RITUAL AS SHADOW
The question that naturally arises from the
preceding chapter's conclusions on the current state of affairs and their
unfortunately intractable response is, What can be done about the present
crisis in consciousness? But in order to do anything about our situation,
we must delve a little deeper into understanding this state of consciousness
and into how it has come to be that way. A more thorough exposition
of exactly that endeavor can be found in several other current works of
mine (Adzema, 1993a, 1993b).
For our purposes here, I would like to point
out that similar conclusions to what we have arrived at about our crisis
have been coming forth from many quarters of our culture in recent years.
Examples are Rupert Sheldrake's The Rebirth of Nature, Marilyn French's
Beyond Power, Theodore Roszak's The Voice of the Earth, Starhawk's
The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess,
Richard Tarnas's The Passion of the Western Mind, John White's The
Meeting of Science and Spirit, and Ken Wilber's Up from Eden.
Nevertheless, what almost all of these perspectives lack is a well-grounded
anthropological perspective (Beyond Power being the notable exception).
Their analysis of the historical process that has brought us to this pass
is often heavily conditioned by a Western bias towards history which sees
humanity as beginning in ancient Greece during a matriarchal "Golden Age."
Completely overlooking, in this way, the full
99% of our species's history that occurred prior to that time —
when we truly did live in harmony with Nature, as hunter-gatherers
— these theorists naturally come to the conclusion that our problems in
consciousness arose when we switched over from a matriarchal mode of existence
to a patriarchal one: That is, with the advance of nomadic patriarchal
conquerors over the pastoral and agricultural "matriarchal" cultures of
the Hellenic period of ancient Greece.
This is unfortunate because to seek to find
a Golden Age in the matriarchal period has required of such writers that
they completely overlook many of the obvious shortcomings of the matriarchal
view. This is not to say that the matriarchal cultures may not have
been more harmonious with Nature (and with their inner natures)
than their patriarchal successors. That they were less violent is
also true. Therefore, that matriarchal cultures were less
"fallen from grace" than patriarchal ones is not something I would dispute.
What I think is crucial to make known, however,
is that the matriarchal cultures themselves were also "fallen from
grace": from a previous, even more "golden" state — one which was
even less violent and more harmonious with Nature.
But the writers in this area are apparently unaware
of the true conditions of cultures outside of or prior to the Western "royal"
line. Evidently, they are still to some extent influenced by the
Western conditioning which has us scapegoat and denigrate such cultures
and viewpoints as "primitive," "savage," and "uncivilized." Thus
they have us begin our history with a supposed "Greek miracle," where we
are said to have just "awakened" from a prior collective addiction to superstition,
magic, and violence.
Robert Lawlor, in his book, Voices of the
First Day, is one theorist who has not made such a mistake.
In fact, Lawlor's depiction of the aboriginal Australian world view demonstrate
exactly the kind of "unfallenness," "higher consciousness," and harmony
with Reality that most "matriarchal" theorists think they are espousing.
It is one that is more truly in line with what might actually be our
Reality — as the cutting edges of our sciences are finally telling us (despite
themselves). (It is interesting how we have come full circle in this
way.)
The First Retreat: Matriarchal
Consciousness
Nevertheless, in response to the popular "return
to the matriarchy" view, it is important to point out that it is not necessarily
a good thing to go to matriarchal consciousness as a way of correcting
patriarchal consciousness, even if it does represent a marginally better
state of affairs. For one does not correct the problems inherent
in a duality by swinging to the other end in that same duality.
That approach simply reinforces that
particular split, that particular duality. After all, one would not
think it a good idea to go from a period of dictatorial Communism to a
period of Fascism, for example. Neither would one consider it wise
to swing from an extreme of hedonistic behavior to one of anal-compulsive
repression; nor would one wish to order up a period of flood to counter
one of drought!
Though this pendulum-swinging tendency is
often observed, it is hardly a desirable thing. So, as it turns out,
neither is it an ideal solution to go from patriarchality to matriarchality
— just to "balance the opposites" . . . as some matriarchal advocates espouse.
For doing either of these extremes sets up and reinforces the forces at
the opposite extreme, readying them for the next wild swing in the other
direction!
No, one can only correct a duality by transcending
that duality. And transcending, by the way, involves a synthesis
— that is, either a going beyond, or a going before, to a state where both
elements are not opposed — to a state where there is a "conjunction of
opposites," not their continued opposition.
Hunter-gatherer consciousness (termed paleolithic
consciousness by one researcher) was characterized by just such a,
relatively, non-dualistic acceptance of That Which Is (for the most part).
Its way of life, corresponding, has been called the "original leisure society,"
in that it is estimated that only four hours a day were needed for attending
to survival concerns.
But a mistrust set in. Fearfulness and
intractability in the face of change followed; and hence there arose the
desire to attempt to control Nature, rather than to follow Her and conform
to Her rhythms.
For example, a hunter-gatherer society can
follow the food supply. But doing this requires an acceptance of
change and an acceptance of a certain irregularity and insecurity in one's
daily regimen.
Whereas, somewhere along the line, people began
to become attached to particular surroundings and to a particular pattern
of daily activity. Yet there is only one reason why people would
want to have things be the same — either to have their physical surroundings
be the same or to have their experience follow certain familiar (one might
say "ritualized") patterns . . . and that is fear. So fear leads
to attempts to control both one's external and one's internal environment.
