The
field of ant1hropology presents us with two poles of interpretation on
the meaning of culture. At
one end, culture is the total heritage of what is transferred from one
generation to the next and is a symbolic structure. Thus, it is seen as
an all-determining intermediate between some "big force" and what
people do—their actions. This position is clearly presented by Sahlins
(1976). However, in this view cultures are "epistemologically sealed";
one cannot know about one from the vantage point of another. Thus all
cultures are equal versions of reality and even our Western science is
but "ethnoscience."
At the other
pole of thinking, all cultures share a common world of "brute facts"
about which they make varying interpretations and responses (D'Andrade
1984). In this view, investigations that are centered upon such brute facts
can elicit theory about their interrelationships. Furthermore, cultures
can be compared and transcultural theory developed that
can make statements that are not mere ethnocentrism—giving science
a certain validity.
Generally
speaking, all cross-cultural theorizing can be positioned somewhere along
the continuum between these two poles of thinking.
What I wish
to demonstrate in this article is that by breaking down our species-centrism,
we can transcend these poles and gain a viewpoint in which both of them
can be seen as true in some sense. By taking a trans-species perspective,
we find that there are biologically constituted realities; just as, in
taking a transcultural perspective, we discovered there were culturally
constituted ones. This perspective has relevance, as well as important
implications, for our understanding of consciousness and for epistemology.
Indeed, we are talking about the very parameters of what it is possible
to know, as well as the possible architecture of Reality. Moreover, in
viewing our subject matter from this vantage point, we find ourselves
tumbling into a new paradigm that helps integrate transcultural thinking
with that of transpersonal psychology; ecosophy and deep ecology; the
new physics; brain and consciousness research; the findings of experiential
psychotherapy—especially primal therapy, LSD research, and pre-and
perinatal psychology; and much else that is emerging on the growing edges
of the natural and social sciences during this unique historical era.
Creating Worlds
The findings of research from
neurophysiology and neuropsychology are that neural "firings" from external
stimuli are routed through interior areas of the brain that deal with
fundamental physiological processes
before those "messages" find their way into the cortical areas where
they are then interpreted. That is to say that the organism does not
distinguish between pleasure and pain—to use one crude but useful example—until
"later." Thus, the pattern of neural firings created by any particular
set of stimuli is "objectively" neutral until interpreted by an organism.
This, of
course, makes perfect sense. There is nothing
inherently painful in a stimulus that is produced by something whose
molecules are moving at such a speed and manner that one would measure
its temperature at, say, 150 degrees Fahrenheit. One could easily imagine
a species for which that particular vibrational rate would be within
its tolerance range. The quality of pain is relative to the perceiving
organism.
Similarly,
there is nothing inherently "pleasurable" in a caress—that is, the
pattern of stimuli involving the moving of one particular organism's
skin against another's . . . in a particular way. Those "particulars,"
along with other aspects, are what go into defining
caress by means of a complex communication among billions of neural
cells and their components in a specific area of the brain: the cerebral
cortex. One can conceive of some biological organisms who would interpret
such touching as a dire threat. Again, the interpretations of external
stimuli are relative to the biological makeup of the perceiver.
Therefore,
in a purely psychophysiological way, the world "out there" is not
defined in and of itself. Rather, it is
purely defined in the part of the person that stores cultural information
(the cortex).
But our
examples emphasize that prior to any cultural interpretation, a "species"
interpretation is made based upon the biological "hardware" of the organism.
That is to say that these "vibrational rates" of molecules—using once
more the example of temperature—are not in and of themselves even "stimuli"
except that certain other neurons in other parts of the body, including
"lower" parts of the brain, in a complex intercommunication once again,
define them as such. Vibratory rates "out there" are
not patterns of neural firings. And to suppose that there is, in
some magical-mystical sort of way, a kind of authentic, exact replication
of the "out there" by our particular sensory apparatus is not only to
state more than is conceivably possible to be stated (and to reveal an
adherence to a kind of "faith" that is more reminiscent of religion
than true science) it is also indisputably anthropocentric. For even
our thus limited sensory apparatus informs us of other sentient creatures
whose sensory systems are different than our own, indeed, vastly different
in some cases.
Even among
the species that we perceive as having five senses as we do, we observe
differences: an eagle sees farther and better—certainly its world does
not look like ours; a dog hears
a much wider range of auditory waves—certainly its world does not
sound like ours. What then of species whose senses, as nearly as we
can determine with our own, are vastly different or less in number than
ours? What is the "world" of an earthworm like? What, that of an
amoeba? Will the real world please stand up?
Indeed,
can we assume, in fairness, that our own five senses are capable of perceiving
all major aspects of "objective" reality, granting, even, if in limited
or distorted fashion? It would be ridiculous to suppose that an earthworm
or an amoeba (with apparently few, and more limited, senses) "knows"
of the existence of our species in any ways other than, if anything,
a series of obstacles, changes in pressure or temperature, or, well,
whatever it is that comprises an earthworm's or amoeba's "worldview."
