THE ECO-CRISIS AND SPECIES EGO-: SPECULATIONS ON THE FUTURE

ChristopherM. Bache Youngstown,Ohio

ABSTRACT:A profoundlydisruptive confrontation with the limits of the carrying-capacity of the planet appears inevitable in thiscentury.Thiscrisis,however, mayfunction as a kindof global initiation intoa new stageof humanity's psycho-social development. By drawing comparisons to the mystical ordeal of the , this paper suggeststhe eco-crisis may constitutewhat amountsto a dark night of the species-soul, drawing us collectively into a deeper experience of our spiritual common ground.

THECRISISOF SUSTAINABILITY

Ourbestenvironmental estimates arethatcurrent industrial andsocial trendsaredriving humanitytoward a devastating ecological and economiccollapse that will take place probably withinthe nextseveral decades.As we showno sign sof pullingback fromthe policy of perpetual economicexpansion,the only uncertaintyseems to be how severe the ecological overshoot will be and howcatastrophic the periodafterthe collapse.

Few have attempted to predict this approaching crisis more precisely than Donella Meadows, Dennis Meadows, and Jergen Randers in their book Beyond the Limits (1992).The soberinggraphbelow is their computer modelprojectionof the fate of the planet if we continueour currentrates of populationgrowth,industrial production,and material consumption.The scenario reflected in thisgraphassumesthat the worldsoci­ ety continues on its currentpath as long as possible,that is, that the policiesthat influ­ ence economicand populationgrowthremainessentiallythe same,that technologyin agriculture,industry,and socialservices continues to evolvein roughlythe same man­ ner as now, and that there is no extraordinary effort to reduce pollution or conserve resources. In this projection, population and industrial growth continue until 2020, when a combinationof environmentaland natural resource constraints constrict the capacityof the capitalsectorto sustaininvestment.As industrial capital falls,foodpro­ ductionand social services(such as health care) fall with it, causing a decreasein life expectancy and a rise in the deathrate.J

In Awakening Earth,DuaneElgin (1993)describes humanity's near futurein similarly dire terms.

This essay is an abbreviated version of a line of thought developed in Chapter 8 of my book, DarkNight.EarlyDawn: Steps to a Deep Ecologyof Mind,

Send correspondence to: Christopher M. Bache, Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Youngstown State University, One University Plaza. Youngstown, OH 44555.

Copyright © Transpersonal Institute

TheJournal of ,2000,Vol. 32, No.1 89 FIGURE 1 COMPUTER MODEL I'ROTECI'lON OF THB FATE OF THE PLANET

1900 2000 2100

Weare movinginto a time of steel-gripped necessity---a timeof intense,planetary compres­ sion.Within a generation,the world will becomea superheated pressure cooker in whichthe human familyis crushed by the combined andunrelenting forcesof an expanding world pop­ ulation,a dramatically destabilized globalclimate,dwindling supplie sof nonrenewable ener­ gy, and mountingenvironmentalpollution.The circle has closed, and there is nowhere to escape.These forces are so unyielding,and the stressesthey will place on our world are so extreme,that humancivilizationwill either descendinto chaos or ascendin a spiraling pro- cess of profoundtransformation.{p.120)2

Elgin describesthe earlytwenty-first centuryas "superheated decades;' andalreadythe pressure is building.People are beginningto realize that theEarth cannot sustainper­ petual economicgrowth,but most of us cannot yet see an alternative.

If Meadows,Elgin,andmanyotherenvironmentally informed writers arecorrect,a col­ lective anxiety will intensify in thedecades aheadas centuriesof ecologicalr ODscome due.Without a fundamental realignment of our socialpriorities,we willbe simultane­ ously overtaken on many fronts by eventsthat get out of hand and cannot be stopped. Peoplewill becomeincreasingly alarmedas condition srelentlessly deteriorate,forcing them to let go of their assumptionsat deeper and deeper levels.There will be fewer givensthat can be assumed-how and wherewe willlive,whatwe willdo for a living, what societycan provide,what can be possessed.Panicwill grow as whatwe had con­ sidered the normal and necessary structures of our world are torn away from us. Millions,possiblybillionswill die or find their livespressed to desperatelimits. "The world will seem to be goinginsane,"predictsElgin,and becausethe world is wired in a globaltelecommunications network,all this sufferingwill takeplace right in front of us throughthe "electronic intimacy"of television, intensifyingour pain by showingus

90 The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 2000, Vol.32, No. 1 the full scopeof both our local and globalpain.These scenariosare familiarto readers of the ecologicalliteratureand do not need to be rehearsedfurther.

