How End Times Can Be Seen as Beginning Times: Science As Myth, Part Six — Emanationism and the Cyclical Nature of Time and Change

Further Implications of the New Paradigm: On Yugas and the Shift, Emanationism, Panentheism, and Child “Development” as Spiritual Devolution

Emanationism and the Cyclical Nature of Time and Change

Emanationism is another important non-Western perspective that comes out of the new consciousness research, the new physics, and quantum theory. Like the Lamarckian view of evolution and the subjectivity-as-primary postulate of Reality, it, also, is ridiculed and pooh-poohed by the many self-ordained “rational” men of science. But like the others, it, too, is given new credibility and life through some of those same “inconvenient” findings of science which overturn common-sense materialism and neo-Darwinism.

Emanationism is a view of our changes over time that suggests that we devolve from an original pure state to increasingly diffracted, diffused, and more impure states of being. It asserts that, rather than evolving to higher forms, we descend from a highest form to lower and lower forms as we get farther from an original source. On Emanationism, Wikipedia says,

Emanationism is an idea in the cosmology or cosmogony of certain religious or philosophical systems. Emanation, from the Latin emanare meaning “to flow from” or “to pour forth or out of”, is the mode by which all things are derived from the First Reality, or Principle. All things are derived from the first reality or perfect God by steps of degradation to lesser degrees of the first reality or God, and at every step the emanating beings are less pure, less perfect, less divine. Emanationism is a transcendent principle from which everything is derived, and is opposed to both Creationism (wherein the universe is created by a sentient God who is separate from creation) and materialism (which posits no underlying subjective and/or ontological nature behind phenomena being immanent).

The importance of such a distinction in the views of the nature and direction of Reality might not be obvious. But it is supremely relevant to just about everything we think of as advance or development: In spirituality or spiritual growth, it determines whether or not one can pile up spiritual “accomplishments,” ladder-style, step-by-step and analogous to the way one acquires credits toward a scholastic degree, or whether one needs to let go and stop trying to control one’s development and instead place the source of one’s plan for eternity outside of the ego. It has much to say about the so-called “advances” of civilization and points to an idea that these accomplishments take a much higher toll than they provide benefits; the net result being that we continually retreat, not advance, with technological and cultural elaboration.

It has something to say about our development in life and whether we lose more than we gain as we get older, alongside the measure of perhaps the most important things of life. It might say something to a physicist pondering the Big Bang and its aftermath as well about where one might look for the more optimal state of the Universe — something we approach, an Omega Point, or something we left behind, an Origin or Source. For the traditional Western view in each case sees all growth and development as linear; whereas the Emanationist view in each case sees Reality more like the ways indigenous folks and our progenitors saw it: Reality as a cycle, with times of decline followed eventually, and fortuitously, by eternal returns to states of renewed vitality.

If this sounds strange, keep in mind that this is the central idea in the concepts of being “born again,” of rebirthing, and of renewal of any sort that is sought in any endeavor, spiritual/psychological or secular. Keep in mind that Emanationism is in line with right-brain or “organic” thinking, which sees progress as growing outward in all directions at the same time from a Source which is also then the End Point.

Fall and Return to Grace

Whereas a traditional view of progress has it being linear and in line with left brain thinking which posits everything in cause and effect relation from a dim, unforeseeable beginning to an incomprehensible Omega Point at the opposite end of Infinity … which is a mathematical impossibility, by the way, so even it, though linear, is not logical.

So while such an idea as Emanationism might sound strange these days … thus reinforcing my argument for the overweening success of the theory of evolution … yet it was one that was common among ancient philosophers. It was and is a common “primitive” — a better word is primal — depiction of the way things work. It is a cornerstone of ancient Gnostic teachings. A good deal of ancient Greek philosophy is presented this way — for example, the writings or Plotinus and Proclus. It is the perception of Hindu cosmology, even up to this day, with the belief in a system of yugas or ages — each one being a decline from the previous one. Strangest of all, it appears in a physical form (almost as if it had to come out somewhere, even if only “reflected”) in the theory of cosmic origins put forth by the scientific community called the “big bang” theory. People this very day have this conception in mind in thinking there might be some renewal on the horizon at the end of the Mayan calendar or coinciding with some other celestial or macrocosmic shift.

However, generally speaking, in this philosophical conception, the Universe is seen as “running down” over time — that is, in a spiritual or moral sense, not a physical one like the scientists’ refracted formulation. Consequently, the current age, which we think of as the height of evolution is, in Hindu cosmology, the Kali yuga, the lowest level of decline, of degenerate morals, habit, and custom that is possible before the starting up of the cycle all over again from the “top” … which, keep in mind, is also the beginning or “bottom.”

