The Pre-Trans-Fallacy

With this concept, Ken Wilber has formulated an important tool for differentiation. When we build up a stage model for the evolution of consciousness, it can be arranged roughly in three phases:
Prerational – rational – transrational, or: prepersonal – personal – transpersonal, or: promodern – modern – postmodern.

•    Prerational means that experience is mainly directed by images, emotions and fantasies.
•    In the rational phase, logical and symbolic thinking together with verbal language takes over the dominance in conceiving and interpreting the world.
•    The transrational realm, experiential elements like intuition, spirituality and mystics join in.


In my model of the evolution of consciousness (which will be published as English e-book by the end of the year), the prerational level is strongly developed in tribal consciousness. The rational level can be found in the center of the fourth, the materialistic stage, exactly in the middle of the seven steps. The transrational level is fully developed on the seventh, the holistic stage.

A pre-trans-fallacy happens when either a prerational experience is taken as transrational or a transrational experience is taken as a prerational one. This misinterpretation can happen in two ways: internally or externally. Subjectively I can mix up an experience, when I am for instance in a regressive state but when I believe to have experienced a supreme spiritual opening. An intersubjective mix up happens when a psychiatrist declares someone with an intense spiritual experience as lunatic or when a psychoanalyst diagnoses this state as a childish fantasy of oneness.

In therapy

When working with sensitive and early traumatized persons, we often encounter such fallacies. Either clients report special experiences which are bizarre for the mainstream reality or they find such experiences during an inner travel or in deep relaxation in a therapy session. It is important to attribute these experiences in the right way in order to avoid the fixation of distortions. Issues which come from the prerational level have to be worked through and resolved in therapy, because otherwise they stabilize unwanted symptoms.

When these issues belong to the transrational level, they can serve as resource. Additionally it has to be taken into account that there can be a mix of aspects in one set of experiences so that one aspect has to be treated therapeutically and the can be used in a transrational way. Find an example further on in this text.

Similarities and differences of „pre“ and „trans“

Such confusion can arise also due to the fact that there are similarities between the two realms. The prerational as well as the transrational area is structured visually rather than verbally and directed by the right brain hemisphere. In the first years of life, this halve of the brain dominates, and in states of expanded consciousness we also can notice a strong activity in this part of the brain which processes information mainly as images. This visual content is representing objects on the pre-level, while it appears more complex and abstract on the trans-level. While the former does not use logics but is strongly influenced by emotions, the latter is based on non-linear logics and systemic thinking and perception.

A further distinctive feature for the subjective experience of these diverging states: transpersonal experiences are free of suffering and anxiety. They feel like expansion. Spiritual longing as an example, the intense wish for inner freedom, contains a confusion when it is experienced painfully: There is something I need, and I am missing it. This is a childish wish which covers a frustration from childhood. When this longing just expresses the urge for enlargement, it can be attributed to the transpersonal area. So, as long as neediness is contained in an experience, it indicates a disappointment from early childhood dressed up as spiritual revelation. In case of traumatization, the mechanism of dissociation provides for the access to realms of experience which resemble those of mystics in many aspects but are just symbolizing a dissociative detachment from reality.

Further characteristics of the transpersonal realm: It is free of ego (not selfish and self-fixated). It is empathic, free of fear and growth oriented. From this state, it is easy to switch to the rational level when necessary. So a transrational experience can be left without greater difficulties.

It is possible to describe such an experience in detail without dogmatization and missionary pressure. Inner and outer perceptions are clearly differentiated and not mixed up like in psychotic states. The person can communicate explicitly which part of the experience is internal and which is external.

In such a state, people interact with positive regard and tolerance. They have a sense of responsibility for themselves and for others. There is trust to other people as well as the confidence to accept help when problems about categorizing the experiences arise.

In history, it happened a lot of times that transpersonal mystics were fought and prosecuted by the organized religions which are basically rooted in a prerational perception of reality. Examples are St. Francis, Meister Eckhart and John of the Cross who had to face resistance to their mystical insights and were banned from teaching. Others like the visionary Giordano Bruno were treated even more cruelly and ended their lives on the stake.

