In Over Our Heads: Robert Kegan and Spiritual Development

Dr. Robert Kegan, the Meehan Professor of Adult Learning and Professional Development at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, is a developmental psychologist interested in stages the development of adult structures of consciousness. He has identified six distinct stages. Three of these are important to any discussion of higher spiritual development. The stages of development reflect the ways in which people interpret their experience and construct the meaning of the experiences.

We pick up with the cognitive development of pre-teens. Typically just before adolescence, children have mastered what Piaget referred to as concrete operational thinking. They are able to identify specific instances of wide ranges of things (what Kegan refers to as the ability to recognize “durable categories”). They understand their roles and they tend to recognize enduring needs and have developed impulse control. This is all reflective of second order consciousness.

As people move into third order consciousness, they become able to think abstractly and recognize and intelligently interact with cross-categorical ideas. They are able to create maps of their ideas of how life should be lived and begin to conform their behavior to these maps. A large part of this process involves the socialization to adult structures necessary to get along in our culture. We become who our society expects us to be by interacting within the structures of that society. People begin to understand interpersonal realities, can identify their own inner states and recognize inter-subjective states of other people and groups. These skills allow people to function in the modern society and are essential to holding a job, parenting, partnering and simply getting along in life. According to Kegan, the vast majority of adults in American society function at this level of consciousness.

There are however, two orders that transcend and include these lower structures. The Fourth Order of Consciousness involves the ability to think in high level abstractions about the abstractions one has created in the Third Order. In our post-modern world, there is not one monolithic society – we are exposed to a wide range of possibilities and competing demands for time, money, loyalty, focus and so on. If these rise to a sufficiently complex level and we are paying attention, we make the leap to Fourth Order Consciousness. We are no longer pushed around by cultural forces but become “self-authoring”. Very few people reach this stage before the age of 40. When they do, they are no longer subject to the scripts of abstraction that they developed earlier in life but are able to chose between multiple abstractions and chose to operate out of meta-ethical frameworks. They are no longer bound by maps of behavior but have become autonomous individuals who are consciously picking and choosing the cognitive structures that they chose to operate within. They are rarely ideologically dogmatic and find they can adopt great plasticity in the ways they function and move within the world and various social groups. They are marching to their own drummer based on their own cognitive map of the world.

The Fifth Order of Consciousness starts getting very interesting from the point of view of spiritual development. According to Kegan, only a small fraction of people ever make this jump. This stage is referred to as the “self-transforming self”. It is brought on by the inherent limitations of self-authoring by coming face to face with the inconsistencies of created by the systems developed at the Fourth Order. The person recognizes that all of the ways of constructing meaning or making sense of experience are, in the end, wholly partial and incomplete. They leave things out. Their system, while very holistic and encompassing, is incapable of making any fundamental sense of their lives. The hallmark of this phase would be things like the "existential crisis" or the "dark night of the soul". This profound doubt - and sometimes downright ontological and epistemological despair - forces the self to move into dialectical transcendence of ideologies to the point where there is no longer an ego to support or defend. Reality becomes perceived as truly transpersonal and the notion of individuality looses any sense of ultimate meaning. The egoic self clearly still exists, but it exists solely as an object of observation. When this happens, life is seen holistically and what maps are useful are maps that tie disparate realities together and show the relationships between things that, on their surface appear contradictory.

Kegan has used Alan Watts’ comment that his baby was fully enlightened because he was one with his experience as a foil for discussing this stage. He says Watts got it absolutely wrong. According to Kegan, a baby is, developmentally, pure subject – the baby no distinct sense of distinct self as object of observation or experience. In all other stages, a portion of the self (from the lower order of consciousness) is seen as an object by the subject of the next stage. (Thus the Fourth Order clearly sees and understands the structures at work in the 3rd order but is oblivious to those structures of its present order – i.e. they are purely subjective). At the Fifth Order (and above), the individual becomes pure object – unlike the baby, there is no “subject”. This fundamental recognition of the contingency of self – its fundamentally illusory nature – is awfully close to the mystic realizations found in many world religions. It is not that self no longer exists but rather than self is pure object of a transcendent witness. This type of experience is deeply reminiscent of experiences spoken of by Sri Aurobindo, Ramana Maharshi, Nagarjuna, Meister Eckhart, and hundreds of other saints and sages from times past.

