it upagain. Then we can act effectively, evendramatically, without bitterness or self-righteousness. We can be motivated by a genuinesense of caring and of forgiveness, and adetermination to live our lives well.

A number of years ago I attended a conference atwhich Mad Bear, an Iroquois medicine manspoke. He said, "For my presentation I'd like usto begin by going outside," and we all went out.He led us to an open field and then asked us tostand silently in a circle. We stood for a while insilence under a wide open sky, surrounded byfields of grain stretching to the horizon. ThenMad Bear began to speak, offering a prayer ofgratitude. He began by thanking the earth-wormsfor aerating the soil so that plants can grow. Hethanked the grasses that cover the earth for

keeping the dust from blowing, for cushioningour steps, and for showing our eyes the greenessand beauty of their life. He thanked the wind forbringing rain, for cleaning the air, for giving usthe life-breath that connects us with all beings.He spoke in this way for nearly an hour, and aswe listened we felt the wind on our faces, and theearth beneath our feet, and we saw the grass andclouds, all with a sense of connectedness,gratitude, and love.

This is the spirit of our practice of mindfulness.Lovenot the near enemy of attachment, butsomething much deeperinfuses our awareness,enables us to open to and accept the truth of eachmoment, to feel our intimate connectedness withall things, and to see the wholeness of life.Whether we are sitting in meditation or sittingsomewhere in protest, that is our spiritualpractice in every moment.

Presented at the Eighth Conference of theInternational Transpersonal Association (ITA) on

Individual Transformation and UniversalResponsibility, August 27-September 2, 1983, inDavos, Switzerland.

Chapter TenTransition to a New Consciousness

Karan Singh, Ph.D.

The outstanding feature of the last quarter of thetwentieth century is likely to be the collapse ofthe materialistic paradigm that has dominatedworld thought for many centuries. What may becalled the Cartesian-Newtonian-Marxistparadigm has collapsed, and with it, thematerialistic philosophies based upon that view,whether Marxist or Capitalist, have also failed.With the impact of post-Einsteinian physics,quantum mechanics, Heisenberg's UncertaintyPrinciple, Stanislav Grof's extended cartographyof the psyche, and many other conceptualrevolutions, the old structures have begun tocrumble. Solid matter dissolves into waves of

probability, and the new physics seems to beapproaching the mystic vision of which seers andsages of all traditions have spoken.

At this crucial evolutionary crossroads, mankindis groping for a new model, a new philosophy, anew paradigm, a new consciousness to replacethe old. And it is not coincidence that this ishappening at a juncture when mankind is insupreme perilnot from another species, not fromouter space, but from itself. From deep withinthe human psyche there has developed a terriblepower that threatens not only our own generationbut all life on this planet.

Ancient myths often illuminate the humanpredicament, and there is a powerful Hindu mythof the Churning of the Milky Ocean (theSamudra-Manthana), which speaks to us todayacross the millenia, symbolizing the long andtortuous evolution of consciousness on earth. Inthis great myth, the Devas and the Asuras, thedark and the bright powers, combined and

cooperated in the churning of the ocean. Thiswent on for aeons, until, at last, the great giftsbegan to emergeKamadhenu, the all-giving cow,and Ucchaishravasa, the

divine horse; Kalpavriksha, the wish-fulfillingtree, and Airavata, the divine elephant. These andother great gifts appeared, and were happilydivided between the two sides. The churningproceeded, as its ultimate objective was theAmrita Kalasha, the pot of ambrosia, the Elixirof Immortality for which even the gods crave.

Suddenly, without warning, the ocean started toboil with a deadly poisonthe Garalaa new,malign dimension of which neither the Devas northe Asuras had any knowledge. Rapidly thepoison spread through the three worldsthe water,the land, and the skies. The churners fled helter-skelter in terror, striving to escape from thedeadly fumes, forgetting all the gifts that they hadaccumulated. And then Shiva-Mahadevaappeared, the great, primal divinity who wasaloof from the avarice and materialism of theDevas and the Asuras. He collected the poison in

a cup and drank it, integrating it into his being.His neck turned blue as a result, hence one of hisnames Neelkantha, the blue-throated. Then thedanger passed, order was restored. Chantinghymns to the glory of Shiva, the participantsreturned, the churning was resumed until finallythe ambrosial pot appeared and the wholeprocess was successfully completed.