Superstition and fortune telling

On the other hand, superstition which is based on the prerational perception of reality has often been offered and sold as transpersonal wisdom. In this context, we can define esotericism as an either planned or unconscious pre-trans-fallacy. Typically, tribal practices are propagated as redeemer for problems of the modern world. As long as these methods cause no harm and no cheating, it is not condemnable to use them. The problems of our inner and outer experiences and its numerous connections are often so complex that we desperately search for help wherever we can find it when we cannot move on with the means of the rational and scientific world. There are archaic practices which have been around since the stone ages but we should not overestimate them even when they are popped up in a modern fashion. They as well cannot offer the all healing powers, but work in one case and fail in another.

The abduction of romanticism consists in glorifying the past. What has happened earlier in history is automatically better because what we have now is bad. We overlook in this view that the glorification of the past is basically a glorification of our childhood which we use as a cover for the wounds and fears of this time in our lives. We transfer the image of a sound childhood onto history. Thus we build up a great expectation that the wisdom of tribal societies could solve the problems in the far more complex actual world. For sure, we need this wisdom as well as all the other forms of wisdom from all traditions and ages but none of them offers the one and only true method.

And in all cases which use the poking of fears (by so called “fortune”-tellers), which sell useless charlatanry and cheat and betray people by wrong assurances, so in all cases in which prerational hopes are evoked manipulatively with the means of rational calculation, civil society as well as jurisdiction has to become active with adequate sanctions. The best immunization against the seductions into the prerational realm consists in considering and realizing our issues from childhood, the fears and unfulfilled longings. Then we are no longer prone to mix up what belongs to our childhood and what offers the paths to the future of our inner development.

The sceptics

Between the pres and the trans, there is an ample space for the sceptics. They mistrust both sides and easily fall for the same fallacy. In case they do not have any experiences on the transpersonal level, they judge every spiritual insight as a breakthrough of prerational rubbish. In their view, anything which cannot be presented rationally is primitive and useless for modern society. Thus, sceptics tend to a certain kind of arrogance: We know what is true and sound and everything outside this area can just be differentiated in the degree of naivety or stupidity. 

E.g., they see the integral philosopher Ken Wilber as esoteric and mystic. According to the definition formulated above, he cannot be both, only if he is accused of a permanent mix of pre and trans which also sounds quite absurd. It is likely that a purely rational view cannot note a difference between alchemy and spirituality, as both elude a fierce academic and scientific test. In their attitude, the sceptical fanatics resemble the persecutors of witches at the end of medieval times who wanted to eradicate any form of irrationality and targeted especially on premodern healers and midwives. The accusation of sorcery contained a fear of special, that is transpersonal powers which yet, as being attributed to the devil could only come from a prerational sphere. 

Lines of conflict

The example of the persecution of witches indicates that especially at the turn from one step of the evolution of consciousness to the next, problems of identity can arise which often cause the eruption of violence. In any case, at such points of transition (fulcrums according to Ken Wilber) typical conflicts come up. Historically, this was the time when the medieval world which was governed by prerational belief systems was replaced by the modern scientific model. In other regions of the world, e.g. in the Islamic or Hinduistic areas, these conflicts still rampage. The Western world though, comes to the exit of the materialistic stage of consciousness which is closely connected to the rational scientific world view and faces a similar potential of conflict yet hopefully with sufficient different means of conflict resolution.

Internally or psychologically, cultural changes resemble identity conflicts as they occur for instance in the school-age up to puberty in the transition period from a prerational to a rational stage. Also on the threshold to a spiritual opening, questions about one’s own identity can arise. In those phases, the orientation swings between the wish for an old and well-known safety and the urge to a new but insecure freedom.

Depending on how these phases were experienced, fixations can happen. Someone who has encountered a lot of problems and emotional difficulties during the prerational phase can find stability and safety in rationality. From the attachment research we know that such fixations can happen very early. In such a case, the whole sphere of prerationality is seen as a threat which has to be fought off with all cognitive means. The transrational spheres get depreciated, as with a lack of experience, their similarities to the prerational patterns are noticeable and activate the same scenario of menace. In these cases we also confuse a stable I with a finished or an armored I.