To my way of thinking, Kegan’s work points to the a human developmental model that both supports and gives structure to spiritual development. It provides a teleological understanding of the development of human psychology and grounds mystical experience in psychological development. That grounding is important in a number of ways, particularly people seek to live spiritual lives in a post modern world.

For those who are interested, two of Robert Kegan’s works are In Over Our Heads and The Evolving Self.

© 2007. Matthew Wesley. All rights reserved.

The Work of Jean Gebser

This is a post I have been wanting to do for some time. I finally got up the gumption to tap this out. I hope you, dear reader, find this useful.

Jean Gebser (1905 – 1973) was an autodidact whose main impact was in the study of the transformations of human consciousness. He was also a linguist and poet. While he has had a loyal following both in the United States and Europe, it has been relatively small. Ken Wilber’s work has brought him to the attention of a much wider audience and Gebser’s ideas are most important to anyone who is wrestling seriously with issues of spirituality, politics and human development. His experiences in pre-war Germany, Italy, France and Spain and reflection on the sea-change of intellectual perspectives reflected in the full blossoming of post-modern thought caused him to look closely at the structures of human consciousness through human history. After fleeing to Switzerland hours before the boarders were closed after the invasion of France, we befriended Carl Jung and did most of his mature writing while connected to the Jung Institute. His most notable book is The Ever-Present Origin. His work draws on fields as diverse as poetry, philosophy, religion, physics, architecture, music, and political science. His principal thesis is that humanity has experienced various structures of consciousness that carry within them deep perspectives of time, space, human relations, cosmic connections and images. These epochs span millennia and as there is a fundamental failure in one structure, another emerges. Gebser identifies five basic structures evidenced through human history: The Archaic, The Magic, The Mythic, The Mental and The Integral Ages. Each age includes, yet transcends the ages before it.

The Archaic Structure is difficult for us to grasp – it lies at the dawn of human awareness. Consciousness is dimly aware of itself as something separate from the flow around it. There is some sense of past, present and future but it is wrapped in a miasma and is largely undifferentiated. It is a world devoid of perspectivity. Structures that associate with this stage are groups or family units much like the great apes.

The Magic Structure is characterized by five primary characteristics: 1) a sense of self, but little or no ego structure or deeper self-awareness, 2) ambigous or cyclical sense of space and time, 3) interweaving of self and nature, 4) a magical relationship between self and not-self, 5) a lack of understanding of the differences between the non-liminal and liminal. Language emerges as this stage and words are seen as powerful in their own right. Man is deeply identified with nature and surviving within the natural order is a matter of ritual, incantation, and magic. Religion tends to be shamanistic and animistic. Political organizations tend to be tribal. The cultures tend to be hunter-gathers or in their later stages, horticultural. Tool making is rudimentary. Slavery is endemic. Art begins to be produced. Time tends to be cyclical and space is holy and laden with significance. Gods begin to emerge, but they tend to be local and associated with the tribe or family. This is a highly emotive phase.

The Mythic Structure brings the advent of more sophisticated tools and with it agriculture. Myths begin to emerge and with them mythical beings who stand above nature and can control it. The afterlife begins to become an important factor in life. Formal religion, typically with priests and holy men emerges and political structures tend to be centralized and autocratic. Slavery continues to exist, often on a massive scale. This phase tends to rely heavily on images and art begins to become quit sophisticated. Poetry becomes an important communicator and oral traditions develop to share the myths and stories. Space tends to be two dimensional and time is linear but malleable by the gods. Eventually this stage develops into monotheism and creedal belief systems. This in creates a profound ideological identification and an intolerance of the myths and religions of others. Political structures tend towards the authoritarian and imperial. Technology is sophisticated but largely based on trades and crafts. Guilds and castes are common.

The Mental Structure involves humanity stepping from two dimensional space into three dimensional space. Art becomes truly perspectival and fully articulated. Intellectual abstraction becomes possible as do pursuits of philosophy, science, mathematics, and other studies. Works of fiction emerge. Monotheism continues but eventually gives way to esoteric forms of unitive mysticism, philosophy or atheism. Time is seen as linear and cause and effect are essential to understanding the nature of the world. Ultimately, the mental structure gives way to a form of reductionism in which all that exists is material. Technology is used to reshape our understanding of the universe and matter itself. Industrialization emerges. This stage sees the rise of the nation state and the corporation. Human freedom is highly regarded. The dark side of this age is a profound lack of ethical restraint. While technology can be used for great good, it also wrecks havoc with war and environmental degradation.

