[p2p-research] related to the discussions delusions of self

[Michel Bauwens]

Delusions of self is at
http://p2pfoundation.net/Conversation_with_Stephen_Whitehead

See a related discussion on today's blog:

http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/book-of-the-week-gregg-lahoods-critique-of-new-age-narcissism/2010/08/09

*Book of the Week: Gregg Lahood’s critique of new age
narcissism*<http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/book-of-the-week-gregg-lahoods-critique-of-new-age-narcissism/2010/08/09>
*[image: photo of Michel Bauwens]*
Michel Bauwens
9th August 2010


 New Age transpersonalism leans toward a restrictive non-relational
spirituality because of its historical affirmation of individualism and
transcendence. Relational spirituality (which is central to the emerging
participatory-paradigm) swims against strong and popular currents in New
Age-transpersonal thinking, belief, and practice which tend to see
spirituality as an individual, personal, ?inner‘ pursuit (often) into
Eastern/Oriental non-dualism (e.g. Ramana Maharshi etc) as promulgated in
popular quasi-Christian, Western, New Age thinking (e.g. A Course in
Miracles or Eckhart Tolle, and in transpersonal psychology (e.g. Ken Wilber
or Stanislav Grof), whatever the merits of Advaita Vedanta (and I assume
there are merits) it is not ?relational spirituality‘ not in the way that I
understand the practice.

Below, we are excerpting an as yet unpublished book in progress by Gregg
Lahood, which, after a cogent critique of the self-centeredness of
contemporary new age spirituality, which Zizek called the ideology of
empire, presents the emerging p2p alternative, i.e. relational spirituality.

Gregg’s full paper/book manuscript has a detailed historical overview of the
origins of the new age movement as religious syncretism/creolization.

** Essay / Book in progress: Paradise Unbound. Relational Spirituality and
other Heresies in New Age Transpersonalism. G. A. Lahood*

A version of this paper is to be published by The International Journal of
Transpersonal Studies 2010

*Abstract*

“I write this paper *with the aim of teasing out from the New Age religion
and religious transpersonal psychology a more ?relational
spirituality‘.*New Age transpersonalism leans toward a restrictive
non-relational
spirituality because of its historical affirmation of individualism and
transcendence. Relational spirituality (which is central to the emerging
participatory-paradigm) swims against strong and popular currents in New
Age-transpersonal thinking, belief, and practice which tend to see
spirituality as an individual, personal, ?inner‘ pursuit (often) into
Eastern/Oriental non-dualism (e.g. Ramana Maharshi etc) as promulgated in
popular quasi-Christian, Western, New Age thinking (e.g. A Course in
Miracles or Eckhart Tolle, and in transpersonal psychology (e.g. Ken Wilber
or Stanislav Grof), whatever the merits of Advaita Vedanta (and I assume
there are merits) it is not ?relational spirituality‘ not in the way that I
understand the practice. I will show first how cosmological hybridization (a
process in which paradises arebound together) is a process much alive in
American religious culture beginning with a Romanticized-Christianized
version of the Buddha. I will demonstrate how this religious Creolization
gathers speed after the Second World War and peaks in the psychedelic era
during the Vietnam War and the civil unrest in America between 1963 and
1974. A complex spiritual revolution took place in America in which
?transcendence‘ became a central orientation. This revolution, while
successful in stopping the war, sets the scene for the emergence of
non-relational transpersonal psychology (?centered in the cosmos beyond
human needs‘ ala Maslow) in which Americanized non-dualism gains ascendency.
Recent critiques have suggested that popular transpersonalism traps the
spirit in a subtle Cartesian prison, a structure that can breed a
self-serving, ?Self-as-everything‘, form of spiritual narcissism. Given that
some are calling the New Age the religion of global capitalism, a more
relational spirituality may be a much needed salve for New Age-
transpersonalism‘s self-centeredness and a world in Creolization.

