Boomeritis Sidebar D: Childhood Spirituality

Boomeritis Sidebar D:  Childhood Spirituality

Mark Jefferson gave a long sidebar on the general Integral Center view of childhood spirituality.  Some of it was over my head, but here’s the general outlines (from Kim’s notes with my commentary).  All I kept thinking was, I’m 20 years old, almost 21, and I don’t remember ever having a childhood mystical experience, because…. Wait a minute, that’s not quite true.  There was ….

“Mr. Jefferson?” a student called out.  “I wonder if you could comment on the lead article in a recent issue of JTP.  I know that you and many of your colleagues believe that Transpersonal Psychology is dead, and that….”

“We’re not happy about that, incidentally,” Jefferson interrupted.  “It’s just empirically the case that the Left-Hand psychologies—subjective and intersubjective—humanistic, existential, transpersonal, introspective, interpretive, you name it—have been all but eliminated from serious, mainstream, academic discourse by either a flatland postmodernism or a scientific materialism, particularly cognitive neuroscience—in other words, the fashionable Right-Hand approaches have all but eliminated most Left-Hand approaches.  JTP, for example, has an individual circulation of around 900 people; with its publication of ‘A New Birth in Freedom,’ it appears to have aligned itself with the green meme and a type of boomeritis new paradigm, so we suspect its influence will continue to decline.  For those interested, I recommend you look at Joan Hazelton’s commentary on boomeritis in its transpersonal form (see especially Seminar 8 for its theoretical contours, and  Sidebar H: Boomeritis Buddhism, for Joan’s little diatribe).”

Jefferson paused, looked around the audience.  “As I said, we’re not happy about the decline of any of the Left-Hand psychologies—humanistic, existential, interpretive, introspective—but it’s an uncontested trend.  We believe that only an integral psychology—one that explicitly includes the Right-Hand approaches along with the Left-Hand approaches (which is what an ‘all-quadrant, all-level’ model attempts)—can reverse that trend and rescue interior psychologies by including them with a coherent account of their inextricable ties with exterior approaches.”

The student, somewhat angry, seemed momentarily sidetracked, then continued.  “Right, well, I was going to say…, the lead article in the recent JTP is called ‘Childhood Spirituality,’ by Michael Piechowski.  It purports to represent the view of the author of Integral Psychology, who is one of your colleagues here at IC, but as far as I can tell, it presents almost the opposite of his actual view.  Could you comment on this?”

Jefferson grimaced momentarily, then grinned.  “Okay, son.  This is not my idea of fun, but I will use the occasion to try to summarize the general IC view on childhood spirituality. “Let’s get the unpleasant stuff out of the way immediately.  Piechowski makes several claims about the model presented in Integral Psychology and its view of childhood spirituality.  All of his claims, as you say, are almost the opposite of what that books actually says.  For example, Piechowski claims that Integral Psychology says that children cannot have any spiritual or mystical experiences.  He says this in no uncertain terms: Integral Psychology ‘argued that…young children cannot have mystical experiences.’  Actually, that book makes it very clear that ALL of the four great types of mystical experiences—gross unity (nature mysticism), subtle unity (deity mysticism), causal unity (formless mysticism), and nondual unity (integral mysticism)—CAN OCCUR AT ANY STAGE OF DEVELOPMENT, including those of bardo, prenatal, perinatal, infancy, and childhood.  The reason is that all four of those experiences are variations on the four great states of consciousness: waking, dreaming, sleeping, and nondual ever-present awareness, all four of which are present in humans even in the prenatal period, and certainly in infancy and childhood. 

“Integral Psychology is extremely clear on that point.  As only one quote from that book: ‘The importance of these three or four natural states is that every human being, at no matter what stage or structure or level of development, has available the general spectrum of consciousness—ego to soul to spirit—at least as temporary states, for the simple reason that all humans wake, dream, and sleep.  In a peak experience (a temporary altered state), a person can briefly experience, while awake, any of the natural states of psychic, subtle, causal, or nondual awareness, and these often result in direct spiritual experiences.  Peak experiences can occur to individuals at almost any stage of development.  The notion, then, that spiritual and transpersonal states are available only at the higher stages of development is quite incorrect’ (emphasis in the original).

“Contrary to everything the book says, Piechowski then claims that Integral Psychology asserts that children cannot have spiritual and transpersonal states.  This is very weird.”  Jefferson paced the stage, grinning and grimaces at turns.

“Piechowski later tries to qualify this blatant misrepresentation with a subtler misrepresentation: Integral Psychology, he asserts, claims that children can have spiritual experiences but that they are only those ‘representing the lower levels of spiritual development.’  That, at best, is a half-truth.  As we just saw, children can have peak experiences of all four the great mystical states, lowest to highest.  But when it comes to those aspects of spirituality that show development, then yes, there is often room for improvement in children’s spirituality, as the word ‘development’ implies—and as Piechowski’s own evidence demonstrates (see below).  But that doesn’t negate the authenticity of the experiences themselves.

