The MetaCrisis and Personal Transformation (2): Psychosis, Meta-Psychosis, and Reality-Limitation
What is Reality? How do we know? And what does any of that have to do with the metacrisis?
5-minute Video Introduction:
Introduction
Last time [i], I wrote about the metacrisis [ii], and the radical idea that its deepest cause might lie outside of time. Or at the ‘edge’ of time. Either of these ideas might sound ‘woo’ at best – and insane, at worst. But how are we to judge what’s sane and insane?! What’s real and unreal?
In this article, I’ll address these questions from the viewpoint of ‘psychosis’, which is conventionally taken to mean ‘disconnection from reality’ [iii]. Then the question of what is-and-isn’t psychosis, is roughly the same as what is-and-isn’t real,
I’m no advocate of authority on these matters. Or any matters. (Not that I’m an authority on whether we should listen to authorities …) But I do tend to agree with Jiddhu Krishnamurti [iv], concerning judgements of health, including psychological and mental health:
Is society healthy, that an individual should return to it? Has not society itself helped to make the individual unhealthy? Of course, the unhealthy must be made healthy, that goes without saying; but why should the individual adjust himself to an unhealthy society? If he is healthy, he will not be a part of it. Without first questioning the health of society, what is the good of helping misfits to conform to society?
I also like what Aldous Huxley had to say on the same topic [v]:
The real hopeless victims of mental illness are to be found among those who appear to be most normal. Many of them are normal because they are so well adjusted to our mode of existence, because their human voice has been silenced so early in their lives that they do not even struggle or suffer or develop symptoms as the neurotic does. They are normal, not in what may be called the absolute sense of the word; they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society. Their perfect adjustment to that abnormal society is a measure of their mental sickness. These millions of abnormally normal people, living without fuss in a society to which, if they were fully human beings, they ought not to be adjusted.
But in this article, I want to go beyond these kinds of generic statements. I want to be clear on how consensual society is ‘unhealthy’, or ‘profoundly abnormal’. I want to be clear on that in relation to the metacrisis [ii]. And in a way that can help us create effective metacrisis-responses. As I pointed out last time, while society may indeed have ‘helped the individual to become unhealthy’, that’s usually framed from an ‘in-time’ viewpoint. According to the hypothesis explored in this series, in-time metacrisis-modes are simply channels or vehicles for a deeper, out-of-time, cause. (A viewpoint to which Krishnamurti would likely have been very sympathetic [vi]!)
Figure 1. Psychosis, Meta-Psychosis, and Reality-Limitation. This article discusses four different experiences/interpretations of a putative real-Reality. This Figure discusses three of them; for the fourth (Four-Factor Deep-Reality, or ‘4F-DR’), see Figures 4 to 6. (1) ‘Psychosis’ is the psychiatric term for deep loss-of-contact with ‘reality’. (2) Nevertheless, psychiatry’s ‘reality’ is itself a form of ‘Meta-Psychosis’, or loss-of-contact with real-Reality. Typical, consensual, reality-interpretation takes ‘me’ to be a speck-of-consciousness peering out from behind-the-eyes, into a world of inherently-separate bodies-and-objects (tables, chairs, trees, planets etc.). However, real-Reality is radically non-separate. (3) Nevertheless, authentically non-separate experience-and-action isn’t necessarily indicative of full contact with, or expression of, real-Reality; non-separation by itself is necessary but not sufficient for total-Reality connection! For example, Figs. 3 and 4 contrast two different conceptions of non-separate Reality; they take the deepest layer to be different – respectively, the One-Being, and a Ground-of-Being beyond the One (but not separate from It). Because Reality is in fact based on a Ground-beyond-the-One, typical One-Being non-dual spiritualities (e.g. Advaita, Buddhism) are really forms of Reality-Limitation. Nevertheless, they are vital components of an inter-connected metacrisis-response ecosystem.
1. Psychosis: Empathy and Gift
Of course, there’s a real psychiatric condition of psychosis. But this is not the same as the Krishnamurti/Huxley pointer to the abnormal state of the typical psyche (an abnormality that occurs relative to what I call ‘real-Reality’). I’ll use the term meta-psychosis for this ‘typical abnormality’, in part because of the relationship between collective metapsychosis, and the unfolding metacrisis.
How are we to distinguish between psychiatric-psychosis and typical-metapsychosis? It’s not as simple as saying ‘the psychotic reports a reality that’s not the same as you and I live in’. To start with: do you and I live in a shared reality?! There are at least three states – psychosis, meta-psychosis, and real-Reality. So even if you and I aren’t in psychosis (a big ‘if’!), you could be in real-Reality while I’m in meta-psychosis! In that case, there’s not a ‘you and I’ benchmark for evaluating the occurrence of psychosis in a third party.
This is a huge topic. I can’t hope to do it justice in this short article. And I don’t intend to: this is series is about the metacrisis, not psychiatry and mental health. Setting that focus, I can say that the metacrisis originates in an edge-of-time departure from real-Reality [vii]. And then psychiatric-psychosis and conventional metapsychosis are ‘just’ two different flavors of that departure.
Now, it’s both true and important that those two flavors call for distinct modes of loving, compassionate response. For example, some aspects of some psychiatric-psychoses can sometimes be usefully managed using psychotropic medication. In some cases, medication is required, to heal and leave behind the psychotic category (of both the psychiatric and meta kinds [viii]), and head towards the stable sanity of real-Reality.
If psychiatric-psychosis and metapsychosis call for different responses, then it’s important to know which is which. Sadly, conventional mainstream psychotherapy and psychiatry are tragically unequipped to make this distinction! One repressed voice on this point is the controversial British psychiatrist R.D. Laing. For example, Laing suggested that schizophrenics offer a gift to society, which we might understand only in the distant future. (Much later, a minority view in psychiatry came to recognize that certain kinds of spiritual awakening might be misdiagnosed as schizophrenia [ix].) Another salient and striking view comes from the integration of psychotherapy with non-dual psychospirituality. (Notably, in the pioneering work of Richard Harvey [x].)
My favorite example, though, is the case of ‘hysteria’. Hysteria-as-a-psychiatric-diagnosis left the DSM in 1980. And before that, it was classified as a neurosis, rather than a psychosis. Still, it’s a great case-study of the psychiatric-psychosis/meta-psychosis edge. There are dangers in deep Reality that conventional understandings deny. (For example, by asserting the alleged ‘certain truth’ of very-shallow modern scientific worldviews [xi].) It’s completely rational to ‘freak out’ about the insanity of superficial modernity! This isn’t psychiatric psychosis. On the other hand, not every hysteria is supra-rational [xii]. Some do call for psychiatric response.
Freak-outs that call our attention to collective irrational-superficiality of modernity are gifts [xiii]. Freak-outs that draw our attention to an individual’s greater-than-average locus-of-attention in the really-unReal, are calls for empathy. How can we tell which-is-which? Who can tell? Perhaps, people who’ve had at least passing-contact with the really-Real?! And how do we, collectively, know who these people are …?
