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Stages of Modern Spiritual Growth, v 1.0
Speaking from personal experience, one of the most difficult things about engaging in non-traditional religious and spiritual exploration is not knowing how far along you are. Are you doing it right? Are you where you should be? Did you leave something out in the process? What comes next?
For the most part, those of us who cobble together some kind of post-modern personal spirituality are missing the guideposts available in more clearly defined religious and esoteric traditions. For that reason, I would like to try to collectively come up with a very general outline or rough map which people following the Path of Radical Inquiry and other modern methods could use to help them orient themselves while hacking their way through the jungle.
I’ll start by offering some of my own experiences and observations of other people, just to get the ball rolling. I’m very much open to elaborations or corrections on any of these items. If this doesn’t match your experience, then let me know how, and maybe we can come up with something more universally accurate. These items are just recently floating around in my mind, and that’s why I chose them. Maybe there is a better starting point we can establish. My goal here is not so much to say one way of being is better than another, but to establish signs and landmarks that we can recognize while travelling the same paths at different rates.
Stage 1: Something’s wrong
It seems to me that a lot of people begin exploring the weird fringes of culture and religion because they recognize instinctively that something isn’t right. The world isn’t what it seems. There’s something going on below the surface. Usually, though not in all cases, this feeling coincides with anger at having been lied to either specifically or generally, often by religion, family or culture.
People entering in, experiencing or just leaving this stage may have gone through some personal, emotional or even psychological trauma (usually all three in varying degrees). They may be able to pinpoint specifically an event or realization in their life which took them outside the orbit of the normal mundane world - although more than likely, they’ll describe themselves as having always felt different, always a little outside.
Negative symptoms of this stage include despair, frustration, anger, hostility, rebellion, possibly even emotional breakdown. (A good example of this kind of thinking can be seen in the first post in this thread on my forum, by a user named Odd Tale.) The positive side of this is that these feelings of separation and rebellion indicate that the person is attempting to fashion some kind of unique individual identity, as a reaction against a more or less generic group identity which doesn’t fit them and their lives.
Stage 2: The Matching Game
I don’t have any specific sense of where on stage stops and the next starts, but in my own experience and observation, the next biggest phase has to do with making connections. Perhaps we could describe Stage 1 as being about breaking off from old connections, and Stage 2 as about enmeshing yourself in a new world of connections.
During this phase, channels the creative energy generated by rebellion and separation into the acquisition of new knowledge. They are enculturating themselves into their new world, constructing a unique identity out of arcane or uncommon knowledge. This may take many forms: alternative religion, radical politics, conspiracy theory, philosophical and intellectual exploration, immersion in any number of subcultures and cultural artifacts (music, media, art, literature, etc).
Of prime importance in this stage of the game is the interdisciplinary approach. Many diverse subjects are studied at once, and connections between them are not just sketched out, but often hammered down and obsessed over in great detail. Everything that hits your mind is new and exciting and explosive. Creative energy is unleashed for these people in discovering and exploring connections and discrepancies between things. You’ll often see people in this game taking one favorite image, idea or metaphor and applying it to just about everything under the sun. They’ll basically try to shoehorn, crowbar, cram, warp, bend or twist a stable of a dozen or so pet theories into every conceivable nook and cranny out there. Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, the Matrix, a great deal of gnostic philosophy gets used like this. This is an especially big tendency also among conspiracy theorists, each of which will point to a different “meta-conspiracy” behind all the others: UFO’s, Satanism, Freemasonry,
Though I realize the inherent difficulty in laying these sub-stages out sequentially, I tend to think that a more “advanced” version of this tendency is sketched out in systems of mystical correspondence, such as the Kaballah (or at least the version RA Wilson describes here) and various forms of magic. Except rather than trying to connect one idea to every conceivable area, the focus becomes simply more on tracking the connections themselves. You end up with associative chains of X = Y = Z = A = B = C. This will often take the shape of connecting together multiple religious systems or philosophies syncretically with the hope of uncovering the true, underlying core concepts. Synchronicities or (seemingly) meaningful coincidences also play a huge role here.
Stage Three: Lines in the Sand
I’d venture to say that either most people who enter it never leave stage two behind fully. One of the reasons for that I think has to do with the fact that it is largely a reconfiguring of the mind, and how it works. This reconfiguration forges a new identity center. There is, however, I think a point when this new configuration of the mind becomes the ground state from which arises another sequential stage.
This is the stage that I find myself currently in, and as such, it’s a little less easy for me to articulate it objectively. So far I would characterize it as: the questions and topics which once generated a lot of creative energy for me do so less and less. Some ideas and connections which thrilled me to the core years or months ago now seem boring and tedious at best, or irrelevant and meaningless at worst. Maybe it could be described as a kind of spiritual ennui.