Correspondingly,
can we automatically assume that
our particular number and set of senses, with their particular ranges,
are the endpoint, the pinnacle of what is possible in terms of perceiving
"world"? If a sixth, a seventh, an eighth, an
nth number of "types" of senses were possible, how would we know
of that possibility with our five? Would we not be in a situation analogous
to that of the earthworm to us? And how would we know what would be perceived
with those senses? Why would we bother to, how could we, even, measure
the referents in the "out there" corresponding to such hypothetical senses
in a way that they would somehow be included in our science?
Furthermore,
keeping in mind that earthworm (who, we might assume for the sake of
argument, perceives a Homo sapiens
as something earthwormocentrically akin to pressure, an obstacle, or
earthwormomolecular vibrations, i.e., earthworm hot-or-coldness), how
would we know of the existence of other sentient beings (not to mention
other even more unimaginable realities) who could hypothetically be outside
of the range and/or number of our
biologically unique senses? Would we perceive their existence as
human changes in pressure, sound, touch, smell, sight, taste? As atmospheric
or environmental "ambiance" changes? As solar activity or astronomical
phenomena? As change in mood state, or thought pattern? Or hypothalamic
or metabolic or heart or respiratory rate change? As
nuemenon, "aura," Words of God, Music of the Spheres? . . . Indeed,
as leprechauns, ghosts, and elves? Or perhaps as forcible elements in
dreams? Inspirational thought or feeling? Poltergeists, angels, "allies,"
psychic phenomena?
Then again,
would we even perceive this other or these other "species" of beings
and/or unimaginable realities at all? Would they be totally out of the
domain of detection by anything within our experience—whether sensory,
cognitive, affective, intuitive, hallucinative?
The point
is that we have no, absolutely no, way of knowing what is
really real, what it "all" real
ly looks like unless we anthropocentrically
assume that we are "God's chosen species," the summit of creation, and
magically endowed with a one-in-a-trillion (i.e., approximately the number
of other known species) uniquely correct number of sensations and accuracy
of perception. We have no way of knowing even whether or not we are in
the same "space" at the same "time" (the quotation marks because these
are sensorily determined in our species's unique biological way) as other
unperceivable beings, even sentient ones (though with what senses, again,
we do not know).
It should
be supremely clear by now, especially among those of us with a transcultural
or anthropological familiarity, wherein we are made distinctly aware
of the truth-shrouding nature of ethnocentrism, that any serious attempt
at discerning truth is not compatible with
any variety of self-serving, self-aggrandizing, or egocentric agenda.
Thus, it is just as essential to throw off the overweening species-centric
intellectual baggage of our Judeo-Christian tradition (which posits
"man" as the ruler over nature and as the summit of created species)
as it is essential to strive to drop our ethnocentric blinders. Indeed,
making this attempt to view from a neutral, Archimedean, nonanthropocentric
"window," it follows logically that the probabilities are enormous that
there are, in fact, other, unperceivable beings, unknown and unimaginable
realities, and other and different senses . . . and, yes, as one "new
physics" proposition puts it, an "infinite" number of "worlds."
Relativity of Science
But what of our science, one
might ask, which can reputedly extend the range of our senses? Does it
not provide accurate-enough "feedback" or "alternative"-enough perspectives
to allow us a glimpse of what is
, for truth, really real? Let us just look at what modern science tells
us about the observations it makes on the world.
According
to Zukav (1979), author of a widely read overview of the new physics,
a major underpinning of modern physics is the realization and discovery
that science cannot predict anything, as had been taken for granted,
with absolute certainty. Relatedly, it informs us that there is simply
no way to separate the observed event from the observer. That is to say
that the observer is, her- or himself, an inexcludable variable and always
affects the results of an experiment. In a very fundamental way, the
perceiver influences what is seen in even the most "scientifically" pure
observations and experiments: "The new physics . . . tells us clearly
that it is not possible to observe reality without changing it" (Zukav,
1979, p. 30).
Zukav (1979)
takes, as an example, that a condition is set up to perceive an event:
If it is designed to find waves in light, it discovers waves; if it is
designed to find particles, we get particles—in supposedly the
same "outside world" . . . and regardless of the fact that logically
light cannot be both a particle and a wave (pp. 30-31). That is the classic
example, of course. The structure of the experiment, designed by the
observer, determines what will be found.
What is
this saying if not just what I have stated above: that we determine ultimately,
because of our specific biology, what we sense; that we therein
determine the "world" we experience.
In line
with Anscombe's (1958) terminology of "brute facts," Searle (1969)
claims a distinction between "brute facts" and "institutional facts."
D'Andrade (1984) explains,
Not all social-science variables refer to
culturally created things; some variables refer to objects and events
that exist prior to, and independent of, their definition: for example,
a person's age, the number of calories consumed during a meal, the number
of chairs in a room, or the pain someone felt. (p. 92).
From what
I have been saying, we can admit that these "brute facts" may not be
culturally constituted as D'Andrade asserts, but they certainly are
biologically constituted. They are
species-specific facts—"brute" only in relation to our particular
species.
