Integrative Spirituality: Grounded Contemporary Perspectives
Posted on May 5th, 2007
by 
Julian
Julian
This is part one of the seven part Zymposium - go here for the wrap up and full list of links to all seven brilliant posts/discussion fora.
Surface and Depth
There is a famous quote from one of the early Transpersonal Psychologists, Jack Engler, "You have to be someone before you can be no-one."
This is a very simple and direct way of acknowledging a developmental process. In my workshop series and new 8 CD lecture and yoga class series Radical Transformation: A Map to Mind-Body Ecstasy, I use the chakra system as a way to talk about both the developmental process and the mind-body connection. So I'd like to start by using some of the core themes from those lectures as a way to make some distinctions that I think are important for integrative spirituality. I will briefly touch on: experience vs interpretation, conscious mind vs unconscious mind, ego strength vs ego defense, healthy anger vs toxic anger, compassion vs codependence, insight vs belief, literal vs symbolic and of course prerational vs transrational - for more please consult the CD lectures.
Now it might help to start off by defining what I mean by integrative spirituality. My sense of it is a spirituality that integrates attention to mind and body, integrates Eastern and Western approaches, and integrates psychological and spiritual techniques and frameworks.
This is what Transpersonal Psychology set out to do in the 70's, following on from Jung and Maslow and in the wake of the 60's psychedelic mind-expansion, fascination with Eastern myticism and the important work of people like Alan Watts and Joseph Campbell. This zeitgeist produced the extraordinary work of Ken Wilber, Stan Grof, Jack Kornfield, John Welwood, Jack Engler and other brilliant theorists, clinicians, and serious spiritual practitioners.
One of the key observations in this movement has been looked at from different angles that are all related to the above quote from Engler. Wilber's famous essay The Pre/Trans Fallacy, Welwood's concept of "spiritual bypassing," Stan Grof's observation about the "flight toward the light," and much of Kornfield's work points to the problem of non-integrative spirituality being used in the service of avoiding dealing with the necessary awareness work and emotional healing that continuing development and integration require. In other words, spirituality itself (especially spirituality based in magic, mythic and metaphysical beliefs) can become a defense against actual spiritual and psychological growth.
As far as working in an integrative way - I think of both mind and body as having surface and depth components. There is the (surface) conscious mind and the (depth) unconscious mind, each being home to the ego and the Self. The surface level has to do with mental focus, intentionality and ego-strength, as well as cognitive development, critical thinking, symbol interpretation. Goal-setting, Cognitive Reframing, Concentration and even Witnessing meditations are good here, as well as intellectual pursuits that refine critical and symbolic analysis.
Too little surface mind work and one can be very undisciplined, caught up in drama, chronically self-sabotaging etc..
The depth component of the mind invites us beneath the surface - Vipassana, Tonglen and Lovingkindness meditation, psychotherapy, Holotropic Breathwork, certain kinds of yoga, bodywork, and ecstatic dance, all can take us into that shamanic type space where the defenses come down and we go through an experiential process of working with repressed emotions, painful memories, insecurities and traumas held in the unconscious, as well as archetypal imagery, self-parenting and the arising of insight into our personal process and the universal human condition.
As is more often the case than not - too much surface mind work at the expense of depth mind work can create a kind of over-identification with beliefs, an overvaluing of the power of intention, an emphasis on controlling both reality and one's feelings through the mind, and - as should be obvious, a lack of depth in terms of the psyche/soul.
The less common problem has to do with too much destabilizing depth work and not enough of the grounding, calming, focusing ego-strength buiding of the surface work.
One corrolary to this is a kind of unboundaried overabundance of intuitive awareness with a lack of either the structure of ego-strength or the awareness of the depth work - such that the intuitive stream is often undifferentiated from one's shadow material, projections etc and ends up being overly literalized in a kind of superstitious way. Many sensitive and/or traumatized poeple drawn to spirituality take this route.
In Jungian terminology, this alchemical process is one of creating/strengthening the "ego/Self axis." Another way of saying this is that we open up more of a connection between the deep Self and the surface ego. Overall the healthy psychospiritual process creates a stronger channel of communication between the surface and depth, between our conditioned external self and our authentic inward experience, feelings, needs, thoughts and aspirations. It also frees up blocked energy from unresolved conflicts and allows both the developmental process along several lines to continue and the integrative resonance between those different lines to be more harmonious. When I use the word "lines" I am referring to the Integral concept and specifically for my purposes I am interested in the cognitive, emotional, spiritual, and kinesthetic lines of development.
Another doorway in is to talk about the relationship between intention and process. The intention (surface) creates a doorway into a process (depth) which in turn will re-shape the intention as well as the ego setting the intention through input from the Self. It's a feedbaclk loop.
The Self is constantly communicating with us through things like dreams, intuitions, projections, fantasies, emotions, psychosomatic symptoms. Think of the (deep) Self as being more authentically in touch with what is really going on under the surface of the defenses (rationalization, denial, magical thinking, projection etc) - the Self has a clearer picture of the whole of our experience and has acccess to the disowned shadow material of emotions, desires, experiences, resources and archetypes that our ego has not yet learned to tolerate, actualize, and integrate.
As to the body, I think of the body too as having a surface component in it's structural anatomy and a depth component in it's organ system, glandular and blood chemistry. The surface component of the body is well addressed by physical practices like yoga, other forms of excercise and various kinds of bodywork/massage. The depth component can be well addressed by organ cleansing, nutrition, supplement protocols and the benefits of detoxifying sweat and nervous and glandular system stimulation and modulation created by exercise - particularly in this case - yoga and ecstatic dance.
So in terms of addresing surface and depth in both mind and body - the integrative approach I apply is to synergize finely tuned physical practices that allow space for process with with nutritional cleansing/supplementation and various meditation techniques that train for different skills.
This combination of anatomical, spiritual and psychological approaches adds up to an energetic initiation that is quite profound - and a new heightened awareness of the mind-body connection/process.
Altered States, Kundalini, Unwinding
At their most essential level meditation, yoga, breathwork, psychotherapy and dance all are ways to access a revelatory experience of not just the mind-body connection, but a kind of dropped-in awareness field in which the innate intelligence of the bodymind can rebalance, unwind, spontaneously express and begin to awaken to it's deeper energetic and awareness capacities. Part of this revelatory process can include the arising of the altered state awakenings and psychophysical phenomena attributed in the East to Kundalini and in the West to the somato-psychic wave, somatic discharge, unwinding etc...