At this point, you have developed some noticeable skills. You are able to pick up an idea, rotate it around and dissect it into constituent working components. You’re also adept at temporarily believing or accepting something as provisionally “real” on some level while you’re exploring it, and then putting it aside when you’re done with it. (This comes in large part from the Stage Two practice of taking one idea and applying to everything ad nauseum)
Judging from my own experience, during this stage you’re less interested in the expansive powers of the mind. You never grow tired of learning, but you also begin to realize that knowing it all may not be possible or maybe even worthwhile. Rather than expand infinitely, you may begin to see the usefulness of setting clear boundaries and sticking to them. Many (but not all, of course) modern spiritual seekers at this stage of the game will enter a specific tradition in order to gain some kind of consistent form and structure.
One of the biggest traps for people who go this route, that I see, is getting obsessed in determining what is and what isn’t inside of a specific spiritual tradition. Rather than connections between many disciplines (as in Stage Two), they may focus too much on the boundary-lines which separate them or their tradition from the rest. Typical thought processes at this stage: Is XYZ really Biblical? What is gnosticism? Am I *more* pagan than you? etc
Also at this stage, you’ll typically see an increased interest in community-building, which only makes sense, as spiritual traditions necessarily require more than one person.
Stage Four: Dimension X?
What comes after this, I’m not really sure. I’m also kind of skeptical of the universality of any of this, especially Stage 3. Being caught in a lot of it, as I said, makes it difficult to clearly see the outlines of it. What I can tell is that as you guy higher up numerically in these stages, you have smaller and smaller numbers of people. That is, there are hundreds of thousands of disaffected jaded people who are stuck in Stage 1. Their dissatisfaction is played upon by countless corporations which sell goods and services to fill these obvious holes. (Below them of course are the vast unwashed masses who never even admit there’s a problem to begin with). Only a small percentage of Stage 1 people graduate from anger and cynicism into obsessive connection-building and the forging of a new identity. And for the majority of those who do, building that new identity is enough. A smaller percentage wants to “find the others” who have gone or are going through the same process. They join together in formal or informal groups and traditions, and experience a sense of belonging like they’ve never had before in their lives. Their identity may become rigid at this point as well.
Then there is whatever comes after that, which presumably is composed of an even smaller fraction of Stage 3 individuals, for whom that still isn’t enough and who push restlessly onward. People who are in a tradition, who are in a community, but that’s still not enough. What is enough then, what characterizes those people? In a sense, I think these are the people who end up as luminaries, not necessarily forging their own tradition entirely, but blazing a unique path by sheer force of will, which then acquires followers and a gravitational force of its own. They are restless and weird visionaries like Philip K. Dick, Aleister Crowley, heck - even Jesus maybe.
One problem I think here is that people who are in Stage Two often imagine themselves as revolutionary Stage 4-types, because they are doing something that’s new and thrilling to them. So how do you know the difference? I’m not really sure. As I move upward sequentially in describing these stages, I become less certain what characterizes them, and what their outcomes are. I freely admit that I’m just making this up as I go along to hopefully give us a starting point for further exploration and cartography of these uncertain interior realms. I’d love to be able to take this rough outline and refine it through several iterations into something that would be useful to people. So how do we do that? Does any of this match your own experience? Is it really useful for people to have systems to judge their own progress against? Where do you stand in all this?
January 10th, 2006 at 12:50 pm
Good post. I feel like I’m currently making the transition from phase 2 to phase 3. For me, though, the transition has been marked by a lot of personal pain and inner turmoil. It requires a huge shift in perspective, a realization that the troubling thoughts and emotions are a message. It’s one’s subconscious saying, “Do something about this” not “Feel bad about this”–that’s the essential shift in perspective, from seeing the pain as reflecting badly on oneself or just seeing as bad, to seeing it as something that needs to be dealt with, accepted, and transformed.
So, yeah, I would include in your stages the chaos of repressed personal demons that have to be transformed into something helpful. Converting the seemingly negative emotions into positive energy. Or however you want to phrase it. I think it requires a more focused direction and attention than the crazy connection-making of stage 2, which is probably why people “settle down” into something more specific.
Just a thought: obviously there are a lot of people who never leave the religion of their birth, but their spiritual progress doesn’t just stall, either. What do you think these stages look like to them? How would they describe them, I guess is what I’m asking. Because I feel like they would use quite different language in some ways. Might be good to consider to make the stages more “universal.”
January 10th, 2006 at 1:18 pm
Hmm, a couple of thoughts:
As far as Stage One, there’s a good historical correlation in San Juan de la Cruz’s “Dark Night of the Soul.” But, it seems like there may often be varying degrees to each stage, as well. For some people, the Dark Night might manifest as a quiet discontent with the traditions of ones’ youth, but for others it might be a full-on schizo-shamanic death and dismemberment vision.