Thus, the
new-paradigm answer to the age-old philosophical question is clear: If
a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it, does
it make a sound? Absolutely not. Sound is as much species-relative as
the practice of polygamy is culturally relative. In other words, there
are species for which sound does not exist. Similarly, the event that
we perceive as sound-tree-and-forest-interacting
may be "perceived" as something quite different with different and/or
more kinds of "senses" or, one might say, from a different vantage point.
Removing
our anthropocentric blinders in this way we must conclude that the world,
as experienced, is created of realities that are not only culturally
constituted; there are also biologically constituted realities. The
"brute facts" to which D'Andrade refers are—nothing brute about them—biologically
determined facts. Indeed, there are biologically determined facts, bioculturally
determined facts, and culturally determined facts—all existing on a continuum.
So do we
then, indeed, create our own reality culturally, of which Sahlins (1976)
writes. Yes, I believe we do. But I believe we do much more than that.
I believe we create it biologically too—that our reality is species
determined.
Relativity: Cultural
and Biological
So
what does this say about cultural relativity, of which so much is made
in anthropological circles? I agree with Sahlins's position on the total
and symbolic nature of culture and the resulting extreme cultural relativism.
As D'Andrade (1987) put it, Sahlins's view is extreme enough that it
undermines even science's claim to validity (p. 5). But I do not imply
by my agreement that I believe reality is
only culturally determined by any definitional stretch of the term
cultural that Sahlins, even from his "total heritage" perspective,
could have had in mind. I intend to go further.
How so,
then, could I claim, at the outset, that I believe both positions can
be true? How can reality be so thoroughly "created" (not only culturally
but biologically as well) and yet there be universal commonalities on
which to base analyses and cross-cultural understanding? Where I disagree
with Sahlins and emphatically agree with D'Andrade is where D'Andrade
(1987), in referring to a quote from Sahlins, writes
I think I agree if . . . [he] . . . means
that people respond to their interpretations of events, not the raw events
themselves. However, if this means that culture can interpret any event
any way, and that therefore there is no possibility of establishing universal
generalizations, I disagree. I believe that there are strong constraints
on how much interpretative latitude can be given to biological and social
events. While the letters "D," "O," "G," can be given any interpretation,
pain, death
, and hunger have such powerful
intrinsic negative
properties that they can be interpreted as "good" things only with great
effort and for short historical periods with many failed converts. (
emphases mine, p. 6)
With this
statement of D'Andrade, I enthusiastically agree also. I believe that
there are "intrinsic" (biological) determiners of cultures, which create
a basic underlying structure. Where I feel I take issue with D'Andrade
is in contending that these "intrinsic" determiners are intrinsic to
the species, not to the events themselves. This is as important to point
out as it is important in physics to keep in mind that particles and
waves only exist in relation to an observer. (In this regard, as Armand
Labbe (1991) put it at a Society for the Anthropology of Consciousness
conference, "Ultimately our physics . . . is going to demonstrate that
essentially there is no such thing as matter. All there is is mind and
motion.") At any rate, I contend that this biological "infrastructure"
results in biocultural, species-specific, and hence transcultural
patterns of thought and behavior. Further, these transcultural patterns
create transcultural patterns of social structure, "external culture,"
sociocultural behavior, and so on.
Carl Jung
is one man in particular who decades ago, in many thoroughly encompassing
works, expressed similar concepts regarding biocultural patterns as being
species-specific for humans—the hereditary remnants of what are called
instinct in
animals, as he put it.
Without
diminishing the historical importance of his contributions, I need to
stress that what I am asserting goes much further than Jung's contentions.
For I believe we biologically determine our view of reality, as a species,
(1) in the biological structures that comprise us and orient us in a
world of space; (2) in the biochemical processes that constitute our
changingness and situate us in a world of time; (3) and, most saliently,
in the individual biological history that is universal for us and unique
to us as a species.
By this
last I mean that our conception, gestation, and birth can be seen to
form our underlying myths . . . but much more than that as well; they
also create the very foundational templates upon which we build our view
of reality—physical, social, emotional, spiritual, and philosophical.
Elsewhere
I have detailed how our universal but species-specific patterns of biological
experience at conception, and throughout gestation, and at birth (and
continuing from there but with immensely reduced or nonexistent universality)
conditions and shapes all later experience (Adzema, 1981, 1984, 1985).
1
Those early, universal events predispose
the very nature of our mind; both in determining the kinds of thoughts
and images we will have as well as in modeling their patterns and the
connections, associations, and networks among them.
Those
biohistorical events consequently end up configuring our sociocultural
structures, which we conceive and modify with less deeply-rooted thoughts
and images emanating from idiosyncratic later events. Likewise, these
foundational events shape and inform the myths by which we live, the
motives that inspire us, the feelings and emotions that move us, and
the attitudes that are our thickly matted screens across our windows
to the world, and much else. Indeed, in my conceptualization, these biohistorical
experiences delineate the very paradigms within which we live; therefore,
there is very little of experiential reality that is not in some way
linked, modeled, or bounded by the effects of these events.