Figure 2. Wholeness/Fragmentation in Everyday and Scientific Reality-Interpretations. Left Panel: Upper black-rectangle – we usually interpret images-in-experience (such as the brown chairs and tables) as disjoint ‘things’. These ‘things’ are usually taken to be fundamentally-disjoint from ‘inner-thinking’, and the alleged-‘thinker’. (Red lines symbolically depict alleged-separation.) Nevertheless, modern science would suggest these are all part of a unified experiencing, produced in part by brain-activity. (Green ‘WaE’ double-headed arrows symbolize actually wholeness-as-experience.) ‘Things’ themselves lie in typically-unseen dimensions of Reality (line-drawings of brain, table, and chairs, lower-half of left- and right-panels). Right Panel: Say we recognize the experiencings E1 and E2 of two brains as non-separate wholes. Then we still have to ask if E1 and E2 themselves are disjoint or connected. What about the brains involved in generating experience, and the table and chairs represented in experience? Are these ‘things’ all fundamentally distinct from each other? And what’s the matter-object (brain, table, chair) relationship with experience? (Red double-headed arrows symbolize potential disconnection between E1/E2, between experiences-and-brains, and between ‘things’.)
2. Metapsychosis: Collective Belief in the unReal
One way to move towards the really-Real is to identify, and then set aside, the unReal.
One basic step in one version of that movement is to examine the consensual interpretation of audiovisual experience. And then challenge it! (Figure 2.)
Briefly (Fig. 2, left-panel), we typically construe the visual experience of a tree, a chair, or another human body, as definitively establishing the existence of something ‘separate from me’. And what is that ‘me’? For example, it’s the alleged-originator of a stream-of-inner/private-thinking. On closer examination (and sometimes after the deconstruction of a lot of psychoemotional material!), we may see that arising thoughts, arising audiovisual experience (trees, chairs, bodies), and arising sensations are not really separate. My experience is actually an undivided whole [xiv].
This is an extraordinary realization! But it’s only a step out of the unReal. (Out of the unreality that ‘my experience is fundamentally divided and separated’.) Because, for example, a next step might be to explore the apparent division between my whole-experience, and (my presumption of?) your whole-experience. (Fig. 2, right-panel). Beyond that is the question of the relationship between whole-experiences of Reality, and Reality itself. Then, there are various conceptions of alleged-and-typically-unseen Reality …
The right-panel of Fig. 2 leaves us with a picture where each person’s conscious experience is ‘whole unto itself’, in a way [xv]. But that ‘way’ leaves each of us – apparently! – profoundly separate from others, and from an underlying Reality. (If there even is such a thing!) This is more-or-less the message of postmodernism (if followed through fully). And it’s the breeding ground for the post-Truth nightmare of the 21st-century, thus far [xvi].
Next, we’ll look at a couple of major options for ‘filling in’ the missing Reality-piece in Fig. 2. In this article, I’m calling these alternatives ‘Reality-Limitation’ (section 3) and ‘Four-Factor Deep-Reality’ (section 4). Reality-Limitation is so-called because it gives a partial (but metacrisis-crucial!) connection with what I call ‘real-Reality’. Four-Factor Deep-Reality (or ‘4F-DR’) is a way of describing key structural components of that real-Reality.
It may seem like I’m about to fill in the post-Truth vacuum, by sketching the most comprehensive, detailed, view of ‘what’s really going on’. (Section 4 as a bigger, better, version of section 3.) And then argue for a mono-response to the metacrisis based on winner-takes-all ‘intellectual victory’ of section 4’s 4F-DR. But blanket victory of comprehensive accuracy is in fact part of the metacrisis-problem: it can result it uplifting a single cognitive/intellectual entity at the cost of whole ecosystem. (In this metaphor, the ‘single entity’ is homo sapiens!)
In fact, my objective in this article is quite different. It’s precisely to establish a place for 4F-DR-based approaches, within an inter-connected, mutually-supportive, community of metacrisis-responses. Establishing an eco-place for ‘a thing’ minimally requires an explanation of what the thing is (differentiation), responding to well-intentioned critiques that would otherwise be fatal (viability) [xvii], and then showing that ‘the thing’ has at least the potential to be a helpful community-member (utility) [xviii].
In this light, the main point of sections 2, 3, and 4 isn’t to ‘prove that 4F-DR is “the best”’. It’s to explain its differentiated nature, in relation to meta-psychosis and reality-limitation, as alternative classes of reality narrative-and-experience. Section 5 aims at sketching out a key component of utility. (That section is titled ‘An Introduction to Metacrisis: How to Leave real-Reality’. It uses a 4F-DR model to explain causal steps in ‘leaving’ – in the sense of entering a Dream or Illusion of separation. This understanding is useful, if ‘leaving’ is strongly-related to the metacrisis [xix], and if causal-details help in the design and animation of effective metacrisis-response [xx].) Section 6, ‘The Case for Edge-of-Time Causality’, addresses some skeptical threads concerning the minimal viability of 4F-DR-invoking metacrisis-responses, and continues the utility conversation.
The title of this section is ‘Meta-Psychosis: Collective Belief in the unReal’. I’m going to proceed for the rest of this series as if we, the readers, agree that Fig.-2 views leaving out a deeper, non-separate Reality constitute belief in the unReal. Now, this may seem to be exactly the sort of intellectually-superior truth-claim that I just said I wasn’t going to engage in!
To clarify: the intended readership for this series is a group who are already open-to or invested-in the kinds of Reality-view sketched out in the next section. (Or people who’ve been driven to an edge, by Fig.-2-style living. And who are then open-to-being-open!) For these people, there isn’t any ‘argumentation’ involved in declaring ‘the unreality of meta-psychosis interpretations’.
On the other hand, the content of this series discusses interventions in a world immersed in meta-psychosis. And some of these interventions must be aimed at deconstructing and de-animating meta-psychosis, more-or-less directly. For example, by mounting cognitive/intellectual critiques of Fig-2.-style reality-accounts! (Crucially, these critiques won’t succeed via intellect alone. They must be complemented by compassionate psychoemotional engagement, skillful psychospiritual relating, and – perhaps the least-appreciated component! – experimental data. We’ll start to get into some of this, in subsequent articles.)
Figure 3. ‘One-Being Non-Separation’: Truer – But Still a ‘Reality Limitation’. Fig. 2 is at best agnostic about the relationship between matter chairs-and-tables, and experiences-of-them, in E1 and E2. This Figure depicts a reality-view in which matter-objects and the experiences-of-them by multiple observers are more-or-less co-located. More radically, ‘everything’ – tables, chairs, experiences-of-them, brains, thought-processes – all originate in a One-Being (large purple-star), that exists at every point of our experienced reality (smaller purple-stars, symbolically illustrating the pervasive existence of One-Being-ness). In an inverse view (inset), a formless One-Being is expressing Itself through tables, chairs, experiences-of-them, and thought-processes.
3. Real-Reality and Reality-Limitation: Varieties of Non-Separation
Ambitiously (and ultimately unsuccessfully!), Figure 3 tries to depict one way to fill-in the Reality/separation holes left by any Fig.-2-style metapsychosis. Fig. 3 is meant to stand for a huge class of non-dual spiritual approaches, including (but not limited to!) Hinduism’s Advaita Vedanta and non-dual traditions in Buddhism. (I’m not trying to assert that every spiritual/religious practice ‘should be’ non-dual. We are looking for a Reality-theory to help with designing metacrisis-responses. For the purposes of this adventure, my spirituality-selection criterion is therefore ‘those with embedded, large-and-deep-and-nuanced, Reality-theories’. Moreover, the idea that ‘we have to have a theory, or a map, to navigate’, is arguably one of the causal-drivers of the metacrisis. For example, it downplays the value of intuition, a move often associated with suppression of the feminine principle [xxi]. Still, there are contexts where it’s vital to have the largest, deepest, nuanced-est maps!)