This myth vividly illustrates the humanpredicament today. Prolonged churning has givenman the great gifts of science and technology.There have been incredible breakthroughs inmedicine, communications, agriculture,electronics, space travel, and cybernetics. Wenow have enough technology to ensure everyhuman being on earth the necessary physical,intellectual, material, and spiritual resources fora full and healthy life.

And yet the poison is also upon us. Billions ofdollars and rubles, pounds and francs, are spentevery day on the manufacture of monstrous

weapons with unprecedented power ofdestruction. It is estimated that there are nowwell over fifty thousand neuclear warheads, eacha thousand times more powerful than the bombsthat devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki at thedawn of the nuclear age, each with moreexplosive force than that used by both sides inthe entire World War II.

It is unnecessary to go into the catastrophicimpact of a nuclear war, even a so-called limitedone, which is a contradiction in terms. The DayAfter, gross understatement that it was, did helpto focus our attention, as did Jonathan Schell'sadmirable book, The Fate of the Earth, and thenew study by Carl Sagan and others called The

Cold and the Dark: The World After NuclearWar. It is now clear that we may commit notsuicide but terricide, the destruction of ourplanet.

There is overwhelming evidence to show that anykind of nuclear war would not only shatterhuman civilization as we know it, but wouldpoison the air and the oceans and render theplanet virtually uninhabitable. When thedinosaurs bowed out after a reign of sixty-fivemillion years they went comparatively gracefully.If and when we go, we will probably leave acharred and ravaged planet, capable of supportingonly extremely primitive life. Whether thishappens through political foolishness,miscalculation, accidenta flight of geese or amalfunctioning computer chipmatters little.

With all our tremendous knowledge, man hasfinally come to a single three-letter

mantraMADMutually Assured Destruction.Thousands of years ago, at the dawn of humancivilization, the Vedic seers had also discovereda three-letter mantraAUMas the symbol of thedivinity that pervades the universe. And so in fivethousand years we have travelled from AUM toMAD. This is human progress?

It is a sobering thought that we are a privilegedgeneration, not only because we may be the firstto see the dawn of the third millennium afterChrist but also because we may be the lastgeneration of human beings to inhabit this planet.Can we accept this possibility as passivespectators and drift mindlessly towards disaster?Can we acquiesce in a situation where onequarter of mankind is overfed and three quartersare underfed; where millions suffer from obesityand overeating while hundreds of millions wasteslowly away from malnutrition, stunted in bodyand mind; where millions are overmedicated andhundreds of millions lack access even to

elementary medical facilities? Can we close ourears to the cry of the deprived and the oppressed,while the world plunges on toward a rendezvouswith the ultimate apocalypse?

If the answer to these questions is negative, as itmust be, then we have to move toward globalconsciousness if we are to survive. We mustmove toward complementarity instead ofcompetition, convergence instead of conflict,holism instead of hedonism. We must heal thesplit within the human psyche, gather thefragments of human consciousness and meldthem into a glowing whole; we must effect atransition that will replace the present fracturedand fragmented consciousness in the human race.

As the caterpiller undergoes the choicelessmetamorphosis into a dazzling and irridescentbutterfly, we must understand that our transition,too, is choiceless. Transitions are never painless,but we must accept the physical andpsychological distress involved in abandoning acomfortable and familiar environment andleaping into a new and hitherto unknowndimension. Though this most crucial of alltransitions for mankind will be a painful andprotracted affair, the important question iswhether it is possible. Can there be a substantialtransformation of consciousness on this planet intime to prevent its destruction? Or is thisparticular adventure in planetary consciousnessdoomed to failure; is man a creatureprogrammed for self-destruction? No one knowsthe answer, but the Bhagavad Gita teaches thatwe must act in the manner we feel to be right,and not be obsessed with the consequences; act

not from our inflated or deflated egos but fromthe deepest recesses of our being. Indeed, at thisjuncture in planetary history, creative action is aspiritual imperative.

We are then led to inquire as to what exactly canbe done to hasten the transition. I suggest a five-point program that could help in the process,provided it is widely publicized and acted upon.This is a program of which many elements arealready in operation to some degree, but whichneeds to be coordinated and accelerated so thatwe can achieve a creative symbiosis.