I also might add a Step 2.5, which would be the move from the theoretical to the practical. Armchair spiritualists might sit around in Stage 2 learning about spirituality all their lives, but until they’ve really started acted on it somehow and allowing their investigations to change the way they interact with the world, I’m not sure they could move fully into Stage 3.
Also, what about “enlightenment”? How could yr stages have an allowance for a more instantaneous spiritual experience?
January 10th, 2006 at 1:22 pm
Another great post, Tim. I like how you have a small number of stages; that makes it more flexible and potentially more universal.
I would add breakdown/disillusionment/vision in between stages 1 and 2, but then, that’s just because that’s what I went through. I know you include breakdown in stage 1, but I would give it its own stage. Hm. Maybe I’ll detail my journey on my blog.
When I went through my breakdown, I thought I had the visionary power of a Jesus or a PKD (though I didn’t know about PKD yet). Did I really? Who knows. I did begin the process of writing a creation myth; something Rev Max mentioned in his interview. It’s possible that someone breaking down between 1 and 2 can have a true creative vision, but that a certain amount of fortitude and preparation is necessary to carry it out. When I was breaking down I was Gaia, I was re-writing the Garden, but I was still Kylark a woman from a certain time and place (Midwestern U.S., late 20th century) with that person’s lifetime of bad habits, lazy streak, and lack of preparation or training for what she was going through. No spiritual framework.
What Rev Max said about re-writing creation and playing with the Gods; that’s basically what I was trying to do. I felt I was able to do that directly. Sometimes with the work I’m doing know, all this studying of magic, I question whether I’m trying to shoehorn myself into something smaller than I am. But at least I’ll be better prepared if the visionary experience comes upon me again. And maybe this time I won’t end up in the hospital.
I guess I’m in late Stage 2 right now. I’m learning about Tarot and the Tree of Life (Kaballah) and I love it. I’ve always liked maps. And that’s all they are, is maps, but they’re a lot more useful than the ones I had before. (One reviewer on Amazon.com said that the Tree of Life is basically just a filing cabinet. Hee hee).
As for Stage 4, well… I am visiting Seattle soon.
January 10th, 2006 at 1:24 pm
Er, I guess that last sentence should’ve said Stage 3, since that’s the one about forming a community. But that’s kind of what we’re all doing here, right?
January 10th, 2006 at 1:52 pm
Tim this is a great overview. My own experience:
1. Thesis= Catholicism - age 21
yeah exactly like you’ve described it here: anger, rebellion, curiousity, outrage when I realized what assumptions i’ve been operating on and how poorly they’ve served me.
I sat down one day and made a list of all the things I had always thought of as “good” and all the things I had always thought of as “evil” and realized for the first time I could be 100% wrong.
2. Antithesis = Gnosticism - age 26 - enlightenement
Obsessive connection - most definitely. Quantum physics! Gnosticism & the Nag Hammadi myths! LSD! Tantric Yoga! Computer Art! I can’t stop and I don’t want to! Its all so hilarious and magical and marvellous - anything is possible! I am an alien from outerspace! Eternity is now! Woo-hoo!
3. Synthesis = African Catholic-tribal shamanism - age 31
Hmmm… there must be more. Thats enough anarchy for a while. I need some discipline and some structure. Wait, you mean the occult isn’t all just stuff that I make up in my imagination? There actually are secret societies? Oooh… scary. Time to put my money where my mouth is.
4. We’ll see. Wish me luck!
January 10th, 2006 at 1:57 pm
Wow, these are all really useful responses.
1. I really appreciate Joe’s point about the transformation of personal demons into things that are useful, and the extreme pain and confusion that goes along with that.
2. I also really dig what Jeremy said about basically “putting your money where your mouth is” versus just endless armchair philosophizing.
3. Kylark’s point about breakdowns between stages also makes a lot of sense as well. I like the idea especially of coming up with not only descriptions of stages, but likely transition points and transformative events throughout as well. I’m definitely going to be expanding on this.
4. Another point I wanted to add has to do with the type of phenomenon you see on internet forums where everybody flies off the handle over (virtually) nothing. I know part of the fault is with forums and internet communication in general. But I think there’s also a stage where its useful or at least necessary to engage in these kinds of heated discussions, but ultimately also understand how to channel them in the most effective ways.
5. Oh another great point somebody made above is how would people who’ve been solidly in a spiritual tradition all their lives relate to the list above. It’s a hard question for me to answer, as I’ve done so much shifting around and exploration myself. If anybody wants to have a try at it, I’m curious to hear.
6. Jeremy made mention of how “enlightenment” fits into all this. I guess I’m not really sure or maybe don’t feel qualified to answer. Any takers?