These states are accesible at any level of one's developmental process. For the purposes of this discussion let's say that these altered state/energetic processes can arise while one's "altitude" is centered in any of the chakras and can also be the result of an unresolved strand of experience (or even what Grof calls a Co-ex system) emerging from any of the chakras/developmental levels. To clarify, i should say that I think of the chakras as being a) anatomical structures: key "high-charge" muscles, glands, organs, nerve plexi, b) a way of talking about how the inward experience of the body in a particular physical area resonates emotions and energetic qualities, and c) a metaphorical/imaginal way of talking about mind-body matrix and it's developmental and healing processes.
Being Someone
So, to return to our starting point - if you have to be someone to be no-one, what does this mean? One has to have a strong, healthy ego, or sense of self, in order to healthily engage in any kind of transcendence of that ego or sense of self. In terms of my chakra model this means that the developmental process in chakras one through three has to be pretty solid in order to move forward to chakras four though seven in a healthy way. Now of course, chakras one through three have to do with several key issues: the right to exist, survival, taking pleasure in our physicality, emotional and sexual trust, gender identity/value, object relations, sense of self, boundaries, will, self-esteem, to name a few...
The difficulty of course comes in two forms: first, whether we realize it or not, most of us have fairly serious unresolved issues in these earlier chakra levels and second, many if not most people interested in spirituality have come to a spiritual path out of some kind of pain, suffering, longing for something that we do not have/feel. So spirituality actually is a bit of a magnet for wounded people. Now, if the kind of spirituality that is encountered is not integrative, it will likely perpetuate the very defenses (denial, rationalization, magical thinking) that are keeping the ego and the Self from being in an integrated fluid relationship. Often there is so much static because of the elaborate beliefs that people take on in the name of spirituality that it is almost impossible at first to be in touch with any real feelings, to enter into any authentic process of going beneath the surface and listening to the psyche, the body-intelligence, the heart wisdom. Intention is often held up as a supreme control mechanism instead of just step one of a process of going within and healing/growing. Intention is given a kind of literalized magic power to affect outer reality, instead of being understood as a way to focus the mind enough to go under the defensive omnipotent fantasies into the places of vulnerability wherein lies the true gift - our disowned aspects of self.
So in this sense "integrative" also means to integrate the aspects of our experience, feelings, needs, potentials that we have relegated to the unconscious because of various disturbances in healthy development in the first three chakras. It is in defense against dealing with this very primal and often painful material that a kind of prepersonal spirituality can spring up - one that dissociates from having to deal with these feelings and usually judges them as unspiritual, too attached, egoic etc - all as a kind of oversimplified misreading of outdated yogic/buddhist philosophy, and then also buys into various prerational metaphysical explanations for how reality works and how everything from your bank balance to your happiness is a function of your intention or will manifesting.
Distinctions
So let's talk a little about the third chakra in my system. I want to start by making a much-needed distinction between ego-strength and ego-defense. We have a social convention of saying that someone with a lot of bravado and conceit who needs to be the center of attention has a big ego. This is technically incorrect - they actually have a small ego - but a big ego-defense. Another way to say it is that they are lacking in ego-strength and are over compensating with an ego-defense. The last thing this person actually needs to do is have their ego cut down to size by more meditation and fierce diet of transcendence. Why? because you have to somone to be no-one. You need a healthy strong ego before you can drop your ego-defenses. How do you develop ego-strength? well, it comes own to internalizing the kinds of positive feedback that only a small number of people in your life can ever really give you. It has to do with a very vulnerable, very young part of us not having received love, acceptance and the kind of mirroring that allowed a strong sense of self to be internalized.
Now, if one is suffering from low self-esteem it is not enough, nor is it integrative, to simply try to set an intention to be more confident - even if it works it is still at some level just an act. Authentic confidence will develop over time from learning how to be present and loving with the insecure part of yourself. Lovingkindness meditation, certain approaches to practices like yoga and dance, and certain psychotherapeutic techniques (not to mention the healing relationship with a good practitioner) can support that process of that healing inner re-parenting.
Kohut is really the master here: We have a primary narcissism as children that is entirely appropriate and that is asking to be mirrored. We need to feel important, special, loved, accepted, admired etc... If this happens for us we relinquish the primary narcissism with an internalized positive sense of self that can tolerate the disappointments, unfairness and struggles of life as we continue growing. If this does not happen sufficiently and/or if there is abandonment or invasion trauma - then we deveop a secondary nasrcissism that is still attempting to get those needs met and that is part of the coping structure of a poorly developed sense of self (low ego strength) that has a hard time tolerating how unfair, disapppointing and out of my control reality actually is....
On to our second distinction: healthy anger vs toxic anger. i think of anger as a third chakra energy. Healthy anger sets boundaries, communicates violations, expresses moral outrage. Healthy anger can be channeled into hard work, creativity, passionate engagement. Healthy anger can create real intimacy - because it is honest and direct. Toxic anger is usually tied to some kind of repressive cycle such that it builds up and needs to be discharged either by out of proportion reactivity or passive agression. Healthy anger is a function of ego-strength. Toxic anger is usually part of an ego-defense.
Compassion vs Codependence
Now if we are "someone" - meaning if we have a healthy sense of self or ego strength, then we can develop compassion. Compassion in the sense of being able to imagine another's suffering - precisely because we can tolerate feeling our own suffering. Compassion is distinct from codependence. In codependence we imagine that we can fix the other person's suffering and then they will give us the love that we need or then they will admire us in the way that we need. Codependence can also be a kind of merging with another person, whereas from the healhty differentiation of ego-strength we can both imagine how someone's suffering feels and know that it is their suffering and not ours. Being able to imagine their feelings allows us to empathize, knowing where their feelings end and ours begin allows us to not be overwhelmed or burdened in such a way that we might shut down - or try to shut them down. Codependent dynamics based in an inability to tolerate the reality of suffering in ourselves and others are extremely common in non-integrative spirituality and give rise to all sorts of defensive beliefs that are the orthodox lingua franca in some circles.
As we engage in practices that allow development and healing to occur, insight arises. Insight is distinct from belief in one simple way: belief is an outside-in phenomenon. Insight is as the word suggests an inside-out phenomenon. In other words imposing a belief that one has decided is worthwhile, or that one has heard is spiritually correct is very different from going through a process that allows insight to emerge experientially.
Symbolic Thinking and Existential Initiation
As we continue to develop into the higher cognitive stages of what Piaget called formal operations and beyond to what theorists like Wilber and Gebser have called vision logic and integral cogntion, we develop deepening abilities to understand systems of meaning, poetic and archetypal symbolism and spiritual metaphor. From these stages we are able to reclaim what the rational stage cast off from the literal mythic and magic stages of development and reinterpret it through the symbolic lense of our deeper more sophisticated capacities.