For those who need it, here’s a very-brief experiential/imaginative exercise, to orient to what Fig.-3’s trying to encapsulate.
Look around you. Notice the visual-space ‘between things’. Imagine (or notice!) that every point in that space is twinkling. And imagine (or recognize) that the twinkle-Light comes from the compression into a point of Every-thing (you, me … chairs, tables, trees … this Universe, all Universes … black swans, pink unicorns … the capacity to Create yet-more, as-yet-inconceivable, things/experiences …). So, Every-thing is everywhere, externally.
Now close your eyes, and become aware of physical, emotional, energetic, and spiritual dimensions. (As deep as you can safely go.) Imagine (or notice!) that every point in all those spaces/dimensions is pulsing-with that same Everything-ness. So, Every-thing is everywhere, internally.
Next, see if you can tune into both internal and external Everything-nesses, simultaneously. (One first step is to focus on the body-surface as one common alleged-divider between inner and outer. Find everythingness on the surface, just inside it, and just outside.) This is then Everything-ness everywhere in a consequently-undivided ‘object’.
(That is, inner/outer ‘divisions’ come to be seen as just different ways in which Everything expresses. So, ‘underneath/behind/prior’, there’s no- division. And this no-division occurs, typically at this point, to an ‘I’-‘subject’, witnessing a ‘Reality’-‘object’.)
Finally – and typically the most-difficult move to grasp, without extensive preparation – feel into the ‘I’-subject. It either disappears as a separate-imagination, or fills too with Everything-ness. (Actually these two paths – disappearing and filling – are just two different experiences of the same underlying shift: the evaporation of a non-existent separated-ego-self.) All that then remains is undivided-Everything-ness, pervading alleged-inner/outer, alleged-subject/object … any alleged-division [xxii].
Of course, imagination isn’t the same as authentic experience – even if it’s transient. And temporary, willed-but-authentic experience of non-division (e.g. in meditation) isn’t the same as stable realization. (‘Awakening to the Truth of non-separation’. Or – a dangerous word! – ‘Enlightenment’.) And: various kinds of stable awakening aren’t just about ‘the experience of Reality’. They’re also – and meta-crisis crucially! – about the action of my Being in/on Reality … the quality of impact I have, and its consequences.
Before I go on to get even more deeply enmeshed in the complications of spiritual concepts, practices, and outcomes, I should clarify something: I don’t believe widespread spiritual Awakening is how humankind will successfully traverse current crises. On the other hand, one hypothesis I do hold is that widespread ‘openings of a specific inner-boundaries’ are likely a crucial factor. I don’t conceive of these boundaries as primarily lying in the inner mental/cognitive domain (although that is one vital realm-for-opening!). The easiest demonstration of what I mean by ‘inner-boundary opening’ is given by a mental/cognitive example, however.
Consider our current division of reality-theories into ‘scientific’ and ‘spiritual/religious’. There’s no problem with naming genuinely-distinct things. But even in currently-maximal integrations of scientific/spiritual outlooks, these two are separated by a rigid boundary [xxiii]. In the bulk of sophisticated modern Western intellectualism, arguably, science (or postmodernism) is taken to be adult, and spirituality (and more-strongly, traditional religion) to be juvenile [xxiv]. As in many domains, this upside-down human viewpoint is our current predicament!
To cut to the chase (finally!), one example of metacrisis-crucial ‘inner-boundary opening’ would be a genuine move beyond rigid-boundary science/spirituality divisions of various kinds, and into a discipline we could instead call ‘Reality Theory’. The point of this would not be to indoctrinate people into the most comprehensive-and-detailed view possible. Nor would it be an ‘anything goes’ free-for-all. From a metacrisis-viewpoint, it would be one conceptual/theoretical component of a truly diverse, truly conflict-free, response-ecosystem.
It should be clear that genuine openness to the possible-validity of Realities in which ‘Enlightenment is a thing’ is not the same thing as attaining-Enlightenment! (So boundary-opening and collective-Awakening are distinct objectives.) It may be much less clear that pasting an intellectual openness on top of emotional/energetic antipathy is not the same thing as ‘genuine openness’! And how inner-boundary opening can make an effective contribution to planetary crises may be completely unclear. It may seem like an esoteric focus, when we should be focusing on much more concrete interventions.
Briefly, I’ll give two responses to this valid concern,
First, even the very-preliminary boundary-opening example inherent in the Reality-Theory example leads directly to a ‘concrete’ proposal: it can be the foundational component of the education-system for the next great phase of civilization. (And in the interim, it can set the curriculum for a new kind of ‘planetary meta-leadership’, leading towards that next phase.)
Second, the Reality-Theory proposal can lead indirectly to increased Creativity in the design of other ‘concrete’ meta-crisis responses. (Because it introduces a structured fluidity in the mental/cognitive domain, notably unleashing Creativity that’s properly ‘spiritual’ relative to current science/spirituality divisions, while retaining direct connection to mathematical world-regularities that are currently confined within ‘science’.)
I’ll continue to develop and explain the nature and impact of inner-boundary openings as this series proceeds. Although, it will be far from our sole focus! Notably, Reality Theory itself challenges and investigates the alleged-split between inner-boundaries and outer-boundaries! One plausible line is that our present problems with planetary-boundaries (in the ‘outer’) are intimately-linked to rigid and inappropriate inner-boundaries, that we continue to animate in an unquestioning way.
Inner boundary-opening is extraordinary, novel, and challenging territory. For this article, I’ll pursue it in a relatively-defined way, by looking at one specific kind of boundary in Reality-Theory (as I currently construe it!), and what can happen to our portfolio of metacrisis-responses if we relax that boundary.
Figure 4. The Ground-of-Being and Four-Factor Deep-Reality (‘4F-DR’). Left Panel: One-Being Reality-theories usually take the One-Being to be ‘Every Thing’ (and ‘No-Particular-Thing’!). It’s tempting to reason that there can’t be anything ‘more’ than the One-Being, if it’s already ‘Everything’. But this reasoning is unreliable – it’s like saying the set of nouns (‘things’) accounts for all words, when in fact the verbs (‘doings’) are at least as important! Specifically, we can conceive of two instances of ‘everything’ – a self-creating everything, and a created everything. (Note that these two every-‘things’ are differentiated by verb-words – ‘creating’/’created’!) This differentiation then corresponds to an expansion of the foundations of reality, into a Ground-of-Being (‘self-creating everything’) causally-prior to the One Being (‘created everything’). Right Panel: ‘Four-Factor Deep-Reality’ (‘4F-DR’) is an expansion of the Ground/One view (left-panel). The two additional Factors are ‘Individuated Spirit’ (roughly corresponding to some conceptions of ‘soul’), and a less-familiar ‘ARC’ (‘Agency Restructuring Consciousness’). The ARC is a sort of insurance policy, becoming active when-and-if separation occurs (See the left-panel of Figure 6). Human-experience is typically outside 4F-DR at present (red rectangle), being centered on ego-process and matter (e.g. experiencing reality as shown in Fig. 2, left-panel).
4. The Four-Factor Deep-Reality Model (4F-DR)
One boundary of central concern in this series divides One-Being (non-separate) Reality-Theories, from Ground-of-Being approaches. As the caption to Figure 4 explains, One-Being approaches often assert, ‘There’s nothing beyond the One’. Sometimes this is justified by arguing, ‘What could there be, beyond (or in addition to) ‘Every-thing’?!”.