Karl Christian Friedrich Krause and Panentheism

And this viewpoint is expressed magnificently as recently as the early nineteenth century by philosopher Karl Christian Friedrich Krause with such import and power that it led to an entire movement outside of Krause’s Germany in the country of Spain during the mid-nineteenth century and after his death.

Of Krause, Encyclopedia Brittanica reports,

Karl Christian Friedrich Krause, (born May 6, 1781, Eisenberg, Rhenish Palatinate [Germany]—died Sept. 27, 1832, Munich, Bavaria), German philosopher who attracted a considerable following, especially in Spain, where his disciples, known as krausistas, greatly influenced the direction of Spanish education in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Krause’s system of philosophy, which he called “panentheism” (essentially an attempt to reconcile pantheism and theism), asserts that God is an essence that contains the entire universe within itself but is not exhausted by it. He put particular emphasis on the development of the individual as an integral part of the life of the whole.

Among his major works are Entwurf des Systems der Philosophie (1804; “Sketch of the System of Philosophy”), Vorlesungen über das System der Philosophie (1828; “Lectures on the System of Philosophy”), and Vorlesungen über die Grundwahrheiten der Wissenschaft (1829; “Lectures on the Fundamentals of Knowledge”).

Ostracizing Emanationism In Our Intellectually “Open” Society

Yet this viewpoint is decried and suppressed these days. Sure of our beliefs in evolution which, conveniently enough, puts us at the top of the ladder of creation, we relegate the idea of Emanationism and the philosophy of Krause, for example, to the trash heap of history. The Encyclopedia of Philosophy has this to say about Emanationism as regards its contrast with the theory of evolution: “In modern times, evolutionism has obliterated the emanationist philosophy” (Merlan, 1966, p. 473).

Pinnacle of Evolution?

And sure enough, in my computer search of the seven million titles in the entire University of California library system I found not one title at all related to the topic of Emanationism. Similarly, of the forty-six titles listed on Krause, only two were in English and both of those were concerned, not at all with Krause’s philosophy, but rather with his other major interest — his political views on world peace, and the other title an analysis of the sociological movement that followed from his ideas in Spain. Therefore there wasn’t one title in English on this philosophy, this viewpoint!

We may congratulate ourselves on having an open intellectual society, a freedom of expression and viewpoint. However, inquiry like the one above forces us to acknowledge the existence of certain forces in our world — be they psychological, political, economic, sociological, or all of these — that severely circumscribe the range of ideas available for consideration by our supposedly “open” minds in this supposedly “open” society.

But I do not wish to make the case for Emanationism just yet. That will be the task of the book which follows this one, Falls from Grace. In it I present exactly that proposition: that in the process of coming into the world, in an individual’s life, the individual’s consciousness proceeds from a state of high awareness and spiritual expansion to lower and more constricted levels of such awareness.

Fallen and We Can’t Get Up

This would be ontogenetic emanationism or what I refer to as devolution. In the work previous to this one, The Great Reveal, I lay out the manner of this emanationism as it has occurred for our species. This phylogenetic or cultural emanationism or devolution is the idea that in the process of eons of time we have existed on Earth our species has gone from a state of grand awareness and spiritual fullness to increasingly lesser states of such.

Crown of Creation?

Further New-Paradigm Implications: Child “Development” as Spiritual Devolution

Whatever the weight of the assault I am making on the scientific bias, it must at least be acknowledged concerning scientific theories that theoretical positions that ignore the very foundations upon which they are based — that is, the subjectivity of the observer — are going to be the weaker for that.

Yet, acknowledging even that, one could argue that there is no clear idea of how to go about applying these new perspectives. How could they be used? How could they be relevant? What implications might they have?

It is in answer to these questions that I have offered the analysis in the work following this. In Falls from Grace, I detail how these new-paradigm perspectives, specifically emanationism, can be used in the understanding of child “development” and personal growth or spirituality. I propose just such an emanationist or devolutional model — one that is rooted in Wilber’s (1977) “spectrum of consciousness” theory.

Fallen from Grace … Returning to Grace

It is more than just speculative, however, for it is based also on the findings of the new-paradigm experiential psychotherapies — that is, the ones that place primacy upon experience over concept, “territory” over “map,” and percept over object.

The implications of this approach, I show, are for no less than the validity of the current direction of child-caring, the effectiveness of mainstream psychiatric approaches, and the direction of psychological and spiritual growth. It is my belief that such implications are far from irrelevant or unimportant.