January 10th, 2006 at 2:05 pm
It’s been a long while since I’ve made a post here. I have sorta kinda wanted to post, but I did move out of NYC (!!!) to the Capital District up north therefrom, and I’m loving the adjustment to a slower pace of life, to having a boyfriend and to just getting clear of “it all.” I’m not as clear of it as I would like, and I struggle with knowing just what sorts of things I need to do re: the basketcase “Ampire” we all inhabit. How much enerrgy do I give to, say, the Scalito hearings and all these hysterical-historical screechings of “meanstream Christians” (nice one!) about Book of Brokeback Eye for the Straight Tinky-Winky Lover? I’m sort of in the place of “why do I want to give my attention to any of this?” It’s kind of like I can see through these folks Imperius curses and step out of it at will. “I choose not to follow that fear pathway, but thank you for pointing it out to me.”
This idea of creating a general template of spiritual growth is something I’m interested in hearing more about. I have no idea what stage I’m at, if indeed there are stages. Feel like I really am in “the Boucher stage three,” because I am experiencing the spiritual ennui Tim talks of. I know Ran Prieur also spoke thereof about six to eight months ago. I tell you, I used to be such a biblio-holic–when I couldn’t think of anything else to do with myself, I’d haunt a B&N or Borders. Today, that thought vaguely turns my stomach. I don’t know what I want to be doing, but I do seem to be focused on actions to take rather than merely reading about stuff. And yet, part of my unfolding spiritual … space-clearing (growth is such a cancerous word) seems to be about “hurry up and wait.”
That said, some of my old interests are starting to come back. I had a dream the other day where I was in the audience to see a play I’ve been writing for 20 years finally be produced. I saw the curtain rise and then I woke up. I can take a hint, so I’m going back to my family/Columbine/Ampire’s Twilight play. I grew up in Littleton, 5 miles away from Columbine. Guess it’s time for that one for some reason.
It’s odd that I seem to be exploring both gnosticism and Reclaiming-style witchcraft at the same time. I came at these through twelve-step programs, which from my vantage point seems to be a Christianated reconnection to gnostic themes. (The Big Book sort of suggests people create their own creation myths–they certainly want you to reconfigure God to a more personal way of understanding.) I’ve clearly been through some stuff and am still going through it. Part of me hopes never to become a luminary, however. Way-shower is all right, but I like being an anonymous pal stretching myself outward along the great web o’ being who enjoys a good talk with the Blue God and Freyja about whether or not to take that class or whatever. I need to be reminded of what it means to be humble/human/humorous and teachable. Regardless of wherever I may fall in this range, may I always be teachable.
January 10th, 2006 at 2:18 pm
Hey Richard, thanks! I definitely resonated with several parts of what you said really strongly. For instance:
And also this:
Both match up very closely with my own experiences and of other people I talk to about these things. As to the first point, I’d also like to add in the idea of reaching a saturation-point where you’ve absorbed so much information and so many connections, and so many ideas, that you just can’t do it anymore. I think this is what starts to trigger Stage 3 where you start throwing things out, rather than collecting - drawing boundaries, rather than connections.
January 10th, 2006 at 2:24 pm
Another item I just thought of. Not quite sure where to slot it in, but probably within Stage 2 somewhere. Namely, that when you’re in a particular stage of the game, you want to tell everybody about it. You want to run around and yell at people “Wake up!” so that they’ll start to understand what you’re going through. I wonder if part of that is simply what turns into the communal outgrowth later on in Stage 3. Or rather, its a bridge between the community you’re reacting against in Stage 1, and the community you form or join in Stage 3. Often I think this is a very lonely time because you feel like those around you can’t understand what you’re going through and when you try to talk to them about it, they humor you or think you’re crazy.
January 10th, 2006 at 2:28 pm
Another point worth making: an additional snag that happens in Stage 3 is that as you form a community, you inevitably find yourself interacting with people in different stages. They may have more Stage 1 or 2 hang-ups, which you yourself have mostly worked through. There’s a real frustration and impatience that can develop at that point which very much needs to be resolved in order to appreciate the full benefits of community interaction.
January 10th, 2006 at 2:30 pm
Yep. And also stage three has a lot of interior stages too I think. You focus on something, and the momentum from stage 2 keeps making you want to say “yeah, yeah, i know that part already, lets hurry forward to stage 4, the part where i get to be the star of my own universe again?” And then you rudely disocver it doesn’t work that way, there is too much to learn at stage 3.
RE: enlightenment, I am still tripping on that comment the poster made about endarkenment in the interview.
