I attended the conference entitled Psychosis and Spirituality: Exploring the New Frontier in September 2001 and came away from it refreshed but with mixed feelings. Part of me was ready to face new and exciting challenges but another part was afraid and grieving the old. Much of this mixed reaction had to do with the fact I had been mystic since 1996 but lacked formal qualifications in the area of psychology, although I do have a Bachelor of Education in Science and was for many years before starting a family, a secondary science teacher. Keen to share my story and help make a difference I was also acutely aware of the responsibility it entailed and therefore deeply concerned that my status would inhibit my ability to make a contribution. I am therefore grateful that the opportunity to write something has arisen. It will enable me to say my piece within a formal and structured framework and in the company of others who have had extraordinary experiences that have changed their lives.
As indicated I have been a mystic since 1996 and had been experiencing, recording and exploring my own psycho/spiritual journey since that time and drawing conclusions. These conclusions concerned several main areas and I tried tying them all together. They were science, psychology, mysticism, creativity and love. And the trigger for all of this? None other than my love of creativity and the personal and poignant historical masterpiece the ‘Seven Pillars of Wisdom’ (1) by TE Lawrence, also known as Lawrence of Arabia.
In 1994 I experienced an unexpected urge to begin writing fiction. Consequently prior to reading the ‘Seven Pillars of Wisdom’ (1) in 1995 I had written two full-length novels. Although they were not of publication standard the results of those efforts were already known to me. I was more willing to try new things, risk failure, share myself with others, seek and accept help and most importantly, love and appreciate myself. Other aspects of myself like dancing also re-emerged and I began to realize I was more in tune with my own creativity and needs and desires. I was more alive. When the ‘Seven Pillars of Wisdom’ (1) came along I was hoping to write another story, a scientific-religious drama called ‘The God Factor’, but it never got written. I am in fact trying to write it again now. But how was I to know that very soon I would actually encounter ‘The God Factor’ first hand, and that it would change my life and greatly enhance my understanding of TE Lawrence, myself and the nature of reality?
So much could be said about the subsequent experiences. So much had already been said. I have written many thousands of words on scraps of paper, in exercise books, on the Internet, in emails and in essays in an effort to understand, explore, integrate, accept and share what happened to me. From the beginning the experience of spiritual growth has been a highly productive and prolonged debriefing session. In a sense a self-paced course of psychotherapy. Although a more pleasing and positive way of expressing it might be to regard me as a person consciously experiencing, and more often than not, enjoying an evolutionary process of self-evaluation and creation. Luckily along the way there were a few who were willing to listen and offer their assistance. Apart from close friends, those who were consistent and reliably informed included the current Chairman of The Scientific and Medical Network (2) Chris Clarke, and the former Director of The Scientific and Medical Network (2), David Lorimer. During that time they heard about all sorts of things including an initial mystical or trance experience that acted as a kind of spiritual baptism. Briefly, the experiences unfolded this way.
As I said before, pre-trance I was writing fiction and loving it. Although my material was non-commercial the effect it had on me was rewarding and freeing. I was much more me than I had been before so when I read a copy of the ‘Seven Pillars of Wisdom’ (1) its immediate effect on me was not something I was willing to ignore or fail to explore. I’d left something I loved behind once before and wasn’t prepared to put myself through that agony again without knowing exactly what I was doing. That something was classical ballet. In retrospect the reading of the book was a form of the call to wholeness: at least to a path of personal growth which led me to a new way of being which is more authentic and whole than it was. Otherwise I would not be writing this.
From the start the ‘Seven Pillars of Wisdom’ (1) struck me as a book which demanded a great deal of admiration and attention. So too its author. Not so much because of his role in the First World War but because of his willingness to share himself with others. In particular the ‘Myself’ chapter is very revealing, to me at least. It reveals a person experiencing a personal crisis of some kind, but in retrospect, I now consider it to be a period of personal - spiritual - growth. In his typical personal and poetic fashion TE Lawrence describes and confesses in a symbolic way the chaotic state of his inner-self. To some this might indicate a lack of integrity, but to me it indicated a level of integrity I had not come across before. The heart breaking beauty of his inner-self moved me and quite unexpectedly, I fell unconditionally in love.