This is the beginnings of ego.
I say that there is only one reason that one
would seek to control things because the natural self enjoys change and
relishes the novel. The natural self glories in a life that is an
ever-unfolding adventure into the Divine. Such an attitude is the
same as a childlike openness to experience and is probably why, in its
rejuvenating aspects, there is the myth of such pre-archaic people living
such long lives.
At any rate, in seeking to shut down and control
our lives, we introduce a deathlike pall into normal human experience.
Rather than being ever-unfolding renewable Divine laboratories of conscious
experience embodying multiple and perpetual lines of inquiry into the nature
of That Which Is, we "evolve" to becoming isolated experiments of discrete
variables which are planned, initiated, carried out, and extinguished.
An important point is that the agricultural
lifestyle, which characterized these initial matriarchal beginnings of
the fear-and-controlling cycle, was both a splitting off from Nature and
then a subsequent act-out of that which was lost. This supposed "matriarchy"
was actually a splitting off from the Mother, was a mistrust of Nature
and hence a setting up of oneself over against Nature in an attempt to
control Her.
It follows that these agrarian cultures would
tend to evolve religions which would then seek to appease this aspect of
oneself from which one has split. It is only with this change that
we have the elaborations of ritual and the beginnings of actual magic,
for these are attempts to control Nature — a Nature which is seen as set
against oneself, a Nature of which one is no longer a part.
Contrast this attempt to influence Nature from
without with the state of the hunter-gatherer, in whom the movements of
Nature are felt on the inside and conformed to within. Contrast this
matriarchal mistrust with the detached and accepting attitude of such a
primal person, for whom Christ's lesson of the "lilies of the field" would
be unnecessary.
Furthermore, in agrarian societies, since there
is a split from Nature in an attempt to control her, the individual no
longer feels, as the hunter-gatherer does, those body energies that we
call core feelings. So, being cut off from both the body and from
the Nature of which one is a part, the post-neolithic individual must "act
out" those core body feelings.
For the rule we have discovered is that individuals
"act out" in the external world — in ways of which they are not conscious
— those inner feelings/realities/experiences which they are cut off from
(hence they deny and are numb to — unaware of). The finding is also
that the manner of the "act out" is symbolic of the (truly) motivating
feeling/reality/experience.
Thus, what I am saying is that one seemingly
splits off from a reality, one ends up repressing something, but
that does not make it go away completely. One reduces one's consciousness
of one's identity with a particular reality, but one does not stop being
united with that reality. So that reality makes itself known, but
not consciously . . . rather, indirectly, symbolically.
Hence, when Nature is presented to the person,
it is not directly encountered in the body as direct experience and core
body feelings, but rather as symbolic images. These symbolic images,
being experienced as separate from oneself, one must therefore enter into
a relationship with.
And since these symbolic images are separate
from oneself, one finds very often that they are moving and influencing
oneself in patterns that are different than one's consciously chosen ones.
The conscious mind finds itself at odds with these symbols (congruent with
the fact that the conscious mind has made itself opposed to one's bodily
core rhythms and experiences).
Therefore, the conscious mind seeks to come
to an arrangement with these symbol patterns while still maintaining its
stance of separation and control. It is in this final move that we
have the beginnings of appeasement and ritual, and hence of magic and "superstition."
Ritual and matriarchal religion are thus the
"act-outs" of our repressed identification with Nature and not a
reattunement with Nature as the Goddess-religion advocates would have it.
From this perspective, then, ritual is not a way of tapping into a deeper
relationship with feeling and Nature, it is an avoidance of real feeling,
a running away from Nature, from one's natural self, from the real, the
authentic, the genuine self, from genuine action, from spontaneous and
ever-creative being-in-the-world.
The Second Retreat: Patriarchal
Culture
Now, patriarchal cultures, along with their patriarchal
religions, follow a parallel but different pattern. Patriarchal cultures
are said to be associated originally with nomadic lifestyles. The
ensuing analysis will show why this might be the case.
Patriarchal cultures entail a splitting off
from oneself as Father, as Spirit, and a consequent need to act out and
appease those energies. To understand this better, let us back up
a little bit.
In hunter-gatherer cultures, we tend to have
shamans as religious practitioners. These shamans can often journey
in altered states of consciousness, can journey in the cosmos so to speak.
Thus, although such people, as we all are, are ordinarily limited in time
and space, they have a freedom of spirit — a spiritual freedom — quite
unlike anything we know.
Corresponding to this, it is true that some
hunter-gatherer societies focus a great deal more on their inner states
and on altered realities — their much noted concern with dreams and their
dream life is an example (see especially Australian aboriginal culture).
However, patriarchal cultures tend to be hierarchical
and specialized. This means that spiritual journeying is relegated
to a select few, a specialized sect of priests. The vast majority
of individuals in patriarchal cultures live onerous and oppressive lives
that do not allow much in the way of spiritual journeying.
Is it any wonder then that these cultures are
nomadic? The usual pattern is that when some inner potential is split
off from and repressed, when one disidentifies with it, that one begins
acting it out in the external world. So we find that the inner potential
for spiritual journeying and growing is acted out in patriarchal cultures
in the form of nomadic wandering. The direct relationship with Spirit,
with Father, which characterizes the hunter-gatherer, is repressed in patriarchal
cultures; and Spirit and Father are projected outside of oneself where
one must now seek to enter into a relationship with It.