Personally I feel that the great initiation into genuine transpersonal spirituality has to do with integrating the hard-won development of cognitive, emotional and spiritual lines into an existential awakening to the mindblowing miraculous sacredness of reality as it is in a way that redefines the old world ways of using those terms and finally understands that words like god and spirit actually refer to our own complete true nature and have been a way of trying to wake up to ourselves all along. In that moment the mysterious and the mundane are revealed as one and the same and any metaphysical construct that needs to somehow look outside of reality as it is is seen as a ghostly substitute for this one brutal, beautiful, unfair, magnificent, tragic, grace-filled ride through the inner and outer cosmos.
It doesn't interest me if there is one God or many gods.
I want to know if you belong or feel abandoned.
If you know despair or can see it in others.
I want to know if you are prepared to live in the world with its harsh need to change you. If you can look back with firm eyes saying this is where I stand.
I want to know if you know how to melt into that fierce heat of living falling toward the center of your longing.
I want to know if you are willing to live, day by day, with the consequence of love and the bitter unwanted passion of sure defeat.
I have been told, in that fierce embrace, even the gods speak of God.
~David Whyte
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many hyperlinks will be added to the above text in the morning!
Very nice, Julian. You certainly have set the bar pretty high for the rest of us! ;-)
Great stuff Julian. Unfortunately, I’m rushing off to the hospital for a marathon shift, and will not have time for in-depth commentary until tomorrow. Thanks for getting this party started in such grand fashion.
–Bob
Well done, Julian! I've been looking forward to your post in this series since you announced it. I'll just make a few comments.
You mention “over-identification with beliefs” stemming from too much surface work at the expense of depth work. I am reminded of Wilber's distinction between what he calls “translation” versus “authentic transformation” (especially in his 1997 essay, “A Spirituality That Transforms,” which first appeared in What Is Enlightenment magazine and was later reprinted in Wilber's book One Taste). “[H]elpful translations” are necessary, but are–or should be–transitional. Translation involves beliefs, “a new way to think or feel about reality.” Authentic transformation, on the other hand, “is not a matter of belief but of the death of the believer.” Or as one of my teachers used to say, there is no transformation without “loss of face.” Depth work is often painful for it can undermine the self-image, including the spiritualized self-image that so many who are drawn to spiritual (and integral, transformational, etc.) paths tend to build up.
You say that “[m]any sensitive and/or traumatized people drawn to spirituality” take a route that entails a lack of differentiation between the intuitive stream and shadow material and projections, etc., and this “ends up being overly literalized in a kind of superstitious way.” I think the relationship between trauma and what may be referred to as “flight toward the light” or simply “ascent-bias” warrants more attention than it tends to get. Again this relates to how depth work–and “depth” of course refers not only to psychological depths but to somatic depths or the psyche in and as the body–is sometimes avoided by spiritual aspirants because it is often painful. To go into the depths is to meet not only personal trauma but the trauma of the human condition. It's all too easy to leap to a kind of “we are gods” or “we are always already enlightened” or “we are perfect just as we are” mindset, and thus avoid our rawness, vulnerability, tenderness, and humanity.
You say, “Codependent dynamics based in an inability to tolerate the reality of suffering in ourselves and others are extremely common in non-integrative spirituality and give rise to all sorts of defensive beliefs that are the orthodox lingua franca in some circles.” Yes, some who are drawn to spirituality seem intent on denying the reality of suffering, and thus we often hear talk about how suffering doesn't “really” exist, and how suffering is really an illusion, etc. A line from the movie The Last King of Scotland comes to mind, where one character tells another (who is about to be tortured), that (and I will paraphrase), “We are real. This room is real. And your death may be the first thing in your life that is real.”
One last comment, related to what you wrote about a distinction between healthy anger and toxic anger. I would say that healthy anger isn't really anger, and that anger in general is a “destructive emotion” as some contemporary Buddhists put it. This is a difficult issue, for as most of us no doubt know, there is a very real difference between genuine compassion and what Trungpa called “grandmother compassion” or “idiot compassion.” We don't want to repress anger, nor do we want to act it out, nor do we want to lie to ourselves and others by pretending that our anger is really “bodhisattva” behavior.
Again, excellent post, Julian, you've touched on a lot of imporant territory!
Jim
An excellent summary of your work. Those who are living this process have experienced the power of it. Lots of hard work, not always pretty, and no quick fixes. Sounds like Life…
Looks good, Julian! I just skimmed it this morning, as I'm on my way to jury duty. I'll return to it and read it more carefully this afternoon…
thanks everyone - yea i got into it - had to inda hold back on elaboratingeach paragraph into another 3 or 4 paragraphs……. i guess i chose a complex subject that i love to riff on….
Wonderful post, Julian! And a worthy beginning to this symposium. I like how you combine a broad overview with focused insight—truly well done.
A few comments on specifics to follow…
One corrolary to this is a kind of unboundaried overabundance of intuitive awareness with a lack of either the structure of ego-strength or the awareness of the depth work - such that the intuitive stream is often undifferentiated from one's shadow material, projections etc and ends up being overly literalized in a kind of superstitious way. Many sensitive and/or traumatized poeple drawn to spirituality take this route.
This is an interesting and important observation, and reminds me of Rudolf Steiner's views on the difference between what he called “spiritual science” and the psychism that was rampant in the late 19th century—which correlates with the channeling of the last forty years or so. Steiner emphasized—as elaborated in Richard Leviton's excellent The Imagination of Pentecost: Rudolf Steiner and Contemporary Spirituality –the importance of engaging the “spiritual realms” (the transperonal) from the foundation of a strong ego and intellect, and in an empirical fashion (thus “science”), rather than through the mediumistic method of unconscious or semi-conscious channeling. The main problem being, among others, the potential for tainted information and, as you might put it, mythic concrete beliefs, without an understanding of hermeneutics.
The Self is constantly communicating with us through things like dreams, intuitions, projections, fantasies, emotions, psychosomatic symptoms. Think of the (deep) Self as being more authentically in touch with what is really going on under the surface of the defenses (rationalization, denial, magical thinking, projection etc) - the Self has a clearer picture of the whole of our experience and has acccess to the disowned shadow material of emotions, desires, experiences, resources and archetypes that our ego has not yet learned to tolerate, actualize, and integrate.