Since the story I had planned to write, ‘The God Factor’ was beyond my capabilities due to the extensive research involved concerning the relationship of science to religion and the overseas locations it would involve, I was relieved to write a fictional biography of TE Lawrence instead. It is called ‘Miracle of the Desert: The Untold Story’ and is just as non-commercial as the others. However it is an entertaining piece of psychotherapy and creativity, and the means by which I was initiated into the mystical experience.
In 1996, and having read several biographies about TE Lawrence and fallen compassionately in love with him, I was writing at the computer one night. Just as it had before, the experience of writing - of creativity - thrilled and intrigued me and I longed to understand where my ideas came from and how they ended up on the page. Suddenly I was given an answer to my question: several different layers of reality revealed themselves to me as though I was suddenly gifted with a new kind of vision like stereoscopic vision. As I progressed through each level during the process of self-realization, I came to understand that each one, though apparently separate, interconnects and affects the others. However at the level of spirit my mind went blank. It was only later that I came to realize that at that level of consciousness relativity has been transcended and unity with all that is, is enjoyed. Upon my return to normal consciousness however, another phase was experienced and this phase is difficult to describe. I found myself spinning inside a spiral or vortex which contained nothing but the possibility of everything, and the closer I got to normal consciousness the more I realized how amazing the experience was. By the time I regained normal consciousness the experience was fully known to me but already a memory. In the morning however, and for nearly three weeks, there were other unexpected after affects. A feeling that can only be described as bliss overwhelmed me. I loved everyone and everything in a heady, humorous and sensual fashion. There was also an unpleasant internal shaking. However there was still more to come, and in combination with a frantic onset of research into the complementary areas of science and spirituality, I spent the next few years trying to make sense of it all and come to terms with it. The layers were named and described as follows:
Personality - that which provides us with a sense of personal identity.
Mind - that which connects us to each other and with everything else even if we don’t know it.
Spirit - that which is the source of everything including creativity and love.
Universal oversoul - that which accounts for the sum total of our experience.
Not long after the initial trance experience I began hearing a discrete and informative inner voice, as well as dreaming timeless and informative dreams. These kinds of dreams I now call intellectual visions, in the transcendent sense of ‘intellectual’ as the term used by St John of the Cross (3), although this hardly describes them adequately. They were more like communications with another part of my mind and filtered through my ordinary mind, after being asked to cooperate and then agreeing. Thus I regarded the material gained in this way worthy of consideration. I experienced another kind of vision too, but only once and which was continuous for a period of three days.
Hearing the inner voice is like experiencing a message engraved on a rubber stamp instantaneously inside, or on top of, your mind. In this sense they resembled the intellectual visions or communications as previously described, but in this instance they were language-based communications in contrast to a graphical display. I now call them ‘mental presses’. In both cases however, more than just information was received. A degree of understanding was also received and this understanding was abundantly useful in the sense that it enabled me to compare and contrast alternative descriptions of the nature of reality. Suddenly the lessons of science, psychology, mysticism, religion, creativity and love began to say the same, or at least, similar, things to me. I later called this gift ‘symbolic sight’.
I was never afraid of the inner voice because the messages it gave me were always formal, informative and benign. Indeed I felt like I was in close contact with an inner guide who was far wiser than I was, and who was willing to share its knowledge with me. Indeed, after having read about Hinduism, Buddhism, ancient philosophy and the medieval Christian mystics, I realized I wasn’t alone with this experience. I now regard the inner voice as the immanent or resident divine, and believe it to be a discrete but integrated part of our psyche. I also believe it to be that part of our psyche which is in touch with eternity, where eternity is transcendent or outside time as we know it. However because I also knew that certain mental illness like psychosis could trigger this sort of thing too, I was always careful to interpret and double check the information I received to the best of my ability. This was largely why I tried making contact with others interested and informed in the area of science and spirituality too. I doubted that being on my own was the wisest thing to do. Besides I needed the help and the company. Being a mystic can be a lonely and demoralizing existence. You are usually the only one who has any clue what’s going on and can be considered disturbed or eccentric. Prior to joining The Scientific and Medical Network (2) in 1999 I was at very low ebb.