Thus, in patriarchal cultures there are religions
which seek to relate to and appease gods which represent their forgotten
and repressed inner potentials of fate, destiny, spiritual growth, and
adventure. Since one cuts oneself off from one's core creative and
authentic decision-making center, one feels oneself in the hands of a whimsical
fate that is outside of oneself . . . and that is called Father and God.
Summary, Ritual as Symbolic Obfuscation
and Addiction to Control
So the pattern is the same in both matriarchal
and patriarchal cultures. It is the same pattern of disidentifying
with some inner potential, repressing it, being forced to act it out symbolically
in the outside world, projecting it outside of oneself as an external force
or power, and then seeking to enter into a symbolic relationship with it
wherein one can hope to have some indirect control over it since one has
lost one's direct relationship with it. And the reason for doing
all this, in either case, is the same. It is fear, mistrust of the
Universe, in either the Universe's maternal or paternal aspects (or, of
course, both).
The patriarchal person is fearful of the spiritual
forces within him- or herself. Hence she or he disidentifies with
them and projects them outside of him- or herself where they must be related
to symbolically. The matriarchal person mistrusts the Natural world
and disidentifies with It, and with the physical body which is a part of
It, in an attempt to control It. In doing so, these natural forces
are projected outside of oneself where they can then only be related to
symbolically.
In either case, it is this symbolic attempt
to control something indirectly that is the basis of ritual. In both
cases ritual is a poor substitute for the real potential of identifying
with and acting in accord with that reality. And in each
instance, the tragedy is that the indirect attempt pre-empts and thus makes
impossible the true relationship and true accord (at-one-ment) that is
possible.
Dream of 14 November 1991:
Ritual As Addiction to 'Pretend Experience'
In this dream I was with a large group of people.
A lot of things happened prior to the main ritual. At a certain point
I was required to go to this church, and I had to stand in a particular
place; and it was like standing at the entrance to the church, but inside.
There were a number of us, and we were all in lines, like two lines; and
we had to go down the aisle toward the front of the church.
All kinds of things happened. There was
superb richness of detail, and I don't remember all that transpired.
It was pretty neat: There was color, art, lots going on, lots of
special effects.
One part of it stood out, however. Going
back down the aisle, we had flowing robes on, and I could almost sense
artificial wings on me. And the powers-that-be were suspending each
of us in mid-air so that we were almost floating down the aisle!
We were suspended by these wires [Peter-Pan--like], and we were floating
down the aisle.
And I was thinking: I get it. This
is supposed to be a wedding. But since becoming married is a transition
in one's life, one needs to die to one state and be reborn in another.
So, what was being enacted here was something
approaching BPM IV, like where Michael Irving talks about the symbolism
of angels coming in — because BPM IV represents feeling free again, being
released. So you have the halo because of the birth experience and
all those feelings.
So what they were doing in this wedding was
re-creating, symbolically, all the aspects of birth from BPM I through
IV. That is, so people could have a feeling of going through a death-rebirth
experience. So they'd have this feeling of going somewhere deep and
having this intense experience and then coming out again and being freed.
So when I got back to the end of the church
and it was all over, there were so many people there, family, friends,
etc., but there wasn't one person there I could share it with; and that
was really depressing. It was distressing not to have anyone to share
it with because I had had this incredible insight and I was so excited
because I really understood now, and what I understood was what I had said
at the beginning of this: That rituals are substitute experiences.
By that I meant that I realized that: "When people were trying to
enact a ritual, did this mean that those people are getting in touch with
those feelings and that that's helping them in any way?" And then
it immediately came to my mind: "No, this does not mean that people
get in touch with those feelings. Rather, it means that people are
led to believe they are having those feelings, when in actuality
they are not."
And so when people go through weddings and
other kinds of rituals it's like they are trying to fool their psyche that
they are dealing with their real experience and their underlying transformative
needs but they in actuality are not . . . because in fact ritual is
nothing more than elaborate act-out, that's all it is. And
acting out of a feeling and not feeling the feeling is substituting
a ritual for real experience.
We pretend we are dealing with our feelings
and our real experience; but rituals are no more spiritual experiences
or dealing with feelings than alcoholism is a spiritual quest or getting
drunk is dealing with feelings. Ritual is a substitute for "spiritual"
(or real) experience just as addiction is a substitute for spiritual experience.
"SURE IT'S HARD!
BUT
ALWAYS ARE WE HERE HELPING YOU"
If ritual is a substitute for real spiritual experience,
what does real spiritual experience look like? What follows is an
example of a spontaneous, unritualized spiritual experience. But
first let me put it in its context.
The Spiritual Quest, For Earth's
Sake!
It is no surprise that the anti-nuclear and environmental
movements have joined forces with the spiritual/human potential ones.
For as Ken Keyes (1982) points out in The Hundredth Monkey, the
threat of nuclear disaster (we need also mention global environmental destruction)
is a challenge to all of us . . . a challenge to go beyond the "us vs.
them" kind of consciousness which has led us to the brink of catastrophe.
As many of us know, we must raise our consciousness in a way that has not
been demanded of humankind, as near as we can determine, on this planet
ever before.