Emanationist Devolution

Endpoint of Emanationist Devolution … Endpoint of Falls from Grace

Return to Grace … Return to Source

The Transpersonal Perspective Explained

But first, in this work Experience Is Divinity, I wish to provide a more comprehensive philosophical viewpoint that arises from the modern consciousness research. In the Transpersonal Perspective, I will lay out what I believe can be known about Reality. For it is the basis upon which any true knowledge can exist.

Continue with The Consciousness of Stones: Transpersonal Perspective, Part One — Affirming Idealism, Debunking Materialism, and Rationalism as Egoistic Self-Abuse

Return to Science Has Demonstrated That Psychological, Subjective Changes Affect the Rest of Reality: Everything We Think and Do Affects All of Consciousness

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Science as Myth Footnote

1. Experiments testing the theory of morphogenetic fields have been reported in a number of places, including New Sense Bulletin, Noetic Sciences Bulletin, and of course Sheldrake’s own works and presentations.

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Science As Myth References

Jones, Roger S. (1982). Physics as Metaphor. Minneapolis, MN: The University of Minnesota.

Lawlor, Robert. (1991). Voices of the First Day: Awakening in the Aboriginal Dreamtime. Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions International.

Merlan, Philip. (1967). Emanationism. In Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 473-474.

New Sense Bulletin. (1991). Contest-winning studies support Sheldrake theory. New Sense Bulletin, 17(1) [October 1991], 8.

Institute for Noetic Sciences. (1991). Noetic Sciences Bulletin.

Sheldrake, Rupert. (1981). A New Science of Life: The Hypothesis of Formative Causation. Los Angeles: J.P. Tarcher.

Sheldrake, Rupert. (1991). The Rebirth of Nature: The Greening of Science and God. New York: Bantam.

Sheldrake, Rupert. (1991). Is nature alive? Human Potential, 16-21, 33-39.

Sheldrake, Rupert. (1995). Nature as alive: Morphic resonance and collective memory. Primal Renaissance: The Journal of Primal Psychology, 1(1), 65-78.

Wilber, Ken. (1980). The Atman Project. Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House.

Wilber, Ken. (1981). Up from Eden. New York: Anchor Books.

Wilber, Ken. (1982). The pre/trans fallacy. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 22(2), 5-43.

Wilber, Ken. (1983). A Sociable God. Boulder, CO: Shambhala Publishing.

Continue with The Consciousness of Stones: Transpersonal Perspective, Part One — Affirming Idealism, Debunking Materialism, and Rationalism as Egoistic Self-Abuse

Return to Science Has Demonstrated That Psychological, Subjective Changes Affect the Rest of Reality: Everything We Think and Do Affects All of Consciousness

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“Don’t Despair. There Are Others Doing It With You, and We’re Here, Too”: Ritual As Shadow Experience, Part Eight — Always Are We Helping You

Sins of the Father and Cosmic Encouragement: What Real and Unritualized Spiritual Experience Looks Like — “But Always Are We Here Helping.”

I wish now to provide another example of real, unritualized spiritual experience … this time from my own life. What these experiences—that of my wife and myself—have in common are these things: (1) they were spontaneous occurrences … in no way planned, anticipated, or orchestrated by self or other; (2) they were growthful … they led to greater awareness, positive change, and in my case I can say for certainty, life transformation; (3) they came about in ways that had a supernatural quality about them, that is, transcending what is thought to be laws of nature or physics, and (4) they were experienced as a gift … a “blessing” — that is, the recipients did not feel they earned or deserved them.
So, the first quality of these experiences corresponds to my referring to them as unritualized; the next three, together, to why I put them in the category of spiritual.

Keeping those characteristics in mind, let us look at what I experienced one night in 1980, which I would remember ever afterward as perhaps the most unusual experience of my life but certainly the most transformative. It is not that I was not already looking in the direction this experience opened to me; it is not that I did not already have the beliefs or values it embodied; it is not that I was completely unaware of the kinds of things about us and our history that it clarified. No, I was fully prepared to receive what I got; spiritual experiences don’t make you something other than what you are … they facilitate you in becoming more of what you are already. So it is that I was confirmed in a path, I was given a profound direction for a lifetime, I was given … shown actually … knowledge about our history and our situation that was beyond anything anyone could know through normal channels of scholarship and research. And I was given reassurance and a promise of support and assistance in my life’s path.