The first requirement is to work out thephilosophical underpinning of the new globalconsciousness. For this we must draw on manyof mankind's traditions, both in the religious andsecular mode, and also upon the latest insights ofscience. In the Vedas we have ideals that arestartling in their contemporary relevance. Suchconcepts as the spiritual unity of all that exists,the divinity inherent in each human being,

mankind as a single family, the harmony ofreligions, the welfare of all sections of society,for example, provide an ideological frameworkfor the new consciousness; and the writings ofgreat evolutionary thinkers of our century likeSri Aurobindo, Teilhard de Chardin, and PanditGopi Krishna can greatly help to refine andilluminate the new philosophy.

Once this is done, the tremendous resources ofthe modern mass media must be pressed intoservice so that these concepts become part of themental structure of mankind. This is a task inwhich not only national governments andnonofficial agencies need to be in-

volved, but even more importantly, internationaland multilateral organizations. This year happensto mark the fortieth anniversary of the foundingof the United Nations. What better opportunitycan there be for the United Nations to take theinitiative in working towards creating a globalconsciousness? Other U.N. agencies, especiallyUNESCO and the U.N. University in Tokyo,should also be actively involved in this process.

Simultaneously, the third task is to set up aworldwide network linking the hundreds ofgroups and millions of people who acutely feelthis great anxiety about our future. This must cutacross all barriers of race or religion, nationalityor ideology, sex or sexual preference, economicor social status. It must unite East and West,North and South, rich and poor, white and black,believer and atheist, into a massive, coordinatedthrust to save mankind from annihilation.

Organizations like the InternationalTranspersonal Association (ITA) can play apivotal role in helping this worldwide transitionto a new mode of thinking relevant to therealities of this nuclear age.

The fourth task is the imperative necessity ofhalting the suicidal and now essentiallymeaningless nuclear arms race. With enoughfissionable material already available to destroyevery human being on this planet a dozen timesover, the whole syndrome has become absurd,especially when we realize that an equivalent often days of this world's expenditure onarmaments could permanently abolish hungerfrom the globe. While there are a number ofnations with nuclear capability, it is really therulers of the two superpowers (the contemporaryDevas and Asuras) who will have to cooperate inany revival of sanity. We must try to create atremendous pressure of public opinion andmobilize leaders of religious and philosophical

thought so that the conscience of mankind can beheard.

Finally, any movement for the new globalconsciousness must revert and relate to anindividual search for inner peace. In our ownlives we must move toward a realization of thetruth at the core of our being, and toward thehigher consciousness that is the birthright of eachof us. In the ultimate analysis, it is in the crucibleof our individual selves that the poison aroundus can be contained and transformed into a new,global consciousness. In this lies the hope forindividual salvation as well as the survival ofthis earth.

The ancient spiritual traditions of both East andWest have always known that our planet is notjust a ball of earth and stone, lava

and water. A most dramatic illustration wasprovided by the unique first photograph of earthtaken from outer space that showed our planet asa tiny speck of life and light against the unendingvastness of outer space, pulsating with energyand with a strange, fragile beauty.

In the Atharva Veda, one of the world's mostancient scriptures, there is the magnificentBhumi Suktam, Hymn to the Earth (X11.1)Composed over five thousand years ago by thegreat seer Atharvan, it speaks to us today with anew resonance, a fresh urgency. It has sixty-threeverses, from which I have abstracted the twelvethat follow (in translation by Abinash ChandraBose).

Truth, eternal order that is great and stern,Consecration, Austerity, Prayer and Ritualthese uphold the Earth.May she, Queen of what has been and will be,make a wide world for us.

Earth which has many heights, and slopesand the unconfined plains that bind men together,Earth that bears plants of various healing powers,may she spread wide for us and thrive.

Earth, in which lie the sea, the river and other waters,in which food and cornfields have come to be,in which lives all that breathes and that moves,may she confer on us the finest of her yield.

Earth, which at first was in the water of the ocean,and which sages sought with wondrous powers,Earth whose heart was in eternal heaven,wrapped in Truth, immortal,may she give us luster and strengthin a most exalted state.

Earth, in which the waters, common to all,moving on all sides, flow unfailingly, day and night,may she pour on us milk in many streams,and endow us with lustre.

Pleasant by thy hills, O Earth,thy snow-clad mountains and thy woods!O Earthbrown, black, red and multicoloredthe firm Earth protected by Indra,on this Earth may I standunvanquished, unhurt, unslain.

I call to Earth, the purifier,the patient Earth, growing strong through spiritual might.May we recline on thee, O Earth, who bearest power andplenty,and enjoy our share of food and molten butter.