Now, many people have been working hard to
do just that. Many of us have been working on ourselves to break
free from those patterns of "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" or,
what it comes down to eventually, those patterns of "kill and be killed."
We've been doing it in many different ways.
As for myself, I have been involved in spiritual
pursuits since 1968, especially meditation. As well, I have been
intensively working on unraveling my negative patterns through the powerful
experiential modalities of primal therapy, rebirthing, and holotropic breathwork
beginning back in 1972. These, especially primal therapy, have been
my ways of dealing with the particular negative conditioning into which
I was "raised" and which keeps me stuck in behaviors and feelings that
too often undermine my efforts to live a fully spiritual and loving life.
However, we all have our ways of trying to
grow beyond that kind of negative programming. It is important to
recognize that each of us is working in that same direction however we
go about it. What I would like to share is an experience that happened
to me while I was in the midst of trying to root out some of my conditioning.
I believe that it may be helpful to others in their own struggling "heavenward."
Sure It's Hard
As most of us have come to realize who have been
on this path for a while . . . who have been working at changing ourselves
for a while . . . it is no easy task to change those very deep grids or
programs. Rather, we discover that it requires a lot of work, dedication,
and time.
The psychiatrist Theodore Isaac Rubin (1983),
in his book on relationships titled One to One, points out that
the divisive competitiveness and us-versus-them striving that we see predominating
around us in Western culture is learned. He writes, "We compete,
we fight wars, we are compulsively concerned about our hierarchical position
relative to the next person, because we learn to be so through a psychotic
culture passed on from one generation to the next" (p. 184).
The point is that this is where we are coming
from. Our point of departure is a psychotic culture or, as Erich
Fromm (1955) put it, an "insane society." Many of us are trying to
reverse this violent and crazy trend, but it is understandable that it
would be hard to make a 180-degree turn in orientation — from aggression
to peace, from competition to cooperation, from fear to love. Therefore,
our culture is gradually coming to the realization that we are involved
in a difficult process, and understandably so. Our culture is starting
to realize the immensity of the task we are undertaking in trying to change
our inherited and deleterious patterns.
For example, Herb Goldberg (1983), a psychologist,
points out in his book, The New Male-Female Relationship, especially
in his section on "Transitions," that to think that it is easy is probably
to be an impostor (p. 134). He asserts that the people who are really
making the changes in male-female relationships and becoming fuller human
beings, you can expect, are struggling to do so . . . that it is a difficult
process and takes time. In fact, Goldberg discusses at length his
contention that real growth takes a lot of time and struggle, whereas "pseudo-growth"
is the only kind of growing that occurs "overnight" and easily. (pp. 134-141)
So not only does it take time, but we discover
that it is hardly ever pleasurable. What most of us have discovered
is that the path to bliss leads sometimes through despair and hopelessness.
As Hesse (1965) described it in Demian: the bird, in pecking his
way out of his shell, must destroy a world before discovering a new one.
No, it is not often pleasant to confront some of the darkest things within
ourselves, as we must do if we are not to continually project them onto
others and onto the world around us.
A Cosmic Slap
At any rate, in the course of my own struggling
to change, in primal therapy, I was at a particular place in 1980 where
I was very much in despair at the immensity of the task of changing the
programming that was dragging me down — that was keeping me from being
the full human being that I could see lying there in potential. It was
therefore an encouragement to me when I had the experience that follows
— like receiving a cosmic slap on the back, a gift from the Universe, and
it helped me through that time. But I am convinced this experience
has relevance also for all who are working hard at growing beyond their
limited selves. I feel it might especially be of use to someone in
a similarly hopeless-seeming place.
For these reasons I wish to share this experience.
You can do with it whatever you like.
Before relating what happened, I want
to say that although some might be tempted to call this experience a fantasy
or a dream, it certainly did not feel that way to me at the time.
I can not doubt that an unusual thing happened to me, which was unlike
anything else that I'd experienced prior to it or since. It was related
to certain experiences I was having in my primaling but was very different
from "having feelings." I was not under the influence of any drugs,
nor had I been previous to the incident. I had one beer that night.
One other note: I will also leave the
determination of who the "she" and the "we" were in the experience to the
interpretation of the reader. I certainly don't know for sure who
she and they were, though I have my ideas — all of them highly positive.
Also, the following, except for some minor editing, is exactly the way
I wrote it the morning following the experience.
Journal Entry of June 28, 1980:
I was lying in bed last night with Maddie.
Couldn't sleep, air conditioner too loud. Suddenly I was aware of
all this energy coursing through my body. Was really scaring me.
My body zinging, intense ringing (buzzing?) in my ears, rushes flowing
through me. Was scared I was going crazy, would hurt Maddie, would
become possessed or something, etc. Tried focussing on my third eye
so as to control it like I did in Portland.
That may have helped some, but I could sense,
and was scared of, other "presences" in the room. I thought I heard
a woman's voice behind me over my left shoulder and that scared me.
Without realizing the transition, I found myself projected into this panorama
of history and a woman's voice was narrating.
She described how once there had lived "noble"
beings. I could see vast and colorful panoramas of peoples exuding
"nobility" and "integrity" (for want of better words to describe what they
were like). They walked and paraded before me and were all around
me. Then the woman explained that the peoples degenerated and, as
if in demonstration, I began seeing battles and wars played out before
my eyes. I was in the midst of them!
