2A: Pre-Rational Spirituality

2) what is the difference between spirituality as a (pre-rational)
regressive narcissistic defense and spirituality as a grounded adult
trans-rational developmental process? (in my discussion i will define
those pejorative sounding terms...)

A) i will begin by outlining some basics around cognitive developmental stages, pre rationality, narcissism, magical thinking, and having a self or ego.

Ego Development

the starting point for this inquiry is developmental psychology. a great
deal  has been very well mappped out by the likes of piaget, kohlberg,
kohut and others viz cognitive development, moral development, ego/self
development etc..(these are not rare, esoteric theorists, but very
established scholars, authors, and clinicians whose work is considered
foundational by many others....)

transpersonal psychology came along in the early 70's and asked "how do
we include spirituality and in particular the higher levels of
development we are observing from things like meditation into a
developmental model?"

many brilliant minds have spent the last 30 years working on that
question. the transpersonalists are the only school of thought who have
produced solid, research based,  intellectually rigorous attempts to
integrate psychology and spirituality.

the developmental model they came up with basically says this:

we go through 3 broad stages: prepersonal, personal, and transpersonal.

you could also say pre-egoic, egoic, and trans-egoic.

it has been extensively documented, as far back as piaget's work on
cognitive development, that from birth until around 10 years old
children go though several pre-egoic and early egoic stages of
development. prior to the development of fully formed rational thinking,
children have magical thinking - they believe in santa claus, the tooth
fairy, etc... and they use various pre-rational ideas to explain how
relaity works. they might believe for example that mommy can really see
through walls, or that daddy is secretly a super hero. they may imagine
that when they are sleeping they really are off riding through the sky
on a unicorn. in addition, during these early stages, the seperation
between self and other is quite unclear, and a sense of self (or ego) is
being gradually formed through the process of relating to others
(significantly to parents).

children in these early stages cannot yet think logically (called
concrete operations). for example one could pour the same amount of
water back and forth between a larger looking glass and a smalller
looking glass that both hold the same volume, and each time on being
asked the child will answer that there is more water in the tall glass
and less in the short glass - even though you have poured the same
amount of water back and forth before their eyes. this is a classic
example of where our minds are at developmentally before the stage
called concrete operational.

next comes formal operational, in which we learn to logically use
symbols in relation to abstract concepts. according to piaget's work only 35% of high school graduates in industrialized countries have learned how to use their minds this way! most people do not think using formal operations during adulthood.

bear in mind these are not arbitrary stage judgemenst - there are
sophisticated and well established tests for determining wther or not
the tools that come online at these stages are being used, and how
effectively.

genuinely transpersonal (trans-rational or spiritual) development rests
on the solid developmental foundation of formal operations. failing that
we are in trouble because people who have not completed the stage of
development at which their minds understand symbolic abstract thinking
will tend to take spiritual ideas and *literalize*  them in ways that are
demonstrably pre-rational! (in other words finding a new way to believe
in santa claus, unicorns, and the easter bunny is a *regression* to a
pre-rational stage...wether the "new" beliefs or worldview is overtly
religious or dressed in the more hip clothing of the new age)

Mirroring, Frustration, Primary and Secondary Narcissism

additionally, the early stages of development entail forming a self or
ego. part of how this happpens - says kohut - is that we go through a
process in which two things are essential:

1) age appropriate mirroring

i love this stuff and could write much more but for now: the
parent/authority figure "mirrors" or reflects back the childs inner
state in an empathic way that is appropraite to the sense of self being
developed at that age.

2) optimal disillusionment (or manageable disappointment)

the child goes through a process of surrendering the unrealistic
idealization of the parent/authority figure through disapppointments or
disillusionments that it can handle. this allows the gradually forming
self to seperate a little each time and come more into a real
relationship with the previously all-powerful archetypally identified
adults.

the beautiful thing is - the more realistically human the adults become the more independent and authentically powerful and grounded in reality the child feels - they are surrrendering a necessary but temporary illusion and replacing it with a *more truthful perception* as they develop more self hood.

the tricky part is that it has to be optimal/manageable to work out just
that way. two things can occur (and usually do) to make this process
less straightforward:

a) the disappointment can be traumatic - eg: the way we learn about
daddy's imperfection is that he beats up mommy when he is drunk.

b) the illusion can be perpetuated overtly or covertly to maintain the
"regressive paradise", usually because the parent consciously or
unconsciously is too identified with the idealization - this is often a
reflection of what the parent didn't get in their developmental process...

so: on to *narcissism*

kohut is something of the master when it comes to the complex subject of
narcissism.