2
It follows
that within our societies and "cultures," themselves modeled inside
these parametric, experientially based outlines, we are also influenced
concerning the very things we write about, investigate, study, and then
discuss . . . and the manner in which we do so.
A New-Paradigm
Perspective
Paradigm Relativity
In view of all this, one might
ask, if one cannot have any truly accurate conception or even "sense"
of what is really real, why then bother to know anything? Well, we bother
to know because it is a helpful part of our species-specific worldview
to do so. We have evolved, as nearly as we can determine, through a process
of natural selection based on survival. We are, consequently, the endproduct
of a biological drive to exist, to live—in all that may biologically,
or otherwise, connote. Hence, that which we "know," in our most refined
science and in our daily lives, is that which is, or has been, in some
way useful to the biological
existence of our species.
This
so-called "real-world" information is important because, then, it relates
to our very biological
aliveness. It has worth and it has value in that. That which comprises
our species-world (as opposed to the "World-In-Itself"), indeed, is
extremely relevant to everything that we think of as living and existing
. . . for our species. The point I make, however, is that our senses
and our sciences (which are extensions of our senses) are not ultimately
in any one-to-one relationship to That Which Is . . . that our refined
as well as cruder perceptions of reality are bioculturally relative—even
more biologically relative than they are culturally relative in Sahlins's
allegedly extreme theory.
Let me put
it this way. Our combined efforts in psychology, physics, biology, and
anthropology (examples of which I have indicated in this article) have
led us to an impasse. We have been led to conclude that our view of reality
is symbolic. We have learned, above all, not what to know, but that we
know not . . . i.e., that we are incapable of truly knowing.
In anthropology
we see this in Sahlins's (1976) thinking on culture. But D'Andrade (1987)
makes the important point, as mentioned earlier, that in Sahlins's theory
the total cultural heritage is a symbolic structure. Thus, his theory
is "epistemologically sealed." My point is that since our total biological
heritage is also a "symbolic structure"—in the sense at least that it
is a species-relative created reality providing analogous representations,
survival-oriented metaphors only of That Which Is—we are "epistemologically
sealed" as regards That Which Is and specifically in terms of understanding
other known or unknown species. Our reality is symbolic and "sealed"
prior to the cultural symbolism that creates further obfuscation between
people in different cultures.
We see that
there are therefore levels of applicability of "knowledge." We might
think of these as paradigms. But as surely as there are cultural paradigms,
there are biological paradigms. I am saying that every biological configuration
of spirit represents a separate paradigm for interpreting reality.
3
It might
be helpful to mention Huxley's (1956) way of viewing this matter. In
his classic work, The Doors of
Perception, he quotes Dr. C. D. Broad on the importance of considering
a view of memory and sense perception, originally proposed by Bergson,
in which "the function of the brain and nervous system and sense organs
is in the main eliminative"
(p. 22).
By way of
explanation, Huxley (1956), still quoting Broad, writes
Each person is at each moment capable of
remembering all that has ever happened to him and of perceiving everything
that is happening everywhere in the universe. The function of the brain
and nervous system is to protect us from being overwhelmed and confused
by this mass of largely useless and irrelevant knowledge, by shutting
out most of what we should otherwise perceive or remember at any moment,
and leaving only that very small and special selection which is likely
to be practically useful.
(pp. 22-23)
Huxley (1956)
adds
According to such a theory, each one of
us is potentially Mind at Large. But in so far as we are animals, our
business is at all costs to survive. To make biological survival possible,
Mind at Large has to be funneled through the reducing valve of the brain
and nervous system. What comes out at the other end is a measly trickle
of the kind of consciousness which will help us to stay alive on the
surface of this particular planet. (p. 23)
Furthermore,
Huxley (1956) points out, when this is reversed by various methods, and
the brain is itself inhibited from its task of reducing awareness so
that "Mind at Large seeps past the no longer watertight valve, all kinds
of biologically useless things start to happen" (p. 26).
In light
of what I said earlier concerning the underlying "biological" rationale
for the "real-world" information that is the usual purview of our sciences,
I emphasize this point of Huxley's on the criterion of
usefulness in determining what is normally regarded as real and true
. . . and especially this usefulness as being relative to biological
survival.
The point
I am making is that we may profitably consider each level of reality
construction—from the levels of biologically constituted realities down
through the various levels of cultural constructions of reality—as levels
in the diminution of reality (cf., Adzema, 1991). This focusing on the
specifics to the exclusion of more wholistic perspectives may have more
"biological" usefulness. But the point is that any scientific endeavor
that would seek to be anything more than merely pragmatic (and actually
venture after truth) must undo or reverse that diminution—must indeed
be aware of the self-constructed nature of the creations with which it
is normally concerned.
The upshot
of all of this is that the elements ("particles") operating within
any particular paradigm are closed to each other, "sealed." On the
other hand, standing on the basis of a "deeper," or more encompassing,
paradigm; translation, discourse, and transfer of information can truly
occur. As an example, looked at from the playing field of culture, we
come to the conclusion of epistemological relativism—i.e., that cultures
are sealed from one another; no genuine dialogue is possible across their
boundaries. However, looking at these same cultures within the playing
field of the physical or biological (i.e., standing on those "brute
facts"), we see that discourse, transfer, and translation occur once
again.