The intellectual visions or communications I experienced could be just as intriguing and informative too, especially when they were pre-arranged. As time went by I began to recognize a relationship existed between an intense tingling in my left earlobe and the invitation to dream a dream. This didn’t happen that often but when it did, it was worth it. Some very useful information was gained and diagrams drawn because of this as well as some useful ideas about the future of the universe, which I will consider later.
The other kind of vision which lasted for three days was more like an experience, and I compare it to what Eastern religion calls the opening of the third eye. During this I experienced what can only be described as a level of consciousness which contains patterns. It was a bit like seeing and being a graphics package at exactly the same time. Consequently I hypothesized that unbeknown to us we are like the users of an intricate and invisible system which enables us to exist, create and experience ourselves, each other and the world. I now regard mysticism as a kind of system analysis and myself, a system analyst where the role of a system analyst is to analyze the structure and effectiveness of a system and recommend changes if and when they are required.
In a sense, and because it occurred as late as 1999, this encounter was both unexpected and expected. I already had a hunch angels were real but of course I had no proof. Such a lot had happened to me though I was ready for anything, and since many of my experiences were similar to those of other mystics in the past and present, I was very much inclined to satisfy myself that angels were more than a figment of the creative imagination. Enter Oscar Wilde. This particular night I was at loose ends because I was alone in the house. I also had the feeling that because of that something was going to happen. So I borrowed a tear- jerker to set the scene and chose the tragic story about Oscar Wilde which is always a perfect choice. Afterwards I decided to invite the angels to show themselves and sat on the family room couch to wait. Nothing happened. So assuming that angels were composed of light, and that in the light I might not see them, I turned off all the lights in the house. There was an immediate response. As soon as I sat down again and cleared my head of all preconceived notions about angels with wings and things, a fast moving cloud of white light appeared behind me and to my right. Presumably moving at the speed of light, it came towards me and passed straight through me, warming me through. I gasped, surprised and delighted then played some music and danced in celebration.
This aspect of my journey is a little harder to describe and document. There has been so much change and so many synchronicities. For a start you may ask what constitutes a coincidence or a synchronicity? The answer is - I’m not sure. All I know that after a period of time I began to notice that things were happening, events were unfolding, that seemed to be relevant to my journey. In a way, instead of merely writing stories, I became a story. It is because of this I came to believe firmly in the notion of karma, not as retribution, but as reflections - repercussions - of the inner life. I also came to expect that each time I challenged myself more deeply I would experience the unexpected. Associated with this process was also a re-balancing aspect as well as an authenticating aspect. I compared the process to a series of deaths and re-births occurring in this lifetime during which I got closer to the core of my true being.
I won’t pretend otherwise. This part of the process is the hardest part for me. As the layers are peeled and old habits of thought are recognized for what they are, as misleading and inauthentic, there is a great deal of pain and fear and regret. What was once a part of our identity, our security, is torn asunder. We experience transformation and in becoming what we choose to be we must give up what we are not, which is often sad and scary. Consequently change initiates new change and the creative process continues. However there is an upside. The more we work with the system the easier it becomes and after a while I began to realize that apart from the universe being intimately related to me, it was my friend. I could count on it to help sort things out when changes did occur, although it needed time to do it. Without this understanding, this faith, as well as dear friends, I doubt I could have made it this far.
Throughout this process, this journey, I have been trying to experience it, describe it and explain it all at the same time. Sometimes I have managed to provide an acceptable picture, sometimes not. But since the conference, which was the inspiration for this particular piece of writing, I have hoped to frame my story in such a way as to be practical and useful but supported by the theory coming out of my own mystical experience. To this end I would like to suggest the process of spiritual growth is one during which we encounter our innermost selves in their sometimes mildly to sometimes extraordinarily chaotic state in the process of creating who we choose to be.