*Excerpts*

Gregg Lahood:

*“Religious hybridizations can occur when beliefs Christian and secular or ?
Christian and native? are merged creating a ? third religion (Pieterse 2004,
73) — but the same is true of Non-Christian hybridizations such as found in
the spread of Buddhism and Islam. For example with the spread of Greek
culture in to India through Alexander the Great statues of the Buddha were
carved in the gesture of peripatetic philosophers wearing togas and adorned
the sacred grapes of the sacrificial demi-god Dionysus. I argue here that
transpersonal psychology also came to be a kind of third religion (an
Orientalized hybrid cosmology) and it began to crystallize in San Francisco
in the hey-day of the psychedelic 60s along with Garcia and The Grateful
Dead, the Vietnam War, and a widespread religious awakening that involved
communal living, and changes in clothing, values, music, drugs,
psychotherapy and a host of other counter-cultural innovations. More
importantly, as suggested, transpersonalism (its search for the ?inner
truth‘) may well be the skeletal structure which the New Age has grown
around.Central to this project was a series of strange marriages,
juxtapositions, and cultural borrowings largely (but not exclusively)
between the mysticism of the East and the psychology of West— between
America and Asia.

These include, the American Transcendentalists embrace of the Vedas, Mahatma
Gandhi with Henry David Thoreau, Nashida Kitaro with William James, D.T.
Suzuki‘s Zen with Romantic Nature worship, Aldous Huxley with Vedanta, Allan
Watts with the Tao, Zen, Advaita Vedanta, the Beat poets Jack Kerouac, Alan
Ginsburg, and Gary Snyder with Buddhism and Peyote, Timothy Leary with LSD
and Tibetan Buddhism, Ram Dass with Hinduism, The Beatles with LSD, the
Beatles with the Maharishi, George Harrison with the Hari Krishna Movement,
Fritz Perls‘ Gestalt therapy with Mahayana Buddhism, Eric Fromm
(psychoanalysis) with Zen Buddhism, Abraham Maslow‘s human potential with
Zen Buddhism, and, Stanislav Grof with psychoanalysis, LSD and Kashmir
Shaivism. This long cultural procession of religious blending is the fertile
cultural mélange out of which Ken Wilber‘s influential ladder of
consciousness grew: a hybrid cosmos of Neo-Platonism and Neo-Advaita Vedanta
(which as we will see is also the backbone of the New Age movement). The
characteristic blend of Buddhism, Hinduism and Christianity and the
dominating spiritual hierarchy that runs through Wilber‘s worldview (and the
New Age) are due in large part to the strange force of hybridity long alive
in the religious imagination of America (Lahood 2008). I have suggested in
Paradise bound: A perennial tradition or an unseen process of cosmological
hybridity (2008) that Wilber‘s Orientalized cosmology is the inevitable
outcome of religious globalization and the civil strife occurring in the
1960s in which religions of the East and West were brought together in
America in a psychedelically informed subaltern resistance culture. The
religious symbolism of this culture and its postulate?cosmic consciousness‘
reveal not some ultimate perennial postulate beyond culture; nor a?One
Truth‘ coming from all directions but a hybridized postulate deeply embedded
in, and springing from, a complex cultural matrix embroiled in war in South
East Asia, an internal civil revolution, an effervescent religious
outpouring and the creation of a zealously enacted counter reality (Lahood
2008).In this article I would like to further explore the procession of
cosmological hybridizations that came together in the American context and
show how this amalgamation of religious flavors begins to favor a somewhat
disembodied, non-relational, patriarchal and authoritarian ?One-Truth
religion — one that came to overvalue individual transcendence at the
expense of relationship. It is my belief that relational spirituality is the
key to undoing the spiritual narcissism that plagues contemporary Western
spiritual culture (Ferrer 2002, 2009).