However, I was still aware that I was in my
body lying on my bed, because I could feel myself against it. Even
so I was afraid that I would begin taking on the bodies of participants
in the battles and would feel pain like they were obviously feeling.
This feeling was especially strong when I was in the midst of the convergence
of two groups of warring parties (their garb reminded me of Israelites
or people of Biblical times or something). The group I was facing
were going at each other with hatchets and I was afraid of becoming a participant
and possibly feeling an ax chunking into my neck or skull. But although
it was happening all around me, nobody in the crowd noticed me; it was
as if I wasn't there. In fact at one point I believe they actually
may have passed through me!
This scene passed, along with other dramas,
and it was explained to me that now it was time for a regeneration of peoples
on this "plane[?]" to regain their former "nobility[?]," "integrity[?]"
(again for lack of better words).
Still feeling that I was conscious, i.e., knowing
that it was all happening to me while I was really lying in bed; I let
myself walk through many landscapes and terrains, which I felt I could
easily have lived in at one time and which I felt had all existed at some
time or place or did now exist somewhere in the world or Universe.
I walked through small shack towns. I remember a small group of bedraggled
people huddled together in one. There were many kinds of pastoral
settings also: some beautiful with rolling, lush hills, and some not as
beautiful — rocky terrain, etc. All seemed to be viable habitats
for different people. I had the thought that these may have been
places/lives that I had lived in at one time.
Certain places brought up bad feelings in me,
foreboding, scared feelings. In fact it can be said that the whole
time it was happening I was scared about the experience. I feared
meeting some dangerous and evil entity or being stuck in an undesirable
place. When I was in one particular environ/habitat that wasn't very
pleasant, I remembered something that Seth had said about consciously altering
and changing his environment. In line with that I decided to stop
believing in the one that I was in and see what happened.
What happened was that environment went away
and then there was a blank grayness as I waited for a new scene to appear.
I continued to be aware that I was in a trancelike state and that I had
a body lying in bed. I would at times vaguely return to the feeling
in my body and would feel myself on my back, hands and arms outstretched,
mattress against my back, in a very deep state of relaxation and suspended
animation which had a feeling of heaviness or deadness about it.
My body didn't need to move and it was perfectly comfortable.
I could hear the air conditioner running, also,
and even Maddie's breathing next to me. Several times, I don't remember
exactly when, Maddie had reached over and put her arm around me, both times
only for an instant, before she rolled back away from me. Neither
of the times did it disturb the deep state that I was in or cause me to
rise at all out of it. I simply felt warm and good towards her at
the affection she was showing me. I even had the thought that, considering
the fact that she only did it for a moment before turning away, that somehow
she knew what was going on, in some deeper, nonconscious part of herself,
and was reassuring or encouraging me.
Anyway, I was securely very deep and felt that
I wasn't going to be suddenly disturbed from it unless, perhaps, I let
it. But I really didn't want to do that. I was rather scared
and apprehensive most of the time, as mentioned, but, more importantly,
it was all so damned interesting! There is no doubt that I was thoroughly
enjoying the color, the panorama, the expanse and freedom of consciousness,
the fact that I was experiencing something important and that I had never
experienced before, so that I dearly wanted to stay there despite the fear.
Sometime after the gray place, I believe it
was, I was aware of some kind of light far off in the distance that I could
travel to if I liked. At around that time I could hear Maddie saying
to somebody (about my body in bed): "Is he moving at all? Is
he breathing? Do you think he's dead?" and so on. I remember
thinking to myself how silly that sounded and that "No, I'm not dead, I'm
just in this deep trance and everything." But then suddenly I began
to wonder if maybe I was dead! It had all been so strange that maybe
I had actually died in my sleep!
At that point I recalled the accounts I'd heard
and read about of people dying and not knowing they were dead, how they
would often hang around and watch other people's reaction to their death
(and this could go on for days). I remembered how Steve had once
told me something to the extent that if that should happen that one shouldn't
get carried away and fascinated by the after-death state but that one should
"get down on one's knees" (figuratively speaking) and search out the source
and the presence of God. Thinking that was perhaps when I actually
looked around and saw the light.
At any rate, I found myself wondering if I
wanted to be dead. This place was certainly an interesting one, even
with the apprehensions. And it sure seemed to be a change (so far,
anyway) from the constant struggling to survive and grow. But I also
felt that there were just so many loose ends left unresolved in my life.
There were so many areas that I'd made good progress in but had not yet
taken to completion. My love for Maddie (next to me), which was only
just beginning, came to my mind as an example.
And so I decided to find out if I was dead
or not, both to know if I should go heading for the light (if I was) or
to reassure Maddie (if I wasn't). I determined to get into my body
and, with an effort and strain, I forced myself up from the depths, forcing
my body to move and sit up. I was mildly surprised to find that I
was able to do this, bringing myself into physicality and into a half-sitting
position. In this position I looked over to see Maddie sleeping next
to me, I could hear the air conditioner whining, and so forth. I
realized then that she hadn't "physically" been sitting over me, talking
about me, but I also felt that some part of her must have. (We used
to have this thing when we slept together that often we would feel like
we had been communicating with each other on some kind of subconscious
level the whole night long. We wouldn't ever remember all that we
had said but we would often both remark about it the next morning).