Again as explained in Fig.-4’s caption, that argument may be a bit over-simplistic. Certainly, we can at least conceive of ‘two instances of Everything-ness’, distinguished by their Creator-ship status. A Ground causally-prior to the One Creates Itself and the One; the Every-thing One is distinguishable from the Every-thing Ground precisely by the Latter’s Created-status.
(Of course, it’s equally conceivable that the One is Itself ‘Self Sourcing’, so there’s no need for anything ‘Beyond’. Or, that the One just ‘Is’. In fact, these are the kinds of claims made by section 3’s non-separate traditions, such as Advaita and varieties of Buddhism.)
All of which raises a couple of questions. First, what’s the metacrisis-utility of a Ground-of-Being narrative [xxv]? Second, if Ground-of-Being narratives are valid and/or useful: why aren’t they more prominent components of modern discourse? After all, varieties of Advaita, Buddhism and Taoism have established strong footholds, even in the West. And none of them (at least in popular forms) point to a Ground-Beyond-the-One.
The metacrisis-utility of Ground-based narratives hinges first on the utility of out-of-time causation. As I’ll explain in the next couple of sections (and the rest of this series!), a Ground-based exposition of out-of-time metacrisis causes leads to an array of novel, specific, ecosystem-connected initiatives.
The non-prominence of Ground-inclusive Reality-Theories brings us to the G-word–sized elephant-in-the-room. One abbreviation I sometimes use for the Ground-of-Being is ‘GoB’. Which is close to … ‘God’. Now, One-Being–type reality-narratives sometimes use that G-word. For them, it’s a synonym for the Self-Sourcing One. The historic traditions that have appealed to a Ground-of-Being as the Source of the One are religions … like Christianity.
To be clear: when I invoke a GoB-inclusive reality-narrative, I’m not appealing to a punitive, white-haired man-in-the-sky tradition. But the apparent similarity between GoB-theories and hell-fire religions is one huge reason why a real-GoB makes almost no appearance in modern metacrisis-response. (Or intellectual discourse, more generally.) Reasonably, many are averse both to the G-concept in many traditional religions, and to the many, major roles that punitive-God movements have played in history.
It is possible to establish GoB-based Reality-Theories that are as pure and Loving as One-Being-based traditions [xxvi]. (How we understand historic emergence and activity of hell-fire traditions is then a complex and fascinating question. This isn’t the place to go into it, though [xxvii]!)
Mistakenly seeing GoB-narratives as identical to aversive religious traditions is one component of an inner-boundary cognitive-rigidity. Letting go of that mistaken-identity, and entering into an truly open-minded exploration of GoB-theories, is one component of opening a crucial inner-boundary. (Other components in this instance relate to emotional and energetic resistance to GoB-narratives. I won’t be able to explore these in any detail, in this series, other than to point to their likely metacrisis-significance.)
So, let’s dive in with as open-minds as we can muster, into one explicit GoB-based approach. I call this ‘Four-Factor Deep-Reality’, or ‘4F-DR’. Any view that starts with the One, and proposes (or sees!) a Ground Beyond, is already a two-factor model. Some might protest that two-factor non-dual theories are self-contradictory! But I don’t see this. No non-duality suggests there’s only one aspect to Reality! (That would be to deny, for example, red and green. Two colors.) Non-duality means ‘no fundamental separation-or-division’.
In addition to the Ground and the One, 4F-DR proposes two further Reality-aspects.
I call one of these aspects ‘Individuated Spirit’, which is more-or-less synonymous with certain conceptions of ‘soul’. (I don’t use that word because of its controversy, and different usages in different contexts. Again, ‘Individuated Spirit’, or ‘IS’, is a non-separate Reality aspect: your IS is everywhere. As is mine. And It’s not separate anywhere from the also-everywhere Ground, and One!)
The other aspect is likely less-familiar than a soul-like construct. I call it ‘the ARC’, the Agency that Restructures Consciousness [xxviii]. It’s a sort of Living, Intelligent, insurance-policy, built into the Ground’s extension of Itself, through the One and the Individuations.
What does the ARC insure ‘against’? Precisely the kind of situation we find ourselves in now! It’s a remedy for an instance in which non-separate Consciousness finds itself lost in a Dream or Illusion of separation-and-fragmentation (Figure 5). According to 4F-DR, any kind of healing or Awakening that genuinely lifts us out of Illusion occurs in partnership with the ARC. It’s involved in every kind of grace, compassion, transformational empathy etc. (But It doesn’t need me to acknowledge It, for It to act fully. It takes its own Joy in every instance It’s invited. And that’s ‘reward’ enough. Not that the ARC thinks in reward-and-punishment terms: Its entire action, Its raison-d’etre, is to wipe out the whole ‘reward/punishment’ complex, and reveal something incomparably better, as the basis of movement-in-Life.)
Figure 5. Deep-and-Superficial Non-Separate Reality … And How to Leave It! Left Panel: Non-separate Reality consists of the Ground-of-Being extending Itself outwards, in a Cosmically-Creative Expansion, resulting in an Ocean of Non-Separate Universes. Here the green-text Ground/One/Individuations are ‘deep’, and the colored Ocean is ‘superficial’. Nevertheless, these are non-separate. And there’s no value-judgement on ‘deep’ vs ‘superficial’. Middle Panel: If an Individuated Spirit (‘Soul’!) insists on trying to ‘Be’ the Ground, it exiles itself from real-Reality. (Insisting on something that can’t be, must lead to a departure from Truth.) This leads to the birth of an entire Universe (red circle/rectangle), that experiences itself as separate from the larger Ocean. Right Panel: Identification-with-Separative-Ego-Process, and Matter (as we conceive of it), only exist in the Dream-of-Separation that results from (allegedly) leaving real-Reality. The ARC (Agency Restructuring Consciousness) becomes active in relation to these Dream-aspects, restoring them to Non-Separate Reality, as and when they are ready to be restored. Separate-superficiality, below the red-dashed line, does have differ in value from non-separate reality (deep and superficial): the former is ultimately worthless, the latter is ultimately the only thing worth having-and-being … It’s Every-thing, Eternally expanding!
5. An Introduction to Metacrisis: How to Leave Reality (and Return!)
Famously, the historical Buddha once advised that we shouldn’t ask where the arrows in our hearts came from – we should just focus on pulling them out. This is ‘solve the problem without understanding the cause’. Often, that’s not just a valid path, but the only sensible one. Consider the situation where your home is burning down, and you have a fire-hose in your hand!
Clearly though, a more-comprehensive inventory of response-methods complements ‘solve without understanding’ with ‘solve with – or from, or by actively employing – understanding’. The understanding (or hypothesis) I’m about to offer does in fact directly complement Buddha’s arrow-proclamation. It offers a causal analysis of the same problem. (Buddha was essentially examining how to respond to suffering). Clearly then, the picture I’m about to paint (Figure 5) can be used as the basis for an individual spiritual practice [xxix]. Again, though, I’m not suggesting that the metacrisis will be resolved via a widespread spiritual awakening, or even by a closer-to-planetary-scale adoption of mutually-coherent spiritual practices. Consequently, Figure 5 doesn’t occur here primarily as an artefact for awakening or practice. It’s here to help us understand the nature of our predicament, and the Reality it occurs within, in the biggest-picture way possible.
