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{From: "Helping People In Spiritual Emergency", by Emma Bragdon, Ph.D., p.71-3}
Spiritual Emergence
-------------------
Spiritual emergence is the process of personal awakening into a level of
perceiving and functioning which is beyond normal ego functioning. The
process may at first include any of the following phenomena:
out-of-body experiences, occult phenomena, precognition, clairvoyance,
astral travel, and perception of auras. At its peak, spiritual
emergence is the experience of the ultimate unity of all things, a
mystical experience, a merging with the Divine which transcends verbal
description. Among the positive effects of this process are increased
creativity, feelings of peace, and an expanded sense of compassion.
...
Spiritual Emergency
-------------------
As spiritual emergence unfolds into new areas, it can bring with it
elements of surprise about the nature of oneself and one's world. This
is true whether someone is actually moving to a hither developmental
level, or integrating a spiritual experience into a developmental level
which has not yet attained mature ego functioning. The disorientation
and instability that results from intense spiritual experiences in
either case, can turn a spiritual experience into a spiritual emergency.
The phenomena of the crisis may last anywhere from minutes to weeks.
The capacity to integrate spiritual experiences into one's self-concept
and functioning in the world is the key determinant in the outcome of
spiritual crisis. A spiritual experience is more likely to turn into a
spiritual emergency when:
1. Someone has no conceptual framework to support the experience,
with which to understand and accept the phenomenon with equanimity.
2. Someone has neither the physical nor emotional flexibility to
integrate the experiences into life.
3. The family, friends, and/or helping professionals of a person
having the experience see the phenomenon in terms of psycho-
pathological symptoms which have no possibility of being positive.
The pressure people place on persons in the midst of an intense spiritual
experience to perceive themselves as crazy is often one of the most
influential elements turning an emergence process into an emergency.
Conversely, the willingness of a helper to accept the phenomena of
spiritual experience and to have faith in a positive outcome, is one of
the most powerful elements in changing spiritual emergency to spiritual
growth.
...
Hundreds of stories from people who have had spiritual emergencies and
have been misdiagnosed as mentally disturbed were collected by Ring
(1984) and the Grofs (manuscript in process). One woman suffered
through treatment for a psychotic episode after she had a mystical
experience at the birth of one of her children. She had been doing
hatha yoga for a year, but because her yoga teacher did not emphasize
the possibility that yoga postures might catalyze a spiritual awakening,
she did not connect the yoga to her spiritual experience during the
birth. In the midst of the delivery, she spontaneously perceived lights
which put her in a state of awe so profound that she lost touch with her
surroundings. Believed to be mentally unstable and incapable of caring
for her child, she was given medication to suppress the symptoms of her
supposed psychosis and directed to not breastfeed the child while she
was medicated. No one had the knowledge to suggest that she may have
been blessed with an experience of the Divine or had attained a level of
understanding which was not only valid, but which gave her extraordinary
resources as a human and as a mother.
Many types of experiences involving a spiritual awakening have resulted
in humiliation and been invalidated rather than celebrated. Because our
Western culture generally does not accept spiritual emergency phenomena
as the product of a sane mind, most of the people who have had near
death experiences (NDE) are inhibited from talking about their
experiences for fear of being considered and treated as crazy.
.,..
Psychosis and the DSM-III
-------------------------
According to the American Psychological Association's (APA) diagnostic
manual of mental disorders, the DSM-III (1980), symptoms of psychosis
include the following:
1. Delusions.
2. Hallucinations.
3. Incoherence or loosening of associations.
4. Markedly illogical thinking.
5. Behavior that is grossly disorganized or catatonic.
As is evident, these criteria do not differentiate the delusions and
hallucinations of the psychotic from the 'word salad' characteristic of
the psychotic from the jumbled speech of someone trying to articulate
the noetic quality of a spiritual experience; nor between the catatonia
of the psychotic with the need for solitude and quiet of the person in
spiritual emergency; nor the disorganized behavior of the psychotic and
the bizarre behaviors of a kundalini experience. Any of the six
patterns of spiritual emergency described by the Grofs could be
confused with the symptoms of psychopathology as the following table
suggests:
Table 3: Symptoms - Spiritual Emergency vs. Psychopathology
Form of Spiritual Emergency Similar Criteria in DSM-III
--------------------------- ---------------------------
1. Kundalini Awakening: Autonomic hyperactivity associated
with generalized anxiety disorder.
Streaming energy, tremors, Hyperactivity associated with
sensations of heat/cold, manic states.
spasms and violent shaking, Alteration in physical function.
involuntary laughing/ Symptom not under voluntary control
crying, unusual breathing and psychological factors judged
patterns, and/or visions of etiologically evolved-associated
light. with conversion hysteria.
