Does the Self (Real, Actual, False) at Each Stage Advance through all Structures?

Hi again Heather, I've still been thinking about your post and I think I may have found something else that might be slightly clarifying from your first paragraph:

Does the self, as it experiences the successive states--such as through training, have to work its way up through the structures?  (This would amount to a zig-zag pattern up the columns.) In other words, does the gross self work through the structures and then the subtle body work through the structures and then the causal body, etc...?  I realize it may not be such a neat progression because we can experience any stage at whatever structural level or wave we're at.  But, as someone trying to advance consistently and consciously, it's useful to be able to recognize structural progression.  Some of my spontaneous stage behaviors, such as in dreaming, are operating at lower structural levels than I would like.

Maybe it is a typo, but I think when you used the word stage in this paragraph you actually mean state.  If this is right then I think what you meant to say could be said like this:

Does the self, as it experiences the successive states--such as through training, have to work its way up through the structures?  (This would amount to a zig-zag pattern up the columns.) In other words, does the gross self work through the structures and then the subtle body work through the structures and then the causal body, etc...?  I realize it may not be such a neat progression because we can experience any state at whatever structural level or wave we're at.  But, as someone trying to advance consistently and consciously, it's useful to be able to recognize structural progression.  Some of my spontaneous state behaviors, such as in dreaming, are operating at lower structural levels than I would like.

If you are talking about "stages" in terms of state training, it might be helpful to say "state-stages" because these are different from vertical stage development.  The reason I think you might be talking about states and not stages is because you say they are spontaneous.  Vertical stages are not spontaneous, they are basically permanent acquisitions.  Horizontal states, however, are spontaneous unless they are deliberately trained (hence state-stages but notice that state-stages are still mapped as a horizontal development on the Wilber-Combs lattice). 

Anyways, I feel like some ice cream, I found this ice cream in a dumpling at a shop here in Harbin.  So good!

Integral Psychology was written before the Wilber-Combs lattice.  I think everything I have pulled from it in this blog still fits but I just thought I should point that out.  Any understanding or lack of it here might benefit from trying to situate it using that lattice as a conceptual tool.

 I apologize for rejoining this conversation so late.  Somehow I wasn't getting email updates about responses, quite possibly because I didn't sign up for something correctly.  I only found it when my weekly Integral Life circular featured a video clip addition on the false, actual, and real selves as part of this module/series.  (I haven't watched it yet, but will right after this post.) Anyway, I'm glad to read your and Ambo's responses, and wow, lot of gold nuggets there.

It has become horribly clear now that I must get Integral Psychology.  I think that often some of the abstract terminology keeps me on the outside of the conversation in places.  But, once I learn the terminology, I see how useful it is for facilitating exchange across traditions, not an easy task. Forging a new vocabulary for all this must not be an easy task, and our hats are off to Ken Wilber for blazing that trail.

Where to start?  The quotes you found, Brendan, were right on-target. I was particularly struck when rereading this part of a quote you posted that there is also a “transcend and include” function with the movement from ego to soul to Self:

"Although with higher development, the center of gravity of consciousness increasingly shifts from ego to soul to Self, nontheless all of those are necessary and important vehicles of Spirit as it shines in the gross, subtle, and causal realms...all three of them can be, and usually are, simultaneously present in various proportions throughout development."

This means that the realms, then, also transcend and include.  This might seem obvious to others, but this was a pretty startling revelation to me.

Lower levels than I would like.

Brendan: “This is just speculation but I think it might not be that your subtle structure itself is lower than you would like it to be, but actually your frontal structure.  I say this assuming what you mean about dreaming (correct me if I'm wrong) is that you don't have awareness/they seem to be missing from your awareness, or something like that.  To solve this structurally, I think it means the frontal structure itself just has to grow.  You can add more state training but that won't force your frontal structure to change immediately.  Anyways, like I said this is just a first stab speculation so take it lightly.”