Given such an understanding, we can then reflect on the metacrisis, and design a wide variety of mutually-coherent interventions in many domains – scientific, spiritual, societal, … (Although as I’ve already suggested, one of those interventions will almost certainly be to soften the science/spirituality nomenclature and division, in the context of a successor ‘Reality Theory’.) Crucially, the kind of reflection engendered by 4F-DR, Fig.-5–style viewpoints includes deep self-reflection. It can evoke and hold questions like ‘what’s my deepest part in perpetuating the metacrisis?’ – as constructive ownership, not blaming. Or ‘who do we need to become now?’, in addition to the more-typical ‘what do we need to do now?’. (And in a 4F-DR setting, ‘who’-enquiries are quite unusual in their richness …)
All that said: let’s get to it! What’s Fig. 5 all about?
In the last section, I introduced the 4F-DR hypothesis about the foundations of Reality. In this section – and Fig. 5 – I use the 4F-DR model to explain how it’s possible to leave non-separate Reality (at least, in experience), to create a pseudo-reality (with pervasive separateness), and end up in meta-psychosis (with the possibility of further excursions, into psychiatric-psychosis).
First, the left-panel of Fig. 5 expands on Fig. 4’s Reality-picture, adding an Ocean of non-separate Universes. This importantly expands the typical human conception of total-Reality as more-or-less synonymous with our Universe. (Perhaps with addition of some One-Being or 4F-DR infrastructure! But definitely still focusing on a single-Universe total-Reality view.)
Next, Fig. 5’s middle-panel then shows how our Universe is exceptional – although not in a good way! It’s separated itself from the larger Ocean. (Notably, the ‘laws of physics’ we currently observe are extremely pathological, from the viewpoint of the Ocean.) The middle-panel also depicts the mechanics of separation. Both the One-Being and Individuations are Created entities. (I.e., not Self-Creating: only the Ground has that property.) This is just a fact of Deep Nature. Then, if and when one or more Individuations try to give themselves the Self-Creating property, they contradict the Deep Natural Order. Insisting strongly enough on contradiction, these Individuations then Create a contradictory experience for Themselves. The fundamental contradiction to non-separate Deep Reality is separation. So insisting on trying to be Self-Creating leads to living-in-separation. (Nothing can be separate. If individuations actually separated from the Ground, they would cease to exist. So when I say things like ‘live in separation’, I really mean ‘living at or near the maximal experience-of-separation consistent with continuing-to-exist’!)
The right-panel of Fig. 5 shows our typical experience, below the red-dashed line. We’re identified with separative-ego selves, and take matter-energy/spacetime to be the ultimate fabric of reality. Going on in this way would prolong separation, suffering, and metacrisis. (In principle, literally ad infinitum, because separation originates in the Cosmically-Creative Ground/One/ IS-layer.) It’s here that the ARC becomes active, when invited to by Dreamers-of-Separation. Its action is to assist in disinvestment from the attempt to be Self-Created, and to undo the tremendous (literally Universe-scale!) emotional/energetic consequences of that attempt.
Ultimately, our Universe can and will be restored to Its proper place in the non-separate Ocean. (When all Beings in the Universe are no longer animating the Self-Creation attempt.) This isn’t just hope. It’s Destiny. But we have to realize Destiny, by inviting and working with the ARC. (Although that can happen in an infinite number of ways, most of which don’t call for any explicit knowledge of the ARC, 4F-DR, Fig.-5 … Or anything I’m writing about here!)
Figure 6. Why We Don’t Typically/Currently ‘See’ Non-Separation and the Ground. The present series of articles investigates the role of a 4F-DR out-of-time causality (Fig. 5, central panel) in the metacrisis. These kinds of causal hypotheses can seem to be ungrounded, childish, or even insane. (I.e., psychotic!) If they are true – why can’t we ‘see’ them? Figs. 2 to 4 (reproduced in the central column of this Figure) build up to a 4F-DR reality view, starting from everyday interpretations of conscious experience and material reality. At each stage, people can experience ‘non-seeing’ (red ‘X’) of the interpretations shown in Figs. 2, 3, and 4. Fig. 5’s central-panel (reproduced in the right of this Figure) explains the basic reason why we don’t directly intuit the kinds of wholeness and non-separation shown in Figs. 2 to 4: because we are invested in an attempt to be something we can’t be, a volitional investment that necessarily obscures our seeing of Who We really Are, and of What really Is (i.e., the atypical content of Figs. 2, 3, and 4).
Figure 7. Two Types of Psychosis, in the Light of Reality-Denial and Reality-Leaving. Meta-psychosis (introduced in Fig. 1) is synonymous (red-dashed double-arrowed arc) with Fig. 6’s denial/suppression of real-Reality. (Fig. 6 is partially-reproduced in the leftmost-content of this Figure.) Fig. 6 also offers further understanding/decomposition of psychosis, into type-1 and type-2 forms (blue arrows). This two-fold decomposition corresponds to the two components of Fig 6 shown here: the red-‘X’, denoting reality-denial; and the red-rectangle, containing reality-leaving. Type-2 psychosis is an intense form of meta-psychosis (black-dashed double-headed arrow), where the actuality of reality-denial ‘leaks’ into conscious experience. Type-1 psychosis can be thought of as Type-2 psychosis plus more direct contact with Fig. 6’s ‘leaving of real-Reality’ (red-dashed double-arrowed line). Some notable examples of Type-2 psychosis include Borderline Personality Disorder (historically categorized by psychiatry as a mixed neurosis/psychosis), and some forms of treatment-resistant depression (historically, a neurosis rather than a psychosis).
Figure 8. Type-1 Psychosis is Closer to Reality than Metapsychosis! The framework sketched out in this article has many implications for psychiatry and psychotherapy. Because the focus of the series is the metacrisis, I don’t unfold these implications here in detail. Of course, the psychological/psychospiritual crisis is part of the metacrisis. So it would be odd to ignore major implications in these domains! In this direction, it’s important to understand that there are some ways in which Fig. 7’s Psychosis-1 is actually closer to real-Reality, than statistically-typical meta-psychosis. This is contrary to default psychiatric views, which would view Psychosis-1 (for example, Borderline Personality Disorder, in my categorization) as including the furthest-from-reality disorders. (See inset. Psychiatry is right that Psychosis-1 is as far from meta-psychosis as it’s possible to be. But it wrongly takes meta-psychosis to be sanity!) The main takeaway is that Psychosis-1 can teach mainstream reality-views (i.e. meta-psychosis) as much about real-Reality as many well-respected kinds of spirituality (those termed ‘Reality-Limitations’ here – e.g. mainstream interpretations of Advaita Vedanta and Buddhism … and many others).
6. The Case for 4F-DR, Edge-of-Time, Causality
Before moving on, I should just address one skeptical voice. ‘If all that Deeper Reality stuff – from Fig. 2 to Fig. 5 – is true: why don’t we see it, experience it, feel it?!’. As Figure 6 shows, we don’t typically experience the sorts of things shown in preceding Figures, because we are volitionally and powerfully separating ourselves from the Deeper Reality in which they are self-evident.
Of course, we could say that about any non-evident claim. ‘Reality is made of pink sea-horses, and we don’t see that because of volitional separation.’ It’s a huge topic, but one basic response to that kind of critique is that spiritual practice may reveal a common underlying Reality to multiple practitioners [xxx]. These people then either all see pink sea-horses down there, or they don’t. Another neglected frontier in the ‘what is Reality?’ quest are novel, hard-science, theorems-and-experiments concerning the brain/conscious-experience relationship [xxxi]. These will likely be crucial in metacrisis-navigation, and will feature repeatedly in the rest of the series.