I might take this a step further: rather than the Self having a “clearer picture,” it has a crystal clear picture in that it is the Witness of whatever arises. The realm of its communication is “between” the causal and the mental, what has been called the soul or daimon. Thus, again, the importance of a strong, healthy ego—and intellect: we all “receive” communication from the Self in that we all have dreams, intuitions, and visions; but the key is how we interpret what we—as the mental-verbal self—experience/intuit.
….spirituality actually is a bit of a magnet for wounded people. Now, if the kind of spirituality that is encountered is not integrative, it will likely perpetuate the very defenses (denial, rationalization, magical thinking) that are keeping the ego and the Self from being in an integrated fluid relationship.
While I agree with your point here, I think you over-emphasize the “kind” of spirituality, rather than what one “does” with whatever type of practice they are engaged in. How we eat is just as important as what we eat (see, for example, Marc David's excellent The Slow Down Diet). The shadow and/or blind aspects of ego have a way of co-opted whatever modalities one is engaged with, which is why spiritual materialism is rampant no matter what “kind” of spirituality.
Again, my point is how is at least as important as what.
I liked your differentiations between healthy and pathological variants of different emotions and psychological structures. I wonder, however, what “healthy anger” looks like at higher developmental levels. For example, you list “moral outrage” as an expression of healthy anger, yet I question whether at higher waves/altitudes moral outrage would even arise, or at least whether it would arise in a different form.
As we engage in practices that allow development and healing to occur, insight arises. Insight is distinct from belief in one simple way: belief is an outside-in phenomenon. Insight is as the word suggests an inside-out phenomenon. In other words imposing a belief that one has decided is worthwhile, or that one has heard is spiritually correct is very different from going through a process that allows insight to emerge experientially.
This is a very helpful observation. One potential problem that we must be aware of, however, is the difficulty in differentiating between insight and belief both in ourselves and in others, especially when disagreement occurs. It is all too easy to assign another's view as based on “mere belief” simply because it differs with our own (supposed) insight.
Personally I feel that the great initiation into genuine transpersonal spirituality has to do with integrating the hard-won development of cognitive, emotional and spiritual lines into an existential awakening to the mindblowing miraculous sacredness of reality as it is in a way that redefines the old world ways of using those terms and finally understands that words like god and spirit actually refer to our own complete true nature and have been a way of trying to wake up to ourselves all along. In that moment the mysterious and the mundane are revealed as one and the same and any metaphysical construct that needs to somehow look outside of reality as it is is seen as a ghostly substitute for this one brutal, beautiful, unfair, magnificent, tragic, grace-filled ride through the inner and outer cosmos.
This is beautifully said and I am completely with you on this. I would, however, amend your phrase of “genuine transpersonal spirituality” to “genuine integral/existential spirituality,” because what you describe here is an integral interpretive framework. Other interpretive frameworks can still be authentically transpersonal, but what you are talking about is how we interpret the transpersonal. Your framing of “god” and “spirit” is still interpretive, albeit more integral than previous magic, mythic or metaphysical views. In other words, you are still interpreting the Ineffable—which is just fine, and the beauty of the mind. But the point is that no matter how integral or comprehensive our current framework, it can and will always be superceded…'tis the nature of evolution, after all!
The “moment the mysterious and the mundae are revealed as one” can arise within just about any cultural context, any interpretive framework. But we should be careful to differentiate between that moment and how we interpret it, for when we say that “words like god and spirit actually refer to…” we are interpreting, concluding, limiting the ineffable. Again, this is fine and he beauty of the mind, but the “moment” cannot truly or adequately or fully be “referred to,” no matter how integral our view might be.
I look forward to discussion and the rest of the symposium—thanks for this opportunity, Julian!
Hey, your dudeness! This is a fine survey of some major distinctions that, if not clarified, graciously provide headaches to many seekers. Thank you for opening.:-)
Nice text Julian.
Your views concerning the psyche and its dynamic seem to follow closely psychology of the self (Kohut and the like). The unconscious or depth component is composed, according to your definition of Shadow material (traumas and the like) and some constructive or energy feeding things like “self-parenting” “archetypal imagery” “and insight into our personal process and the unversal human condition”.
I liked Wilber's view of more than one unconscious, as described in “The Atman Project”. It seems an interesting map to describe the experiences we see in humans, as opposed to one unconscious which is like a basket full of what we want him to be full of!
Another point: No need of the concept of the pre/trans fallacy in your model..isn't it?
Keep up the flame and the work,
With love Patrick
Interesting stuff, Julian, and an astute analysis of the issues facing spiritual seekers today.
I think there's a cultural aspect to the chronic low self-worth many people experience, since this phenomenon is virtually unheard of in more communal cultures. Starting at infancy, the virtues of individuality, independence and non-conformity are pressed into our heads, to the detriment of many people. The thinking seems to be that low self-esteem is the catalyst for productivity. Unconditional love is purposely withheld, forcing chronically alienated individuals to work desperately hard to earn the affection of family and friends. Even the name we assign it – “self” esteem – implies that it is a primarily individualistic concern, and that conceals the fact that often, low self-esteem is caused by internalizing deeply conditional cultural values.
We need to feel important, special, loved, accepted, admired – but these are conditional attributes. The main reason we focus on them is because in this culture, people who are perceived to have those attributes are given a level of acceptance and value that's unavailable to most of us. Though still conditional (one can become unimportant, or cease to be special), these attributes are seen to offer a greater level of security in an insecure world.
I suggest we do one better: offer unconditional acceptance to the unimportant, the ordinary and the everyday, in ourselves and in others.
~MrTeacup
excellent post! thanks for the links. my only suggestion is that, moving forward, it would be better to keep it a bit shorter, and/or focused on certain key areas. this way, the comments will be focused as well. for example, there are too many topics for commenting on this post alone. you can always sum it up in a conclusion post where you bring everything together into one cohesive post ;)
having said that, i'd like to comment on the chakras. do you think the chakra system is a purely psychological model or does it have physical/biological correlation with our nervous system? what's your take on paranormal/psychic phenomena that are attributed to opening a particular chakra? sorry bro. once you start mentioning chakras and kundalini, you open up this can of worms :)
thought experiment: how would you explain or assist a person suffering/undergoing, kundalini “awakening” without giving them lectures on integral theory? in short, how would you meet them where they're at?
btw, not everyone seems to agree with Wilber's taxonomic system on subtle energies. see this response from Esalen.