4
For this
reason also, we can see why it seems that biological anthropologists
and primatologists are so much less bothered by issues of epistemological
relativism than are cultural anthropologists.
But then,
standing on these "brute" (i.e., biological) facts, we are confronted
with a new relativism—that regarding the worldviews of one species over
against another. We see that species are epistemologically sealed from
one another and that a trans-species reality is seen to be as impossible
as a transcultural one was while standing within the playing field of
culture.
Thus, though
each culture is epistemologically sealed in relation to reality, it is
not so in relation to other cultures (at least in a relative sense—that
is, relative to our separation from Reality as Such). For all cultures
of humans exist within a common biological paradigm that is concerned
with all that is related to biological survivability (though not to Reality
as Such). It means that cultural paradigms
can be compared in relation to common species-specific factors.
In this
way we see why investigation of this Newtonian-Cartesian universe that
we perceive with our senses and that we have constructed with the aid
of our sciences is important. For it can provide additional data that
has the possibility of being biologically useful.
Contrary
to the conclusion from the total-symbolic-heritage view, science can
be seen as more than "mere ethnoscience"—that is, science as being merely
one more part of a culture and with no more claim to validity than any
other view.
It seems
to me that science has a greater, though not ultimate, claim to validity
to the extent it includes and integrates more experiential "facts" in
its reality constructions . . . the degree of scientific validity—from
good ethnoscience to bad ethnoscience—being the number of experiential
facts it includes and integrates. Cultural constructions can therefore
be compared, although such comparisons do not render any one of them,
including science, Ultimate Truth, only "righter" in relation to the
others, i.e., more correct.
What follows
is that whoever accepts the "larger," more encompassing, more inclusive
perspective is necessarily the one who has more "power" ultimately, in
that this one's view allows for more accurate predictive and remedial
power. That is why, eventually if not immediately, more inclusive paradigms
and their proponents attain dominance.
(That is
not to say, by the way, that new paradigms do always include all facts
that old paradigms include . . . just that they often include "more"
experiential—thus, "objectively" true—facts. As just one example,
many Amerindians' views included some "facts" that were excluded from
the paradigms of those that superseded them.)
But to
continue, since persons holding more inclusive paradigms are more
"powerful," eventually if not immediately they are more likely to predominate
in that they would be chosen by natural selection. If we would slide
back our anthropocentric lenses for a minute and attempt to view all
other species as simply other problem-solving beings who, as measured by
their success, were employing either better or worse paradigms (i.e.,
including more or less experiential "facts"), we might say that this
is one way of appreciating the force behind continual evolution for all
species.
So science
has a claim to validity in relation to our species's biological survivability.
But as emphasized earlier it has no claim in relation to anything other
than that. Its truth is but a limited one. Its truth is relative to a
biological context, a specific one, that of
Homo sapiens.
Indeed,
this fact of limitation needs to be emphasized more heartily in science
today. Anthropological thinking has created a legacy where we have been
made fully aware of the relativity of culture and the limitations of
culturally constituted facts—those "institutional facts" referred to
earlier. It seems an equal and parallel effort is warranted—from the ranks
of ecosophists, consciousness researchers, tranpersonalists, and others
in the know—to point out the limitations and relativity of our species's
biologically constituted facts—those (not so) "brute facts" of Anscombe
and D'Andrade.
A New Paradigm Emerging
For unless we do this, unless we keep in mind the limitations of our
reality constructions—including our "scientific" ones—we have absolutely
no way of understanding certain incorrigible and "biologically useless"
facts that intrude upon our "real world" and that are scared into the
light of our biological parameters by our scientific rummaging through
the bushes. These "useless" side effects of our scientific enterprise
may indeed contain the keys to our venturing forth, to at least some
small degree, beyond the biological real-world confines of our predecessors.
For just as we have seen that standing on a deeper, more encompassing
paradigm than the cultural makes transcultural discourse and understanding
possible, so also standing on one deeper than the biological may bring
trans-biological understanding closer.
Following the reasoning I have been presenting, one can speculate that
the prospects for bridging the boundaries between species (of both the
known and "unknown" variety) as well as between our physical reality
and other possible "non-physical" ones are good if we can find a way
to look at that physical/biological (Newtonian-Cartesian) level from a
deeper grounding in spiritual (or transpersonal) reality. In fact, the
evidence from LSD research, some spiritual literature, and various aspects
of "new age" phenomena that are washing up on the shore of a variety
of disciplines is exactly to that effect.
Indeed, wonder of wonders, finally in our evolution—in this very time
of ours, the second half of the Twentieth Century—there may be more people
who are focusing on those keys to possible biological transcendence than
ever before. Additionally, these researchers and seekers are scientifically,
empirically, and experientially researching, eliciting, and perceiving
many such incorrigible and "useless" phenomena and events. Most importantly
of all, they are finding that these events can be intersubjectively validated—can
be intertemporally and, indeed, empirically confirmed, demonstrated,
and/or significantly correlated so that they can be proven to have intersubjective
and/or replicatable validity. All of this despite the fact that within
the "real rules" of the Newtonian-Cartesian paradigm they have absolutely
no possibility of existing or being able to happen . . . . Yet they do.