The Integral Structure may, according to Gebser, be emerging. He sees the fundamental changes in our understanding of space and time as highly significant – just as with the transitions of prior ages where space and time underwent radical restructuring in human consciousness. The emergent picture is that time and space are not fixed, but relative and related. This age, Geber speculates will be trans-rational, trans-personal, and diaphanous (where there is transparent recognition of the whole, not just parts). It is likely to be highly mystical with deep realizations by both individuals and societies in which truth is uncovered in large chunks of integrated wholeness. The tensions and relations between things are more important, at times, than the things themselves and process becomes of pre-eminent concern. Nothing is seen as isolated and there is a profound experience and understanding of inter-connection and even identity. Time is seen both as infinite and illusory. Sentient life is seen as connected. While it is too early in this process to determine what political structures will emerge or what art will evolve into, there is are hints on the horizon for those who are looking for these.

I find interesting is that the mental stage was adumbrated well before its more general emergence. It was presaged by the intellectual flowering in ancient Greece. Is it possible that, with the current Integral Stage, a presaging may be found in the writings of India in the writings of sages such as Nagarjuna and Sankara?

As we look at our own culture, we see examples of late mythical stages (with rational overtones) and late mental stages of development. We begin to see, in cultural creatives and many on the vanguard of spiritual and intellectual exploration, the emergence of an integral consciousness. This, it seems to me, is important news for Unitarian Universalists.

© 2007. Matthew Wesley. All rights reserved.

Rapid Discovery Morality

In his book Sociology of Philosophies, Randall Collins uses the term “rapid discovery science” to refer to the blossoming of human understanding of the material world that occurred in the late Renaissance, its development in and through the Enlightenment, into a burgeoning economic and technological juggernaut that continues to this day. He argues that this breeder reactor phenomena of human knowledge was made possible by three things: the development of genealogies of research instruments, the creation of mathematical models in philosophic networks which both drove and were driven by technological research innovations, and the social networks of philosophers, scientists and occultists that existed at the time. (p. 807.) As Collins states, “The “scientific revolution” in Europe around 1600 changes not the natural focus of traditional science but its social dynamics. By linking intellectual networks onto genealogies of research equipment, a stream of new phenomena is produced on which theoretical interpretations may be constructed. Innovation and hence intellectual reputations no longer depend on moves in abstraction-reflexivity sequence, as in philosophy, but on manipulating the forefront of research technology.” The development of quick consensus at the intellectual core solidified these networks and allowed them to develop exponentially. The convergence of these factors transformed the Western world and generated the apogee of what Gebser would call the “mental” age – the Age of Reason. While a great boon in many ways, as Gebser points out, it lacks a moral center – it creates remarkable technology but no commensurately powerful moral values system that governs how it should be used. That failure has led us to the brink of planetary destruction either through our exploitation of the earth or through nuclear annihilation.

So the question, it seems to me, is how do we, as humanity, create “rapid discovery morality” before it is too late? What are its constituent parts? It seems that some pieces are in place. We have now mapped both the human psyche and the stages of moral and social development to some degree. We have models in place that allow a human being to consciously and intentionally begin to explore human potential. We also have a popular convergence of great spiritual traditions in the West and the East in forms heretofore unknown. Finally, for better and for worse, we have an occultism that is playing at the margins of this process. What we do not have are lineages for passing on information, nor have we discovered processes that reliably take advantage of moving those individuals and societies that are willing to the next higher stages of development. That, it seems to me, is the challenge of the religious calling – first for ourselves, then for our communities, and finally for the world. Do we not owe it to ourselve and our planet to figure this out sooner rather than later?

© 2007. Matthew Wesley. All rights reserved.

Social Transcendence

In her book, Ordinary People as Monks and Mystics, Marsha Sinetar talks of the inherent disquiet that accompanies the beginning of the spiritual journey. There is, she says, a distancing from social convention and being enmeshed in the currents of life. She calls this process “social transcendence”. From my experience, there is a great deal of truth in this concept. Those who seek a spiritual path are a bit syncopated. We are in the world, but not quite of it. We make different choices for different reasons than our peers. This difference is part of what fuels and engages us in the quest of deeper truths. There is nothing special in this, everyone has this to some degree, it is only that those who are on a self-consciously spiritual path don't push these things away - they instead embrace them.