Realizing that I wasn't dead, I lay back down
and let myself drift back into the deepness. All I remember, after
this point, is talking to Maddie, probably about what had happened to me,
explaining it to her, though I'm not sure that was all of it. Also
I remember at least one other time, maybe two, forcing myself to waking
consciousness to see if Maddie was awake (as if in an experiment), because
it really seemed that we were actually, physically awake
and talking to each other. I thought we were lying in bed physically
talking. It was hard to believe it when I forced myself awake only
to find her lying beside me asleep.
After that there were some actual dreams, quite
different from what had been going on earlier. I fell into sleeping
and dreamed of being in my Grandmother's home. I remember reading
a book, sitting in a chair in her kitchen. There were other people
there also; they were sitting in the same kind of straight-backed, none-too-comfortable
wooden chairs.
I remember that early on, when I was doing all
the traveling and stuff, that I didn't know how I'd possibly remember all
the experiences that happened to me and all the things that I saw and learned.
It seemed like a lot of time was crammed into that short period.
I remembered hoping just that I would retain as much of it as I could,
especially hoping that I wouldn't just blot it all out as it felt important.
I feel like the meaning of the part about the
regeneration of the peoples on this plane was an answer to my despair at
working on getting through my feelings. It's like it was saying: "Sure
it's hard! What you're talking about is the reversal of hundreds of generations
of degenerate and violent habit, custom, and activity. But we're
talking about changing that also, and you're not the only one working at
it. There are many others in your time period struggling to do it
just like you."
And the feeling that left me with was/is "So
don't despair. There are others like you doing it, and we're (out here)
helping you too."
The Sins of The Father
Regardless of how you may wish to label the preceding
experience, it remains one whose message has stayed with me through all
the intervening years, a message that has rung true and helped me through
other difficult spaces. In fact, I still reflect on it and can't
help believing there is a lot to it. Consider: Generation after
generation of Western culture has engaged (with little awareness of the
consequences) in passing down their personal pain and trauma, in some form
or other, onto their offspring. And they in turn dump it on theirs.
We know that child abusers were themselves abused as children; but this
is just a very blatant example of how the pattern operates. On and
on and back through into hazy unrecorded history this situation has existed;
this vicious cycle has perpetuated itself.
But many of us in these extraordinary times,
and goaded on by the specter of global catastrophe, for one thing are saying:
"Let it end with me!"; "Let us not continue this madness any further!"
Attempting to break the cycle of "kill and be killed," of hurting and then
inflicting hurt, attempting to halt the prevailing insanity, we make the
Gandhian effort to take the energy into ourselves, to change ourselves
lest we, also, be like the generation before — forever passing on the insane
legacy.
So why should we think this would be easy?!
We are trying to bring to an end, in our single lifetimes, the accumulated
results of untold generations of our ancestors dumping their pain and insanity
onto their descendants.
But Always Are We Here Helping
So of course it's hard! And for me to realize
this fact allows me to accept it. That is, it allows me to accept
this task and to take up my place in the ranks of those arrayed in the
purpose of undoing the craziness rather than to turn away in despair at
the immensity of the task or to quaver in paralysis before it.
This experience has also provided me with a
wonderful outlook on the people around me. I look around to the many
people who are working spiritually to change themselves and this crazy
world — who are serving, mending, and healing others and themselves.
In doing so I have this sense of brother/sisterhood — that we are all engaged
in an immense undertaking . . . that we are synergizing our energies in
an endeavor which is not merely crucial, it is imperative . . . not just
for our personal growth, for our personal satisfaction or well-being —
although that's not to be discounted — it is necessary for the very survival
of this planet.
I feel that if this task had been easier it
would have been done long ago by well-intentioned ancestors. Indeed,
it may only be because the survival of this planet is now at stake that
substantial numbers of us have at this point, finally, accepted the challenge.
Many of us are aware of the seeming intractability
of the situation we face — both personally and globally. But what
I feel now is not so much the despair at the difficulty of the task but
rather, because of what I was taught through this experience, I feel a
sense of belongingness, cosmic belongingness, if you will . . . a sense
that I'm not alone. I feel that many others are working at this same
thing in this day and age. Our combined energies — along with the
energies of the Universe that are working with us — together constitute
an incredible force. Confronted with the enterprise we have before
us, this force may just be sufficient to do on this planet what has never
been done before here (as far as we know).
So to all who occasionally despair, I can only
repeat, "Sure it's hard, but always are we here helping you."
INITIATION: AUTHENTIC AND INAUTHENTIC
The point of all this is to say that any experience
or event that is meant to happen, that needs to happen, that is
important will . . . from a nonmatriarchal/ nonpatriarchal perspective
. . . will happen. The psyche does not have to be coaxed into
giving up beneficent experiences. The unconscious does not have to
be duped into helping us along. It already is us, and so cannot
do otherwise. That we thought we were separate from All That Is was
our big mistake — our first major fall from grace — the mistake that led
to all the others (mistrust, fear, aggression, hostility).
So it is that all is provided in our simply
allowing ourselves our spontaneous experience. What is required is
simple surrender to All That Is — the combined forces of The Totality.
What prevents that from happening is our continual attempts to control
our experience. Whether through drugs, money, work, or ritual,
the effect is the same: to flee from our spontaneity within and the blessings
without, which together provide one with all one would need.
