COGNITIVE MODELS AND SPIRITUAL MAPS

The SMN is divided about spirituality. Some want to proclaim that this is the end point where all research into science and medicine leads. Others want to avoid the "S" word at all costs lest we frighten the horses and get the SMN confused with the Moonies and the Spanish Inquisition. This collection of essays is necessary reading for anyone who wishes to go deeper into these issues. Some may be wiser, all will be better informed, many will think that this the way forward for a rational exploration of this fundamental aspect of human experience.

In their opening essay Andressen and Forman argue that religion is a vital part of human culture, and that it can be subject to a proper critical scientific investigation. To do this they use Ken Wilber's four quadrants and divide religious studies up into (1) the pursuit of inner experience, (2) the scientific analysis of neurophysiology, (3) the study of scriptures, dogma and philosophical systems, and (4) the sociological analysis of the role of religions in society. Any one of these can be pursued in isolation, and usually is, but they argue that the deep understanding of religion demands the cyclical interrelation of all four modes. Thus we do not understand sacred scriptures unless we can empathise with the burning inner vision of the seers and prophets who wrote the original texts. We do not fully understand these writings unless we know the pre-existing intellectual, cultural and social background into which this white hot experience was poured, and through which it was expressed.. In this way the study of religion can transcend sectarian fanaticism, the aridity of theological word splitting, and the superficial scepticism of post-Marxist sociology. The cyclical correction of each mode of understanding by the next produces an open self-critical system and a new direction for religious studies.

In the next essay Jensine Andresen goes into detail about the second "quadrant" of objective neurobiology.. All you wanted to know about the effect of meditation on the brain is here on offer, and perhaps rather more. The appendix to the article is 20 pages of references in small type. Many meditators , both Eastern and Western, have had their brains scanned by EEG, magnetic resonance, and sophisticated blood flow analyses. There is no doubt that the deliberate practice of meditation produces measurable changes in brain activity, though the significance of these is far from clear. Meditation means different practices in different traditions. Sometimes the effect of meditation is to relax and quieten certain areas of the brain , sometimes it results in the arousal of other areas. More research appears to be needed. Jensine Andresen concludes by suggesting that researchers should be more open and personal about their own experience and commitment in this field of mind control.

Arthur Deikman's essay relates to the first quadrant of inner experience and is a restatement of the paradigm of the unity of religious experience. Consciousness divides into instrumental and receptive aspects. Mystical experience follows on the development of the receptive aspect. This leads to an awareness of the spiritual self and a sense of unity with the Ground of Being. Service to others and self-abnegation are intrinsic implications of this development.

Stanley Krippner exemplifies the exploration of the fourth quadrant with his sociological analysis of Shamanism. Not suprisingly "Shamanism" turns out to be a Western academic concept taken from the practices of some Siberian tribes, and applied generally to an unsophisticated level of culture where religion, magic and medicine meet. Equally unsurprisingly as soon as a literate priesthood arises within a society, Shamanism is relegated to a lower social level. Nevertheless Shamanism persists even in sophisticated societies because it meets human needs. In ways in which orthodox religion and orthodox medicine do not. Does it, however, provide a gateway to an alternative reality? The Shamans certainly think so, but do they achieve shifts in the perception of space and time in terms of our scientific reality? The question is unanswered.

Phillip Weibe provides a thoughtful analysis of visions of Christ, or as he terms them "Christic Visions". For some they are a vivid proof of the truth of Christian theology. For others they are merely evidence of delusion and hallucination brought on by excessive religious fervour. Weibe suggests that neither view fits the evidence, and that what we need is a more humble view of how much we understand the way the brain processes the information it receives from consciousness.

The core of this collection is the piece by Ken Wilber. He argues that neither mind nor matter can be reduced without remainder to the other. If he is correct, and in the opinion of this reviewer he is, than materialism and idealism fall by the wayside and dualism dodges the issue. The nature of reality is has to be described by some sort of panpsychism or panexperientialism. Reality has two poles, inside and an outside. At the human level we experience these two poles of reality as mind and matter, but at the appropriate level this applies to everything in the universe, including the entire universe itself. It follows that the study of consciousness divides naturally into four quadrants. There is a "horizontal" division between inner and outer ( subjective and objective ), and a vertical division between singular and plural ( I or it versus we or them ). Thus insight into personal consciousness, (1): the neurobiological analysis of brain activity (2); the study of interpersonal language and shared belief (3), and the study of the individual in society (4); are valid aspects of the study of consciousness, but the deepest insights can only come through an integral study which unites all four aspects.

Wilber suggests that consciousness can be understood in terms of levels, structures within these levels, and lines and development ,or waves, leading from one set of structures to a higher and more inclusive set. This provides a grid into which normal psychology, assorted pathological states, and various stages of spiritual development can all be fitted and compared. The consequence of this is an all embracing cosmic system in which everything has an inside and an outside, and things in turn build up into "holons". Thus atoms group into the greater holon of a molecule, molecules into a living cell, cells into a body, and if that body is human, we know its inside as our own consciousness. It follows also that everything in the universe has its "inside": not only cuddly domestic animals, but trees, rocks, and stars.