“Overall, Murphy emphasized the need for contemporary researchers to remain “theoretical agnostics” or “theoretical pluralists” about phenomena such as the survival hypothesis, the chakra system, and subtle bodies. Until a much richer natural history has been conducted on them, it is difficult to argue for a tight classification system.”
finally, how would you interpret this statement by the late U.G. Krishnamurti?
“I have not set myself up in the 'holy business' of liberating people. I have no particular message for mankind, except to say that all holy systems for obtaining enlightenment are bunk, and that all talk of arriving at a psychological mutation through awareness is poppycock. Psychological mutation is impossible. The natural state can happen only through biological mutation.”
to me it sounds like UG was collapsing everything to the physical (Right Quads). but it's hard to counter the fellow because he was the one who underwent and lived through the actual experience of “waking up.” to say that he has a big/small ego is a projection on our part, because according to him, he is nothing.
that's all for now. i'll leave you a quote from a friend of mine.
“Only those who have awakened know that they were sleeping.”
~C
great start j. i'll reserve specific comment until this time next week. plenty of time for cross-pollination after this symposium.
mostly good feedback too. focused on the issues, and giving extra distinctions, questions, and references. very encouraging of new learning.
regarding length of your entry as mentioned by c4, it is tricky. the subject requires a broad scope, so the entry will necessarily be somewhat general in nature, but too short and it's hard to say anything meaningful. i think having framed it as a symposium allows for more length than usual in a blog format.
work demands notwithstanding, i think i'll find keeping my entry concise the hardest part…
i think this is a very positive start from you and the comment contributors.
For folks interested in integrating psychological and spiritual development, particularly drawing on the insights of Object Relations theory and Self Psychology, I recommend checking out two of Almaas' books, The Pearl Beyond Price and The Point of Existence.
beautiful dialog going on here - thanks everyone!
thanks annie - yea i think so huh?
jimbo - where ya been all my life! hahahaha - excelllent comments that exhibit a deep personal and theoretical understanding o fthe context i am trying to sketch….
JB happy to have sparked some thoughts, disagreements on finer points, and general consensus on a lot. thanks for the commentary!
patrick - cool comments. and yes i think pre/trans is absolutely necessary in this model - but i relate it more explicitly to spiritual bypassing in that it is one's fear of going into the depth work that then supports a tendency to hold prerational beliefs as if they were transrational insights.
teacup - interesting point - would love to hear more from you on this - i think the whole cultural/personal mutually arising variable thing is fascinating…
c4 - yea, i hear you on the length - it just kinda turned out that way - and i left out as much as i could!
case in point - kundalini.
to answer your thought experiment - my work gives people their first experience of kundalini/somato-psychic phenomena on a regular basis for about the last 8 years.
i guide people through that process as part of my work.
the really radical type of scary experience that people like gopi krishna describe is i think a product of a non-integrative approach.
if you have:
a) real space for the psychological/emotional energy release/shadow deluge aspect
b) a non-repressed attitude toward the flowering of full bodied erotic aliveness and riding out the wild physical and emotional unwinding that occurs
c) a physical practice that is allowing the energy to move and keeping you grounded and ion your body
d) a suspension of the need to interpret the phenomena in literal metaphysics as proof of all manner of things and instead a willingness to keep one's critical thinking at hand and stay in the inquiry….
the ride is a lot smoother than the exotic horror stories that came out of the more traditional non-integrative and even unguided encounters. it is also one of the most natural, beautiful and mind-blowingly liberating things i have had the opportunity to experience and witness! it has made transpesonal, integral and other psychological theory into a living breathing intelligent multidimensional creature for me….
to answer you question more pointedly - most of my regular students know nothing or very little about integral theory and i talk about it only in one workshop series where i use some of the ideas - so yea i guide folks through processes involving energetic awakening, emotional healing, spiritual practices etc all the time without reference to integral theory, but it is a big part of MY context and something i think that all practitioners/teachers can benefit from learning - this is more the crowd i am trying to reach on zaadz with my writing.
for most students it is entirely unnecessary to try and make sense of such a complex theory - that's for the professionals - who i think have a bit of responsibility to make the effort.
in my opinion - from a lot of study and experience in myself and others - what we call the chakras refers to (as i said above) a whole mindbody matrix that has to do with muscle, nerve, gland,organ, emotion, impulse, consciousness, psyche, the eros of the evolutionary drive etc… so i guess that's a - yes!
as to the “psychic” phenomena.
i think that when we start to open up a lot of energy in the bodymind the unconscious gets really stirred up - people can have all manner of experiences form re-living repressed memories, to experiencing deeply held emotions being released, to an increase in everything from creativity to sex drive to intuitive or emotional sensitivity, to temporary disorientation and destabilization of the ego. all of this can be fascinating and more than a little weird. it is best not to make quick interpretations from this place - especailly regarding notiions opf past-lives, spirit posession, communication form the other side, synchronicity, psychic awareness etc…. when the psyche is in such a fluid place we are very suggestible and also apt to altch onto a familiar simple explanation for what is going on that may not actually eb suppportable in reality. so best to have the experience and leave the interpretations for later.
as wilber hads pointed out altered states are avialable to anyone, regardless of altitude, but the interpretation of the state will usually eb almost entirely a function of the altitude, right?
in people who have been traumatized to the point of dissociation (more common than we'd like to think..) and in people who have pre-existing propensities for various kinds of psychiatric diagnosis this can result in somewhat psychotic/paranoid manias that may seem at fiirst like psychic or even enlightenment experiences - i have seen it happen…. and have yet to see in my years of experience phenomena like that that i would call psychologically well-grounded or helpful to the person's process - it has (in the four or five times i have seen it - twice with people who studied with me and the other times with people in the general community i exist in) been a fragmentation of the psyche and a mispercieving of unconscious material/messages/aspects as being “other” than the contents of one person's psyche.
so care (and context) is necessary.
i am extremely careful about paying close attention to asessing which people coould potentially go to those fragmented places and slowing them down, helping them to get resourced and in some cases suggesting that they not participate.
that said i have encountered many teachers and facilitators - even those claiming integral-informedness who are pretty confused about the difference between fragmenting/psychotic/paranoid mania and psychic awareness/the gift of enlightened non-duality.
this is not only dangerous and scary, but also a really big a pity because of the hard work has been done by clinicains and theorists on differentiating this stuff for the last 50 years!
all of that said - we are talking about non-ordinary states of consciousness and they are uncannny and fascinating and well worth exploring by people wihout pre-existing psychiatric propensitities and under the right circumstances, set and setting with a grounded and mature guide who knows the territory.