Part 1: New Age Transpersonalism

The transpersonal movement has substantially changed the religious menu of
the Western world. Furthermore, the counter-cultural psychologies of the
humanistic (e.g. Abraham Maslow and Fritz Perls) and transpersonal movements
(e.g. Ken Wilber) were ?a key influence in the emergence of New Age as a
social phenomena? (Morris 2006, 305). But even more importantly the New
Age‘s mystical occultism—has been called the religion of postmodern
globalization—which is to say that transpersonalism is either tacitly
informing the religion of globalization or it is the unseen religion of
global capitalism. The New Age is mostly a religion for white people
(Hanegraaff 2003, 23) and has been called ?the secret religion of the
educated class‘ (Heelas 1996, 124). It is so secret in fact that many a
person has no idea that he or she is part of it (or if they do they aren‘t
saying). Indeed many a soul engaged in the widespread channelling phenomena,
many a person practicing shamanism, many a yoga teacher and her students,
many a religious tourist on her pilgrimage, or many a Western tantric
practitioner, may be completely unaware that they are part of globalizing
religion with roots in the 60s ?consciousness expanding movement‘.
Furthermore, and this is the thesis of this paper, the New Age may well be
contributing to the great spiritual malady of our times — spiritual
narcissism. People often don‘t identify themselves with the New Age yet an
examination of their belief systems will often reveal deposits of New
Age-transpersonalism in their psychic inventories.

But just what beliefs do have currency in New Age-transpersonalism? This is
a very difficult question to answer, but very briefly, two anthropologists
David Young and Jean-Guy Goulet, suggest that the New Age is a religion and
it tends to ?view reality in terms of different dimensions, and
enlightenment as a movement to ever higher dimensions [of consciousness],
either in this life or in lives to come? (Young & Goulet 1994, 8). ?Reality,
according to the perennial philosophy? writes Ken Wilber, ?is composed of
several different but continuous dimensions? (1997, 39).New Age religion
joins psychology and religion with a millenarian impulse (the coming of: a
New Age of Aquarius, Total Bliss, the coming of the Cosmic Christ,
twenty-twelve, etc)and an evolutionary design—the result is a self-oriented
spirituality in which the transformation of, or the attainment of, a higher
?inner self‘ is of paramount importance. Furthermore, for many, the action
of ?expanding one‘s consciousness‘ is deemed an activity that can ?save the
planet‘ (this means of course that everyone on the planet must participate
in the consciousness raising). New Age religion advocates a perennial
philosophy stressing the ?transcendent unity‘ of all religions although it
expresses a religious metaphysic that reflects a Hindu/Gnostic, impersonal,
non-dual, transcendentalism (Cortright 1997). Likewise the transpersonal
psychology movement has been called ?an openly religionist psychology?
(Hanegraaff, 1996, 51) because it has the perennial philosophy (esoteric
unity) as its foundation (Wulff 2000). The perennial construct is imagined
as a universal spiritual reality that ?strikingly resembles the Neo-Platonic
Godhead or Advaitin Brahman? (Ferrer, 2002, 89). Like the New Age,
transpersonal psychology‘s interests are defined by a mingling of psychology
and religion. Interest in ?peak experiences‘ and ?expanded consciousness‘
resulted is a strong focus on self-spirituality – the sacralisation of the
?inner self‘ (Heelas 1996). For roughly 20 years transpersonalism was
dominated by, and conflated with, the religious worldview of Ken Wilber.
Wilber joined the perennial philosophy with an evolutionary telos and a
ladder of consciousness design with Hindu/Gnostic impersonal non-dualism as
end-state enlightenment. Thus the New Age and Wilber‘s transpersonalism
deeply mirror each other in basic structure. The basic metaphysic
structuring its beliefs and practices is Eastern/Gnostic in flavour in that
it holds everything is God without beginning or end and the ultimate purpose
of life is to transcend the individual self and merge with the Divine
(Hollick 2006). The Upanishads and the Vedic writings of ancient India
conceive of Brahman as an impersonal world-spirit sustaining but beyond the
phenomenal world. The individual soul or atman is considered a manifestation
of Brahman—and the Vedantic system of Shankara developed the concept of
liberation (moksha) from the world. An organic hybridity can easily occur
between the East and West through Gnosticism and Vedanta. Morris points out
that ?Oriental‘ religious traditions are generally seen to be different to
Christianity and ?Occidental‘ thought, however, he says the Upanishadic
doctrine has close affinities with early Gnostic doctrines (2006,119).
Gnostic Christians held an ?absolute division between an evil material world
and a good spiritual realm? (Tarnas 1991, 141). Man could escape his
entrapment in the gross material world through an esoteric knowledge gleaned
from spiritual intuition. But, writes Morris, ?in its stress on the concept
of salvation by knowledge (Greek gnosis), in its devaluation of the mundane
world as a realm of ?unreality‘ [maya], and in its advocacy of mystical
union [unio mystica] between the individual (soul) and this transcendental
realm the Upanishadic doctrine … resembles that of Gnostic religion? (Morris
2006, 119).I would take this insight a step further and say these two
religions (Western esoteric Christian and Eastern Vedantic mysticism) have
found hybridized expression in the New Age, and that this is mirrored in
Wilber‘s transpersonalism, indeed, Jorge Ferrer claims Wilber‘s
transpersonal psychology as ?a hybrid of Neo-Platonism and Neo-Advaita?
(2002, 65). Thus we can say that the New Age and transpersonalism have
historically tended to value the Eastern/Gnostic ideal of transcendence over
a devalued phenomenal world for identification with a metaphysical Big Self.
Such identification is traditionally based on the yogic impulse to yoke the
soul to the spirit by cutting the ?bond‘s and severing the ties to the
world, severing the (so-called) limiting desires that connect us to the
world – the bonds that sustain and renew relationship. The human potential
and transpersonal movements (e.g. Maslow) have also been important
foundations in the materialization and affirmation of what is called
?self-spirituality‘ an internalized religiosity (Heelas 1996). The
touch-stones of self-spirituality were about getting in touch with ?inner
divinity‘ and ?self actualization‘ through ?consciousness expanding
techniques‘ which could deliver a ?peak experience‘ and enable the aspirant
to attain ?higher levels of consciousness‘ – this is favourably seen as
?consciousness evolution‘ (Heelas 1996, Hanegraaff 1996, Morris 2006).
However, it is this very programme, that brings us inevitably to
self-spirituality‘s inherent problem—and what is perhaps the foundation of a
growing spiritual malady in our globalizing times—that New
Age-transpersonalism is prone to breeding an overt focus on only one half of
what could be a more relational spirituality. Put crudely—its concern is
with a highly individual self and not the Other.

