3A: Making The Transition

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3) A. how does one make the transition from pre-rational to trans-rational through the grounding, clarifying doorway of the rational level?

The Rational Gaze

so, the idea is to take pre-rational spirituality and literally transform
it into trans-rational spirituality. this is done initially through the
cleansing fires of rationality. i said before that the first step was to
look at one's spiritual beliefs and ideas through the clear-eyed gaze of
the rational mind.

it actually requires a certain kind of deep faith in the existence of genuine spiritual truths to allow illusory pre-rational spirituality to be surrendered before this rational gaze. whatever is released through this rational  inquiry is no longer useful - have faith that this is a healthy cleansing and awakening process and that deeper truths are waiting as we stabilize at new, higher levels.

notice once again how pre-rational spirituality is based in the idea
that rationality and spirituality are at odds with eachother. this is
not so. they deeply serve one another, and as the name suggests, trans-rational spirituality includes or stands upon rationality, even as it transcends or reaches beyond rationality.

as we continue developing sophisticated formal operational thinking we
find that far from being dry and literal, genuine rational development
allows us to think symbolically, but in sound logical ways! genuine
symbolic thinking and interpretation has to be based in a rational
interpretation of reality and then add to that through metaphorical ways
of representing what cannot be talked about directly.

the thing about metaphors, myths and symbols is that they indirectly refer to the real world. they are in essence a sophisticated language developed to talk about reality in ways that reveal truths unavailable to linear language. this does not, however mean that they are opposed to logic or rationality - they rather point to the trans-rational. they are useful only insofar as they deepen our relationship to reality itself.

remember too that interpretations of metaphors or symbols can be more or less accurate or deep and that there is a very sophisticated art and science to this interpretive ability as exmplified by psychoanalists with dreams, art historians with, say, paintings, literary scholars with the written word, mythologists with myths etc...

all of the above experts are exhibiting a high level of rational formal operational development.

pre-rational, concrete operational cognition will tend to interpret
symbols, myths and metaphors literally (concretely). so jesus really did
rise from the dead, he is actually the only son of god, or my spirit
guides literally "came through" to talk to the psychic about my
past-lives, or my friends and i are literally part of the same reincarating soul group who have come to reveal the new paradigm that will free the whole world from the darkness of negativity, my brother is mean and competitive because he was born a scorpio.... etc..

this literal interpretation will then be set against the rational worldview as something intuitive, higher, or spiritual - when in fact it is a more distorted perception of reality, more superstitious than spiritual.

a simple test for wether a spiritual idea, belief or worldview is
pre-rational or tran-rational is this:

simply ask yourself - is this in conflict with basic rationality or does it build upon basic rationality?

and/or: -  are the premises behind these conclusions/assertions based on anything real? is the logic sound?

the jump from pre to trans-rational spirituality is fascinating because
as the distortions of pre-rationality are surrendered, the
trans-rational truths that they were masquerading as get deepened and
clarified. their symbolic meaning and therefore true relationship to
reality gets revealed. everything gets not only more interesting and
genuinely meaningful, but it does so in a more grounded adult way!

trans-rational spirituality also embraces the difficult existential truths of our human condition. trans-rational spirituality does not defend itself against the uncertainties of death, chaos, or suffering with nice sounding candy-coated platitudes or convoluted magical beliefs. 

at this level we can stand with an open awareness and a quivering heart before these aspects of reality and be awakened to ever-deepening meaning and beauty not in spite of them, but because of them.

this is because arriving at trans-rationality entails, in part, working through the shadow material held in the realities of death, chaos, and suffering. this creates real freedom to experience authentic joy, love, beauty and compassion for the precious gifts that they truly are, and to be grounded in an even deeper awarenes of ethics and morality.