May those that are thy eastern regions, O Earth,and the northern and the southern and the western,be pleasant for me to tread upon.May I not stumble while I live in the world.

Whatever I dig from thee, Earth,may that have quick growth again.O purifier, may we not injure thy vitals or thy heart.

May Earth with people who speak various tongues,and those who have various religious ritesaccording to their places of abode,pour for me treasure in a thousand streamslike a constant cow that never fails.

May those born of thee, O Earth,be, for our welfare, free from sickness and waste.Wakeful through a long life, we shall becomebearers of tribute to thee.

Earth, my mother, set me securely with bliss

in full accord with heaven.O wise one,uphold me in grace and splendor.

This Earth has nurtured consciousness from theslime of the primeval ocean, billions of yearsago, and has sustained the human race forcountless centuries. Will we repay our debt byconverting her into a burnt-out cinder circlingthe sun into eternity? Or will we so marshall ourinner and outer resources so that even at this latehour we may succeed in making the crucialtransition to the new consciousness? Time willtell. But if we do not make the transition, no onewill be here to record our ending.

Presented at the Ninth Conference of theInternational Transpersonal Association (ITA) onTradition and Technology in Transition, inKyoto, Japan, April 1985.

Chapter ElevenThe Darkness of God:Theology After Hiroshima

James Garrison, PH.D.

The path to wisdom that Hiroshima and theadvent of nuclear weapons challenge us to take isto the good of life itself. We are beingsummoned to direct our energies upon thecreative source of life and values rather thanupon specific values as they are expressedthrough the narrow provincialism of a particulargroup. This is and has been a primary ethicalcomponent of the Judaeo-Christian traditionfrom its inception. Indeed, it was a fundamentalaspect of the mission of Jesus himself to breakdown the separateness and exclusiveness of theindividuals and groups he encountered so that

they could be receptive to the kingdom of Godand openly responsive to one another. He taughtthem to love their neighbor as themselves,particularly the neighbor oppressed by the guiltinduced by orthodox legalisms and socialostracism. As Henry Weiman puts it, Jesus ''splitthe atom of human egoism." 1 His presence waslike a catalyst inducing creative transformationsin the persons who believed in him.

Weiman amplifies this observation concerningJesus with a note that has striking similarity tothe concept we shall be dealing with in relationto Hiroshima.

The creative transformation power was not in the manJesus, although it could not have occurred apart from him.Rather he was in it. It required many other things besides hisown solitary self. It required the Hebrew heritage, thedisciples with their particular capacity for this kind ofresponsiveness, and doubtless much else of which we havelittle knowledge.

The creative power lay in the interaction taking placebetween these individuals. It transformed their minds, theirpersonalities, their appreciable world, and their communitywith one another and with all men. 2

What occurred in the group surrounding Jesuswas the elevation of a creative event, happeningwithin the bounds of their history, to a place ofdominance and centrality in their lives. Theyunderstood and believed the creative event to beEmmanuel, and they were willing to open up thewalls of their separateness to the transformingpower of Christ and the all-encompassingcommunity of fellow-believers. Their leap offaith was in their willingness to incorporate anewly enacted historical event within theirconfessional heritage and in allowing their oldmodes of understanding to be opened up to thefreedom of spirit at work in the new event. Theyexperienced thereby a new dimension of humanpossibility and could give witness to the fact that

the Christ event had produced a new order ofhuman awareness and potentiality.

We are being confronted in our day with thesame necessity to transform our old modes ofunderstanding if the human race is to survive.We must first of all be willing to recognize thatwhat is occurring is EmmanuelGod with us. Tomake this leap in consciousness, however, willbe as difficult for us today as it was for thePharisees and Sadducees to make concerningChrist two thousand years ago, steeped andsecure as they were in their orthodox legalisms.Yet, even as the early believers were able to seethe handiwork and overall control of God in themidst of the crucifixion and resurrection ofChrist, so too must we be willing to perceiveGod at work in the atom bomb.

Hiroshima confronts us as never before with theimperative to take the wrath of God seriously.We must be willing at long last to give up ourmonopolar prejudice concerning God being

merely an expression of the Summum Bonumand capable of only love and mercy and"goodness." We must recognize that God is theGod of all possibilities and that God utilizes allthe instruments of power. Ultimately, what weare witnessing in our day is a great attempt on thepart of the Godhead to reveal deeper dimensionsof the divine pleroma, and to compel us toexplore even more deeply the mystery of Christcrucified.