Similarly, within the "real world" of "brute facts" related to biological
survivability they seemingly find no place . . . . Yet we stumble over
them.
If all of this were not enough, we find that these incorrigible facts
provide more than a pathway to a glimpse outside our biological blinders,
more than a puncture in our epistemological seal, and more than a transcendence
of our biological paradigm. We find that this information from "outside"
the table of our biological board game is less biologically useless than
was thought from within the borders of that board game. We find, indeed,
that our species's assessment through natural selection of that which
exists beyond it was less than perfect. We find that we are on the verge
of re-evaluating that assessment and—to the extent it is possible and
driven (once again) by biological survivability—of expanding our
biological-cultural constructions to admit and give meaning to some of them.
Stanislav Grof (1970, 1975, 1980, 1984, 1985, 1988a, 1988b; Grof and
Grof 1980, 1989, 1990; Grof and Halifax 1977) is one such pioneer in
this sort of "useless" research. Though he is by no means alone, I mention
him in that he has achieved far more than simply demonstrating the validity
of particular incorrigible facts that turn our familiar, comfy, Newtonian-Cartesian
paradigm on its ear. Additionally, Grof (1985) puts forth a model, a
framework for a new paradigm. Bringing together the physicist Bohm's
(1980) model of the universe and the neurosurgeon Pribram's (1971, 1976)
model of the brain, he presents a holonomic "perspective" or "theory"
based upon the idea of a hologram. The important aspect of this perspective
is that it allows the inclusion and understanding of these new existential
facts, yet does not contradict
the Newtonian-Cartesian view of the world. The model includes the older
paradigm, interpenetrating it thoroughly with something approaching a
"field model" (my terms) of the universe.
The combined model explains the phenomena of everyday life, of "normal"
science, and of a huge and increasingly accumulating body of unexplainable
data and evidence that is continually erupting out of the "new" natural
sciences (in physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, anthropology, and
psychology, especially transpersonal psychology); out of the human potential
phenomenon and new, experiential psychotherapeutic and growth techniques,
such as Primal; out of psychedelic, consciousness, and brain (especially
brain waves) research; out of a decades-long now Western fascination
with and intense engagement with Eastern world-view, philosophy, and
spiritual practice; and out of an equally long and parallel interest in
the paranormal and the occult.
The holonomic (combined) model is explanatory and predictive. Yet it
does so without having to exclude known, observable, empirically validated
facts and evidence—without undeservedly casting upon them the light of
nonexistence or, worse still, ignoring them, simply because their validity
gives rise to a very human "uncomfortableness." Such data trigger a certain
insecurity in that they undermine a familiar, habitual, and thoroughly
ego-invested commitment to a view of reality.
5
The purposes
of this article do not here allow an elaboration of either the new evidence
or the new paradigm that I have discussed.
6
Suffice it to
say that the recent and rapid emergence of the field of transpersonal
psychology itself is pushed by an inability to continually disregard
the evidence of our own senses that does not fit with the mechanical
paradigms we were taught.
This new evidence, which is pouring forth on the cutting edges of our
modern sciences, has made the Newtonian-Cartesian paradigm as obsolete
as the flat earth one. However, similar to the way in which the earth
is flat in
the particular environs of one's daily life, and for a considerable distance
surrounding, the Newtonian-Cartesion paradigm likewise has its limited
usefulness. But if we are to get moving on our species's continuing adventure
into discovering the nature of reality, we must acknowledge its limitations.
What bodes against this happening is an incredible, Jupiterian weight
of egoic, economic, and time investment in the old (N-C) paradigm that
pushes most people to insist upon its ultimate validity. Historically,
this has been the unfortunate fate of every emergent paradigm facing
the entrenched one. Decades and even centuries have often been required
while the new worldview has been put "on hold" until entire, invested
generations have left the scene . . . totally regardless of the quality,
quantity, or indisputability of the new evidence (Kuhn, 1970). What a
waste! Especially in that when the new ideas are finally accepted and
incorporated the effect is that of inspiring a renaissance of new frontiers
of research and theoretical enterprise and thus a surging powerfully
forth of the released creative tide. Let me state emphatically, in the
face of such dire historical precedents, that there is no inherent insecurity
involved in the new paradigm, or inherent danger, or inherent trigger
for anxiety, or necessary economic disadvantage (if one has the capacity
to change with new developments and thought).
So why do we not, then, get on with the incorporation of this new, heretofore
unexplainable, data and with the creation of new paradigm models (not,
of necessity, Grof's) for making sense of it?