When someone who has shut off his/her painful past deeply inside but proceeds from the level of rationality to transpersonality by attending meditations courses or following other spiritual methods, or by experiencing deep revelations during a breathwork session, then there is a danger to intellectualize the experiences in this area while the unresolved emotional problems still linger in the unconsciousness. Then we have the type of a passionate meditator who just finds silence and relaxation in meditation while in daily social life personality deficits come up which he/she can suppress with the help of wisdom and depth gained in meditation. Ken Wilber says in an interview: “A deranged emotional life cannot be healed by Zen the same as it cannot heal a broken bone.”

Another conflict happens when someone has a transpersonal experience but cannot integrate it as either a prepersonal traumatization is activated along with it or because society pathologizes the experience and labels it as psychotic or schizotypic. 

Spiritual crisis

On the way to inner expansion, concussion and crisis can happen as the existing safety structures of the psyche which are based on fixated patterns and neurosis get weakened and the new structures are not yet established. So symptoms can come up which resemble psychotic states and can easily be mixed up with them. In this context, Stanislav Grof has coined the expression of spiritual crisis and has formed a Spiritual Emergency Network, so that people who go through such a crisis can receive competent help and do not have to be hospitalized in mental institutions.

At the turning points of the inner development, old emotional patterns can be reactivated while new perspectives open up. This leads to a strong sense of insecurity and confusion. On the other hand, these phases offer a good chance to work up the prerational issues therapeutically. For the spiritual opening provides for new resources to support the emotional work.

Look-out

The power inherent in the evolution of consciousness motivates to transcend the limitations of the rational ego. We want to proceed in our growth and set ourselves free from the constrictions we have adopted during our history. We do not search for inner freedom because we are driven by childish wishful thinking for a paradise, but because we want to find our inner being. We have a vague idea of it which does not leave us alone until we have found our home in the huge whole. We can master the challenges of this transcendence only when our ego is stable enough. Otherwise, we will get thrown back to our prepersonal issues with every step in the new direction. We only can let go of a stable and strong ego.


 

Overview: Pre-Trans-Fallacies

Short form	Short description	Examples
Pre ⇒ Trans	Prerational experiences are mistaken for transpersonal experiences.	Esoterics, romanticism, refusal of intellectuality and rationality
Trans ⇒ Pre	Transrational experiences are mistaken for prepersonal experiences.	Science, psychoanalysis, atheism, overestimation of intellectuality and rationality

Short form	Subjective perspective	Intersubjective perspective
Pre ⇒ Trans	A regressive or dissociative experience is experienced as spiritual.	The experience gets naively overestimated by worshipping the person.
Trans ⇒ Pre	A spiritual experience is experienced as distorting and irritating (cf. spiritual crisis).	The experience gets pathologized, the person is declared as insane.

Short form	Subjective symptoms	Objective attributes
Pre ⇒ Trans	Suffering from a transpersonal experience, anxiety	Inauthenticity, discrepancy between talk and action
Trans ⇒ Pre	Distortion, experience cannot be integrated, cannot find its proper place in the inner world.	Intact ego, insecurity in terms of spirituality, difficulties in conceptualizing

Short form	Therapeutical mistake	Adequate therapeutical consequence
Pre ⇒ Trans	The traumatic part (the dissociation) of the experience is overlooked. Positive counter transference	The traumatic part of the experience is treated in therapy.
Trans ⇒ Pre	A traumatic aspect (a dissociation) is projected onto the experience. Negative counter transference	The experience is used as resource.

References:
Grof, S. & Grof, C.: Spiritual emergency: When personal transformation becomes a crisis. (1989)
Wilber K.: Sex, Ecology, Spirituality. The Spirit of Evolution (1995)

Psoas Muscles and Trauma Healing

shutterstock 309794093

In case you have never studied anatomics, you probably would not know it: the group of muscles called Psoas. They connect the upper torso with the pelvis and are located on the lower side of the back. They are responsible for a lot of tasks: Walking upright, even shoulders, position of the legs and the spine. We usually use them not only unconsciously, but we also notice tensions in that area only indirectly: They affect the diaphragm, are communicated to the torso and can cause pain in the upper back and the shoulder area.

The psoas muscles form a connection between breathing and body posture. This is illustrated by the fact that in our evolution, walking on the ground and breathing have developed at the same time. So exercising in a relaxed way with the psoas muscles leads to a more dynamic pelvis and a liberated breathing rhythm as well as to a stable grounded body feeling.