Please allow me to take myself and TE Lawrence as examples. Yes, I was immediately drawn to TE Lawrence because of the quality and the depth of his writing. Yes, I was drawn to him because of his astonishing adventures during the First World War and his fantastic dress sense! But it was more than that. I was drawn to him because his book the ‘Seven Pillars of Wisdom’ (1), and more particularly the chapter entitled ‘Myself", was an extraordinarily sincere and insightful confession. It soon became clear that he was inconsistently shy and insecure alternating with confidant and outgoing. This indicated to me, to return to some old fashioned but useful terminology, that he had an inferiority complex as well as a superiority complex. It was also clear he was a ‘blocked creative’ and struggling to understand and love himself. The term ‘blocked creative’ is borrowed from Julia Cameron’s book, ‘The Artist’s Way’ (4). All in all he reminded me of me.
In the first instance, both he and I found our feelings of inferiority frustrating and inhibiting. However like TE Lawrence I didn’t always feel inferior, sometimes I felt superior and it was confusing and demoralizing. When I first realized this, it intrigued me. How could this be? I wanted to know why we both experienced this - suffered this - and how we could be helped. After reading copious numbers of biographies and exquisite letters written by him it suddenly occurred to me that these feelings of inferiority and superiority sprung from feeling oneself in competition with others. It also meant that there was to be no inner peace until we could accept ourselves more fully. Luckily since the trance this proved easier than it might otherwise have been. The unity I experienced in trance and the bliss afterwards was an invaluable benchmark of how it feels to be unconditionally loving and accepting. Compared to that, competitive feelings are ugly and painful and dangerous. I soon began to practice letting go - forgiving - my competitive thoughts if and when they arose. Such thoughts are those which put you in competition or at odds with others and can be projected outwards and even denied as having come from you. In this way the projected world can become distorted. Instead I would attempt to rest in the wholeness, the spirit, that I knew lay behind, but was supportive of, the level of mind which we habitually use. In retrospect I guess this surrender is the essence of mediation. It is also the essence of love.
Following on from that I realized that recognizing my competitive nature was not the end of it. However it certainly helped. Instead of worrying about how I looked to others and fearing failure, I began to explore and experiment more, a process which brought its own rewards including self-esteem and compassion for others in a similar situation. What came next involved a new understanding of how my thoughts influenced me and others and how they related to my future state. If we are, as the trance suggests, interconnected by our minds and spirits, then everything I think and feel affects myself as well as others. Suddenly the saying ‘Do unto others as you would have others do unto you’, made scientific sense as well as moral sense and I became even more excited about the integration of science and spirituality than I was already, if that was possible! It suddenly seemed to me that to think lovingly and creatively as more than merely an option, it was essential if we are to evolve in both a personal and transpersonal sense. If this is the case, then how do we do it?
The conference was inspirational for this, as well as reassuring. During two days of presentations, discussions and workshops we were exposed to the variety of work being done by professionals and non-professionals in the field of mental health. Some methods were arguably new in that they were derived from recent psychological studies and practice. Whereas others were clarified and modified versions of old methods which had formerly been considered as spiritual practice. By having these different methods available it means that those in need can pick and choose the kind of method which suits them best, or even benefit from a variety if the need be. For my purposes I am still in favour in gaining a degree of understanding of the inner life as opposed to merely pursuing a particular practice. Because of this I put a great deal of emphasis on understanding the relationship between our thoughts and feelings and choice.
I do this because the relationship between thoughts and feelings and choice is symbolically and functionally similar to the relationship between mind and spirit and personality as revealed in trance. If we can accept that the trance experience revealed several apparently separate but interrelated layers in our psyches. And if we can also accept that the way we think and feel are separate, but inter-related, then we are part way to connecting the theory derived from mystical experience to the practical application of it. Please allow me to ask a question. Which comes first - thoughts or feelings? To be honest, I am not sure, at least under ordinary circumstances. However if there is a crisis of some kind, large or small, then I am wondering which way you would answer. I am thinking that feelings come first, to be followed up by thoughts. Interestingly, this integrative process becomes clear when one writes a story and it is well documented in how to write fiction type books. Since discovering this I have felt more like a self-stylized storybook character or a player on a universal stage - a co-creator - than ever.