The Shadow Material

if the first step is to cultivate formal operational symbolic cognition
and look at ones spirituality through an unflinchingly clear rational
gaze, the second step is to process through the inevitable shadow
material that gets brough tot the surface as a result of step one.

remember that pre-rational spirituality is usually a defense against the
suffering and uncertainty of being human. therefore, as we surrender the
pre-rational beliefs on the way to trans-rationality, it becomes
necessary to face the shadow material, become conscious of it and
compassionately process and integrate it.

one important thing about both pre-rational and rigidly rational
worldviews is that they both have structured into them an unconscious
shadow and a defense against that shadow. the transrational worldview
and level of consciousness is the first level that attempts to make
conscious and integrate the shadow.

to be fair to the pre-rational folks i should add here that because very few people are at a truly trans-rational level, the pre-rationals are
usually at odds with a rigidly rational worldview that sees only
empirical science and pure logic as valid. this rigid rationality
completely denies interiority and is not engaged at the level of
heremeneutics and contemplative awareness that i have described
previously.

however, the antidote to rigid rationality is not pre-rational magic. it is trans-rational integrated, grounded, adult spirituality, which transcends and includes genuine rationalty and opens it up to it's healthy next level.

rigid rationality will be defended against pre-rationality (which is
not  such a bad thing) but it will tend to perform the pre/trans fallacy in reverse of the pre-rational performance:

rigid rationality sees both pre and trans as  pre-rationality.

conversely pre-rationality elevates itself to trans-rational, and sees rationality as a "lower" enemy. it will tend to view trans-rational  as merely rational.

both are quite confused but are internallly consistent based on their limited perceptions.

pre-rationality is usually a weak ego's defense against it's shadow:
tension and anxiety of living in a scary world and having all sorts of
painful feelings about that. generally, as discussed previously, the
primary narcissism  of early development has not been sucessfully
completed and so there is a secondary narcissism that the pre-rational
beliefs sustain. of course then, underneath the secondary narcissism and
it's pre-rational worldview there is pain, sadness, fear, rage etc..
these feelings need to be held in awareness, understood cognitively,
processed within a compassiionate container, perhaps expressed and
mirrored as a way to consciously recontact that stage of self-hood and
bring it along into it's own next stage of development.

rigid rationality has a less magical and a more controlling quality to
it than the pre-rational defense. the rigidly rational self has
developed enough strenghth to be able to "go it alone" without
pre-rational regression but it is holding on too tightly and very threatened by anything that doesn't fit an empirical monological interpretation of reality. the rigidly rational mind is not interested in poetic metaphor, mythology, psychoanalysis, meditation, art in general. it has not yet learned the genuine science of hermeneutics and contemplative intelligence.

both defenses are reactions to deep feelings that have been disowned
and are hence part of the shadow. the doorway into trans-rational lies
down the corridor of the shadow-work.

in addition to cultivating formal operational cognition or symbolic
thinking, one needs to cultivate the meditative ability to be self aware
at the level that allows awareness of the shadow to emerge. then it is
necessary to work with the formerly repressed or unconscious shadow
material through processes that integrate the self at this next level.

as i have mentioned, one can engage:

psychotherapy
meditation
yoga
bodywork
ecstatic dance
relationship as spiritual practice

and other modalities with the intention of using them to do the
necessary shadow work of becomeing aware of, processing and integrating
disowned emotions, desires, impulses, awarenesses etc..

my perspective is that it important to ground these processes in the
body, as both pre-rational and rigid rational tend to be dissociated
from the sensate and emotional body in certain important ways. also, including the body in the spiritual/psychological process also brings the mind into direct contact with reality and allows the abstraction of formal operations to be related to something real. this makes possible the distinction i mentioned earlier (from kalsched) between

a) "fantasying" - which doesn't build a meaningful, effective bridge between the inner and outer
worlds and
b) imagination - which does.

integrating analytic cognitive awareness into these bodily/energetic sensate and emotional processes safeguards against mere self-indulgent regression and creates a container within which integrated trans-rationality can emerge as a deepening awareness of body, mind, heart and world.


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