An example of how we stray from this is in
the area of initiations. We feel we are "lacking" in the way we are.
And so humans have, with the fallenness from the hunter-gatherer into the
matriarchal and patriarchal distortions of natural experience, sought for
themselves as well as devised for others, rituals whose intent is to change
us in a direction that has been decided ahead of time — with our supposedly
"rational" (but actually fear-ridden) ego — is a better state. It
is no surprise then — considering the motives that inspire and direct these
consciously structured events — that they can be reduced to the same elements
of "brainwashing," which we so deplore when we see it practiced elsewhere.
Vision Quests
Yet this does not need to be this way. This
distorted form of "acting out" (which thus needs to be ritualized) our
need to be initiated or to be taught into a higher place is found in pure
form (minimally or totally unritualized) in the example of the Native American
vision quest. In these instances the hopeful initiate simply
goes out into Nature and essentially asks to be taught by All That Is.
And (should any one at this point be surprised?)
very often when one does not attempt to manipulate the result, to extract
or demand the blessing, Nature often does come around and cooperate
— giving us exactly what is needed.
Sometimes the blessing is some "embodiment
of the natural" — a "power animal" of one sort or other — who appears and
does an initiation (and often instructs one in uses of the natural world
— giving information on the healing uses of certain plants, for example).
That is, one is initiated in a way unforeseen and into knowledge
not known ahead of time, by Nature Herself, by All That Is Him/Herself.
A similar kind of thing exists in the form
of the walkabout. It is no coincidence that this also is connected
primarily with non-agrarian, primal cultures. The essence of these
experiences, similar to the vision quest, is to throw oneself into the
hands of the Universe, to learn what is deemed one needs to know, to be
taught as the Forces That Be decide it . . . completely regardless of one's
egoic desires, wishes, or forethought.
Brainwashings and Boot Camps
Both vision quests and walkabouts are quite a
bit different from the type of initiation ritual most often described —
in both patriarchal and matriarchal cultures — in which the initiate
is forcibly taken, tortured (often mercilessly), and then "indoctrinated"
into the prescribed norms and codes of the elite of the culture.
This sort of initiation — whether it is termed boot camp, graduate school,
"primitive rite of passage," "Communist brainwashing," fundamentalist Christian
indoctrination, or nkumbi — is an attempt at control.
And the only surrendering that goes on is that of the initiate towards
the human cultural agents who have taken upon themselves such a godly role
of shaping and fashioning someone else's very psyche (and thus their very
experience).
But the example of vision quests, as well as
the vision of my own just described, demonstrate how this sort of forced
and inauthentic initiation is not only not required — for the purposes
of being taught and of being led into higher states — but actually precludes
the real thing from happening! For obviously if one is indoctrinated
into a set of societal norms, that preempts the learning of the more individualized
set of norms/ instruction/ learning that might be expected to come from
The Universe.
UFO Abductions, Psychedelics, and
Psilocybin
Another example of what we might call "spontaneous
initiation" or "non-ritualized" initiation has to do with the current and
rising phenomenon of UFO abductions.
Keith Thompson's article in the book, Spiritual
Emergency, titled "The UFO Encounter Experience As a Crisis of Transformation,"
points to another aspect of this idea of authentic versus inauthentic initiations
and of "ritual as shadow." Apparently, higher orders of beings and
of realities have active contact with humans and initiate us into ever
more evolved levels of experience.
A good example of this traditionally is, as
mentioned, the Native American vision quest — where these forms of initiation
are actively sought. But a more recent example is the psychedelic
experimentation that was so prevalent a few decades ago. For many
people this experimentation represented the same sort of active seeking
of the initiation "from on high" as we observe in the vision quest.
But now we discover from Thompson and John
Mack (for example, in his article, "Other Realities: The "alien abduction"
phenomenon") that UFO abductions and encounters with "extraterrestrials"
can also often be seen as initiations by higher others. To this we
might add Terence McKenna's speculations, in The Archaic Revival,
that psilocybin ingestion is a specific avenue for such initiation by "the
Other."
Societal Bizarro Initiations
The point is that this sort of spiritual initiation
is a true initiation, an authentic initiation; it is the kind we,
left to ourselves, naturally evolve to. This is contrasted with the
distorted form of this initiation in cultures — especially post-neolithic
ones — around the world, in which an individual is initiated into societal
norms. In those initiations the true pattern — reflecting truly our
real needs to grow, to transcend our selves — is supplanted by a distorted
reflection of it, a mirror-image bizarro substitute.
Thus, the 'inner' spiritual initiation is the
true initiation, and all patriarchal or matriarchal ones into societal
norms (including grad schools and boot camps) are distortions of it which
unfortunately supplant and therefore prevent the real thing from occurring.
We can make use of this distinction as we go
about reversing the mistakes of generations past.
THE PSYCHE HEALS ITSELF
For what may be most essential, at this critical
time, is to learn to be a little humbler in our belief that we know what's
to be done. It was our controlling all-knowingness that compelled
us to seek to rearrange Nature in our image in the first place. Maybe
we should step back a bit from that attitude when we seek now to change
that, instead of thinking to add this change of consciousness, like one
more project, one more conquest, to our ego-nurturing list of achievements.
Maybe what is needed now is to stop doing,
to stop ritualizing . . . to simply leave ourselves open to learning.