Part 2. The New Age as Narcissism

The foundations of this self-oriented spirituality in transpersonal
psychology were laid by its founding father Abraham Maslow who brought
together Western psychology and mystical states (the term he favoured was
peak experiences). In terms of psychology, Maslow wanted freedom from the
Freudian obsession with psychopathology and a new focus on maximized
psychological health (self-actualization). In terms of religion, Maslow
believed that traditional religious contexts obscured or retarded a
universal core experience and skewed the potential of the peak experiences
and he wanted to ?dissociate such [peak states] from their traditional
religious contexts? (Wulff 2000, 422-23). Maslow is undoubtedly a pioneer
but there was a danger here because in Maslow‘s peak experiences (1964,
1968) the emphasis was on ?the individual’s experience over, if not to the
exclusion of, the reality that is encountered? (Wulff 2002). This sounds
very similar to Donald Evans description of monistic subjectivity as a
narcissistic mode of consciousness; ?In general, everything outsideof me has
significance only in relation to me; what concerns me is not this or that
reality but my experience of it? (1993,42). In a discussion of ?justice‘ in
Maslow‘s motivational model, Anthony Taylor, points out that ?the state of
self actualization or psychological perfection that Maslow outlined, was
supremely self-centered? (2006, 184). Maslow described self-actualization in
?ethereal terms, showing a benign indifferenceto the outer world of reality
while fostering internally a state of Nirvana of sublime spirituality … such
a state of existential withdrawal … cannot be construed has anything but a
major symptom of avoidance, inadequacy, and selfishness that is
uncharacteristicin mature people (185). Self-spirituality emerged in western
culture where the ego is historically ?constructed dissociativly from
nature, community, ancestors (Kremmer 1996, 46) and, as such, is an ego
already prone to dualism, isolation, ?solipsism‘ and self-centeredness.
Self-spirituality coupled with the logic of ?individual competitiveness and
consumer capitalism? can result in what is called ?spiritual narcissism
(Ferrer 2002 34-36), in other words—extreme egocentrism spiritualized.