This is, to my mind, precisely where a vipassana practice is so very useful. When I am paying attention to the little things, as they arise in my awareness, I find that I socially transcend in more skillful ways. As I pay attention, it becomes increasingly clear that a large part of my “identity” is the result of social conditioning and I can actually see its working as it exists in my thoughts and actions. This revelation of the nature of the the self, with the slow peeling back of the accretions of social layers, admits the freedom required to begin to explore my own true nature. And, as I do this, I become less reactive in the world around me. I am naturally more tolerant of the social unfolding. And, on very good days, I am able to see that process clearly enough to be able to interject the right action at just the right point to be helpful.

© 2007. Matthew Wesley. All rights reserved.

Books

These books that have influenced me deeply in my approach to life and my understanding of the world in which we live. Not all of these are for everyone - and indeed a number of them will certainly not be many people's cup of tea. I hope you enjoy poking around here to see if something grabs your a fancy. Key books are at the top with pictures. Other less influential, but still valuable books a below as links.

Books That Have Changed My Life:

Life Divine, Sri Auorbindo (1985)
The Life Divine explores for the Modern mind the great streams of Indian metaphysical thought, reconciling the truths behind each and form this synthesis extends in terms of consciousness the concept of evolution. This work has transformed the way many in the west understand the nature of reality. A truly important and profound book.



Process and Reality, Alfred North Whitehead (1978)
I first read Whitehead in college and it has shaped the way I understand life and the nature of reality since. Whitehead's efforts to to revive the remnants of Idealism in the age of the new physics are profound. While it is a difficult read, I cannot recommend this book highly enough. (Note: Because of the difficulty, some suggest reading Sherburne's commentary instead.)



Brief History of Everything, Ken Wilber (2007)
An altogether friendly and accessible account of men and women's place in a universe of sex, soul, and spirit, written by an author of whom New York Times reporter Tony Schwartz says: "No one has described the path to wisdom better than Ken Wilber." Wilber examines the course of evolution as the unfolding manifestation of Spirit, from matter to life to mind, including the higher stages of spiritual development where Spirit becomes conscious of itself.

Upanishads, Juan Mascaro (editor) (1965)
The Principal Upanishads form a series of philosophical discourses between teacher and student that question the inner meaning of the world. Composed beginning around the eighth century BCE, the Upanisads have been central to the development of Hinduism, exploring its central doctrines: rebirth, karma, overcoming death, and achieving detachment, equilibrium, and spiritual bliss.






Other Books That Have Shaped My Thinking

At this point, these are in no particular order.

• Sociology of Philosophies, Randall Collins (1998)
• Ever-Present Origin, Jean Gebser (1986)
• Integral Spirituality, Ken Wilber (2007)
• Three Pillars of Zen, Philip Kapleau (1989)
• Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way, Nagarjuna, (trans. by Jay L. Garfield)
• Peace Is Every Step, Thich Nhat Hahn (1992)
• Gospel of Mark & Sermon on the Mount from the Gospel of Matthew
• Integral Yoga, Sri Aurobindo (1993)
• Adventures in Ideas, Alfred North Whitehead (1967)
• Toward a Psychology of Being, Abraham Maslow (1998)
• Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu (trans. Stephen Marshal) (2006)
• Flow, Michael Csikszentmihalyi (2002)
• Be As You Are: The Teachings of Ramana Maharshi, Ramana Maharshi (edited by David Goodman) (1992)
• Who Dies? An Investigation of Conscious Living and Dying, Sephen Levine (2002)
• Walden; or a Life in the Woods, Henry David Thoreau (1995)
• Ordinary People as Monks and Mystics, Marsha Sinetar (2007)
• Science and Sanity, Alfred Korzybski (1995)
• The Radiance of Being, Allan Combs (2002)
• I am That, Nisargadatta Maharaj (1990)
• In Over Our Heads: The Demands of Modern Life, Robert Kegan (1998)
• The Evolving Self: Problem and Process in Human Development, Robert Kegan (1982)