Fowler described six stages of faith development.7 I learned that I was not lost, simply wandering my way beyond the conventional faith where I’d labored for all of my career, and out into the next stage. Known territory, unfamiliar to me but known to others. I was freed to wander.
2. Read “spiritual,” since as an INTP (Myers-Briggs Personality Inventory) my primary method of doing spiritual work is quite intellectual; Thomas Aquinas is my model.
3. For my fuller discussion of Wright’s book, see Chapter 3 (54–57)
4. Dean, Psychiatry & Mysticism
5. The four papers of greatest interest in Psychiatry & Mysticism
Adams, Paul L. “Metapsychiatry and Quaker Meditation” 185-193
Benson, Herbert, Beary, John F., Carol, Mark P., “Meditation and the Relaxation Response” 207-222
Girof, Stanislov, “Varieties of Transpersonal Experiences: Observations from LSD Pychotherapy” 311-345
Silverman, Julian, “On the Sensory Bases of Transcendental States of Consciousness” 365-398
6. Detail of Silverman’s schema: When, by whatever cause, a person’s perceptions (i.e., interpretations of stimuli) and response patterns are altered (i.e., non-normal) his consciousness (i.e., awareness) is altered, and his normal psychological structures for interpreting and responding to stimuli are interrupted (i.e., disorganized), so that the usual boundaries which structure his thought and perceptions become fluid. The key understanding is that perceptual and conceptual structures (i.e., the ways [processes, screens, filters, patterns] my brain has developed to perceive and understand the world in which I find myself) require the constant nutrient of their accustomed stimuli; conversely, prolonged minimal scanning and minimal differentiation weaken and disrupt these psychological structures, their functioning is no longer stabilized by constancies and their reality breaks down; new and awesome meanings may abound. Silverman discovered in his study that such altered perceptions and resultant disruption of psychological structures within the mystical experience have a high correlation with the sensory and attention patterns of persons (1) in the incipient or acute stages of a schizophrenic episode, (2) undergoing LSD psychotherapy, and (3) in conditions of extreme sensory deprivation. All four (mystics, schizophrenics, psychedelics, and sensory deprived) of these sets of persons experience (idiosyncratically) cosmic consciousness, oneness with the universe, ultra consciousness (i.e., one defying description), exhilaration, ecstasy, serenity, strong positive affect, oceanic engulfment, transcendence of time/space, ancestral and collective unconsciousnesses, new and startling insights, knowledge and understanding, heaven and hell, a diabolical mysticism.
The Bowers paraphrase of this process is that when perceptions are significantly changed, then the psychological structures we need to receive and process incoming data and our response to it begin to break down, and those psychological structures in turn begin to search for a new reality which makes sense of this new data set, which in turn potentially opens the door to new insights, new comprehensions of reality. My conclusion out of this (perhaps too simplistically) is that the insights of mystics are of roughly the same ilk as those of schizophrenics, drug-trippers, or sensorily deprived persons, and are no more to be automatically trusted than these. All such insights should be taken seriously, but scrutinized in light of this reality in which we daily live, and not from within such perception-altered experiences.
7. a.) Intuitive-Projective Faith [3-7 years],
b.) Mythic-Literal Faith [ca. 10 yrs, though some never grow beyond this stage],
c.) Conventional (i.e., fits general beliefs) Faith [adolescence, sometimes permanent in adults],
d.) Individuative-Reflective Faith,
e.) Conjunctive Faith [no simple definition], and
f.) Universalizing Faith [only a few, e.g., Gandhi and Mother Theresa].
Chapter 3: My Circle of Standing Stones
I have never been able to sustain a discipline of journaling for more than a few days at a time. But at this Christmas Eve service I found my mind wandering. Not intentionally. Not even absent-mindedly, nor out of boredom. And the thoughts seemed substantive, worthwhile. So I paid attention. I suppose these bits may have been the beginning of my spiritual wandering. You might want to watch for that as we proceed.
St. Luke’s in Granville is my circle of standing stones. What I mean by that will become apparent as you read.
December 24, 2007, Christmas Eve—11:20pm
I sit and listen. I sit and luxuriate, I wallow in the atmosphere. I sit and wonder. I suppose the midnight Christmas service has always been my favorite. As Susan Lehman suggested in my theological infancy, the Jews had it right, the Christians got it wrong when we switched from Friday evening to Sunday morning. I know the historical and theological rationales for the change. But they are ex post facto. And whatever rationalizations they scream in my ear, they still got it wrong. The reality is that evening times, midnight and pre-dawn are the magical times for worship. So the Christmas Eve midnight service has everything going for it, as does the Easter Eve Vigil. The hour and the colors and the smells and the cold, crisp breezes (maybe even snow!) outside, but inside the warm, friendly faces and bodies crowded together, enjoying being together, and surrounding, embracing, enfolding it all the dark and candlelit, mysterious night.
I cannot really remember my first Christmas Eve church service, but it was certainly in my pre-teen years. That and New Year’s Eve were the only times I was allowed to stay up that late. It was a rare privilege, a special occasion. The very dark, small, old, clapboard church, candlelit (long before fire marshals thought to shut down such operations), one of the rare times when it was very filled with people, with two lighted balsam trees perfuming the air with Christmas aromas jammed inside the tiny sanctuary, so it was nearly impossible for the priest and acolyte to maneuver inside the altar rail, swatches of pines hanging from the window sconces and pew ends, red bows everywhere, and wonderful music, the organ and the singing choir, familiar but special Christmas carols. It all worked together to make that dark hour magical, and filled with mysteries intended to be savored, not solved. Warm, very tender memories. Powerful, healing memories. Binding, life-giving memories.
So tonight, an old man now, I sit and watch, and listen, and sense, and wonder: what’s it all about? Oh, I know the theological content, the rational and supra-rational content. It’s been my profession for over forty years. But tonight I sit and wonder what it’s all about. Stephen preaches, thinner stuff tonight than his usual (but that’s alright, because the preaching of the word does not carry the message this night; the darkness and every other wonderful thing inside this building convey the complex of messages), so I sit and hear the words, but my listening is more inward, a wondering: what’s it about? What is wanting to be said to me? To be heard by me? The secular Christmas has become such an impossibly heavy, jangling and jarring noise (an annoying, no, a disorienting cacophonous racket I want to creep away from, really). What’s the real message here in the dark quietness?
And here, in the dimming years of my life, I wonder what it’s really all about, this Christian stuff? I’ve learned it and recited it and preached it and taught it for six decades
