International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Volume 28 | Issue 2 Article 3 7-1-2009 Beyond Mind III: Further Steps to a Metatranspersonal Philosophy and Psychology (Continuation of the Discussion on the Three Best Known Transpersonal Paradigms, with a Focus on Washburn and Grof ) Elías Capriles University of the Andes Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.ciis.edu/ijts-transpersonalstudies Part of the Philosophy Commons, Psychology Commons, and the Religion Commons Recommended Citation Capriles, E. (2009). Capriles, E. (2009). Beyond mind III: Further steps to a metatranspersonal philosophy and psychology (Continuation of the discussion on the three best known transpersonal paradigms, with a focus on Washburn and Grof ). International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, 28(2), 1–145.. 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Beyond Mind III: Further Steps to a Metatranspersonal Philosophy and Psychology (Continuation of the Discussion on the Three Best Known Transpersonal Paradigms, with a Focus on Washburn and Grof) Elías Capriles University of the Andes Mérida, Venezuela This paper gives continuity to the criticism, undertaken in two papers previously published in this journal, of transpersonal systems that fail to discriminate between nirvanic, samsaric, and neither- nirvanic-nor-samsaric transpersonal states, and which present the absolute sanity of Awakening as a dualistic, conceptually-tainted condition. It also gives continuity to the denunciation of the false disjunction between ontogenically ascending and descending paths, while showing the truly significant disjunction to be between existentially ascending and metaexistentially descending paths. However, whereas in the preceding paper the focus was on Wilber’s so-called integral system, in this paper the focus of the main body is on the systems of Washburn and Grof. It features an appendix discussing psychedelics and the use of the term entheogens in their regard, and another appendix showing Wilber’s system to give continuity to the Orphic dualism of Pythagoreans, Eleatics, and Plato, and the covert Orphic dualism of Neo-Platonics. In the preceding article in this series, Beyond ongoing debate concerning that which Wilber called the Mind II (Capriles, 2006a), I discussed at length the most pre / trans fallacy (which he often perceived where there conspicuous elements of Wilber’s conception of the Path is no such fallacy) and what he called the “ascender / of Awakening that outright contradict Buddhist views descender debate,” and hence on what Washburn called (even though I misrepresented his system insofar as I the “structural hierarchic paradigm / dynamic dialectical reduced his ten fulcra to nine, my criticism is perfectly paradigm,” I will have to incur some repetition so that valid, as may evidenced by the corrected version of this the present paper may be understood by readers who criticism in the note having its reference mark at the end have not read the preceding papers of the series. of this sentence and in version 1.9 of Capriles, 2007a It is well known that Ken Wilber (1993b) [Vol. II]1). In the first article of this series, Beyond Mind, imputed to Stanislav Grof and Michael Washburn what I discussed Grof’s views, but for reasons of space I was he called the “pre / trans fallacy,” which is directly related unable to do so extensively, and had to leave aside some to what the same author referred to as the “ascender / of the points of Grof’s system that contradict the views of descender debate” (Wilber, 1995) and which consists Buddhism and Dzogchen, as well as my own experience in the “confusion of early, prepersonal life experiences (any misconceptions of Grof’s I may have incurred in for transpersonal experiences of higher consciousness.”2 that paper, are hopefully mended in this paper, and in It is equally well known that Grof (1985, 2000) and a more thorough and complete way in version 1.9 of Washburn (1995) denied the existence of such a fallacy, Capriles, 2007a [Vol. II]). Washburn was mentioned and that the former has defended the view that Wilber and quoted in the Beyond Mind II section entitled, The criticized by asserting early, prenatal life experiences to “Pre / Trans Fallacy” and the “Ascender / Descender be legitimate sources of transpersonal experience that Debate,” but there was no space to evaluate his system. can be interpreted as instances of deeper consciousness. In this paper I intend to scrutinize the important points The polysemic character of the ascending / of Grof’s system I failed to discuss in the first article of descending metaphor has made room for different the series and analyze Washburn’s system as a whole; interpretations among transpersonal theorists: (1) Wilber since this must involve a more in- depth evaluation of the and other theorists have understood it as a disjunctive InternationalBeyond Mind Journal III of Transpersonal Studies, 28(2), 2009,International pp. 1-145 Journal of Transpersonal Studies between a spirituality that views and seeks the sacred or conditioned / constructed / made / contrived / fabricated the spiritual in a “beyond” to which it is oriented, and (Pali, sankhata; Skt. samskrita; Tib. düjai [’dus byas]) and a worldview that favors immanency and values nature, thus leading to what Buddhism calls higher samsaric including the body and often its natural impulses—some realms while pretending to lead to nirvana, and one that varieties of which see the latter as sacred and as means for lies in Seeing through all conditioned / constructed / achieving spiritual realization, and therefore seek to put produced experiences into their unproduced / unbecome an end to the current alienation of consciousness from / uncaused (Pali abhuta; Skt. anutpada, anutpatti; Tib. the body and the latter’s feelings and impulses (however, makyepa [ma skyes pa]), unborn (Pali and Skt. ajata; Wilber [e.g., 1996, pp. 10-113] incorrectly asserted Tib. makyepa [ma skyes pa]) and unconditioned / transcendent spirituality to posit inherent oneness and uncompounded / unproduced / unmade / uncontrived immanentist spirituality to posit inherent plurality, when (Pali, asankhata; Skt., asamskrita; Tib., dümajai [’dus ma in truth most otherworldly religions see the universe as byas]) true condition5—on the occasion of which the separate from their supposedly transcendent divinity and delusive experiences in question spontaneously liberate as constituted by a plurality of substances [and some of themselves. Each time this occurs, conditioning and them go so far as to posit and worship manifold deities], delusive propensities are neutralized to some extent, and whereas many thisworldly believers assert the universe to hence repetition of this gradually undoes conditioning be a single substance—sometimes attempting to validate and delusion (thus undoing the serial simulations that this view with the theories of the new physics—and Laing [1961] described in terms of the diagram of a assert the unconcealment of this single substance to be spiral of pretences,6 which are secondary process / the remedy for ecological crisis and most other evils of operational cognition elements both in the construction our time). (2) Wilber also understood it as the disjunctive of delusive self-identity and in the implementation of the between his view of spiritual development as a process of unauthentic project of ascent to higher levels of samsara) producing successive structures, each of which is founded until Dzogchen-qua-Base—i.e., the true condition of on the preceding one and cannot be produced before the reality—is never again concealed and hence Dzogchen- preceding one has been established, and the contending qua-Fruit—that is, full Awakening—is attained. Insofar view of the same process as a dissolution of ego structures as the unmade, unborn, unconditioned, nondual and so on. (3) Another way in which some of the same Dzogchen-qua-Base is concealed by our dualistic, theorists have understood it, which is intimately related conditioned interpretations of it in terms of concepts such to the first, is as the disjunctive between an après moi le as thisworldliness / otherworldliness, oneness / plurality déluge4 spirituality bent on achieving liberation on the and so on, and since this nondual condition can only individual plane while totally disregarding ecological, be realized by Seeing through all conceptual—and as social, economic, political, gender, generational, such conditioned—interpretations, truly nondual Paths cultural, and related issues, and another one that is are necessarily descending in the metaphenomenological deeply concerned and engaged with the latter (Wilber, and metaexistential senses of the term. in particular, seems to have in mind Plato’s assertion As explained in previous installments of this work in Republic VII 540B that philosophers must at some (Capriles, 2000a, 2006a), the term phenomenological, point take on official posts in order to serve the polis— rather than being used in the narrower sense given which amounts