Naturally, there are an infinite host of skeptical voices, about Fig. 5 and its relatives. (Which is exactly what Fig. 5 would predict!) As I said earlier, this series is not written to change the minds of hardcore skeptics. As I also said, changing some of those minds (and hearts!) will be part of metacrisis-response. So my stance here is to provide the minimal explanation and justification required for a presumptively-friendly readership. And then to look at how we can bring more minds-and-hearts onboard, using what we’re collectively prepared to tentatively entertain. (E.g., I hope: Fig. 5, at this point!)
Before sketching just one very big-picture potential-application of 4F-DR and Fig. 5 to the metacrisis, I’d like to highlight one important application to a specific sub-crisis. All members of the polycrisis are important, but arguably the crisis in psychological and psychospiritual well-being is pivotal, in a particular way: if it gets bad enough, humankind will just give up. Figures 7 and 8 expand on Fig. 1’s inventory of psychiatric-psychosis, meta-psychosis, and reality-limitation in significant ways. By bringing in the part of Fig. 5 that accounts for the process of actively-leaving Reality (as opposed to just denying it, once left), Fig. 7 points out two psychosis sub-types. Fig. 8 then presents a novel and striking account of inter-relationships between five reality-classes, notably placing one psychosis sub-type nearer to real-Reality than statistically-typical metapsychosis! These kinds of analyses must become foundational in a new metacrisis-responsive psychotherapy/psychiatry. And they are only possible in a 4F-DR, Fig. 5, context,
Finally, I’ll outline arguably the largest-possible rationale for the utility of 4F-DR and Fig. 5, in metacrisis-response. This rationale arises in response to one of many characterizations of the metacrisis, by the remarkable systems-thinker and social philosopher Dan Schmachtenberger. He sometimes construes the metacrisis as a pervasive failure to grasp external implications of technological innovations, and asks the piercing question: ‘What is the mind, intelligence, wisdom that doesn’t keep failing in the same way?’. (And the follow-up: ‘How are we to come to that wisdom, and to nurture and empower it, societally’!)
Let’s take a look at an analogous situation. ‘Separation is a pervasive failure to grasp implications of insisting on an innovative attempt-to-Self-Create’. (That’s the message of Fig. 5.) What’s the mind, intelligence, wisdom that doesn’t keep failing in the same way? Answer: the ARC-partnering mind! How are we to come to that wisdom, and to nurture and empower it, societally? Answer: do the things that result in widespread ARC-engagement! (See Figure 9, the next article, and pretty much the entirety of the rest of my work!)
Put most succinctly: Schmachtenberger might say the metacrisis originates in the human mind that fails to account for the totality. Given that Fig. 5 is a picture of the totality, a failure to use Fig. 5 in response risks repetition of metacrisis-origins!
Put another way: Schmachtenberger also sometimes frames the metacrisis in terms of a species attempting to navigate adolescence with respect to planetary-scale technologies. (Clearly, this can just be another way of pointing to minds that ‘fail to account for the totality’ – as adolescents are prone to!) In this vein, I sometimes say that humanity’s growing-up demands giving-up on Cosmically-juvenile Reality-narratives. And 4F-DR and Fig. 5 are the Cosmically-mature alternatives.
One obstacle to humankind’s engagement with these points is that adolescents often pretend adulthood, thus obscuring the need for maturation. Certainly this is the case in mainstream science, in many spiritual traditions and communities, and in many parts of ‘common-sense’ society. It can even happen amongst those who are deeply committed to authentic metacrisis-response. Which is why I’ve spent so many words and pictures here, on asserting adult-hood for the 4F-DR approach!
7. Summary
This article begins to establish a place for out-of-time (or edge-of-time) causation, within a larger ecosystem of diverse metacrisis responses. It introduces a Four-Factor Deep-Reality (‘4F-DR’) model, and uses it to point to a very specific form of out-of-time causation (associated with an ongoing Dream/Illusion of leaving non-separate real-Reality).
Establishing a place for 4F-DR models here has focused on the three themes: differentiation, viability, and utility.
I’ve differentiated the 4F-DR approach from a conventional meta-psychotic take on the human condition, and from increasingly popular ‘One Being’ spiritual approaches. Differentiation from One-Being models involves three steps. First, re-attributing Self-sourcing of the One to sourcing-of-One-by-Ground. Second, emphasizing Individuated Spirit (or ‘soul’) that’s often denied by popular One-Being approaches [xxxii]. Third, recognizing the ARC (Agency that Restructures Consciousness) as a Reality-aspect that insures against exactly the kind of separative Illusion we find ourselves in, right now.
Mistaken associations of the 4F-DR approach with punitive, hell-fire religions can put its viability into question [xxxiii]. Nevertheless, we already have one pure, nuanced, beautiful, detailed expression of a 4F-DR practice. This should be enough to catalyze what I’ve called ‘inner-boundary opening’, a boundary in this instance that wants to place GoB-based narratives outside the ecosystem of valid, helpful, metacrisis-responses. (We don’t actually need a ‘pure and detailed’ 4F-DR exemplar to reject the exile of GoB-theories. On logical grounds, we can simply reject the inaccurate projection that ‘any GoB-theory must be invalid, because every GoB-theory involves a punitive, hell-fire patriarchy’ [xxxiv]!)
Exploring and expanding on the pragmatic utility of 4F-DR metacrisis-responses will occupy the rest of this series, and perhaps the rest of the metacrisis! But we’ve seen some preliminary indications. First, consider Schmachtenberger’s diagnosis of the metacrisis as a failure to consider the totality. If totality includes 4F-DR, there’s a strong case for at least considering it, in undoing the metacrisis! Next, consider the (related!) idea that hitting planetary-boundaries calls for a response at the ‘next level’. The only relevant and accessible next-level reality is an inner-reality, and the largest current conception of that is 4F-DR. Finally, for now, consider the hypothesis that the metacrisis originates from living in a meta-psychosis based on a pseudo-reality. 4F-DR offers an account of the causal origins of metapsychosis/pseudo-reality. So it’s more than plausible that it can identify interventions for the unholy trinity of metacrisis, metapsychosis, and pseudo-reality. See Figure 9 for a first-pass at developing the essence of 4F-DR into ‘how we can respond to the metacrisis’.