It may be that what we need to learn is not another technique, another
how-to this or that, but a simple letting be, of oneself, of allowing.
For what we are discovering is that a natural
psychological consciousness expansion is inevitable in human development;
that in giving up the struggle, the constant trying, out of fear of some
consequences, or other, one falls into a process beyond oneself.
This may erupt initially in the form of a "spiritual
emergency." But this is only a seeming emergency and is actually
a spiritual emergence; it is not a breakdown but a breakthrough
— a real one.
Gurus, shamans, and experiential pioneers of
all stripes have noted the importance of accessing a spiritual process
that pervades all aspects of one's experience. In surrendering
and trusting totally, in this way, we open up. And then what arises
is always different from what we expect and includes all sorts of phenomena
and experiences, all linked to our growth and resolving our blocks.
We begin to learn an attitude of surrender
to process. That we can throw ourselves, time and again, into Experience
and still, somehow, be upheld and even embraced, despite ourselves, gives
us confidence in a beneficent Universe and allows us to foster surrender
in all situations — knowing with a fuller knowing our link to the Divine,
that we will always and everywhere do and be what is needed, what is exactly
perfect at that particular time.
Leaving ourselves open to Experience in any
way that it should choose to teach us is what is required. Placing
ourselves, for reasons of growth, into ritualistic situations that control,
limit, and preordain the intensity and type of experience that one will
have is to reinforce the problem.
The problem is control, is fear of the unexpected.
And in this respect archaic rituals are as useless and time-wasting — and
as likely to preclude, through immersion in the hypnotically familiar —
as are more modern rituals such as evening TV-watching and the 9-to-5 daily
routine.
The only major difference is that archaic rituals
have currently the mystique about them of the mysterious and the mystically
powerful. So in this aspect they are even more harmful in that they
foster the illusion of growth, through the eliciting of pseudo-experience,
and thereby make even more unlikely that one will be motivated toward surrendering
to one's authentic experience.
Thus, what is most necessary is to simply "be"
where we are "at." And to be most fully where we are means to be
most fully in process — to be in touch with the underlying flow that is
the epigenetic protagonist of healing and creation, growth and transcendence.
And once attuned to process, one can "be here" while working, walking,
making love, or moongazing. For spiritual process takes over, leading
us onward to more encompassing realms. The psyche "heals" itself,
if only allowed to do so, and in a miraculously synchronous way that is
reminiscent of the way the body does.
This spiritual process is a natural flow of
creation that encompasses all experience, the agonies and ecstasies of
existence, and harmonizes all of reality, both internal and external, in
a pattern that is unique for every individual and oriented toward one's
patient unfolding in the path of exquisiteness.
LANGUAGE AS COMMUNICATION METAPHOR
In the same way that ritual is a reflection of
experience and is not real experience — that it is an attempt to "magically"
evoke real experience and instead prevents real experience by filling
up with falsity the psychic space and existential moment in which real
experience could happen — so also language is only a reflection
of real communication, is only a pseudo-communication, which not only substitutes
for the real thing but also prevents the real thing from happening
by filling up the space available.
But then what might that real communication
be? To discover that, it might be helpful to go back to the times
and places where language is not available for communication.
These times are (1) the preverbal state of the human fetus and infant,
(2) the preverbal state of our primate progenitors, (3) the nonverbal state
of various sages who have adopted this mode, and (4) the nonverbal state
in meditation or other altered states of consciousness.
What is characteristic of all these states
— to the extent we can know it — is that with the absence of the substitute
of language comes a greater ability and awareness of psychic communication
— i.e., telepathy, clairvoyance, clairaudience, empathy . . . you name
it. This is widely accepted as true for sages, of course. And
it is fairly well established for meditators.
But we are finding it is true of many similar
nonverbal states produced by various consciousness-altering techniques
— e.g., primal therapy, holotropic breathwork, rebirthing, the ingestion
of LSD. That it may also be true of the preverbal state of the fetus
and infant is also gaining acceptance, both because of the experiences
of those in the various regression psychotherapies who've reexperienced
those times and their accompanying states, as well as the accumulation
of empirical data.1
Now, as for our primate progenitors, we must
speculate. But we can do so based upon some important trends. One
is the tendency for greater psychic communicative ability to be characteristic
of current "primal" peoples, who are less split from Nature, and thus closer
to our primate "biological" foundations, than is the average dissociated
Westerner. The other is the argument and the evidence presented by
the provocative work on the "bicameral mind" (Jaynes, 1976).
Anyway, the point of all of this is that we
see a tendency for greater "direct" communication to occur (to be possible)
in situations where less overt communication is being done. Is it
possible then that those who we think of as having no language are
language-less because of no need for language? Here again
we have an example of where the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" philosophy
may apply. And here again we show the human species's unerring tendency
— a characteristically neurotic one — to go mucking where there is no need
to, as a substitute for attending where the need truly is (i.e., focusing
on the spiritual), to therefore go substituting pseudo and desperately
frenetic activity for real activity.
CHAPTER TWO NOTE
1. See "Are Telepathy,
Clairvoyance and 'Hearing' Possible In Utero? Suggestive Evidence as Revealed
During Hypnotic Age-Regression Studies of Prenatal Memory" by David B.
Cheek, M.D. [return to text]
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Copyright © 1999 by Michael Derzak Adzema
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Mickel Adzema