Furthermore the New Age has been described as spiritual consumerism (Arweck
2002)in a pick n‘ mix, spiritual marketplace‘ (Roof 1996). Once
counter-cultural, the New Age sanctifies capitalism (Mikaelsson 2003) and
promulgates a search (journey) for prosperity and a means to wealth (Morris
2006). Spirituality has in a sense become a ?commodity‘; a fetish linked to
purchasing power and economically based self-esteem. Lavish spending on
spiritual commodities (e.g. expensive New Age group events, spiritual
tourism or showy?donations‘ to Gurus buy power and participation mystique
(without the transmutitive suffering required to reduce narcissistic
alienation). This kind of conspicuous consumption may also be intended to
create envy in others – (there is perhaps nothing of more value to the
spiritual egoist than the envy of others).Using Donald Evans‘ account of
spirituality as ?a basic transformative process in which we uncover and let
go of our narcissism so as to surrender into the Mystery out of which
everything continually arises? (Evans 1993, 4), Ferrer argues that
?narcissistic modes of consciousness… preclude a genuine availability to
others (2002, 36). Or, to quote Evans,Where love inclines and enables us to
engage in the mutual giving and receiving of ?I-Thou‘ encounters with other
human beings, narcissism‘s self-enclosure precludes such intimate encounters
(1993, 207). The problem is self-centeredness, and the inability to care
about the other—but the paradox here is that immersion in self-spirituality
can fail to transform these dynamic defences and ?spiritual growth‘ simply
becomes another narcissistic activity. ?Inner‘ spiritual experiences and
practices (sought for therapeutic ends) are easily appropriated by the ego
in a form of narcissistic survival (Ferrer 2002) in what has been called
spiritual materialism (see Cortright 1997). Here the person dons the
spiritual garb and talks the spiritual language but ducks the appropriate
transmutative suffering – her self-serving continues – a wolf in lamb‘s
clothing. Ultimately, this means her self-denial and suffering are prolonged
rather than transformed because the spiritual aspirant mistakes ?
spiritualized self-gratification? for authentic self-fulfilment (Battista
1996, 255) which is the opposite of authentic spirituality.Narcissistic
spirituality, then, is the use of an inflated spiritual persona which claims
itself to be spiritually developed (evolved, advanced or higher) as a means
of constraining, controlling and exploiting other persons (which others
naturally feel as oppressive and offensive) (Battista 1996) and in my
opinion should rightly oppose with healthy human anger.Adherents of the New
Age claim they are overcoming ? attachment to self? for altruistic purposes,
but this ? defence allows an apologist for ?higher consciousness‘?
(Battista1996, 255) with its implicit claim to psychological superiority.
The New Age votary, self-elevated in this way, has trouble recognizing,
owning and working through her subtly manipulative, deceptive and dominating
side. Another related defence is ?spiritual bypass? or?transpersonal
rationalization? wherein the person reframes her compulsive self serving
behaviours in spiritual terms (Cortright 1997). A similar strategy is to
invent a spiritual facade, and cleave to it, in the hope of annihilating her
inner suffering.

The New Ager‘s psychological narcissism (a result of primal repression ala
Washburn or lack of mirroring after Kohut) is accentuated through,

A) perennialism: the notion of an inner esoteric core truth (Self, essence,
etc) resides at the heart of all religions—a hybridity that allows the New
Ager to claim spiritual authority for herself

B) New Age ethnocentrism (a conviction of cultural superiority) and closely
related

C) religious narcissism — religious traditions almost always raise their
aspired states over other systems which points to a form of narcissism where
the New Ager mimics the authoritarianism within myriad traditions. Another
way of saying this is that the person elevates her cult, group, or guru,
tradition or practice, as higher up the chain of consciousness than others.
This threefold structuring builds a spiritual facade trapping the authentic
person and participatory consciousness in an alienating, self-separating
shell.

In the following section I explore how the New Age spiritual ego comes into
being.*


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