The second point we must recognize in orderfully to appreciate the Hiroshima event is that,with the power of mass destruction in our hands,we have taken upon ourselves that last categoryattributed to God in the traditional view: thebelief that God would end the world inapocalyptic judgment and then recreate heavenand earth. But what the apocalyptists believedwas fixed by the counsel of God and brought topass by divine will and action alone is nowsomething within the realm of human decision.This means that we must internalizetheologically both the terror and the salvation ofthe traditional Judaeo-Christian concept ofapocalypse as something that will not be done tous by divine fiat alone, but as something thatmight well be done by us through our owndecision, God working divine wrath throughhuman arrogance. Hiroshima has humanized theeschaton.

To assert that Hiroshima represents an era of newdimensions of human power, while at the sametime asserting that it points us to the darkness ofGod at work in Christ crucified, may soundcontradictory. But it is not; it is complementary.Both are happening simultaneously and must bekept in a dialectical tension if we are to give anysense at all to the claim I shall be setting forth:that the relational encounter between God andhumanity coheres relationally in a single eventthat draws each according to its degree ofreedom and affects each according to itsrespective vulnerability. Hiroshima is the nexuspoint in our day when God and humanity meet toreveal deeper dimensions within the reality ofboth. As such, therefore, Hiroshima is numinous,holding forth to the eyes of faith the ambiguityinvolved in all creative events.

In order to speak of God in a way in whichmodern humanity can experience the power ofthis "unspeakable mystery," it is fundamental that

we dispense with classical theism whileremaining grounded in the biblical witness. Thiswill be difficult, because for centuries thenotions of classical theism were considered to bethe biblical witness. However, the God of theBible is much more alive and versatile than thestraitjacket of theism allows for. Dispensing withtheism will allow us to return to the Bible andsee more profound dimensions of the God thatJews and Christians worship. What I wish todraw attention to before proceeding, therefore,are certain themes enunciated by the Judaeo-Christian confessional witness which

will remain constant, for they form part of thedistinctive claim of our religious heritage. Theycan be reworked but not dispensed with.

What emerges as basic to the concept of God thatHebrews developed, and which the Christianslater amplified, is that God is at once the CosmicCreator of heaven and earth and also inseparablylinked with human history. For the Hebrews,God was an eminently social God who had madea covenant with humanity. The importance ofthis is that the historical element gives thecosmic dimension placement in space and time.

A second element in the Judaeo-Christian beliefconcerning God is in terms of divine creativity."In the beginning God created . . ." are theopening words of the scriptures, anunderstanding inherent even in the name"Yahweh." God created the heavens and theearth; God created humankind; and God has been

creatively active in human history eversinceredeeming the people of Israel from Egypt,making the convenant with them at Sinai, leadingthem through the vicissitudes of their history tothe promised land, exiling them for theirdisobedience, forgiving them and bringing themagain to Israel, finally becoming incarnate intheir midst as Christ Jesus.

The creative activity of God in history is notlimited to working salvifically only amongst thechosen people. God works the divine will in allnations, both to lift up and to bring down. Thispoint is brought out most forcefully by Isaiahwhen he prophesies concerning Yahweh'spunishment of Israel. It is clear to the prophetthat Assyria is a tool in the hands of God.

Ah, Assyria, the rod of my anger, the staff of my fury! Against a godless nation I send him, and against the people of my wrath I command him, to take spoil and seize plunder,and to tread them down like mire of the streets (Isa. 10.56).

Isaiah is quick to point out that although Assyriais being used by God, Assyria is unaware of it.The Assyrians think they are defeating Israel bytheir own power, saying

By the strength of my hand I have done it,and by my wisdom, for I have understanding (13a).

Therefore, prophesies Isaiah, when the Lord hasfinished using Assyria to punish Israel, theAssyrians will in turn be punished for their"arrogant boasting" and "haughty pride" (12):

Shall the axe vaunt itself over him who hews it,or the saw magnify itself against him who wields it? As if a rod should wield him who lifts it,or as if a staff should lift him who is not wood (15)!

God is sovereign over history, working thedivine will creatively in our midst. It is a creativeactivity with both light and shadow dimensionsbefore which the believers can only kneel in awe,filled with both reverence and trembling.

These themes will be amplified as we proceed,for they must be understood if we are to perceivethe handiwork of God in the atomic bombing ofHiroshima. What is important for our purposeshere is to make clear that the assertion that Godacts in history is the cornerstone of any Judeao-

Christian ontology of God.