The ultimate question is the "hard problem" of consciousness. How exactly do mind and matter interconnect. Wilber's answer is best put into his own words "You can learn or memorise the holonic model and yet you still experience your consciousness as residing 'in here', and the world existing 'out there' dualistically. That model is only overcome, not with any model ... but only with sartori .... delivered only by prolonged spiritual practice. " In the following essay Christian de Quincey accepts Wilber's general approach but criticises him in detail. De Quincey argues that A.N. Whitehead's model of 'prehension' is philosophically more logical than Wilber's holons, but he admits that Whitehead's philosophy is purely an intellectual construct which sees nothing between the human intellect and God. Wilber, he admits, is more consistent in seeing many grades of consciousness and existence between the human and the ultimate Divine.

James Austin's essay covers the same ground as his "Zen & the Brain". If the workings of the thalamic reticular cortex are inhibited ,the sense of the egocentric personal self disappears, and a peak experience which seems equivalent to the Zen state of "kensho" can then supervene. Austin is a Zen practitioner as well as a scientific investigator. For him Zen just is, it is not a springboard for metaphysical speculation. Newberg and D'Aquili locate the neurophysiology of religious experience slightly differently. Their researches suggest that alterations in the Posterior Superior Parietal lobe can obliterate the sense of space and time and dissolve the distinction between the self and the other. Again the question remains unanswered whether these states are a gateway to a deeper reality, or merely the delusions of a disordered brain.

In the standard picture of the unity of religious experience, all religions start at different positions around the mountain rooted in their own texts, dogmas and rituals. The mystics climb away from a fundamentalist belief in scripture and up towards the pure experience of the Divine. As Brian Lancaster explains Jewish mysticism is paradoxical in that it goes in exactly the opposite direction. The Kabbalistic tradition begins with extreme concentration on the words of scripture and even on the letters making up the words. However this exercise appears to deconstruct both the words, and the everyday rational mind which is locked into the words. The result is a free intuitive state which is the beginning of mystical experience.

This book is not a collection of devotional tracts but a serious academic inquiry, it therefore properly contains an essay totally critical of the assumptions behind the rest of the book. Robert Sharf questions the whole idea of "religious experience", and the assumption that this is what the religions of the East are based upon. He alleges that the whole concept is a 19th/20th century Western invention starting with Schleiermacher and going on with William James and Aldous Huxley, reinforced by Asians such as Radhakrishnan and Suzuki. They had the hidden agenda of asserting Asian cultural superiority in the face of Western technological supremacy. They probably did, but then those who deny the unity of religious experience often have the hidden agenda of believing in the uniqueness of the Christian revelation. The hidden agendas do not prove, or disprove, the argument either way.

Behind all the complexities of ritual and philosophical arguments Hinduism and Buddhism assert that there is a something behind all phenomena, human existence and Gods. Union with this ultimate something, be called Brahman, or Nirvana or anything else, is nevertheless possible for the enlightened human mind. If this is not so, then all the translators of Eastern texts, European and indigenous, have been hoaxers. Also there is an equivalent tradition in the West which says exactly the same thing. It stretches through Swedenborg , the Christian contemplatives, the Neo-Platonists of Renaissance and Mediaeval times right back to the vision of the cave in Plato's "Republic" at the very beginning of Western culture. It is amazing that Sharf does not recognise this.

Sharf's second point is more subtle. The rhetoric of appealing to religious experience proves nothing. He does not deny the existence of subjective experience, merely that we can only talk about our subjective experience through using objectively agreed words. Since religious experience seems to be ineffable, we cannot usefully talk about it. Fortunately as human beings with highly similar physical bodies we all experience "red" and "hard" in similar ways and therefore can build up a common vocabulary to describe our inner experience of the physical world. If we had had to build up a common vocabulary with cats, whales, slugs and ants, all of whom experience the physical world very differently, then common discourse and science would have been much more difficult. The immediate territory of the subjective "I" is different for all of us, the journey of exploration is all the more difficult, but it does not follow that it is meaningless.

It would be wrong to imply that this collection has wrapped up all the problems of life, the universe and everything. There is one key topic which is never mentioned. Death. Human life ends in death. This is of personal interest to each of us, though we prefer not to think of it. Death also poses problems for the panexperiental explanation of reality. If mind and matter are opposite sides of the same coin, then it should follow that when the body is destroyed in death, the mind is destroyed as well. Yet Wilber and others hold that the mind within human incarnation can obtain flashes of direct insight into the Eternal substrate which underlies both mind and matter. What then happens at death? Does individual self-consciousness dissolve directly into the Eternal? There is impressive evidence from psychical phenomena, near death experiences, and the investigation of apparent memories of previous lives, that something of the personality survives death. How can this be possible? Does consciousness exist as the reverse side of free range neutrinos? Should we be thinking of matter in terms of non-locality and information theory rather than hard billiard balls. The answer to these questions is that no one knows the answer. These essays are not the declaration of a metaphysic which wraps up everything. They could, however, be the beginning of a more humble and deeper exploration into the mystery of our existence.