“What Integral Psychology did was several things: first of all, it gave five common definitions of spirituality; it suggested that all five of them are important and need to be included in any integral model of spirituality—all five of them represent different aspects of spirituality, as it were.  It then pointed out that by two of the definitions of spirituality, there is little if any childhood spirituality; but by three definitions of spirituality, there are indeed various types of childhood spirituality.  The book then offered a model that included all five of those aspects.  Piechowski seized on one of the five definitions and then condemned the book as a whole for not including the others.  Good grief. 

“So let us try it this way, my friends.  Since Piechowski did not report what the book said, let me just summarize its major points vis a vis childhood spirituality.  The fact is, the various examples of childhood spirituality offered by Piechowski’s article actually support the integral model in every major respect, which is what makes his critique so weird.”  Jefferson laughed easily, continued pacing the stage.

“The model presented in Integral Psychology tries to balance several conflicting claims, all of which have considerable supporting evidence for them.  You can see this in the book’s discussion of the five major aspects of spirituality.  (Incidentally, there is a short summary of that book called ‘A Summary of My Psychological Model’ [posted on this site], which you might find helpful.  Joan Hazelton also gives an in-depth commentary on transpersonal and spiritual states in the early stages of development—see Sidebar G: States and Stages.) 

“For our purposes, we can focus on two of the most important of the five aspects of spirituality: namely, states of consciousness and stages of consciousness. 

“To begin with, the integral model—as I mentioned above—maintains that the four great states of consciousness—which are the basis of four major types of mysticism or spiritual experiences—can be experienced at virtually ANY stage of development, prenatal to adulthood to bardo (or the near-death and afterlife states).  Thus, a child can have an authentic experience of any of the great mystical states—gross, subtle, causal, or nondual.  (Technical point: the intersection of the gross and subtle we call the ‘psychic,’ so we prefer to call the four great mystical states psychic, subtle, causal, and nondual.  Joan Hazelton discusses these important points in her lecture on states and stages [see Sidebar G].)   

“Would you like to see examples of all four of those mystical experiences in children?  Look no further than Piechowski’s article, which gives excellent examples of all four of them.  He then inexplicably claims that the model in Integral Psychology denies all four of them, whereas to date it is the only coherent model that can fully accommodate them.”  Jefferson shook his head and continued pacing the stage. 

“In any event, in order to support the model offered in Integral Psychology, we are looking for examples, in children, of altered states or peak experiences of nature mysticism (gross unity), deity mysticism (subtle unity), formless mysticism (causal unity), and nondual mysticism (integral).  Let’s take them in that order, since Piechowski is kind enough to give us evidence of all four.   

“Here, from Piechowski’s article, is a terrific example of nature mysticism, or oneness with entire gross realm, experienced by a 4-year old girl:

I found myself standing at the beach, alone.  The sea touched the sky.  Breathing with the waves, I entered their rhythm.  Suddenly there was a channeling of energy: the sun, the wind, the sea were going right through me.  A door opened, and I became the sun, the wind, and the sea.  There was no “I” anymore.  “I” had merged with everything else.  All sensory perceptions had become one.  Sound, smell, taste, touch, shape—all melted into a brilliant light.  The pulsing energy went right through me, and I was part of this energy.

“That’s really beautiful, isn’t it?  Okay, here’s a good example of a subtle-realm experience.  Remember that where nature mysticism tends to deal with the world that can be seen with the senses, subtle mysticism deals with realms, states, or ‘worlds’ that cannot be seen with the empirical senses and are not normally found in nature—they are ‘trans-natural’ in that sense, often involving God or some type of Deity form(s), dakinis, subtle lights and energies, dream and visionary states, and so on. 

One day, when I was about 7, I was outside playing happily in the late afternoon.  I looked toward the sun.  Clouds were slowly floating across it, and the rays beaming out from behind them were glorious.  I became utterly entranced with the whole vision.  I had the intense feeling that God was somehow speaking to me through this scene.  At that instant, I just knew that God was in everything and everything was a part of God.  I felt awed by the whole experience, but never told anyone about it.

“Causal-realm spirituality tends to have two major ‘themes,’ if we can call them that.  The basic theme is an ‘experience’ of pure formlessness—Emptiness, the Void, the limitless Ground, the vast Unmanifest expanse….  Sometimes this is experienced as the formless Witness or pure Self that transcends all and is detached from all, although it reflects whatever arises with equanimity.  But in any event, the basic tone of causal mysticism is that of vast Emptiness prior to any manifest world at all.  This is from a girl who was 8 or 9 at the time:

During time alone in my room, I would often ‘tumble back’ into another reality—focusing on what was here before the universe or anything else existed.  I would tumble further and further into this secure void, relishing the feeling of quiet detachment, almost floating.  I never told anyone of these episodes.  Somehow I knew that my tumbling was not an ordinary thought process but a special experience that occurred only when I was alone for a while.  I never actually thought about space, time, or the universe’s creation.  My tumbling back experiences were much stronger and involved richer sensations than mere thinking.