From the Tibetian tradition we learn that the psoas muscles are the ultimate source of the ego. Working with it, can confront with issues like clinging to something and fixation.

The interesting discovery of the body worker and trauma therapist David Berceli is that these muscles play an important role in storing as well as in healing trauma."The psoas muscles are considered the fight/flight muscles of the human species. These primitive muscles stand guard like sentinels protecting the center of gravity of the human body located just in front of the 3rd vertebrae of the sacrum (S3). These muscles connect the back with the pelvis and the legs. During any traumatic experience, the psoas muscles contract. To heal from physical trauma contractions, this deep set of muscles must let go of their protective tension and return to a relaxed state. It has been generally accepted that after particularly tens, stressing or traumatic experiences, people could get a massage, take a hot bath or do some exercises, and that will resolve their trauma and restore their body back to a healthy state. However, this is not the case when it comes to traumatic tension in the psoas muscles. The body’s ability to let go of the tension in these muscles has been diminished due to our socialization process.

It often is the case that contracted and even damaged psoas muscles create tremendous lower back pains. This is very common among sexual abuse survivors. What is often overlooked is when the psoas muscles contract and pull the body forward, they cause secondary muscle contractions as the body tries to compensate for this forward pull. The erector spinae muscles will also pull the body backwards in an attempt to keep it upright. These two opposite tensions will actually begin to compress the lumbar spine as they pull the lower vertebrae together, creating a spinal compression that can be damaging over a prolonged period of time. If held long enough in this tension, this pull will eventually cause secondary shoulder and neck pain as well. 

The diaphragm muscle also adds to the tension in this area. The psoas muscle overlaps the iliacus and diaphragm muscles along the spine. Together, they form a linking system of the torso, pelvis and legs. Since this is such a strategic area of protection, the largest number of sympathetic nerves (fight or flight nerves) are also found in this area of the body.
(…)
This trembling [of an animal after having survived intense danger] is the natural process of the body discharging the excess energy simultaneously as it is being created in the body.

As humans, we possess the same mechanism. However, to our detriment, we have inhibited or deadened it. As an example, when we get nervous or overexcited, we deliberately try not to shake so as not to appear weak or afraid. This ego control places the body and mind into a conflict. The body wants to shake to discharge the excess energy, but the mind refuses to let it do so. The mind usually wins and the body must then find another way of dealing with this hyper-aroused charge. The way it deals with it is by contracting the muscles and containing this excess charge. The muscles in the body contract and hold onto the excess charge until they are allowed to release it at a later time. If they do not get that opportunity, the contracted muscles then produce a chronic state of tension in the body. Herein lays one of the root causes of PTSD. If the muscles contracted during trauma do not release this high charge shortly after the trauma, they will continue to try to do so at a later date as a way of restoring the body to a restful state.

Post traumatic reactions are cause by the residual undischarged excitement generated in the time of the event. If this high state of aroused energy is prevented from being discharged in the body, it remains trapped in a bio-neural-physical loop that causes a repetition compulsion behavior. Until the body shakes out this tension, the body will continue to repeat this chronic tension pattern of protection and defense. A major component to a successful recovery from trauma is to activate the person’s natural release mechanism that signals the body to return to a state of rest and recuperation. 

For all humans, after the trauma is over, the nervous system should naturally activate itself and begin to shake out any residual chemicals or tension remaining from the traumatic episode. This shaking sends a signal to the brain informing it that the danger has subsided and it should turn off its alert status. If the nervous system does not activate itself, the body continues to remain in a kind of short circuit loop with the brain continuing to believe it is still in danger and therefore continuing to command the body to stay in a state of readiness and alert."

(David Berceli: Trauma Releasing Exercises. Book Sourge 2005, 14; 16)

Humans all around the globe react equally to traumatic experiences  - a neurologically caused shaking from light to strong, always starting with the legs, the lower back and the pelvis area. Special exercises developed by David Berceli first resolve the actual or chronic tensions in the psoas muscles, which we cannot command by will. So these exercises are designed to let the shaking come automatically from inside. Thus, the deeply stored tensions in the psoas muscles will open up and relax.