1)he describes a *primary narcissism* that happens as  a
natural stage when we are children. we are all familiar with how
children need to be the center of attention. they need to be told how
perfect, beautiful, strong, graceful, intelligent etc they are....and
they will ask for this directly or indirectly very insistently as they
are going through this stage. during this stage the child is
internalizing the mirroring from the parent that then allows for a
positive self-image to form.

this positive self-image and age appropriate mirroring, combined with
the optimal disillusionment that gives us more real power and less
reliance on fantasy ( daddy is not a super hero, mommy is not perfectly giving, you are not really the all-powerful character from your comic book, etc...) produce a healthy well-adjusted self or ego. 

(it is interesting to note that we have no problem finding it pretty odd if a 16 year old still believes in santa claus, but we often tend not to extend this rational observation to a 26 year old who believs in, say, angels or spirit guides...)

2) now, unfortunately there may be several hiccups in this process. trauma and/or dysfunctional parents who dont have healthy egos themselves often result in an incomplete process around self-development.

this can make us reliant on what kohut calls a *secondary narcissism* as an unconscious attempt to complete this developmental stage. the secondary narcissism is much like the primary, but is found in adults and is usually more convoluted and covert.

this is characterized by the need to feel all powerful, to idealize others intensely, to feel some great importance in one's existence, as if one were the center of the whole universe, this can also take the form of needing to belong to organizations that meet the narcissistic need by imparting some sense of cosmic significance and grand meaning upon the individual and the group.

cultish organizations and many  personal growth groups rely heavily on this need and generally have the easiest time recruit ing people caught in a secondary narcissism and a lack of formal operations/critical thinking skills. unfortunately these gorups do not provide tools and practices that address the central problem - they usually prey on and perpetuate it! this is often true at the core  wether the outer garment is christianty, prosperity consciousness, new age, guru-based, or some combination.

here's what has gone wrong:

a) the optimal disillusionment has not been completed and so we see *regressive* or childish beliefs and needs overtly expressed as a large part of the individuals worldview, relationship to others and ego-identification.

b) the narcissistic needs have not been met and transcended and so we see a reliance on magical thinking and grandiose mythic fantasy and a confusion about what is real and what isn't.

in more severe cases the regression goes even deeper and the person has a full-blown psychotic relationship to reality.

to return to piaget, people who have arrived at formal operational thinking know the difference between symbols and reality - they can use abstraction to appropriately relate their inner and outer worlds.

to summarize kohut, people who have developed a healthy self or ego have (to a certain extent) come to terms with the realities of life - they can tolerate the tension of not being all-powerful or of their authority figures being human. they are not reliant on narcissistic fantasies about reality as a way to shore up their sense of self and protect it against the uncertainties of life.

healing and growth in these important areas can occur through well crafted practices/therapies and good guidance in the context of an understanding around these core issues..

the healthier people get through a well-applied spiritual/psychological process the more they can surrender narcissistic defenses and the more they can think at the adult formal operational level and beyond.

unfortunately, much of what passes for spirituality a la the new age principles i outlined earlier prevents this because it actively perpetuates the central problem of where many folks are stuck:

a) they have not learned to think symbolically and
b) they are caught in a narcissistic defense that makes ungrounded magical thinking based ideas about reality very appealing.

unfortunately much of what is touted as a 'spiritual appproach' to psychology is being practiced by those who unwittingly perpetuate these very developmental arrests or regressions and actualy, ironically *prevent* authentic adult spirituality form arising....this would be the next phase of the journey - what transpersonalists call the transpersonal, transegoic or transrational stages.

there is a very important difference between pre and tran stages as elucidated by ken wilber inhis essay "the pre/trans fallacy."

more to come on this as question 2 B.