“Nondual or integral mysticism is much, much rarer than any of the three previous types, simply because it includes all three.  Also, it is often mistaken for type #1 or gross-realm unity, because it involves a oneness with nature—but it also involves a oneness with subtle and causal, which nature mysticism, by definition, does not.  Nondual mystical experiences usually begin with a strong experience of formlessness (type #3) that eventually spills into all experienced worlds, spills into infinity, so that there is a radical union of Emptiness and all Form.  I have found only a handful of believable childhood experiences of this, but enough to convince me that it can happen in extremely gifted children.  Piechowski gives one example that verges on the shift from formless Emptiness to Nondual:

I was playing alone in bushes around our house on a summer afternoon.  I first noticed that I could think about anything I wanted, and no one knew what it was.  As I conjured up memories to think about, I realized that I could go back only a short distance in time before I found myself beyond all memories and facing a total blankness.

As I faced the blankness in my mind’s eye, I gradually became aware that my identity transcended all these memories: that ‘I’ had no form or name, no history, and filled this blankness or emptiness as an immensity extending to infinity.  This awesome feeling lasted for several minutes, and then I became aware of myself as a little boy peering out of the bushes.

“Okay, my friends, that’s the first part of the integral model: namely, that these three or four great states (psychic, subtle, causal, nondual) can be experienced at virtually any stage of development, because individuals at every stage wake, dream, and sleep.  And thus individuals at virtually any stage of development can have a peak experience of nature mysticism, deity mysticism, formless mysticism, or nondual.  Piechowski’s article, which claims integral psychology denies this, actually gives excellent supporting evidence for it.

“Now here’s the second part we are discussing, and this is where it gets really interesting—and this is where poor Piechowski gets completely confused.”  Jefferson laughed good-naturedly and took several light skips across the stage.

“Although individuals can have a peak experience of these four great states at any stage of their development, they will tend to interpret those experiences through the lenses of the stages that they have thus far developed.  In a sense it’s paradoxical, because what we are saying is that you can have a fully authentic state experience, but it can only be expressed through the stages of development that you actually have.  Joan Hazelton gives an extensive explanation of this in her lecture on States and Stages, so you might check that if you’re interested [see Sidebar G].

“The point is simply that most childhood spiritual experiences, in addition to being experiences of authentic states, become subjected to the parameters of their present stage of development.  What does that actually mean?  At least three things. 

“First, it means that most childhood spiritual experiences will tend to be temporary experiences, because development has not occurred to the point where these direct experiences can be continued in an unbroken fashion.  This does not dilute their authenticity, it only means that they are passing, not permanent.  Indeed, every one of the experiences reported by Piechowski are temporary—they only occur, as one person put it, ‘for a few minutes.’ 

“Of course, the memory of these experiences often lasts a lifetime, and so do some of the positive effects, but rarely the actual states themselves.  Most of the respondents say things like, ‘More than thirty years later I recall these episodes with great fondness.’  Episodes is right; they come, they go.  When Piechowski reports that these experiences are almost always temporary, passing, altered states, he implies that he is being open and honest, but when Integral Psychology reports the same thing, Piechowski says this is being dismissive and pejorative.  Hmmmmm….”  Jefferson again laughed good-naturedly, dancing along the edge of the stage.

“I myself have not yet seen a credible example—and, as far as I can tell, neither Piechowski nor any of the research he quotes gives an example—of a child being installed in direct cosmic consciousness for 24 hours a day, which is one of the common characteristics of Nondual mysticism when it shifts from a temporary state to a permanent trait—which appears to happen only in adult development (and which Charles Alexander and his research team called ‘subject permanence’; see One Taste).  So the first point, uncontested by Piechowski, is that most of these childhood experiences themselves are temporary, even if their effects might be lasting.  This is one of the main points that the Integral Psychology model makes—and Piechowski confirms.

“Second, this means that, no matter how truly authentic the childhood spiritual experience can be, further development will usually increase the depth of the spiritual experience.  Piechowski excoriates Integral Psychology for making this claim, but once again his own evidence, brandished with much fanfare, dramatically proves our point.  As he reports: ‘For 13% of the respondents, their childhood experience was more powerful than later adult experiences; for 17%, childhood and adult experiences were about equal; and for the large majority (70%) their adult experiences grew in strength over the childhood ones.’

“So in 70% of the cases, further development deepened the spiritual experience.  The integral model accounts for this by pointing out that, although authentic state experiences are available at any stage, as the stages themselves continue to develop—moving generally from egocentric to ethnocentric to worldcentric—then (1) the authentic spiritual states have more room to expand and resonate, because the various means of expression—that is, the stages of cognitive, affective, moral, and so on—are expanding in their capacity to communicate and resonate these states; and (2) as development continues, these temporary states can therefore increasingly become permanent traits (i.e., continuously accessible stages of consciousness).  Everything in the Piechowski article supports all of these claims.