Further sources and information on exercises:

http://traumadurchleben.wordpress.com/2013/03/04/was-ist-tre-trauma-release-exercise/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPFbXdSGSkc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DisF0jYqRrg

Internal Communication

Health means that we live a life free of distortions inside of ourselves. When we fall ill we notice an irritation in the relationship with ourselves. The disease irritates us in our internal unity. The body presents itself as a troublemaker instead of working frictionless, as if it would oppose us like an unruly child. We encourage it, blame it or lament, depending on the occasion – and at the same time we are the ones who are addressed and we are the medium in which the whole discourse occurs.

We are our body and experience ourselves as different from it because we can take a position from which we can relate to it. So there is a relationship inside an identity. For the position from which we start the relationship is contained in this body-mind-identity which we are. Where there is relationship, there is communication. The peculiarity of this communication is the identity in which it lives from this difference.

We are communicating organisms, and as we are the partners of this communication as well as the communication itself, and as we can be conscious of that, we are also a reflective organism, an organism able to relate to itself. This comes especially up when we are ill. We cannot lead our lives as we had planned; we have to stay in bed instead of going on a nice Sunday excursion. The identity breaks up which had been there before. In addition to the suffering which is part of the illness comes the suffering from the suffering.

We suffer from the distortion of the internal communication and our inability to cure it. By this, we tend to confuse our internal levels of communication which further more unsettles us. For we tend to distance ourselves from our bodies (sometimes even, when the disease is very grave, we can be disgusted at our bodies, or when the disease takes too much time we can become ashamed). The body we are becomes an object, and we are looking for help from the outside to correct that object.

For being able to feel safe again we need the promise of a successful healing. In our regions, the doctor is the authority for such a promise. Due to his/her experience and education he can articulate a prognosis which is comforting us (in case it is positive or harmless). Simply such a comfort can add to the healing because restlessness and tension blocks the inner healing powers. When the diagnosis is negative, the uncertainty grows.

For the communicative confusions grows the more speaker take part. Sometimes we wander from one doctor to the next, and everyone of them says something different. Then we are looking for complementary remedies which differ even more in their diagnosis and healing modalities.

Before getting lost in the turmoil of saving efforts offered by this complex world we should take a hold and realize: We are a communicative body-mind-being, and communication means to listen as much as to speak. Then we see that we have talked all the time, that we listened to voices from outside but never from our inner and intimate communication partner, our body, and especially from those parts which make themselves noticeable due to the illness. By our refusal to listen we enforce the distortion and are surprised not to regain our health.

Let us not augment the uncertainty which arises inside as a consequence of the disease, let us not panic but let us stay open to communication. Then we can start to listen to our bodies. What is it it wants to tell us, what is it missing, what does it need, what should I change? When this important information does not reach us our bodies do not feel understood and react accordingly. The basis of communication we build up by starting to listen can be an important part of the healing.

We are beings equipped with the means for using the internal channels of communication. This is what we should do whether we feel healthy or ill. For the more we train the language of our bodies the easier it will be available for us to open the inner ways towards healing.

Meditation is a way of training our inner communication. Again and again we can feel our breath in daily life. When we notice that the hustle and bustle of daily life starts to over roll us, it is helpful to withdraw to ourselves and take a time to feel: What does the body need to come to rest? By this, we can regain our inner harmony which is the best foundation for the health of our bodies.

Free Will - Holy Cow Or Illusion?

“Man is created free, and is free, though he be born in chains.” This is the concept of the autonomous modern man as formulated by Friedrich Schiller. Free will is the trade mark of progressive societies and promotes the individual who is creating his own life able to do what he wants without any limitations from outside – authorities or social expectations.

On the Dispute Around Free Will

Yet there is massive doubt about the existence of free will which comes mainly from the world of natural science. Any process in nature which includes man takes place in a chain of cause and effect without any interruption. When such a chain is not evident it becomes the object of research till the gap is filled. One event causes the next, and free will is not needed in the observation and description of the processes (although its existence in talking about it would be the product of a causal chain at least). In addition to that, some of today’s prominent brain researchers like to state that free will is just an imagination of higher brain centers, mainly the prefrontal cortex. It labels decisions which are made up by deeper and unconsciously working systems as decisions from free will, “long” after the choice has been made. Basically, we do not know why we decide but name our decisions as free after it has been made.