When I “discovered” gnosticism I definitely had a lot of visions and insights into the deep nature of reality that were completely new and shocking but…. I did get oversaturated with information, lost the freshness of the original insights, and my flaws started to reassert themselves in disguised form - asceticism, bibliophilia, an autoriatrian fetish for footnotes, etc… it was necessary to plunge back down into things that genuinely frightened me again after a while, the darkness, magic, monsters, primal cthonic material…
I’m also reminded of the spiritual trajectory outlined by william black in soings of innocence and experience, ie:
1. Innocence (as in the Song of Thel)
2. Experience
3. Wisdom (a sort of improved innocence - see the Marriage of Heaven & Hell)
There is some complex interplay of themes of good and evil, light and darkness that has characterized this search always for me at least: seeing myself as victimized by the darkness, discovering the light, becoming confortable with the light, then becoming too light to deal with the world, plunging back into the darkness, growing comfortable with the darkness, then deciding I had gone further than I was confortable with into that, going back and getting reacquainted with the light, etc….
January 10th, 2006 at 2:33 pm
hey are any of you guys queers? Just wondering, I’m sure this post will probably get deleted, but oh well. It sort of seems like a support group in here for ultra sensitive males. Or the queerish effiminate type. Maybe queer isn’t exactly the word, but it seems like everyone in here is looking for a pat on the back or something. It’s kind of funny and cute in a way, but also sort of weird.
January 10th, 2006 at 2:36 pm
sorry, i kept thinking about JR’s post the other day and cracking up… speaking of “different stages,” LOL. I just thought that was such a peurile non-sequitor I couldn’t resist wheeling it out again.
January 10th, 2006 at 2:46 pm
I’m starting to realize there are probably a set of criteria which we could apply to each of these stages. We could maybe chart out what goes on in each of the following areas during each stage and sub-stage:
1. Social interactions and relationship to a community
2. Emotional state
3. Flow of creative energy
4. Likely significant personal events
5. Likely intellectual interests and style
6. Challenges of this level
7. Benefits of this level
8. How to help and relate to people at this level.
9. Fictional (or other) characters and stories who typify this particular level.
There are probably some others, but this seems like a step in the right direction - almost like creating our own DSM-IV for modern spiritual meanderings.
January 10th, 2006 at 2:50 pm
yeah, ’cause then you start to realize that you can’t change anyones’ minds for them, and that’s what sparks that whole saturation-point thing.
so maybe here’s what we’re starting to look at (if I can fiddle around with the numbers a bit):
Stage 1: Something’s Wrong
Stage 2: What else is there in theory?
Stage 3 (3a): What else is there in practice?
Stage 4 (3b): Hey, everybody! Look at this!
Stage 5: Fuck all ya’ll– I’m doing my own thing/finding my community.
Stage 6?: Enlightenment?
Stage 7: X . . . .
January 10th, 2006 at 2:52 pm
innaressin’:
http://www.emotional-transformation.com.au/spirit-emer.html
January 10th, 2006 at 2:55 pm
Could you differentiate these two a bit more?
Also, as far as these two:
I think when you’re doing that, you don’t necessarily realize that there IS a difference between theory and practice, because the theory so overwhelms you. Also, if we were to apply this strictly to conspiracy theorists, who aren’t normally considered spiritual, what would be the difference for them between theory and practice?
January 10th, 2006 at 2:58 pm
this was innaressin’ too - the stages of growth according to M. Scott Peck:
http://www.escapefromwatchtower.com/stages.html
somewhat reminiscent of Kohlberg’s stages of moral development now that i think about it
January 10th, 2006 at 3:01 pm
Could also try to tie this in somehow:
http://www.timboucher.com/journal/2005/07/30/the-essential-human-brand/
I’m also very uncertain how all this applies to spontaneous spiritual experiences/crises. Any thoughts on that in particular?
January 10th, 2006 at 3:04 pm
that’s why i think they should be two completely different stages. some people are perfectly happy reding about this stuff forever, but for real seekers, there has to be some point at which advancement comes via practice instead of theory. if you’re still overwhelmed by theory, then
buying land and a rifle and stocking up supplies?
well, that would be the move from reading about alternative spirituality to experimenting with it, be it through bible meetings or psychedelia or ritual magick.
this is the chaos magickian state, where you’ve had a few positive experiences with alternative spiritualities, so you want to go around proselytizing to the “unenlightened.” this is the reactionary, anti-christian state.
okay, let’s talk about it experientially:
Stage 1: Dissatisfaction with current personal experience.
Stage 2: Self-education about alternative personal experiences.
Stage 3: Experimentation with practical alternative personal experiences.
Stage 4: Desire to share personal experiences/transition from internalizing to externalizing experience (a seperate stage because this is really the first step towards developing compassion, albeit embryonic)
Stage 5: Codification of personal experiences/Actual sharing of personal experiences via community/compassionate acts.
Stage 6: Direct experience of the divine (?).
Stage 7: X
does that make sense, or does it needlessly complicate things?