Why not rise and reach forth to new and inclusive thought that embraces
the facts of existence, instead of a kind of thinking that requires either
a psychic numbing to the avalanche of new evidence or a thick and sturdy
guard against information from all but thoroughly sanctioned and sanitized,
perfectly safe and riskless, or intractably bureaucratized sources? I
must point out that by now many scientists, of diverse fields, have abandoned
the old model long ago and, at this point, consider its inadequacy to
be well-nigh common knowledge. Having been over to the new paradigm a
while, they feel it to be familiar territory; they find it useful (after
all!), stable, workable, and even pleasurable terrain. They await the
rest of us in the adventure of splicing or merging our insights about
an explanatory framework that has
room for the evidence of the new techniques and sciences; and thereby
blowing away the door jammed, opening it wide to the next new phase of
discovery of the nature of reality that is called the scientific enterprise.
Notes
1.
My contentions (Adzema, 1981, 1984) are that these particular (i.e.,
these early, these pre- and perinatal) experience/memory templates are
especially related to the following:
(1) fundamental constructions in our worldview
—e.g., sperm/egg leading to perception of duality in the universe
(2) attitudes towards life
—e.g., struggle of sperm alternating with "slothful" egg being the basis
of the universally proclaimed alternating or cyclic character of personal
or spiritual growth; also the predominating work/play dichotomy
—also, the fertilized egg experience: survival/achievement bought at
cost of hundreds of millions of others dead leading to primordial guilt
as well as prevalent attitude that accomplishment never brings expected
rewards; disillusionment
also, zygote must continue working, must reproduce itself, must move
and implant itself . . . each time or die, leading to attitude that there
is no end to struggle, growth, achievement; nonsatisfaction (Buddhist
dukkha) felt
as a fundamental fact of physical existence
(3) our concepts-feelings about the transpersonal—i.e., the religious
or spiritual
—e.g., embryo and fetus grow at an incredible pace with enormous number
of biological systems perfectly synchronized leading to feelings that
there is meaning in all one's actions—if in tune with the divine; also,
perfect synchronicity of external and internal events in one's world
if so attuned
—also, fetus nurtured, protected, all needs met—especially through umbilical
cord at navel—leading to the feeling that (1) spiritual state is one
of perfect harmony, being protected, and the divine providing for all
one's needs; (2) ideas of navel as being "source" of spiritual energy
or the place of connection of soul to body; (3) and, finally, leading
to the
flow-in <——> flow-out
feelings of proper relationship of person to society, the divine, nature,
and experience. [return to text]
2. There are other things, however,
that are crucial in the creation of our biological worldview. These include,
of course, anatomical, biochemical, and other biological shapers and
formers of our reality as we generally perceive it as a species, which
have to be seen as even more fundamental—representing more pervasive
yet subtler determiners and modelers of all above them. Then there are
the other universal determiners and/or directors of experience that fall
under the rubric of transpersonal
. But there is a completely different "board" for that "game" than
the one on which we are working. Specifically, it amounts to "bumping"
the Newtonian-Cartesian paradigm that I am working off of in making this
argument about biologically constituted realities and adopting instead
the holonomic perspective that I discuss further on.
[return to text]
3. This perspective has much in common with Wilber's (1977) "spectrum of
consciousness" view of reality. Though, for reasons which will become
clear as we proceed, I must stress that this position does not synchronize
with Wilber's later formulations (e.g., 1980, 1981), where he has conformed
his view to the more traditional and presumptuous Western biases; biases
that are distinctly at odds with an essential point I have emphasized
in this article of making diligent our attempts at wiping away any ethnocentric
as well as anthropocentric residue from our lenses if we are to have
any chance at all for even minimal success in our venturing into Reality.
(Cf. Winkelman 1990; Adzema 1991) [return to text]
4. It is much the same as saying that it is when we share our feelings and
personal experience (no coincidence that these are to a greater extent
physical and biological than "mental") that we have the greatest chance
of sharing across individual
or cultural boundaries.
[return to text]
5. I have also noticed a fear and hostility toward the new paradigm and
its evidence, even among self-professedly open-minded and fieldwork-seasoned
academicians and Ph.D.s. After observing and delving below this reaction
for years, I have consistently detected a pattern of irrationality that
associates, somehow, all this new stuff with things like having to go
to Church as a child, hell-fiery father gods, and Jerry Falwell. Some
people apparently harbor the mistaken notion that spiritual or
transpersonal realities have something to do with organized religion,
when, indeed, they are quite different and, indeed, often at odds with
each other. [return to text]
6.
In Beyond the Brain:
Birth, Death and Transcendence in Psychotherapy, Grof (1985) presents
in the first chapter—which comprises ninety-one pages—an insightful analysis
of paradigms and historical process along with an exhaustive sampling
of the new evidence from the array of sciences, sociohistorical trends,
and cultural processes that I have been mentioning. In addition, Grof
(1985) constructs a thorough presentation, delineation, and analysis
of the holographic model of a new paradigm. I recommend those pages highly.
[return
to text]
References
Adzema, Michael. (1981). Womb With
a View: Spiritual Aspects of Intrauterine Experience. Sonoma Grove/
44 Varda, Rohnert Park, CA 94928. (Unpublished manuscript)
Adzema, Michael. (1984). Cells
With a View: Spiritual and Philosophical Aspects of Sperm and Egg Experience
. Sonoma Grove/ 44 Varda, Rohnert Park, CA 94928. (Unpublished manuscript)
Adzema, Michael. (1985). A primal perspective on spirituality.
Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 25(3), 83-116.
Adzema, Michael. (1991). Falls
From Grace: Spiritual and Philosophical Perspectives of Prenatal and
Primal Experience. Master's thesis, Sonoma State University, Rohnert
Park, CA.
Anscombe, G. E. M. (1958). On brute facts.
Analysis 18(2).
Bohm, David. (1980). Wholeness and
the Implicate Order. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
D'Andrade, Roy G. (1984). Cultural meaning systems. In
Culture theory: Essays on mind, self, and emotion, R. Shweder and
R. LeVine (eds.), pp. 88-119, New York: Cambridge University Press.
D'Andrade, Roy G. (1987). Anthropological theory: Where did it go? (How
can we get it back?). University of California, San Diego. (Unpublished
paper)
Grof, Stanislav. (1970). Beyond psychoanalysis I. Implications of LSD
research for understanding dimensions of human personality.
Darshana International 10
(55).
Grof, Stanislav. (1975). Realms of
the Human Unconscious: Observations from LSD Research. New York: Viking
Press.
Grof, Stanislav. (1980). LSD Psychotherapy
. Pomona, CA: Hunter House.
Grof, Stanislav. (ed.) (1984). Ancient
Wisdom and Modern Science. Albany, NY: State University of New York
Press.
Grof, Stanislav. (1985). Beyond
the Brain: Birth, Death, and Transcendence in Psychotherapy. Albany,
NY: State University of New York Press.
Grof, Stanislav. (1988a). The Adventure
of Self-Discovery: Dimensions of Consciousness and New Perspectives in
Psychotherapy and Inner Exploration. Albany, NY: State University
of New York Press.
Grof, Stanislav. (ed.) (1988b). Human
Survival and Consciousness Evolution. Albany, NY: State University
of New York Press.
Grof, Stanislav, and Grof, Christina. (1980).
Beyond Death: The Gates of Consciousness. London: Thames & Hudson.
Grof, Stanislav, and Grof, Christina. (eds.) (1989).
Spiritual Emergency: When Personal Transformation Becomes a Crisis
. Los Angeles: Jeremy P. Tarcher.
Grof, Stanislav, and Grof, Christina. (1990).
The Stormy Search for the Self: A Guide to Personal Growth Through Transformational
Crisis. Los Angeles: Jeremy P. Tarcher.
Grof, Stanislav, and Halifax, Joan. (1977).
The Human Encounter with Death. New York: E.P. Dutton.
Huxley, Aldous. (1956). The Doors
of Perception and Heaven and Hell. New York: Harper & Row.
Kuhn, Thomas S. 1970. The Structure
of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Labbe, Armand. (1991). Consciousness versus awareness in the light of
classical Eastern perspectives on the nature of transcendence. Paper
delivered at the 1991 Annual Conference of the Society for the Anthropology
of Consciousness, March 21, 1991.
Pribram, Karl. (1971). Languages
of the Brain. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Pribram, Karl. (1976). Problems concerning the structure of consciousness.
In Consciousness and the Brain,
G. Globus (ed.) New York: Plenum.
Sahlins, Marshall. (1976). Culture
and Practical Reason. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Searle, John R. (1969). Speech
Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Wilber, Kenneth. (1977). The Spectrum
of Consciousness. Wheaton, Il: Quest.
Wilber, Kenneth. (1980). The Atman
Project. Wheaton, Il: Quest.
Wilber, Kenneth. (1981). Up from
Eden. New York: Anchor Books.
Winkelman, Michael. (1990). The evolution of consciousness: An essay
review of Up from Eden (Wilber
1981). Anthropology of Consciousness
1(3-4), 24-31.
Zukav, Gary. (1979). The Dancing
Wu Li Masters. New York: W. Morrow.
*
This article was originally published
in Primal Renaissance: The Journal
of Primal Psychology, Vol. 1, No. 1, Spring 1995. [
return to text
]
Biographical
Note
MICHAEL ADZEMA is an independent scholar whose articles have appeared
in a variety of international and regional magazines and journals. He
is also a primal breathwork facilitator whose experience in experiential
psychotherapies such as primal therapy, rebirthing, and holotropic breathwork
extend over thirty years. He has done Master's work in psychological anthropology
as well as religious studies and philosophy and has an M.A. in Interdisciplinary
Studies (combining anthropology, psychology, and philosophy) from Sonoma
State University. He taught teaching Pre- and Perinatal Psychology at
Sonoma State University. Michael has written extensively and has published
on the relation of psychology and religious consciousness. He was the
editor of the print version of the journal,
Primal Renaissance: The Journal of Primal Psychology
, some of which appears on this site. The foregoing article is
excerpted from a work-in-progress titled
Matter As Metaphor. Michael's extended bio can be found at
Mickel Adzema's writings
. E-mail, click on mickel@primalspirit.com
.
Copyright © 1995 by Michael D. Adzema