From another corner, spiritual teachers and traditions like Advaita argue against free will with another argument: The all knowing and all controlling divine intelligence has created every event in the universe up to the tiniest detail, so everything is already determined whatever has happened so far and will happen in the future. Similar to the insights of modern brain research, free will is an illusion and self deception.

So free will is under attack from the supporters of natural sciences as well as from the devotees of teachings from the East. Should we leave the question to the scholars and students in the academic or spiritual fields? It does not seem irrelevant for our self-concept and for our image of other people whether our will is free or not.

On the Biography of Will

When we consider our upbringing, we might realize that at some point in time consciousness about our own free will arose. As a newborn baby, we had other troubles to handle – building up the first contacts and care about our safety and basic nurturing. We were so much part of a development guided by biological processes without knowledge of alternatives. Of course, we discovered quite early that our behavior had an impact on our environment. Later, this impression became stronger, and as soon as we could master the word “No!” and the sentence “I do not want!” we were clear about our own will.

As grownups, it is obvious: We can decide what we want – whether we take the red or the green apples from the shelf, whether we take a car or public transportation, whether we are friendly towards someone else or not. Yet, are these decisions as free as they seem to us? Who is it really who decides for the green or the red apples? Our previous experiences, our expectations, the momentary state of hunger, the placement of the product in the shop, … Is it really my choice to be friendly to a person with whom I just had a conflict? But what is in the way when I am free in fact?

As mentioned above, brain research has stated that the conscious decision making center is located in the prefrontal cortex. It is the last step of the process of decision, when everything is clear already. Procedures running deeply in the unconsciousness make the decision after surveying the pros and cons, and the neocortex gives its final consent as if it would say; „Well, I have no idea why just this decision came about, but I can herewith state that the whole thing was a thoroughly rational and conscious decision and I can name all the relevant reasons for it.”

So we never know and cannot even know whether the reasons for a certain decision we have in our mind are really those which have actually lead to the decision. Yet we act as if we were fully in control. This is why some people call humans rationalizing (inventing reasons) and not rational (reasonable) animals.

About the Necessity of Free Will

Why then is there an institution which pretends to be a free will? I think it fulfills mainly two functions: One is about having a feeling of self when we act which helps us in planning our future. Also developing creative ideas is supported when we give us the feedback of having achieved something of high value by ourselves. So we are motivated to keep on doing so. We experience ourselves as the center of our world, as the navel point around which everything turns.

The other function of an (probably illusionary) free will can be found in the social fabric, in forming groups and societies. Social interaction works only when the participants are able to hold on to rules and to apply them freely according to the relevant situation. Additionally, individual acts of free will should lead up to forming a common will. The participants always presuppose that they themselves and the others as well can use something like a free will. We feel ourselves and we make others responsible for what is done by us or them. When we make a mistake, the excuse is hardly ever that we do not have a free will but probably that we were not in full mastery of our will in the given situation.

We also assume that we can evolve and improve in our ability to choose. It supports our self-esteem to realize that we have grown in managing fears and that we have improved in certain skills, when looking back. We attribute these steps in learning to ourselves and not to anyone else or to some unconscious processes within ourselves. So the assumption of a free will is the basis of our feeling of self-esteem.

Our daily life is full of connections which do not make any sense without accepting the idea of free will. It is only on the level of wisdom that we start to understand that the free will is not just an attribute which is adhered to our being like the earlap to the ear but a function which we use under certain circumstances and which we imply in respect to other people.

On the Abdication of Free Will

We only start to declare free will as obsolete when we dive into spiritual realms. Apart from the findings of modern brain research which we might find interesting but which do not have much impact on our experience of reality, spiritual experiences can open up to deeper insights about the reality of reality. We can get a sense of how tiny we are in the huge stream of life or existence, while we like to inflate ourselves as giants with all our vanities and how much effort we invest in these endeavors. We, the origin of our life, the all creating and recreating center of our world – what a hardship, what a drag! How superfluous would it appear when we realize that we are held and carried by a power far beyond our imagination? When we start to surrender to this power independent from our will, then the idea of a free will is an unnecessary aspect which mainly serves our resistances against surrender.

So it seems indispensable that we make ourselves clear that we live on different levels of consciousness which become effective in different degrees according to the actual situation and which are growing and evolving throughout our whole lives. When we start to trust our experience, we always find an answer to the question whether there “exists” something like a free will.