withinn that context many things can and do arise that are hard to explain, mysterious, beutiful and wierd - i don' think though, that they constitute “proof” for a lot of what people would like them to, - ya know?
as to UGK - never really found him particularly interesting - he is a radical nondual rebel who doesnt have an integrative bone in his body. i agree he is doing UR reductionism and he is repeating the kind of pitch that charlatan sages and seers have tried to sell in all cultures at all times. i am no longer impressed by claims of enlightenment and the abolutistic culture bound statements that rest on those claims.
julian…you never cease to inspire me with your ability to communicate your perspective with such clarity and intelligence…not to mention your ability to facilitate the growth of so many that come to you for transformation and healing…its also entertaining to witness all the different reactions to you and your posts…once a punk rocker, always a punk rocker, eh?…with grace…S.
thanks sa'rah gem. i am looking forward to ripping up the blog symposium with you soon…
yea crazy stuff man - watcha gonna do? chew on the shadow reflections and cast the rest to the wind…
sorry to arrive so late to this great symposium…i've been in transit. :)
and actually, i just want to ask 2 questions at this juncture.
1) julian, what do you feel is the purpose of “magical thinking?”
seperate from what other theorists may define it as…what is your personal perspective? do you feel that “magical thinking” serves a purpose? and if so, what is it?
2) how do you perceive people who experience God and Spirit in the personal aspect? Instead of relating spiritually within an impersonal paradigm, they relate/connect within a personal paradigm. And they do so consciously. Perhaps, like Ramakrishna, Kabir, the Gopis, Mirabai, Jesus.
Looking forward to your sage feedback… :)
btw, the organization, depth, and clarity of delivery on this most recent post is outstanding, j.
:)
hey d - excellent questions.
1) magical thinking is a way of making sense of a) cause and effect before we have developed the cognitive function to understand it and b) help us overcome the incredible sense of powerlessness and dependency we feel/have as infants and young children - infantile omnipotence etc…
when we are traumatized, existentially in depsair, or feel deeply disempowered by life one response is to regress into that magical thinking as a way to cope - this is ok as far as it goes but it is not actually an effective way to grow, heal or deal with the reality that we are struggling with - it's like the crystal palace that psyche gets stolen away to by eros where he makes passsionate love to her on condition that she never see him, or the doorless tower that rapunzel lives in playing her harpo abnd admiring her hair - shut away from real life & love under the guardianship of the witch….
2) well this one is tough. i think that there is still a place for devotional practices that personify spirit as a way to awaken the heart - but i feel that in our times they have to be tempered with a lot of groundedness and philosophical/psychological clarity.
i think that for the most part the personification of teh divine is a fantasy projection of an all good all powerful parent figure who can help/love us.
this of course is a fine active imagination excercise as long as we don't buy into it as a literla reality.
i am biased but i personally think that just about all belief in god is a defense against facing our mortality and the reality of evil in the world and that when those fears/realities are dealt with and tolerated more effectively the need for god in that mask subsides and a deeper kind of rapture at the uncompromising mystery and unfair horror and beauty of life arises that needs a lot less consolation, especially in the form of soothing fantasy…
i think we dreamt up god to explain all manner of things that have since been understood by science - yet the mystery remains. love and eros and consciousness and imaginationsand art and all of it swirling and doing it's outrageous thing… and that if there is such a thing as god it is beyond our capacity to imagine and believe in…
Julian -
A good read, overall.
Like ~C4Chaos, I would like to hear more from you on the chakras.
Frankly, I see a rather contradictory stance of yours being a demythologizing, condescending, reductionistic tendency when thinking about God (“I think we dreampt up god to explain all manner of things that have since been understood by science”) that is somewhat bold and offensive, while being soft and sympathetic and lovey-dovey friendly-friendly to the chakra system, which you think is based on anatomy, actual “energies” , and metaphorical/imaginal ways of talking about the mind-body matrix. Unfortunately you don't quite apply the same degree of sympathy to ancient beliefs outside your own prefered tradition, which strikes me as narrow minded (or possibly a symptom of classic denial and projection). Of course, you're welcome to your prejudices, as are we all, but then you have to live with the seemingly contradictory (or at least non-integral) nature of your own strongly held stances.
Yeah, I'm with Joe (wolfspirit) on this one, Julian. A truly integrative (integral) spiritual practice needs to have a second person devotional element, just as much as a first person reflective awareness element, not to mention a third person Gaia-esque element. Get top heavy in any one direction and you risk running into all sorts of problems and limitations.
I'm not suggesting we have to believe in some bearded guy living up in the clouds that will hurl thunderbolts at us if we're bad, but if an image like that works for you, go for it. My point is, we need to practice a well-grounded devotion to Spirit as a second person “out there”, and not focus all of our attention inward to the Spirit inside of us, else we risk getting stuck in the ultimate ego trip.
Namaste
thanks joe.
ooh you're gunnin for me!
i have been quite clear i think that i see the chakras as a useful metaphor that refers to a physiological and psychological experiential reality.
i do not literalize the chakras as being 7 balls of energy that match the colors of the rainbow and are visible to psychics who read your aura. i do not think that having someone to chakra energy clearing on you by laying on of hands works unles you get into a real flesh and bone and psyche process with it….. i find the notion of the chakras as something other than the body and mind to be kinda naive and unnecessary - i am far more interested in the undiscovered mystery of what is as it is.
to me that is the kitsch literalization of the imaginal symbols that do refer to an actual experience that is rooted in a powerful mind-body process and has to do with your unconscious as well as how tension/conflict is held in the body…
i feel the same way about al mythic/imaginal material - it is beautiful and effective if understood as symbolic of a potent experience, but becomes less rich when literalized as being about actual magical beings. IOW archetypes are real - but only within the psyche.
i have very little allegiance to any tradition - leatst of all the old world hindu tradition that the chakras originate in….
however i have potent first hand experience of a powerful energetic process that is recognized cross culturaly and across disciplines from the tantric yogis to the craniosacral therapists to the neo-reichian therapists to the holotropic breathing people to somato-emotional release to network chiropractic.
don't mistake this for “belief” in any “tradition”.
i am all for engagement with myth and archetype - i just find it less efective and intelligent to literalize that engagement into beliefs that are not consistent with reality.
also my response was to delia's questions and i was not only being frank about my bias but punctuated the whole thing with “i think” and started off by saying it was “a tough one” - so please dont paint it as narow dogmatism.
none of the above feels at all inconsistent to me - though if it still does to you i can respect that…
good to see you.
well grey i look forward to hearing about the place second person spirit has in your vision later this week!
personally i don't find it necessary and think it has been the cause of much confusion.
but as i said above i think as an intentional archetypal symbol evoked to open the heart and cultivate certain qualities it has a powerful place.
i guess for me if it gets you into a experiential space that is transformational and/or serves as a resource to help you deal with stress/trauma - great, but as you know i am interested in the question of what ideas/beliefs/techniques are useful when and for what purpose and when they are actualy serving as a hindrance - could be a stage thing……
look forward to hearing how you include it.
