spiritwiki.lightningpath.orgThe SpiritWiki

Anonymous Not logged in Log in Search Navigation LP Navigation LP Home Page LP Core Teachings SpiritWiki Home Chapters Human Development Connection Disconnection Toxic Socialization The System Creation Template About Terms All Terms LP Terms Stuff Recent changes Wiki tools Wiki tools Special pages Browse properties Page tools Page tools Userpage tools More What links here Related changes Printable version Permanent link Page information Page logs Categories Categories Lightningpath Main Page Namespaces Main page Discussion Page actions View View source History More "Cosmic religious feeling is the strongest and noblest incitement to scientific research" and "the most important function of art and science [is] to awaken this feeling and keep it alive in those who are capable of it." Albert Einstein [1] Contents 1 Introduction 2 Overview 3 Human Development 3.1 Healing 4 Connection 5 The System 6 Footnotes Introduction Sometime in the year 2003, during the Easter holidays, I had a series of powerful "mystical" experiences, what I now call Connection Experiences , that completely rocked my material, athiest, world. The experiences were totally unexpected, and, I have to say, initially unwelcome. Like many scholars who have these experiences, [2] I neither expected nor anticipated the events. Although raised a Catholic, I had observed the hypocrisy and violence at an early age and rejected it. Even though I fiddled around with alternative systems throughout adolescence (Eckankar, Buddhism, Zen, etc.), I eventually entered university where I gradually accepted the dogmatic truth of atheism--God was a stupid idea, and human spirituality was, at best, a remnant of a more primitive time, and at worst, a delusion, oedipal regression. [3] [4] I neither wanted, needed, expected, or accepted anything religious to happen. But then, "it" happened. I had a powerful Connection Experience , and then I had more. At that time the initial experiences occurred, I had three choices. One , I could pretend they didn't exist and that I didn't have them. Two , I could attribute the experiences to temporary psychosis or fantastical outburst of some deep area of my unconsciousness. Three , I could embrace them and try and figure out was going on. Since there was a certain amount of dis-ease in the first connection event (frankly, it was a terrifying Clearing Experience ), pretending it hadn't happened and continuing on with my career was an attractive option. On the other hand, the experiences were literally mind-blowing, providing deep insight [5] and opening up entirely new realms of thought, conception, and experience to me. Clearly, there was more to it than self-delusion or some kind of psychosis. Ultimately, as you will gather as you browse through this online lexicon/textbook of human spirituality and connection, I didn't attribute the experiences to psychosis, nor did I try to pretend them away. I just couldn't. The experiences, which were easily repeatable, were obviously real, and had real and verifiable outcomes for me and, as I learned later when I began the literature review, others as well. The initial experience, which was a Nadir Experience characterized by the exposure and resolution of deep Catholic rooted fears, blew my socks off and totally changed me and my life. Later on, I began to see the initial experience as a successful Clearing Experience , which is an experience where a deep-seated fear that prevented connection, in this case, a Catholic fear, was suddenly and permanently cleared. I'll go into the details of this experience at some other point. Here I will just say that once the fear was cleared, my mind began to develop and expand beyond the Normal Consciousness I had lived within until that point. I started a journey that challenged my scientific materialism and led me on a two-decades-long path of discovery, analysis, and synthesis. I was, I later concluded, like Michael Harner , Oscar Ichazo , Agehananda Bharatati , Ram Dass , and other scholars who had "crossed over" into the mystical realms and had come back excited, interested, and wanting to talk. Of course, although I may have wanted to talk about my experiences, it was a challenge doing so. I broached the subject with colleagues here and then but was never really able to break the ice, so to speak. The problem was three-fold. For one, the language that was available to discuss the experiences was imprecise, tainted by all sorts of bias and misconception, and characterized by considerable Nomenclature Confusion . For two, most discussions, even those which presumably provide a sophisticated take of the topic, seemed confused and undeveloped. [6] Scholars (and even practitioners) could not distinguish between Connection Outcomes and Connection Experiences , and didn't have a sensible understanding of Consciousness. There was a lot of talk and a lot of EPMO , but nothing was really capturing the essence and contours of my experience or practice. It was a conceptual and theoretical mishmash that wasn't really providing a sensible rubric for study. Finally, for three, there was (and is) considerable hostility to discussing this aspect of Human Spirituality , especially in sociology. Most scholars simply dismiss spiritual experiences as some form of nonsense. Almost all sociologists focus strictly on the ecclesiastic and institutional components of organized religion. Efforts to broach the topic are often met with derision and dismissal. As a consequence of the nomenclature confusion, general confusion, and generalized hostility, broached discussions were often simply dismissed out of hand. I couldn't talk "mysticism" and "mystical experience" without being called a space cadet, or being told it wasn't "serious" scholarship. I couldn't express meaningfully the experience or my growing understanding because the words and frameworks available all seemed limited and incomplete in some way. This inability to discuss the topic in a grounded and sufficiently sophisticated manner was a problem. I knew that what I had experienced was important, not only philosophically, spiritually, and psychologically, but sociologically as well. Later, I learned that I was hardly the only one. These Connection Experiences were ubiquitous [7] , and were profound for the people who had them. They lead to a variety of usually positive Connection Outcomes . My solution is to the problem was to try and develop a framework, nomenclature, and research map that would allow me to talk about these ubiquitous human experiences in a psychologically, sociologically, and spiritually meaningful, but neutral fashion. I wanted words that would neither trigger immediate skepticism, or lead one-off into ungrounded realms of mystical musing, like can sometimes happen to those who spend a lot of time engaged in Connection Practice . I also wanted to bring some sociology (sadly lacking) and some unity to the field. Humans have been having these experiences for centuries and as a consequence, every culture has at least one, sometimes more, sets of terms to describe Connection and what one experiences and learns through them. It became clear as I read that these people were all talking about the same things, but none of these people were talking to each other. I wanted to change all that. This online resource, this SpiriWiki, is an attempt to bring a grounded coherence to the study of Connection Experience . This online textbook and spiritual lexicon [8] is my attempt to sort things out in a manner acceptable to myself, and to provide a "more sophisticated religious language coordinated with the scientific data," as suggested as necessary by Timothy Leary. [9] As an attempt to bring grounded coherence to the study of Connection Experience , this SpiritWiki is not here to "conceal meanings," as is sometimes the case, [10] but to clarify and reduce Nomenclature Confusion , encourage research and discussion, teach, and, dare I say, liberate f...