Figure 9. Towards a Systems-Thinking Analysis of ‘Leaving and not-Leaving’. This Figure starts from Fig. 5’s middle panel, which illustrated how leaving real-Reality can occur. A-B-C panels in this Figure show successive waves of dynamics, building up to the most complete picture in C. A. (Green arrows depict reinforcing causality.) Choosing to leave real-Reality (1) leads to the conscious experience of separated pseudo-reality (1.1) and a barrier of unconscious Darkness between pseudo- and real-Reality (1.2). (‘Darkness’ is e.g. guilt and fear, resulting from a subjective interpretation that choosing-to-leave was actually ‘being thrown out by a judgmental, punitive deity’. This Darkness is not ‘religious trauma’. But religions sometimes consciously animate the same subjective-interpretation, and add to or accentuate pre-existing trauma.) Experience-of-pseudo-reality leads to science as a theory-of-that-experience (2.1); unconscious darkness leads to traditional religion as theory-of-that-terrain. Unconscious Darkness is fearful; mainstream science and traditional religion prevent its exploration. Thus, conditioned conformities (3.1 and 3.2) protect Darkness. At any point, though, another choice can be made (4): the choice to stop 1’s ‘Choosing to Leave’. (Red arrow denotes that ‘4 decreases 1’.) B. However, Darkness (1.2), science (2.1), religion (2.2) and conformities (3.1, 3.2) all act to prevent 4 (red arrows). Thus, the consequences-of-1 act to prevent 4’s un-choosing of 1. C. Specific modes of personal transformation (5.1) can dispel unconscious Darkness and so decrease 1.2’s suppression-of-4. Similarly, deconstruction of obstructive reality-theories (5.2) can reduce their 4-suppression. Undoing-suppression-of-4 is the same as energizing-4; 5.1 and 5.2 thus promote 4, which in turn acts to undo 1, and unwind its consequences.
8. Coming Up
“The Metacrisis and Personal Transformation (3): A Systems-Thinking Approach, Based on ‘Four-Factor Deep-Reality’”
Through the rest of the series, I take Fig. 4’s Four-Factor Deep-Reality (‘4F-DR’) model to be at least a valid hypothesis [xxxv]. In the upcoming third article, I use this hypothesis to build a first-pass ‘systems thinking’ model of metacrisis and response.
Fig. 9 above is a very simplified preview of the ensuing model, illustrating key features of the response to real-Reality departure. (Which is also the ultimate underlying-driver of the metacrisis.) Notably, the choice to leave real-Reality (‘1’ in Fig. 9) can be undone by a counter-choice (‘4’ in Fig. 9). But counter-choice can only work if it’s freed from suppres3sive dynamics. Liberation of the counter-choice calls for certain kinds of personal transformation (‘5.1’), and for the deconstruction and replacement of obstructive forms of science and religion (‘5.2’). The third article in the series expands these observations, in breadth and depth,
“The Metacrisis and Personal Transformation (4): What Do Gaia (And Ouranos!) Have To Offer?”
Out-of-time causation for the metacrisis might seem to take the human factor out. Where’s the examination, for example, of patriarchal influences?! And what about sociopathy, narcissism, and the like? After all, one somewhat-plausible explanation of the metacrisis points to a well-intentioned system taken over, in part, by pathological instances of the human-as-animal.
In this fourth article, I take a more-detailed view of edge-of-time mechanics, in particular how alleged-separation from real-Reality can play out in Masculine/Feminine aspects. I then connect this to women and men, patriarchy and matriarchy, healing and transformation …
To connect with me on the topics discussed here, please leave a comment, or DM or email me.
If you’re interested in my life experience, as a background to these metacrisis musings, check out https://www.liveyourdeepestself.com/about-nicholas.
My 1-1 transformational coaching work both informs and is informed by the topics discussed in this series. To find out more, please visit www.liveyourdeepestself.com.
Endnotes
[i] ‘The MetaCrisis and Personal Transformation (1): How Deep Is Enough?’, moneyandgod.substack.com.
[ii] Three definitions of the metacrisis, from [i]:
“The first is that humankind currently faces a set of related crises and risks, for example in ecological, socioeconomic, psychological, and technological domains. These crises are interlinked, e.g. in the sense that solutions in one domain can worsen problems in another. They also pose existential threats, to the planetary ecosystem, the human species, or modern civilization. This multi-member collection of crises and risks is also called the ‘polycrisis’.
A second view of the metacrisis looks toward the potential resolution of the polycrisis in terms of what I sometimes call ‘the next great phase of human civilization’. This perspective looks constructively on our current radical uncertainty, as a birthing phase for something truly new.
The third definition of the metacrisis hypothesizes or perceives that the various sub-challenges in the polycrisis share some common drivers at a deeper level …”
[iii] Historically, psychiatry used two major diagnostic classes, distinguishing between psychoses (loss of contact with reality) and neuroses (broadly, stress-related conditions without loss of reality-contact). Although the psychosis/neurosis division is on the wane, psychosis is still defined primarily in relation to a subject’s reality-experiences (or reality-reports).
A recent review (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4455840/) summarized the current state-of-play in (American) psychiatry (bold-type added):
“In their current conceptualization of psychosis, both the APA5 and the World Health Organization define psychosis narrowly by requiring the presence of hallucinations (without insight into their pathologic nature), delusions, or both hallucinations without insight and delusions. In both of these current diagnostic classification systems, impaired reality testing remains central conceptually to psychosis. In contrast to earlier diagnostic classification systems, the current systems operationalize impaired reality testing by identifying the symptoms that provide evidence of such impairment. Delusions (i.e., fixed false beliefs), by definition, are evidence of impaired reality testing: delusional beliefs are ones maintained steadfastly even in the face of evidence contradicting them incontrovertibly. Similarly, hallucinations (i.e., perceptions occurring in the absence of corresponding external or somatic stimuli) are evidence of impaired reality when the individual experiencing them is unable to recognize the hallucinatory nature of such experiences. Both the current APA and the World Health Organization classification systems acknowledge that “formal thought disorder” (i.e., disorganized thinking, including illogicality, tangentiality, perseveration, neologism, thought blocking, derailment, or some combination of these disturbances of thought) is one of several commonly co-occurring features of psychotic disorders …”
[iv] Krishnamurti, Commentaries on Living Series 3 (1960).
[v] Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Revisited (1959).
[vi] For example, see Krishnamurti’s dialogues with David Bohm, in The Ending of Time.
[vii] From time to time, I will speak about the out-of-time hypothesis from a place of subjective certainty. (Or near-certainty.) These two stances aren’t incompatible. I can (and often should!) offer my subjective certainties to others as hypotheses for them to evaluate in their own experience. I also hold that things like the foundations-of-reality could in principle vary from person-to-person. This allows for basic subjective certainties in my reality to not translate to the realities of others. (I believe that reality doesn’t vary across subject. But I’m not certain about that, currently.)
[viii] For example, consider some kinds of clinical depression, which can be thought of as forms of meta-psychosis. (Depression per se was historically categorized as a neurosis, rather than a psychosis.) Contrary to trendy anti-pharma propaganda, some depressions do need pharmacological response. (Although I am not a wholesale buyer of the life-long medication pitch.) This would then be an example of a medication-response to meta-psychosis.
[ix] Of course: not all schizophrenia is either a spiritual experience, or any kind of ‘gift’. But for one example of a balanced approach, please see: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10943-014-9994-0.
[x] For more on Richard Harvey’s work, please visit www.therapyandspirituality.com.
[xi] The really-Real risks derived e.g. from scientism (a cult-like devotion to certain forms of science) can only fully be appreciated in a real-Reality setting (e.g. Figure 5). Of course, scientism denies those settings are valid!
[xii] ‘Supra-rational hysteria’ occurs when person-A is trying to explain to person-B the real dangers in B’s obstinate and superficial rationality. Emotions can build up in A to the point of hysteria. But A’s reality-frame is actually more grounded (more rational) than B’s. Hence: ‘supra-rational’ hysteria.
[xiii] Notably, see Figure 8’s ‘Psychosis-2’, which is really a pointer to a neglected and crucial edge of real-Reality.