January 10th, 2006 at 3:05 pm
Eye think there may likely be a set uv parallel steps for folks that stay within a tradition. What eye mean, is that for a certain temperment, the jumping off point into a mass exploration of different traditions, alternate histories, etc. is the same critical moment at which someone with another temperment chooses/ feels the need to dive into the tradition of their upbringing with even greater commitment. And thus, the parallel stages:
Stage 1: Something’s Wrong-With how authorities within m’eye tradition have taught it or with how the culture/ parents, etc. pretend to exemplify the tradition; m’eye understanding of the tradition was perhaps too naive or simplistic or whatever. Eye still believe/have faith/ have a strong feeling or insight that the “truth” for kmee is still to be found in this tradition, but eye’m not sure how to get about finding it or exemplifying it for m’eyeself in m’eye life. but eye feel apart from and an outsider to a generic group identity or mainstream (meanstream) visioning of the tradition
Stage 2: The Matching Game–Eye’m reading up and gobbling up fragments, bits, pieces–a shit ton of stuff from all over the body of writings within and about m’eye tradition. Just for an easy example, if Christianity is m’eye tradition, eye may actually be reading the gospels and Bible thoroughly and multiple translations thereof; eye may be reading about the early Church Fathers; eye may be reading various mystics who are accepted (or at least not outright denounced by) the folks in m’eye tradition who seem to have some “depth” in their practice or who seem to model a version of m’eye tradition that feels truer to where eye’m at or think eye might want to be (e.g. Meister Ekhart; St. John of the Cross; Meister Eckhart); eye may read about Christian history (good, bad and ugly); eye may read various hagiographies that resonate to kmee; eye may also read various philosophers and theologians of m’eye religion, who may or may not be in agreement but who are still viewed as being within the tradition broadly (Niebuhr, C.S. Lewis, Søren Kierkegaard). Eye may even read some stuff pertinent to how outsiders or folks of different faiths perceive m’eye path (stuff like a Om Shalom, which is a Vaishnavite Hindu take on Judaism, courtesy that dead Hari Krishna guy, for example, if m’eye tradition is Judaism, say). At this point, eye may become dismayed and end up jumping into the parallel steps along the “non-traditional/heretic/spiritual adventurer/radical”’s path OR eye will transition on to
Stage 3- Lines in the Sand- Eye’m aware of all sorts of various theological justifications/interpretations and religious experiencings of m’eye tradition and eye could keep reading on and on, but at this point eye’m getting a clearer and clearer sense of what truly being [insert traditional religion/ideology here] is and what that then entails (in the language of improvisational theater–”If this is true, then what else is true”) in terms of the actions and attitudes eye can take in everyday life to be truly living the [insert tradition here] life as eye’m now seeing/hearing/feeling it in m’eye heart
Stage 4- Dimension X?
Again, whether one goes through these stages from within the tradition they were born into or via the other route (or routes), eye feel may largely depend on temperment and how that particular intangible reacts to whatever experiences hit us at formative/vulnerable stages of our lives.
Now, speakin’ for m’eyeself, it was reading a book on religions when eye was a junior in high school that described Zorastrianism (which eye had never gnown about before) and its influence on Christianity and Judaism that broke open that thing in kmee that was dissatisfied with Catholicism and suspect of the Bible (ever since eye read a very similar Zeus makin’ people out of clay and mud story in an english class back in 7th grade–sounded too similar to Genesis to be coincidental) and the forced CCD classes on Wednesday nights growing up. Next stop, was finding a copy of Manley P. Hall’s Secret Teachings of All Ages and Societies which was in m’eye high school library and hadn’t been checked out since the early 80’s but had all this amazing art work and magic/esoteric talk in it, which resonated with stories m’eye mama used to tell us when we were little kids about stuff that happened in the old country (ghosts, premonitions, etc., how the devil sometimes appeared as a black dog and protected children–which was such a strange mystery and cognitive dissonance-maker for kmee given what the horned dude was supposed to be about). ‘Course, it’s taken a whole lot longer to get over the sexual guilt that Catholicism imprints on the youngin’s.
As far as stages, who gnos where eye’m at. Eye went through the stage of being super in to conspiracy theories and then deciding it created too much negativity and pessimism and wasn’t useful for kmee anymore…that was about three years ago. But then, when eye discovered this site and the Rigorous Intuition blog, eye got back into them to an extent–though not with anywhere near the same emotional attachment/inertia, so who gnos? Right now eye’m a dabbler in a few things and am doing more than reading, but eye do the reading when it can immediately inform and catalyze the doing. That make sense?
Eye feel that your steps/stages may need to take into an account an ability to transition or revisit steps/stages one has already been through, and that may happen for a whole variety of different reasons. Eye feel like, also, it might be useful to incorporate the Sufi idea of states versus stages of spiritual development. We can tap into states and they make us euphoric about our progress or the new vistas they’ve opened to us, but they ultimately wear off and are transitory. Stages, however, are for good and we may or may not experience certain states once we’re in a certain stage.