So you might say it was more like an initiation. But unlike normal societal initiations that indoctrinate one into the roles of society and culture, this one initiated me on a singular spiritual path. So it is more like what a Native American might get on a vision quest. The other thing that comes to mind is the word confirmation. Brought up Catholic I once received a sacrament of confirmation. It involved a ritual that I can barely remember anything about. One becomes “confirmed” in the faith. Well this experience was not ritualized yet it definitely confirmed me on a path and with a set of beliefs and way of thinking about things that has stayed with me throughout the thirty-two years since it happened. Also, it is something I can remember in detail, as though it happened days ago … quite unlike the ritual “confirmation” I received at the age of … it was such a nonevent I can’t even remember my age at the time … about 13 or 14.

So let me share my story of my spontaneous, unritualized spiritual experience. First I wish to give you its context. 

A Cosmic Slap on the Back

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 — happy, fulfilled, fearless, and doing what I was meant to do in life — that I could see lying there in potential and that I could only sometimes be. 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 cannot 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 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 focusing 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.

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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.

Don’t Despair, There Are Others Doing It With You, and We’re Here, Too

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.”

Sins of The Father

Now, having conveyed what I wrote the morning after the experience, I wish to add that 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 — thirty-two of them in fact. It is a message that has rung true and helped me through other difficult spaces. Indeed, 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.”

Continue with Vision Quests, UFO Abductions, Brainwashings, and Boot Camps: Ritual As Shadow, Part Nine — Initiation, Authentic and Inauthentic

Return to “You Shall Know the Truth and the Truth Shall Make You Free” … What Real and Unritualized Spiritual Experience Looks Like

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A Cosmic Slap: I Was Told “Once There Lived “Noble” Beings” and Now Is the Time for a Regeneration of Peoples to Regain What We Lost.

Sure It’s Hard! But Always Are We Here Helping You,” Part Two: A Cosmic Slap. We Were Once Noble Humans and Now Is Time for Our Regeneration, They Said

Summary of “Sure It’s Hard But Always Are We Here Helping You”: This details the spiritual experience I had in 1980 which set me on this path to help the planet and the planetmates. I was shown by certain entities the path of our devolution as a species, thousands of years ago, and was told that we need to turn this around immediately. I was told that there were many others at work right now doing the same thing, so I need never despair, at the immensity of the task. Most importantly, I was told that we are receiving help… always…in our efforts. I was led to believe that these higher powers, of which we are yet to know, are fully engaged in our endeavor on this planet and assisting us at every turn.

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 on the Back

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 focusing 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…. [For the full text of the journal entry see Footnote 1]

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Don’t Despair, There Are Others Doing It With You, and We’re Here, Too

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.”

Continue with The Sins of the Fathers: I have This Sense of Brother/ Sisterhood — That We Are Engaged in an Immense Undertaking … Necessary for the Survival of This Planet.

Return to For Earth’s Sake, Get Real Already: “Sure It’s Hard! But Always Are We Here Helping You,” Part One

Footnote

1. Journal Entry Complete. Just as it was written over thirty years ago. For those interested in hearing the entire 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 focusing 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.

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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.“

Continue with The Sins of the Fathers: I have This Sense of Brother/ Sisterhood — That We Are Engaged in an Immense Undertaking … Necessary for the Survival of This Planet.

Return to For Earth’s Sake, Get Real Already: “Sure It’s Hard! But Always Are We Here Helping You,” Part One

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For Earth’s Sake, Get Real Already: “Sure It’s Hard! But Always Are We Here Helping You,” Part One

“Sure It’s Hard! But Always Are We Here Helping You,” Part One: The Spiritual Quest, For Earth’s Sake!

Summary of “Sure It’s Hard But Always Are We Here Helping You”: This details the spiritual experience I had in 1980 which set me on this path to help the planet and the planetmates. I was shown by certain entities the path of our devolution as a species, thousands of years ago, and was told that we need to turn this around immediately. I was told that there were many others at work right now doing the same thing, so I need never despair, at the immensity of the task. Most importantly, I was told that we are receiving help… always…in our efforts. I was led to believe that these higher powers, of which we are yet to know, are fully engaged in our endeavor on this planet and assisting us at every turn.

The Spiritual Quest, For Earth’s Sake!

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.

We Must Do What Has Never Been Done Before.

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.

But Many of Us ARE Now Working to Get Beyond “Eye for an Eye” Thinking.

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 Task Is Immense for Our Point of Departure Is a Psychotic Culture.

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.

“To Think That It Is Easy Is Probably To Be an Impostor.”

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.

Continue with A Cosmic Slap: I Was Told “Once There Lived “Noble” Beings” and Now Is the Time for a Regeneration of Peoples to Regain What We Lost.

Return to Wounded Healers, Heroes, and the Group Mind: The Universe Bears Up and Rewards with Renewed Life Those who Voluntarily Sacrifice Themselves for All

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