Ways Through the Wall: Approaches to Citizenship in an Interconnected World

I was going to take this book with me on a trip to Israel, to read in the plane, but decided to avoid the possible questioning of the title if my bags were searched. This, to me, sums up the context in which this book emerges. Trouble from a young, naive Israeli border guard would quickly be dispelled by a scan through the pages. But in the security world, smaller markers of guilt override wider reason, and this book would prove difficult because it examines the holes in the wall and even the likelihood that the wall is not there at all. The wall is the defence-mechanism that individuals, society and institutions build to define the edges of self, nation, sanity, viability, reality and permission. But, as I mention to Israelis when circumstances permit, security walls not only exclude 'the enemy' but also imprison the society and state thereby protected. They block contact with what is beyond, driving people in on themselves and blocking solutions too. This is a book I myself could not write or edit. My life has been dedicated to working beyond the walls and, as an articulate madman, I don't secure the grant and the permit. The book is for people standing at the gates, smuggling ideas across the frontier. In this, it works well, covering a wide scope of subjects and contexts where a bigger, dimensionalised world-view intersects with tighter, academic, theological and ideological definitions of reality. Rooted largely in the language of transpersonal psychology, it embraces education, healthcare, intercultural relations, visual arts, social policy and psychology. Refreshingly, it takes an interconnected world-view as a given rather than coyly alluding to it, and it works back from there. It illustrates amply the benefits of incorporating a sense of spirituality, wholeness and 'non-local' awareness into the ordinary worlds where teachers, doctors, therapists, scientists, planners and administrators work. As such, it is worth dropping into their in-trays - probably best on a Friday. A reader with 29 contributions, it demonstrates its range through the breadth of approaches taken. Contributors variously illustrate how they have stretched the boundaries of their work and their worlds, while nevertheless anchoring back to convention. By this means, the 'weird' world where one loses one's narrower identity becomes a new anchorage, assisting safe transition between the worlds. These worlds are not separate, yet they are made so by the wall our culture builds around itself, thereby to define the boundaries of sanity and policy acceptability. The book makes heterodoxy feel safer, more manageable. Which it is and it isn't. But its tone encourages paddling deeper, not just retreating from the waves. Thus there are 'mystical' contributions describing the further reaches of human potential - spiritual, near-death and cross-cultural experiences - but the book does not avoid facing the hard facts of the middle ground faced by therapists, managers and problem-solvers. There is plenty of reference to personal, subjective experience as a starting point, yet the aim of the book is to nudge policymakers and managers into rolling up their trousers and skirts for a paddle. So much in our world is predicated on the way we see things. 35 years ago, as a young radical, I did not have the patience or tenacity to defend the bridge over the chasm between the worlds. I went into the otherworld of rippling realities and 'treading the edge', where NDEs, ETs, ancient and metaphysical worlds spoke their own language and were embraced only by those sufficiently desperate to jump in. Yet time has passed, and I and the world have changed. This book is clearly the fruit of such a maturation of perspective for its authors and editors. Today, circumstances force us to embrace 'joined-up thinking', wider realities and larger viewpoints. What was once idealistic or subversive now edges into the realms of acceptability, submitted for the consideration of committees, peer review and policymakers. This process has much further to go, but it has started. There's no shortage of rear-guard action to preserve safe cultural, scientific and public values, but what is changing is that, one by one, the definers of known reality are voting with their feet and the centre of gravity is shifting. This is symbolised in recent shifts of climatological opinion which now embrace the once-crazy ideas that human activity affects global warming, that diet and upbringing affect health, crime and psychological disorders, that understanding is needed for dealing with terrorism or that human fulfilment might prove more important than economic security. Ways Through the Wall makes a wholesome contribution to this historic, transitional shift. Couched in terms acceptable to wearers of suits and white coats, the book eases the reader's way through the chinks in the wall, gently encouraging them to pull their finger out of the dyke and let the in-flooding water naturally reshape the land. It pushes far enough but not too far, giving structure to the viewpoints of those who venture from behind their desks into the rock festivals and refugee camps of wider possibility. This said, I would still not expose myself by carrying this title past an Israeli border guard. In the anxious zone where fear and self-protection still reign, this book is suitable for burning, albeit unjustly and incorrectly. Yet history is in its favour.