At first the term frontal threw me a bit, but I think I understand how it’s used.  It’s just an interesting choice of terms, and in a way, it suggests the idea of a mask—ego as mask, edifice, persona.  I’ll have to read a little more in Ken’s usage before elaborating on that, but let me clarify a little bit about what I meant by my statement: “Some of my spontaneous [state]-stage behaviors [good catch on that terminology], such as in dreaming, are operating at lower structural levels than I would like.”

I spend a lot of time working out different types of dream experiences, but I have been working with the base materials instead of a helpful system like Ken’s.  When I say that I was operating at lower structural levels in my dreaming state, what I mean is that my subtle body was doing things I wouldn’t normally do, like performing magic and stuff that would correlate with lower structure levels (or just doing immature things like flipping someone off)—not all the time but enough to make me wonder what in the heck is going on. I also do mature things too, :) but it is the anomalies that have me wondering. I am usually watching from a perspective where I’m observing the dreambody perform these acts. (Also, seeing the dreambody in waking state visions... but less so recently, so maybe you're right about integrating that aspect.) I know that Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche in The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep makes the point that we need to wake up in our dreams so we do not accrue more karma through them.  Yes, there’s a place for samsaric dreams (which are what I correlate with the sort of Freudian analysis of dream symbols and the Jungian collective-unconscious-influenced dream symbols--stuff that works up through the subconscious), but the point is to move past them. It seems to me that the subtle body doing things that my egoic mind would never think to could still be creating karma through these acts, but it seems a little unfair, considering I’m not lucid when that’s going on! I'm not really worried about this phenomenon as much as curious about it.

And, following the idea of the dream yogis, I think that by experiencing the subtle self in the dream state, I can gain an awareness of my subtle body to carry into the waking state. I seem to possess certain qualities in the subtle body that have not fully anchored to that extent in my gross conscious body, including trickster playfulness, deep compassion, detachment from worldly desires, much better discipline.  (Before your post I assumed these were part of the unique Self, but now I wonder if they are part of an actual self at a structure-stage.) When I see my dreamself, it seems more “like me” than the false self I experience in the gross realm and waking state.  All the things I'm working towards seem effortless for this subtle self. 

I’m afraid I’m just muddying up the waters, trying to fit my experiences into term-shaped packages, but I’m going try to explain this anyway.  I also worry that I cross lines here, going from philosophy, which I’m trying to stick to, into belief structures.  I’m not trying to advocate, for instance, that others should believe samsaric dreams exist.  I’m merely stating that I believe that is a useful lens for understanding a type of dream state that I want to experience less of.  How this all fits into the integral framework is what I’m still trying to figure out.

I really like, Brendan, what you say below.  This sounds decidedly Jungian:

“I think if the false self is being repressed or something, certainly part of our self might look as another.  Or this might be like the frontal self becoming aware of the subtle (soul) self and seeing it as a parallel or double.  If that is the case, the soul self is still being seen as a state I would guess?  When the frontal structure itself starts to include the psychic/subtle as vertical development, maybe the experience of a double lessens, or changes in some way.  Just some thoughts...”

I hear in here the idea of the shadow self… “false self being repressed… might look as another.”  I’m not sure if this is similar to the way Ken uses the term shadows… I have to do more research to find that out.  I think I’m trying to create a point of departure from Jungian dream analysis… I find it somewhat inadequate and restrictive as it is usually employed by practitioners (however, the Red Book’s release holds some promise in this area, I believe, for opening up some new mystical dialogues about Jung and the role of the subconscious in mysticism).

And, that point of departure I've found so far (though one might question whether it really is a departure or not) from Jung comes along with more shamanic dream interpretation.  I have been influenced in this area by Arnold Mindell, James Hillman, and Robert Moss, all of whom, to an extent, bring Jung out of the bedroom and into the Buddhist Nonconsensual Reality’s light of day.

You’re right, Brendan, I think, when you say that shamanism need not be lost in the lower structure-stages:

“Coming out of the subtle experiences that shamanic state training provided, the individuals would then have to make sense of their subtle experience using the frontal structure available to them.  But as the frontal self has evolved over the centuries, subtle realm experiences can be interpreted from a higher level of frontal development.”