Skidoo.
January 10th, 2006 at 3:11 pm
well, it seems to me that spontaneous spiritual experiences/crises can move someone from one stage to another, or even cause them to skip stages, instantaneously. maybe it’s not a stage in and of itself, but thiking back on the literature of gnosis and zen enlightenment, it makes sense that this spontaneous enlightenment is a way to jump through the stages a bit more quickly. it’s why it’s so difficult to attain: it moves you more quickly than working through the usual channels. this isn’t to say that “enlightenment” is required, just that without enlightenment someone moves up the ladder gradually, while with enlightenment someone might skip a rung or two.
January 10th, 2006 at 3:11 pm
Well a lot of people say it (the journey, trajectory, evolution, growth) is like a spiral, don’t they?
That’s been my experience - it sure ain’t a straight line.
Two steps forward, one step back, forward, back again, things look different the second or third time around, now back to the same place but I’m differnet now, etc.
January 10th, 2006 at 3:12 pm
and a fun fucking state it is too!!!!!!!!
January 10th, 2006 at 3:38 pm
This is a useful distinction!
January 10th, 2006 at 5:17 pm
JP:
Okay, I get what you’re saying then. It’s not that while you’re doing it you recognize that there’s a difference. It’s that this guide serves to inform you that theory is all well and good, but you need to get off your ass. Gotcha!
PS. I really dig the way you rearranged the stages. Now let me go through and read the comments which follow that!
January 10th, 2006 at 5:23 pm
Hebrides:
Yeah that makes perfect sense and I really liked how you looked at these states/stages (and that differentiation) from a more orthodox viewpoint. I think there’s a great deal of compatibility. Also your point about going back through the cycle is well-taken I think. For example, a person in Stage 3 could again find themselves ultimatlye dissatisfied with the tradition/community which theyve entered into, and may go back through and mimic some previous states.
January 10th, 2006 at 5:29 pm
JP:
Four words for you:
Fucking spiritual warp zones!
We could think of these things as sort of a vortex which travels along the linear axis in a totally non-linear way. It can also mask itself as another state or stage, or be triggered by one. Rather than a joker which is obvious, it’s a wildcard. Or, its like the chutes & ladders in the game of the same name. Some people also explicitly court this energy and experience.
Man, I have to say, I’ve so far found this to be one of the most productive and interesting conversations we’ve had on this site in quite a while. Thanks to everybody who’s participated. I think I’m going to reformulate a version 2.0 of this later tonight and submit it for further conversation.
January 10th, 2006 at 10:12 pm
At the risk of seeming like a one-trick pony I thought I’d inject a little Ken Wilber into the discussion, because I know how much we all adore little Kenny. All evidence to the contrary, I promise you that my influences go beyond Wilber. I suppose you’ll just have to take my word on that for now. But as long as were talking about developmental stages, I thought it apt to invoke him because this is one area in which he excels.
Tim, your description of “Stage 3: Lines in the Sand” seems to correspond more-or-less with what Wilber calls the Centauric/Vision-Logic stage of development. This is the “highest” stage of orthodox development before the spiritual stages - the “brink of the transpersonal”. In a nutshell, a person at the vision-logic stage has mastered the ability to consider any perspective and see the relative truth of it. This ultimately begets a condition he calls “aperspectival madness” where all perspectives become relative and interdependent; there is nothing foundational. Reminds me a bit of the stereotypical conspiracy theorist driven to paranoid schizophrenia by a perceived web of insidious interconnections - similar to the fate that befell poor Casaubon in Foucault’s Pendulum (although this is open to interpretation, of course). Anyways, I digress. Wilber also refers to this as the existential stage because the pathologies that arise from getting hung up here correspond to the typical “existential crisis” - indeed, the primary goal of this stage is to cultivate an authentic being-in-the-world and transcend the inauthentic tendency to abdicate responsibility and deny death.
I won’t belabor the point any further, but I’d like to add that I see this as crucial to understanding the movement from theory to practice mentioned above. Up until this stage of development, particularly for those of us with a decidedly intellectual bent, we approached spirituality and the great unknown predominately by thinking about it. Once asperspectival madness sets in, and we begin to recognize the limitations of logic and reason, a more experientially oriented approach is necessary. Hence the move away from thinking (theory) towards doing (practice).