2. Shamanic Journey: Recurrent thoughts of death.
Loss of interest or pleasure in
Dreams/visions/sensing- ritual activities associated
evoking a special with depression.
connection to animals Somatic, grandiose, religious,
and nature. nihilistic or other delusion
Core psychic experiences = without persecutory or jealous
death and rebirth content associated with
schizophrenia.
3. Psychological Renewal Bizarre delusions.
Through Activation of the Hallucinations associated with
Central Archetype: either schizophrenia or psychosis.
Recurrent thoughts of death
Preoccupation with death, associated with depression.
rebirth, and/or return
to the beginnings of life.
Focus on a clash of opposites
and dramatic resolution of
this opposition.
4. Psychic Opening: Delusions.
Hallucinations associated with
Experiences of extrasensory schizophrenia or psychosis.
perception, including out-
of-the-body experiences.
5. Emergence of a Karmic Pattern: Delusions.
Hallucinations associated with
Experiencing dramatic schizophrenia or psychosis.
sequences which seem to be
occurring in a different
temporal - spatial context.
6. Possession States: Symptom not under voluntary control.
Loss of or alterations in physical
Face and/or body involuntarily functioning associated with
take on the character of conversion hysteria.
another personage. Behavior that is grossly disorganized
Somatic consequences may associated with psychosis.
include choking, vomiting, Hyperactivity associated with manic
and frantic motor activity. states.
The difficulty in making these differentiations is that the content of
the visions and sensory phenomena may be identical in psychosis and
spiritual emergency. Thus, differentiating pathological psychosis from
spiritual emergency must be based on other criteria which enable the
clinician to make finer distinctions.
...
Summary
Learning how to distinguish between spiritual emergency and mental
disorder is essential in providing appropriate diagnosis and care for
people in spiritual emergence. Persons misdiagnosed may be caught in
treatment modalities which are inappropriate and even destructive to
their growth. Hospitalization for 'disease' is not appropriate and may
be devastating for a person in spiritual emergency.
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{From: "Helping People In Spiritual Emergency", by Emma Bragdon, Ph.D., p.10-16}
Spiritual Emergence
-------------------
"Spiritual emergence is a kind of birth pang in which
you yourself go through to a fuller life, a deeper
life, in which some areas of your life that were not
yet encompassed by this fullness of life are now
integrated or called to be integrated or challenged to
be integrated ...Breakthroughs are often very painful,
often acute and dramatic breakthroughs (happen) on all
levels: what we call material, spiritual, bodily-all
levels."
(Brother David Steindl-Rast, 1985)
...
Spiritual emergence processes are part of the passage of human
development into transpersonal realms. Ken Wilber explores these in his
theory of the spectrum of consciousness (1980), which illustrates the
movement from prepersonal to transpersonal consciousness throughout the
life cycle. His definition of transpersonal levels, drawn from ancient
eastern religious texts as well as more modern studies, gives us a
vocabulary to communicate about levels of consciousness found in
spiritual emergence.
Below is Wilber's diagram of the complete life cycle:
(improvised) Prepersonal - Pleroma
Bodyego
[Personal] - Early and middle ego/persona
- Late ego/persona
- Mature ego
- Centaur
Transpersonal - Subtle
- Causal
- Atman
Wilber's first level is the 'pleroma', where one perceives oneself as
indistinguishable from one's mother. From here, one moves through the
prepersonal levels to early, middle and late ego development. During
ego development, one realizes one's independence, perceives the world in
concrete terms, and becomes increasingly capable of ordering one's life
with self-discipline necessary for financial and social survival.
A still higher order of self-organization is the Centauric self. This
is the level of self-actualization, when one has successfully integrated
body and mind. After this level has been fully reached, it is possible
to actualize still higher levels of consciousness (the Subtle, Causal,
and Atman), realms which bring one into more direct and conscious
relationship to one's own life force.
Subtle Realm
------------
In the Low-Subtle realm one will have experiences such as seeing auras,
traveling out-of-body, and witness psi phenomena. To enter this plane
of consciousness, one has to "more-or-less master psychic phenomena, or
at least certain of them" (Wilber, 1980, p.67). These psychic phenomena
include clairvoyance, clairsentience, the ability to manifest
psychokinetic phenomena, and the ability to heal through 'laying on of
hands' or the like.