“awakening to the mind-blowing miraculous sacredness of reality as it is in a way that redefines the old world ways of using those terms and finally understands that words like god and spirit actually refer to our own complete true nature and have been a way of trying to wake up to ourselves all along”
I like that Julian, but I also agree with wolfspirits comment above. God and all the other names for transcendent reality, love and truth, instead of dismissing them and at once alienating all people professing faith in a higher Essence, I much rather will try to understand it in its context and convey any inherent truth found.
“You have to be someone before you can be no-one.”
I understand what you are saying Julian. My own experience has been very much the opposite: I never knew how to be, before I realized what being no-one meant. Only then did I begin to learn what it means to become a human being.
But whether we do the “work” before or after we wake up, it is essential for integrated growth, and there I'm with you all the way.
Like the man said; seek and you shall find.
whats up !? all the devotional mystics (and espresso drinking face slappers) are awake late at night or something…..
;o)
Not sure if that will make it into my blog Wednesday or not (at least not explicitly), but a litte over a year ago there was a good series of talks on Integral Naked that went into this issue. The 3-part series was called “Touching the Face of Tomorrow” and included Michael Beckwith (I've linked to his profile page because links to all three parts can be found there), Rabbi Marc Gafni (he wrote hoping it wouldn't kick off an entirely irrelevant debate), and Ken. Part 3, “The Three Faces of God”, in particular goes into first, second, and third-person aspects of Spirit.
It's a nice morning coffee here in London
oh ok it's the guy in italia & the guy in london & the two night owls over here - unless joe is on the east coast?
hey grey - you ready to see milan beat liverpool on wednesday?
bjorn you cheering for united or chelsea this month?
as to the second person stuff - i aint buying it. sorry, i am a confirmed spiritual atheist. but i'll check out the dialog - oh no did you say beckwith? his church is in my neighborhood - so i been dealing with his particular science of mind stuff for years - oh yea & then came that litle movie called the secret that he is all over , as well as the “thank god i was raped” thing…. dont get me started.
i'm off to sweeter dreams
OK, so both Beckwith and Gafni are human (as is Wilber, of course), but that doesn't change the fact that what they say in that dialogue makes a lot of sense. At least to me.
Oh, and sorry, I've never managed to get into soccer, despite living over here for 15 years. Now MotoGP on the other hand… watching Rossi ride a motorcycle is almost a spiritual experience in itself! ;-) Seriously though, did anyone else see that mindblowing qualifying lap he did in China last weekend? He had to be seriously in the “flow” when he did that.
i'll seek it out on youtube - and dial in the IN chat - but don't expect toomuch from me…
No problem. One thing I've learned from online “debating” is that you can't do it healthily if your goal (or expectation) is to pursuade others. If pursuasion happens as a byproduct, that's fine, but the main objective should, as I see it, be practicing your own cognitive and communication skills and learning something from others and from the whole process. (Not to mention the community-building/social benefits.)
Thank you very much, Julian. There's some really helpful stuff in there. However, I have to weigh in on the second-face-of-God issue (you can count me as one of the devotional insomniacs–no, I didn't just wake up for an early-morning meditation, unfortunately). Here's Ken from a What Is Enlightenment? interview:
Wilber: There are three topics I've written very little on. One is psychic phenomena; one is rebirth and reincarnation; and one is God in second-person. Because as soon as you open your mouth and say anything about any of those, nobody takes you seriously in the influential academic world… . So the 1-2-3 of God or the three faces of Spirit basically mean that Spirit can be approached in first-person perspective or second-person perspective or third-person perspective. First-person Spirit is the great “I AM,” the pure radical subjectivity or witness in every sentient being. And then Spirit in the second-person is the great “Thou,” something that is immeasurably greater than you could ever possibly be in your wildest imagination, before whom surrender and devotion and submission and radiant release and gratitude is the only appropriate response, and from whom all blessings and all goodness flow unreservedly. And a relationship to that Other, in love and devotion and ecstasy, is the only appropriate response if you have any sanity at all… . This is one of the criticisms that I develop in Integral Spirituality, which is what I call a level-line fallacy-that the second-person view of Spirit got truncated in the West. It got chopped off at the mythic level of development. Spirit in second-person has become stunted and identified merely with God the Father, the old white-haired gentleman, the mythic patriarch of the Bible that nobody believes in anymore… .
Cohen: Without all three faces being included, will have only a partial perspective on who and what God is. One's interpretations of one's own God-experiences will always be incomplete. And it's been apparent to me ever since I began teaching twenty years ago that especially for us postmodern extreme narcissists, the second face of God is absolutely essential. Without God as Thou, the great Other before whom we all must ultimately submit, becoming a living, felt dimension of our own direct experience of Spirit, I wonder whether it's possible to ever move beyond ego in any kind of authentic way.
Wilber: That's so true… . So you have to say: “Wait a minute. I have to face something that I completely surrender to. I have to face something greater than I could ever imagine myself possibly to be.” You have to utterly surrender with devotion and actually want to do it, because second-person perspective carries a naturally welling up infinite love and gratitude. So it's not something that can be forced. If you're forcing it, then it's not really a true transcendental surrender.
Now this is really going to stretch some people's credulity, but I'm going to quote a little Ramana Maharshi. Now I do not believe this wholesale. I do not believe in some omniscient God that has everyhing locked down and planned out, as Maharshi apparently believed and which his culture certainly supported, but this is none the less illustrative and definitely not entirely without truth:
“The present difficulty is that man thinks he is the doer. But it is a mistake. It is the higher power which does everything and man is only a tool. If he accepts that position he is free from troubles, otherwise he courts them.”
Ramana Maharshi was not an idiot. Ken Wilber called him the greatest sage of the twentieth century. Certainly Ken would disagree with such an extreme metaphysical approach as this, and so do I, but there is a reason the great realizer said things like this. This and similar sayings of his were born not merely out of his cultural conditioning but out of experience. The deeper psychic is where the self really meets the second face of God in Ken's model. And we should also remember: Ken's model, in his words, is a rational reconstruction of the transrational. There's a great mystery out there.