[xiv] This isn’t a form of ‘spiritual woo’. Wholeness-of-a-given-experiencing actually the viewpoint of modern neuroscience. (When it does conscious experience properly!). Equally, the first-pass separate-ness of the whole-experiences of two different experiencers (e.g. E1 and E2 in the right-panel of Figure 2) also has a scientific basis. (The E1/E2 spatial-relationship is actually a beautiful and subtle question. See https://www.cfdis.org/books/tswn for more.)
[xv] The ‘wholeness’ of a single person’s conscious experience is a little subtle. The first step is to reject the interpretation that experience e.g. of a chair ‘is’ the chair. (For example, the brown chair-images in the top half of Fig. 2 are not the same as the chair line-drawings in the lower-half.) Then, all visual images (chairs, tables etc.) are projected into a single, whole, conscious-experiential space. Other sensory modalities (auditory, tactile etc.) are also set in that same space. Then we can add thinking, body sensations, emotions etc. ‘Wholeness’ then derives from common-membership in a sort of brain-mediated virtual-reality movie.
[xvi] Post-modernism is more-or-less the view that ‘everything’s a subjective construction’. Post-truth is then the extension into ‘Truth is up to me … Or you … Or someone else … So it doesn’t really exist’.
[xvii] ‘Killing off’ community-applicants plays a vital role, if done on proper grounds: it prevents the waste of valuable community-resources.
[xviii] Being ‘helpful’ includes being ‘net non-disruptive’. This might not be the case e.g. for fundamentalist, evangelist religions. (Or scientific fundamentalism!) I mention the religious case because ‘disruptive’ may well apply to some traditions that 4F-DR is sometimes (mistakenly) associated with.
[xix] This whole series is premised on the case that leaving real-Reality (or appearing to), is the ultimate cause of metacrisis. As discussed towards the end of section 6, the most fundamental reason for this assertion is that it’s leaving real-Reality which results in the fragmentation of Mind and Reality, and the loss of Intelligence. For the metacrisis to persist, clearly Mind and Intelligence must be compromised. Nevertheless I’m certain that successful navigation of the metacrisis does not require total undoing of this fragmentation. (I.e., a complete return to real-Reality). More precisely, then, leaving real-Reality creates a context in which metacrisis can occur; undoing certain downstream consequences of that leaving (call these ‘X’) will be sufficient to end metacrisis. The direct causes of metacrisis are then the leaving-context plus ‘X’. Section 6 suggests that ‘X’ can be thought of as a critical-level of ARC-engagement/disengagement. (The ‘ARC’ is introduced in section 4, and Figs. 4 and 5.)
[xx] Section 6 begins to apply causal-details of ‘leaving’ to the development of metacrisis-responses. The rest of this series of articles continues that application!
[xxi] I’m absolutely not suggesting that ‘intuition is a women’s thing’! I’m suggesting that it’s associated with various conceptions of the feminine principle. Men and women are both complete with respect to both masculine and feminine principles. Or: ‘men have intuition, too’!
[xxii] To be supremely technically-correct: separation can still persist in the experience of another. (Some non-dual commentators will say ‘What “other”?’. See Fig. 4’s ‘Individuated Spirit’ for the basis of non-separate otherness, in this series.)
[xxiii] Take Integral Theory, for example. There, science is relegated to a particular developmental stage. And spirituality is placed at the top of the developmental hierarchy. There’s a lot to ‘spirituality is more all-encompassing than science’, But Integral Theory’s specific way of handling science-and-spirituality leads to wrong relationship, and overlooks crucial problems and their direct remedies.
[xxiv] In particular, we may be allowed to say ‘God’ , but only if that G-word really means ‘the One-Being’. For example, one prominent approach to Christianity in Integral Theory asks things like ‘Is your God big enough?’ – typically attempting to show that a One-Being spirituality is ‘deeper’ than most traditional monotheistic religions. White that is certainly true, the related attempt to reduce Christ-Consciousness to Buddha-mind is tragically-flawed. (‘Christ Consciousness’ is the One in unfettered relationship to the Ground. ‘Buddha-mind’ is a configuration of the One in which It subtly represses its relationship with, and dependence on, the Ground. To hear more, please visit www.veilstothesoul.com.)
[xxv] This enquiry into the utility of Ground-based approaches presumes the utility of One-Being approaches! For the moment, we could take the word of McGilchrist, Schmachtenberger and Vervaeke, that One-Being spiritualities may be metacrisis-salient:
[xxvi] The example I have in mind here is A Course in Miracles.
[xxvii] Possible relationships between historical One-Being traditions (such as Advaita and Buddhism) and historical Ground-of-Being traditions (such as Christianity) are discussed at www.veilstothesoul.com.
[xxviii] The ‘ARC’ is more-or-less synonymous with ‘the Holy Spirit’, in the reality-view described at length in ‘A Course in Miracles’. I’m not a Biblical scholar, but it’s my impression that the Christian Bible gives a very confusing and incomplete account of what the Holy Spirit is, and what it’s for. A Course in Miracles is incredibly precise, and fully comprehensive. Stating an ARC/Holy-Spirit correspondence does not establish this work as ‘based on Christianity’. Rather, the Christian tradition – interpreted in a specific, non-punitive way – is one example in a larger 4F-DR class. Similarly Advaita Vedanta and non-dual Buddhist schools are examples of the One-Being class.
[xxix] The Four-Factor Deep-Reality model is not my original work: it’s a generalized abstraction of the picture painted in A Course in Miracles. And I’m absolutely not trying to ‘start a religion’ – I would like to be part of a team, tending and stewarding a transformational eco-system that includes diverse, trans-disciplinary reality-theories.
[xxx] As the Jesuit-priest/Buddhist-monk Ama Samy has pointed out, experience resulting from practice doesn’t necessarily prove that the tenets of the practice represent ‘ultimate Truth’. (Whatever that means!). It may that experience results from, or is strongly influenced by, a given practice-path. This epistemic issue will likely become crucial, in deep metacrisis-navigations.
[xxxi] For the most comprehensive treatment of these theorems and experiments, please see From Godel to Trump: A Three-Step Resolution to Science’s Emergent Crisis.
[xxxii] For example, a foundational tenet of Hindu thought is often reported as ‘Atman is Brahman’, which is typically interpreted as ‘Soul and God are the same thing’. (Or, there’s no individually-identifiable soul!) Possibly similarly, Buddhism is often associated with anatta, or no-self – which is typically interpreted to mean ‘no soul’. (This is somewhat controversial, because anatta might instead have simply pointed to the ultimate-unReality of the ego-self!)
[xxxiii] Another challenge to 4F-DR reality-views comes from what I call ‘dynamically-orthodox science’ (a way of framing mainstream science that doesn’t make unhelpful and inaccurate references to a ‘material’ substance). Of course, dynamically-orthodox science is also a challenge to One-Being reality-views.
[xxxiv] To be precise, rejection on logical grounds would fail in the presence of a proof that ‘any appeal to GoB necessarily results in a hellfire-GoB’. Of course, such a proof doesn’t exist, right now. But maybe it could be found, at some future date. However, the existence of a worked-out, hell-fire–free, GoB-narrative seems to establish (by counter-example) that such a proof will never be found.
[xxxv] Of course, personally I take 4F-DR to be more than just ‘a valid hypothesis’. Otherwise I wouldn’t invest all this effort in the current 4F-DR–based approach! But I’m not trying to enroll others in this belief: I’m trying to establish a place for 4F-DR in a mutually-respectful, multi-member, metacrisis-response eco-system.