This is really insightful, I think.  Jungian thought (which extends beyond psychology), mythology/folklore, and shamanism are areas that I wish were addressed more on the IL website—in a context that wouldn’t turn it into a new age wrestling match.  But, they are foundations for a transpersonal sort of psychology, aren’t they?  And, they are also important building blocks if the structure-stages transcend and include—they are part of our human history and to a large extent—as you point out—influence our artists.  Some artists have gone so far as to aver that we have a sort of transrational, archetypal reaction to art influenced by mythological content, and it seems true to me. I have to do some more reading on transpersonal psych, etc. (always more reading).

I want to quibble a bit with your definition here:

And shamanism, as a state training technique can still be employed by a frontal self at any level as far as I know.  In other words, at rational, or pluralistic, or integral, an individual can still take up shamanic drumming or take psychedelic drugs and use those techniques to access a subtle state.  But their interpretation will be different from the historical shaman or the modern day "magic" (consciousness level) shaman.   Many of the artists being talked about as being "integral" seem to have a strong shamanic influence.  In other words, shamanic as a word seems to refer more to the subtle state than a particular level, at least when used alone.

While its tools are available at all structure levels that have transcended and included the historical shamanism, there is something that strikes me about shamanism as showing divergent evolution.  Their closeness to the lifeworld from which they read divination symbols suggests a built-in belief system about reality that seems to agree with the spiral's progression up to a point before diverging and evolving separately. Castaneda clearly articulates in his portrayal of Don Juan Matus that cosmology is closely linked to shamanic practices themselves (such as trying to unite with the parallel self as an objective of practice, dreamstalking, recapitulation, seeking liberation to avoid being eaten by the great eagle in the sky, :) etc).  I’ve also heard the Tao Te Ching referred to as a shamanic tradition, but in that case, it’s much clearer which other Eastern philosophies it influenced.  “Western” shamanism (and Western doesn’t really fit here since it has been outside the intellectual tradition apart from Jung, as I understand it, and acts as a trickster in relation to intellectual history) is sort of an odd beast that perhaps should be treated separately and alongside the eastern and western religious traditions, and I’m not able to fully articulate yet what doesn’t match up there.  No one is scrambling to bring paganism into the broader discussion, yet a lot of the contemplative practices that are acknowledged, like centering prayer, are based in just as tenuous, exploratory, experiential ways of knowing and spiritual unfolding as shamanism. Shamanism is not alone as a trickster figure in this regard--just look at how Meister Eckhart was received and Teresa of Avila and most of the saints in all traditions.  Mysticism seems to be the heart of the institutional religious practice (the interior), and at the heart of mystical enterprise is the trickster figure—the foil that is in some ways the purest form of the tradition while being the harshest internal critic that stirs the waters.  The trickster is an important emissary, traditionally, between the imaginal realm and the realm of forms.  But, there is a price to be paid by the trickster, and by the mystic, for this transit.  The same is true for the bodhissatva, who embodies some of the same energies of transgression in service of a higher good.

I guess I’m saying that I don’t know what “transcends and includes” looks like with shamanism because in some ways it seems to defy the spiral dynamics progression (perhaps because it's most recently a part of cultures whose techno-economic structures evolved somewhat separately from the rest of civilization). I think Fr. Keating made a similar point to this in one of the Q&A sessions in the video from one of these discussion series on the Wilber-Combs matrix.

Back to parallels: I recently read a blog comment in which someone described parallels/doubles/etc. as emanations or rays.  I’m wondering if that idea of rays might be relevant, too, to the discussion.

I’ve gone on too long, I fear, and I’ve gotten a ways away from the initial inquiry about terminology and state-stages.  I also am afraid I didn’t quite get to the point yet of directly dealing with some of your most helpful comments in response to my questions, Brendan and Ambo.  But, I really enjoyed this stimulating discussion and think ultimately I could make my response relevant to the discussion—if forced.  J  I am so thrilled to have a community in which to discuss these matters. Thanks for your awesome input!

P.S. Brendan, could you clarify the terms “high subtle” and “low subtle” as you used them in a response to Ambo?  Or, could you send me to a source where I could find a discussion?