The modern hermeneutical challenge is to beconcurrently so deeply rooted both "in God" andin the modern world as to create a relevantcontext of confessional witness. We must discernthe hand of God in historical events in a way thattouches modern humanity while remainingconsistent with the ancient Judeao-Christiancredo that history is "in God" and that God actsdecisively and centrally in certain historicalevents which shape the whole.

There are two aspects which must be kept in acreative synthesis in order to grasp the presenceof divinity in history: the aspect of historical factand the aspect of confessional response. ThatJesus died on the cross is the historical fact. That"Christ died for our sins in accordance with thescriptures" is the confessional response. Both arenecessary components of the actual occurrence.Only when historical facts and confessionaldiscernment interprentrate do we have history "in

God": Heilsgeschichte.

The intersection of the historical event with theconfessional response yields a dialectic that givesa dynamic quality to the biblical concept ofdivine action. The confession is not made staticwithin the recitation of cosmogonic myth nor isit solidified into a juridical system of doctrine;instead, divine action is an evolving development

made discernible within the continualinterpenetration of new events with confessionalheritage.

This can be seen in the prophecies of Deutero-Isaiah 4055. After several centuries of Israelitenationhood, Assyria destroyed the ten northerntribes of Israel. Babylon then conquered the tworemaining tribes, ruled by the house of David,and took them captive to Babylon. For seventyyears they remained in exile. Then Persia movedagainst Babylon and Deutero-Isaiah prophesiedthat the Jews would be allowed to return toJerusalem. This hope was crystalized by thecampaign of King Cyrus of Persia, reflected inIsaiah 41.23 and 45.13, in which Cyrus defeatsKing Croesus of Lydia in 546 B.C. and preparesto take Babylon in 539 B.C. This web ofcircumstances set in motion by Cyrus's campaignwas understood in Isaiah 42.13 as typologically a

new exodus.The Lord goes forth like a mighty man,like a man of war he stirs up his fury; he cries aloud, he shouts aloud, he shows himself mighty against his foes.

Yahweh is seen here as reenacting the exodusfrom Egypt, only this time it is from Babylonafter the years of exile and the initiator is Cyrusrather than Moses. Again in captivity, the chosenpeople of God are being miraculously deliveredby their sovereign and gracious Lord. The "Godof our Fathers" is again seen to be leading Israelout of bondage.

Indeed, the prophecy recites the all-inclusivepower and understanding of Yahweh, theepistemological function of which is clear; todesignate the new exodus event as profoundlyuniversalized but as still entirely within thepurposes of the one true God, who proclaims

I am the Lord, and there is no other, besides me there is no God;

I gird you, though you do not know me, that men may know, from the rising of the sunand from the west, and there is none besides me;I am the Lord, and there is no other (Isa. 45.56).

This model implies a "hermeneutic ofengagement." It is thus described becausethrough it the believing community engagessimultaneously with the two facets of divineactivity in human affairs: heritage and event. Inthis way the believing community brings theconfessional heritage, through which thecommunity perceives the purposeful movementof God through the historical process, into aliving encounter with contemporary reality. Inthis engagement the heritage is amplified, andthrough it the believing community interprets theevent as a further illumination of a patternalready witnessed and confessed to as in somesense numinous. In the hermeneutic ofengagement, therefore, the meaning and contextof contemporary events will be clarified andgiven their religious depth by interpreting themin the light of the paradigmatic events of thecommunity's past.

Even as the return from exile was a new exodus,so the advent of nuclear weapons is a newapocalypse. This dialectic between Hiroshimaand the apocalyptic challenges us to explore thecoming together of humanity and God in ournew found powers of global destruction and ourcapacity for planetary renewal. It is important tostress the co-creative character of the apocalypticpossibilities in our day. Hiroshima humanizingthe apocalypse means that if the wrath of Godmust come, it is human hands which will pushthe button; and if the righteousness of God willreplace the old order with a new one, it is humanwork which will create it. In history, God neverworks alone, but always in conjunction withhuman beings. Therefore, it is imperative to findthe locus of the divine/human interface withinthe human realm, for whatever God is in divinetranscendence, God is only concrete to humanswhen divinity is made manifest in history.