On entering the subtle realm, one experiences "high religious intuition
and literal inspiration...symbolic visions...audible illuminations and
brightness upon brightness; it is the realm of higher presences, guides,
angelic beings..." (ibid, p.68). Gopi Krishna, who experienced this
realm as a result of his meditation practice, described it in the
following manner:
"Suddenly, with the roar like that of a waterfall,
I felt a stream of liquid light entering my brain
through the spinal cord...The illumination grew
brighter and brighter, the roaring louder. I
experienced a rocking sensation and then felt myself
slipping out of my body, entirely enveloped in a halo
of light. It is impossible to describe the
experience accurately. I felt the point of
consciousness that was myself growing wider,
surrounded by waves of light. It grew wider and
wider, spreading outward while the body, normally
the immediate object of its perception, appeared
to have receded into the distance until I became
entirely unconscious of it. I was now all
consciousness, without any outline, without any
idea of corporeal appendage, without any feeling
or sensation coming from the senses, immersed in a
sea of light simutaneously conscious and aware of
every point, spread out, as it were, in all
directions without any barrier or material
obstruction. I was no longer myself, or to be
more accurate, no longer as I knew myself to be,
a small point of awareness confined in a body, but
instead was a vast circle of consciousness in
which the body was but a point, bathed in light
and in a state of exaltation and happiness
impossible to describe.
(Gopi Krishna, 1971, p.12-13 - "Kundalini")
Causal Realm
In the Low-Causal realm one's identification condenses and dissolves
into God and becomes God (Wilber, 1980, p.71). In the High-Causal
realm, consciousness expands still further to include the knowing of
"formlessness," the "ecstasy of the void" (ibid, p.73). Following is an
example of Causal realm experience:
"Soul and mind instantly lost their physical
bondage...In my intense awareness I knew that
never before had I been fully alive. My sense of
identity was no longer narrowly confined to a
body...People on distant streets seemed to be
moving gently over my own remote periphery...An
oceanic joy broke upon the endless calm shores of
my soul."
(Yogananda, 1969, p.149-150)
People who have integrated experiences of the Causal real into their
lives often become spiritual teachers. In their presence one feels the
deep wisdom they have attained and the loving compassion which they
freely give to all.
"There is no more of the alternation of pain and
pleasure, only a constant and pervasive joy...(He)/She)
reflects an inner discipline and an inner peace - through
a relaxed body and harmonious coordination, and through
patience, confidence, clear thinking, and an
unselfish attention to the needs of others.
(Rama et al., 1976, p.205-206)
Atman
-----
The final state of Atman, or the Ultimate Unity, is defined thus:
"This is not itself a state apart from other
states; it is not an altered state; it is not a
special state - it is rather the suchness of all
states...this is the radically perfect integration
of all prior levels - gross, subtle and causal,
which now of themselves continue to arise moment
to moment in an iridescent play of mutual
interpenetration... Consciousness henceforth
operates, not on the world, but only as the entire
World Process, integrating and interpenetrating
all levels, realms, and planes, high or low,
sacred or profane.
(Wilber, 1980, p.74)
This is a rare state of consciousness. No one, as yet, had devised a
way to measure how many people have achieved it. Yet, however
extraordinary it is, it has been described in the literature of ancient
world religions as well as in modern anthologies (Vaughan and Walsh,
1980; White, 1984).
Proof of Subtle and Causal experience is characterized by an
"appreciation of the wholistic, unitive, integrated nature of the
universe and one's unity with it." (Vaughan and Walsh, 1980, p.47). The
people who have experienced this greater reality and integrated it into
their lives "are more likely to be better educated, more economically
successful, less racist, and substantially higher on scores of
psychological well-being." (Allison, 1967; Greeley, 1975; Hood, 1974,
1976; Thomas and Cooper, 1977).
More substantiation of the positive effect of spiritual emergence on
people cones from the world if Ring (1980, 1984) who notes that the
experience of physically dying for a brief time serves as a catalyst for
rapid spiritual growth. After a near-death experience (NDE), people manifest
a particular change in their world view:
"After NDEs, individuals tend to show greater
appreciation for life and more concern and love
for their fellow humans while their interest in
personal status and material possessions wanes.
Most NDErs also state that they live afterward
with a heightened sense of spiritual purpose.
Following an NDE, people generally exhibit;
1. A tendency to characterize oneself as spiritual
rather than religious per se.
2. A feeling of being inwardly close to God.
3. A de-emphasis of the formal aspects of
religious life and worship.
4. A conviction that there is life after death,
regardless of religious belief.
5. An openness to the doctrine of reincarnation
(and a general sympathy toward Eastern religions).
6. A belief in the essential underlying unity of
all religions.
7. A desire for universal religion embracing all
humanity.
(Ring, 1984, p.142-146)
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