Fransje de Waard (2010), Spiritual Crisis, Varieties and Perspectives of a Transpersonal Phenomenon

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Spiritual crisis

Varieties and perspectives of a transpersonal phenomenon The American comedienne Lily Tomlin once observed with surprise that we call it ‘praying’ when we talk to God and ‘schizophrenia’ when God talks back to us. In this book people speak about inner experiences in which they perceived themselves and the world so differently that they thought they were going mad. Experiences of existential voids, heights and depths, freezing wastes and silences, of pure energy, love and fear, oneness and chaos. They found no explanation in science or religion; traditional standards of normality and morality brought them no further than ‘madness’ and ‘heresy’. From sheer necessity they learned to steer by a sort of inner compass, and began to tap unconventional resources. This gave their experience on balance the depth and dynamism of a spiritual transformation which they would not have wanted to miss.

Since 1994 such spiritual crises have acquired an official place in psychiatric diagnostics, namely as non-pathological episodes. Knowledge and insight fall substantially short, however, both in professional circles and among the public at large. In this book the author shows how transpersonal psychology interprets such crises as the growing pains of human consciousness. This wider perspective transcends the traditional, individual frameworks of the life sciences, parallel to the earlier shift of classical mechanics to quantum physics. At a time that resounds with demands for meaningfulness, and which seems engrossed in a holistic model of reality, this book sets about giving a place within this perspective to the phenomenon of the spiritual crisis.

Author

Fransje de Waard MSc. has a background in applied science and a Masters Degree from the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology in Palo Alto, U.S.A.


SPIRITUAL CRISIS


VARIETIES AND PERSPECTIVES OF A TRANSPERSONAL PHENOMENON Fransje de Waard





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Copyright © Fransje de Waard, 2010 Translated from the original Dutch by Jo Nesbitt The moral rights of the author have been asserted No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without permission, except for the quotation of brief passages in criticism and discussion. Published in the UK by Imprint Academic PO Box 200, Exeter EX5 5YX, UK Published in the USA by Imprint Academic Philosophy Documentation Center PO Box 7147, Charlottesville, VA 22906-7147, USA ISBN 9 781845 402013 A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library and US Library of Congress

‘As one tone does not produce a harmony, neither is a truth which stands alone complete.’

Emanuel Swedenborg, Arcana Coelestia, 4197






This book is dedicated to:

those who find themselves in a spiritual crisis and must go to great lengths to emerge whole again; those who find themselves in a spiritual crisis, but do not find the help that they need; those who support them in word and deed, with understanding and compassion.


Contents

Acknowledgments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . x

Foreword by Dr David Lukoff. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

1 Emanuel Swedenborg and the Question of Diagnostics . . . . 14 1 The young scientist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 2 Plumbing the depths on all fronts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 3 Celestial visitation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 4 Wildfire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 5 Friction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 6 Lunacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 7 Test of criteria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 8 An uncomfortable truth? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Diana . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Hans. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Josine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

2 The Scientific View: Ego as the Measure of Things . . . . . . . 56 1 The dimensions of a cornerstone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 2 Spiritual fathers of the psychological self-image . . . . . . . . 59 3 Cognition under the microscope. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 4 Freud’s taboo and totem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 5 Nuances and amendments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 6 Pathology in the second person singular . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 7 Madness from the inside out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 8 Doubt, scepticism and transparency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 9 The big question . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 10 The subject and methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Frans. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 Sandra. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 Karin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

3 Window on the Experience of God: The Precincts of the Church . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 1 Mystical empiricism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 2 Describing the ineffable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 3 Visions in many forms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 4 Love and mania. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 5 Divine madness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 6 Conversion and classification. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 7 The G-word . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 8 Gnosis and orthodoxy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 9 The God affair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 10 Religious psychology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 11 Sanctity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 12 The soul goes forth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138 13 Fathers of introspection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140 14 Risks and faulty measurement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145 15 Being and non-being. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147

Theo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 Leonor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162 Jeroen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170

4 The Transpersonal Perspective: The Psychology of Being . . 176 1 Perennial philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176 2 Secular mysticism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179 3 A model of expanded consciousness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180 4 The world according to Ken Wilber . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182 5 Transpersonal health. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184 6 Pre/trans-confusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186 7 Cognition and intuition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188 8 Pure consciousness and participation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 9 Crises of knowing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193 10 Transpersonal phenomenology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196 11 Peak experiences before and afterdeath . . . . . . . . . . . . 198 12 Kundalini, ecstasy and nightmare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201 13 The self increative chaos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206 14 Psychosis as immanent experience of God . . . . . . . . . . . 210 15 Mixed bathing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212 16 Quantum speculations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215

Egmont . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220 Mariet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230 Tanja . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236 Peter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243 Sanne. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250 Ronald. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258 Dee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266 Ferri . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277 Joyce . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285

Afterword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294 Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315

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