Hey, J, you're probably sleeping at this moment. Well, it's noon here, and I'm also having some coffee, in my case it's macchiato, and I ain't no face slapper…:-) As to the second face: you can't be that much a spiritual atheist not to recognize that the second face is the way of developing deep devotion, but also a crucial aspect of many tantric meditations (deity and guru yoga). Granted, all three faces are unpacked from Suchness, BUT practice happens in the relative realm, right? So, your 2nd face may not be that pronounced or even explicit, but I don't see how you can dismiss it entirely without serious damage.
Don't know why the 1-2-3 of God didn't occur to me, but of course that's exactly the same thing I was talking about.
As for the Ramana Maharshi quote, I'm not so sure Ken would disagree with it. If we take “man” here to mean man in the manifest realm, and given that he contrasts this with “the higher power”, I think we can assume that's what he meant, then he's right to essentially be saying that Spirit acts through us. But that doesn't exclude the possibility of also becoming aware of Spirit as it arises within us as a first-person experience. The danger arises when one fails to distinguish between egoic duality and spiritual non-duality. And having a second-person devotional practice helps us to stay grounded in that regard.
hi grey
i didn't want to comment before all the posts were up this week, but your response to wolfspirit's comment - which is a different argument focusing i think on feeling unfairly offended by julian's selective and ostensibly contradictory metaphysical sympathies - compels me to break radio silence. i just want to know in response to both the gafni-beckwith talk and this:
“A truly integrative (integral) spiritual practice needs to have a second person devotional element, just as much as a first person reflective awareness element, not to mention a third person Gaia-esque element. Get top heavy in any one direction and you risk running into all sorts of problems and limitations.
I'm not suggesting we have to believe in some bearded guy living up in the clouds that will hurl thunderbolts at us if we're bad, but if an image like that works for you, go for it. My point is, we need to practice a well-grounded devotion to Spirit as a second person “out there”, and not focus all of our attention inward to the Spirit inside of us, else we risk getting stuck in the ultimate ego trip.”
why?
for what reason do we need a second person? why do we need to be grateful for being alive? why do we need to have someone else to thank? why do we need a devotional element? why do we need to surrender? why do we need humility? why do we need to devote ourselves to someone else? why does the absence of these things necessarily lead to an “ego trip”, or arrogance, or vanity, or anything else undesirable? in whose debt do we live? to whom or what do we owe allegiance and humility for being alive, and having an ego? are we not allowed to live happily without these things? by whose authority are we so beholden?
now, if a plausible argument can be made for the assertions regarding the existence of _Spirit_ - however defined, then there may be corollary answers to the above questions. your comment is invited…
i'll definitely be covering these issues on thursday, they seem pretty fundamental to me.
(as a footnote, regarding gafni, i don't judge the man on sexual impropriety - nothing remarkable about that in a man of the cloth or spiritual teacher types. what i found remarkable about him - in most of the video and audio i've seen/heard - was the amount of meaningless, incoherent, nebulous, faltering waffle he engaged in, encouraged by much sympathetic nodding of heads and sounds of agreement around him. if this man is a teacher, i pity his students. um, er, well, basically, you see, you know, simply, um, hard to say exactly, er, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. wilber's support of him by association was not encouraging, but not surprising. both the king and his courtiers were most definitely in the alltogether at times…
from what i saw, i found the guy to be personally likeable, and intellectually insufferable. pity i'm not the only one whose knickers he - allegedly - got in a twist.)
sorry grey - you did say you didn't want to kick off an entirely irrelevant debate, but that's the loa for ya ; )
dig the motogp passion - although i'm a ducati man myself : )
ciao 4 now!
Hi Julian,
Camelot suggested to point you here for proof of psy - you seem to have moved from the totally sceptic position to being open…
May the Force be with you,
Mushin
In a book he and Mark Addis edited titled Wittgenstein and Philosophy of Religion, Robert Arrington writes:
If believers try to prove the existence of God by appeal to the ontological, cosmological, and teleological arguments, this would seem to imply that they think the belief in God's existence needs proof–and indeed that such proof can be provided.
In response, I think it is fair to say that most of the believers who do appeal to these arguments are of a philosophical bent, and this rules out most believers. Wittgentstein would not be impressed with the reactions of the philosophers and would-be philosophers, since he would see their philosophy as a source of disctraction and confusion. With regard to religious discourse, the philosophers themselves, or at least Anselm and Aquinas, would be held responsible by Wittgenstein for much of the confusion that surrounds the question of the existence of God. These 'metaphysical' theologians would be guilty in his eyes of the same confusion he attributes to metaphysicians in general, namely that of confusing conceptual and factual inquiries. Indeed, these two medieval thinkers might stand as paradigm cases of metaphysicians who confuse grammatical statements with factual ones. 'God exists,' which should be construed as a grammatical remark, might be confusedly taken (and is so taken by these medievals) as asserting a matter of fact–and then one wants some support for it, some proof that it is true. Anselm and Aquinas oblige and offer their proofs. But the very project is wrong-headed if 'God exists and is the creator of the world' is a grammatical rather than a factual claim.
It may not be necessary for the reader to know what Wittgenstein means by “grammar” in order to get the gist of what Arringtion says here, but if anyone is interested, here's a link to a brief account of Wittgenstein's ideas on “Private Language, Grammar and Form of Life.” And here is a link to an account within an article on philosophy of religion of Wittgenstein's approach to “religious grammar”: “Religious Forms of Life and Practices.”
I take Julian to be speaking in response to those who speak of God or Spirit in ways that confuse “conceptual and factual inquiries,” to borrow Arrington's terminology. Julian says “archetypes are real - but only within the psyche,” and here he says quite a bit. To Jung, the psyche is real and it is only through the psyche that we experience anything. For humans, there is no such thing as experience without the psyche. Thus, when I know God or Spirit, I don't know anything about what may or may not exist in a psyche-independent or mind-independent world.
To Jung, the psyche is real, archetypes are real, and God or the Self is the greatest, deepest, and most primordial archetype. There is no obstacle here to an I-Thou relationship to God or Spirit, and this is implicit in Julian’s reference to active imagination, which is an incredibly potent approach to inner work developed by Jung. The word “imagination” in this context is not in the least bit pejorative or reductive. To Jung and Jungians, the imaginal is the life-blood of the soul or psyche. (For a user-friendly introduction to Jungian active imagination, see the book Inner Work by the Jungian-Aurobindian Robert A. Johnson.)