What must be discerned is that locus in which

three things occur: first, where the humanrealities of darkness and light are felt moststrongly; second, where these human feelings anddrives engage with and are affected by God; andthird, where some type of synthesis can occur notonly between the forces peculiarly human butalso between the human and the divine.

The locus in which all these three dynamicsoccur is the human psyche, for it is here that theactive inner and spiritual life of human beingstakes place; where religious experience takesplace, meaning our inner encounters with God;and where we can synthesize the

contradictions within us to achieve some type ofreconciliation. As I said, Hiroshima has madeimperative this journey inward; therefore,theology, if it is to internalize adequately thehistorical event Hiroshima represents, must takeseriously the psychic dimensions of humanexperience. Not only does our psyche influencewhat we perceive, receive, mediate, and expressin terms of our spiritual life, but it is only as wefind reconciliation within the psyche that we candeal adequately with the polarities inherent in theexternal world. A psychotheology has, sinceHiroshima, become inescapable in understandingthe dilemma we are confronted with. We are allsurvivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki because wehave all had "engraved" in our psyches the deathimmersion the atomic bombing of Japanrepresents. As Robert Lifton points out, thisdeath immersion has caused a "psychic mutation"in us all.

In exploring our psychic reality I have chosen tofollow primarily the discoveries of C.G. Jungbecause he appreciated the psyche as the locus inwhich the human and the divine meet, mutuallyaffect one another, and co-create. Besidesoffering a practical and open model of the psychewhich must be taken seriously, Jung also delvedwith profound clarity and perception in the areathat concerns usthe advent of nuclear weapons.Particularly in his Answer to Job, he struggledwith the question of why it is that after severalthousand years of religious culture in the West,Western civilization has brought all planetary lifeto the brink of extinction through thermonuclearwar. For Jung, this meant dealing mostfundamentally with the problem of evil and withthe shadow aspect of reality, not only inhumanity but in divinityareas not amenable to theneat categorizations of rational logic. This ledhim to an affirmation of the antinomial characterof God, a reality in which a "both . . . and . . ."

complementarity of opposites is much moreconstructive than the "either/or" dichotomy oflogical reasoning.

In grappling with this complex problem, Jung isalso helpful in deepening our understanding ofthe hermeneutic of engagement discussed earlier.His model of the psyche is based on theinteraction of consciousness withunconsciousness and the interaction of the logicof time, space and causality with symbols andmythic images. Consciousness uses thecategories of time, space and causality; theunconscious uses symbols and mythic images.The interrelationship between these two aspectsof the psyche form a complexio oppositorum,

a tension of opposties, which can be integratedonly by the selfthe unifying force in the psycheifwe are to reach the goal of wholeness. To reducesymbol to rational logic or mythic images to theliteralism of the categories of time, space andcausality on the one handor to swallow up thereality of the world of time, space and causalityinto symbol and myth on the otheris to miss thereal profundity and dynamic power of the psyche.The same holds true for scripture: to reducedivine action in history to either literalism ordemythologized rationalism on the one hand, orto deny the physical historical truth of Jesus ofNazareth by swallowing it up in symbol or mython the other, is to emasculate the mystery of thebiblical witness. The hermeneutic of engagementholds both historical fact and confessionalresponse in creative tension. Jung's model of thepsyche does the same. Consciousness is intension with the unconscious; and the categories

of time, space, and causality are in tension withthe expressions of symbol and myth. Theresulting complexio oppositorum, while notamenable to rationalist reduction, leads us closerto an appreciation of the mystery of scripture andthe antinomial reality of both the human psycheand our experience of God.

The individuation process is in effect a co-creation of consciousness with the unconscious.In asserting God to be an autonomous complexand a symbol whose affects are psychologicallymeasurable, God is bound to become relative;for if God is placed in an intimate relation withthe soul, God in effect becomes vulnerable to thesoul. In so far as God is to have anycommunication with us and be psychologicallyeffective, God must be mediated through animage within the psyche; that is, through asymbol.

Symbols, however, arise in the human psyche,evolve to a certain point where their content

becomes explicable in some other way, and thenfade. Such is the case with the recent demise ofthe God-image presented by theismit is an imagewhose time is past; therefore, "God is dead" saysthe theologians. However, a new image is in theprocess of arising. Note that I am not sayingarising through our actions, but taking shape ofits own accord. I stress the overwhelming role ofGod and the unconscious in any symbolformation. We can only consciously participatein what is already occurring at its own initiative.This evolving of God-images, while certainly not

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