Oh, and shit, I nearly forgot to mention something about the cyclical nature of development. In fact, several years ago I wrote quite a dry and ponderous paper that attempted to shed some light on precisely that issue. In particular, I was attempting to reconcile Wilber’s model of development (linear) with that of Michael Washburn (cyclical). You see, Wilber proposed that movement through the stages follows a process of disidentification with the current stage followed by indentification with the next stage. Identification with a new stage generates a new world-view - all previous experience is re-interpreted from the new perspective. This involves Wilber’s “ladder, climber, view” metaphor, which I’ve found particularly useful. I recognized this as the mechanism behind the experience of departure (disidentification) and return (identification) that many people experience while traversing the stages - the sense of leaving home and then returning to see things in a different light. There also seems to be an intermediate step of limbo where you find yourself confused, distracted, and generally flailing about ineffectually looking for somewhere to moor your boat, but I’ve simplified it to a two-step process. So, essentially, I concluded that the process of development seems very cyclical - when viewed from the inside out - experientially. However, if you take a step back and view it from the outside in - a definite linear progession becomes apparent.
January 11th, 2006 at 1:14 am
Im jumping on a bit late- and don’t have much to add.
I will say that this is a great topic- coming at just the right time in my life.
Funny how those things work out.
January 11th, 2006 at 2:06 am
I second what A.K.G said. This is a very interesting discussion, although I don’t feel I have much to add. I have a decent mosaic/potpurri of liturature under my belt, and now you’re telling me I have to actually go out and do something about it?? Damn you all.
but all this has happened, finding Tim’s site, at just the right time for me to appreciate it and digest it properly. Life is funny that way - doors close, doors open.
January 11th, 2006 at 9:40 am
I agree with everything you say in the first paragraph, except I might qualify it by saying I don’t think it’s an exclusive problem for non-traditional practices. Even in standard religious practices, surely you can do all the standard stuff–go to church on Sundays, alms for the poor, not eat pork, whatever the tenets of the religion may be–you can have all the rules already determined for you instead of trying to work it out yourself, and still find yourself wondering if you’re doing it properly and if your relationship with God, the universe, humanity, etc is what it should be, how close you are to whatever the ideal is. Certainly, though, it’s very true of non-traditional practices as well. In reading about gnosticism, I’ve constantly found myself wondering how a person actually achieves gnosis, how do they actually recognise it, etc.
January 11th, 2006 at 12:52 pm
Alec, I found that to be very useful. I don’t *hate-hate* Wilber so much as I find him annoying at times. But I think this is one of the times where it sounds like he has a lot of useful stuff to add. I really like this:
This is like the most succint explanation I’ve seen so far of what I’m going through right now in my life.
This also makes a lot of sense to me:
I guess one of the things that turns me off about Wilber a lot of times is his need for flowerly language. “Aperspectival madness,” “disidentification,” etc. Like, I know what he means, and he’s right, but I think there are more “human” ways of communicating about it.
Anyway, is there a particular book where he develops these ideas you’re describing? Because I didn’t come across it in my limited reading of him.
January 11th, 2006 at 1:56 pm
I’m glad you found that useful. I’ve definitely found benefit in his perspective on these matters. Oh, and I was being facetious with my remark about adoring little Kenny. I know you’re trying to give him a fair shake.
Hey, You too?
Point taken. He does like his technical terms, he does - I’ll concede that much. Although, I think he does an adequate job defining the terms he uses that aren’t in common parlance. Verily, I think he writes with admirable clarity considering the voluminous amounts of information he is synthesizing, where each source has it’s own jargon.
I paraphrased the above from A Brief History of Everything, pp. 173-178. Without a doubt one of the most personally meaningful portions of the book. Although I doubt it would have had the same dramatic effect if I hadn’t digested the previous pages.
January 11th, 2006 at 2:12 pm
BTW, anyone interested can read the above passage by using Amazon’s kick-ass “Search Inside” feature. A search for “173″ should give you a link to p. 173. You can then click ahead for a few pages. When you reach the limit of “click-aheads” just search for the next page number. Keep in mind that you are limited in the total number of pages you can browse per title, so choose wisely. And no, I haven’t found a way around this restriction short of creating multiple accounts, each with separate credit card details.
January 11th, 2006 at 2:22 pm
Strange, I read that a while back, but maybe wasn’t ready to digest it in the right context yet… I’ll look through it again on the Amazon search feature, thanks.
Oh wait a second. I think I read “A Theory of Everything” rather than this one…
January 11th, 2006 at 2:24 pm
James Russel says:
I think that’s a very interesting statement. But even if you are looking into non-traditional beliefs, there are still always rules that are required to be followed. Yet, there are moments when people move past exsisting rules and begin to define their own reality, otherwise we wouldn’t have the wealth of religous/spiritual practice that we do…I suppose that may be the moment you pass to the final stage from those previous?
January 11th, 2006 at 3:17 pm
Alec, it’s funny - I just read through those pages you discussed above by Wilber, and I have to say that I think you described it in a way which was more personally useful for me.
January 12th, 2006 at 7:49 pm
[…] cool post scheduled for later tonight which is an update and overhaul of my recent post on stages of spiritual growth. I think you’ll really like […]