Let’s take some real life examples. I read the ‘Seven Pillars of Wisdom’ (1) and was faced with the overwhelming feeling of love for TE Lawrence. What was I to do? Follow him up or not? For all sorts of reasons I chose to follow him up, but not without some in-depth soul searching. Whereas my mind suggested it was a crazy thing to do, my heart compelled me in that direction. Faced with this extraordinary dilemma outside the local public library, I felt conspicuous and pressed for time. However after a flash of insight concerning my mis-judged rejection of ballet, I decided to follow my heart. In contrast however, was the time I gave up ballet. At that time I was very concerned about my ability to succeed. In other words I was afraid of failure. So instead of experiencing love I was experiencing fear. In a round about way though, this was love. I was actually afraid of ballet because I loved it so much.
It therefore seems to me that this is the reason why being informed about the relationship between our thoughts and feelings and the decision-making process is useful. If feelings precede thoughts, which in turn precede the decision making process, then the three are interconnected in such a way as to be invaluable to each other. For me feelings are my guide to the truth, but not necessarily the whole truth. Thoughts, on the other hand, are the means by which I register the incoming data, analyze it, arrange it and then attempt to express the truth of my feelings. Whereas I am guessing that personality is that part of my psyche involved in the actual making of the decision with regards to the bigger, transpersonal picture. In both homegrown examples strong feelings were experienced. As it turned out the feeling of love was its own guide to love. However the feeling of fear, which was an upside down guide to love too, lead me in a new, less than satisfactory direction. Or did it? Yes, I gave up ballet and suffered for it, but I studied science instead, which in the end, turned out to be satisfactory too. As a more mature person today I realize I should have done both regardless of the outcome and done my self, my soul, a favour. I am therefore convinced that all my feelings, whatever they may be, are essentially a guide to love or unity - integrity - if utilized in conjunction with my mind and my personality. In this way our responsibility to ourselves and each other is met in a personal and transpersonal, even universal context.
I suspect that many people suffer needlessly because of the chaotic state of their psyches just as TE Lawrence and I did. To what degree they are confused is also an issue, although I doubt the fundamental cause varies very much. Concerning this I believe that certain arbitrary trends of thought and behaviour are more acceptable to society than others. In my case and in the case of TE Lawrence, being shy and insecure doesn’t seem outrageously unacceptable, not like drug abuse or alcoholism or psychosis might be. However the way the disordered and addictive behave is similar and the results are similarly distorting and inhibiting. Trapped in a restrictive and competitive way of thinking lives are damaged and wasted. The innermost self, the soul if you like, is left unrecognized and unattended and atrophies. Once this happens feelings of depression or worse occur and the problem becomes clinical and categorized. Such symptomatic behaviour would be useful if only we knew that what the soul really desires is to be recognized, loved unconditionally and given plenty of exercise. The soul longs to be our mate.
In the early part of the essay I said I would mention the future of the universe and so I will. It seems to me that the intimate relationship we have to the universe is fundamental to it: therefore we have no one else to blame if the system isn’t working. Therefore for me the stimulus for spiritual growth is personal as well as transpersonal. If the universe is to be at peace and fulfilled then I have to be too. In the same way everyone is responsible for themselves and therefore each other. Used properly the universe can and does provide, but the results are disappointing and distorted if we are disappointing and distorted. Mental health is not merely a personal issue. In more ways than one it affects us all. I would like to think that if each and every one of us pursued an authentic life and a creative and cooperative lifestyle, then the universe would respond in kind. Because of this I would designate a scientific and spiritual education as top priority. It is in this way, if briefly, that I have been able to integrate my views about science, psychology, mysticism, creativity and love. Thank you.
Lawrence TE. Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Penguin Books 1964
The Scientific and Medical Network (SMN) www.scimednet.org
St John of the Cross. Dark Night of the Soul. Image Books Doubleday 1990
Cameron Julia. The Artist’s Way. Pan Books 1994