If the world becomesa "superheated pressurecooker,"it willput our collective senseof realityunderenormous pressure.As the suffering and deathsmount,as the anxietyand despair deepens,all of this trauma willregister not onlyin our individual mindsbutalso in our sharedsocialawareness.It is importantto appreciate that the scopeand intensity of thiscrisismaybe unlikeanything we haveeverfacedbefore.It willnotbe likesevere naturalcatastrophes that affect only a small percentage of the earth'spopulation and are over relatively quickly,or evenlike the Black Deaththat decimated Europein the 14th centurybut left other continentsuntouched.Givenhow deeplyintertwinedour global economies are,this crisiscouldaffectthe entireplanetand last for decades.

Because the dimensionsof this crisis will be historically unprecedented, we do not knowhow we will react as a species.It goes withoutsayingthat the extreme natureof the crisiswill severely temptus to respondin a regressive manner.Therewill no doubt be many voicescallingfor the "necessary sacrifice"of a certain percentage of the pop­ ulation for the survival of the rest, and othersbeatingthe national drumsfor a seriesof resource warsthatmay allowus to maintainour ecologically destructive lifestyle a few decades longer.All the measures of self-worththat divided us in the past, including race, gender,,nationality,and so on, may be exploitedto legitimizecreating narrowdefinitionsof our self-interest.Howwe respondto this crisiswill takethe mea­ sure of our wisdom and compassionas individualsand as a civilization.It willrequire that we use everythingwe have learned-and more. It may also change all of us psy­ chologicallyand spiritually,in profoundand unexpectedways.

Alreadysome social theoristsare describing these impendingsocialconvulsions as a "descent into hell,"!If sucha descent doestakeplace,humanity will cryouten masseto comprehend the suffering thathasovertaken it. If werespond to thiscrywithonlya tech­ nologicalanswerthat addressesthe "how" but not the "why,"or if we can offer only regressive theologies of divine or karmic retribution,we will worsen the crisis by strip­ pingit of itsdeeper existential significance .Inorderto maximize our chances of coming through this critical periodof history successfully ,itis important that we understand as best we can the underlyingdeep structureof these events.Part of this means under­ standing whatthis terriblesuffering may represent in humanity's evolutionary develop­ ment andthe opportunity thatwe arebeinggivento radically transcend our present psy­ cho spiritual condition. In order to begin this discussion, I want to suggest a parallel between thisimminent social crisis and theexperience known as "darknightofthe soul,"

THE DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL

The "darknightof the soul"is an advanced stageof psycho spiritual growth reached by only themostcommitted spiritual aspirants.Thisdifficult phasetakesitsnamefromSt. 's classicwork,Dark Night of the Soul, and has been the subject of many commentaries(Bache, 1991,2000;Underhill, 1961:Wilber,1995).This "night" has well-definedcharacteristicsthat appear, under different names, in mystical tra­ ditions around the world. It comes after a series of lesser trials and just before final awakening intounitive consciousness.It is the final stageof a long spiritual process of

The Eco-Crisis and Species Ego-Death: Speculations on the Future 91 intense purification in which one's identity as a discrete self is challenged at its core and eventually surrendered. Its trials and hardships culminate in a spiritual death described as being more profound than mere physical death. According to many mys­ tical traditions, physical death alone does not unravel our deepest instinct for living as a separate self, and thus is often said to be followed by another birth. What dies in the dark night is our deep attachment to living as a separate, private self, cut off from each other and from the universe at large. Thus the dark night represents the culmination of a long history of spiritual gestation, usually assumed to extend over many lifetimes. What is born in the dawn that follows is an abiding sense of participation in and com­ munion with the omnipresent Divine.

I want to suggest that the coming eco-crisis may precipitate a crisis for humanity that parallels the transformation the mystic undergoes in the dark night of the soul. In this reading of history, humanity may be entering what we might call the dark night of the species-soul, that is, a period of profound collective purification that will force us to confront and surrender everything from our collective past that has kept us cut off from each other, every prejudice that has divided the human family against itself, every hatred that has kept the human heart small and separated from the Divine Heart that the saints and sages tell us beats at the center of creation. A fundamental question we will have to confront repeatedly in the years ahead is whether to opt for solutions to this cri­ sis that give preferential treatment to some portion of the population over another or whether to choose policies that are inclusive and distribute the burden equally among all of us. Will we give preferential treatment to one race, class, religion, nation, or con­ tinent over another, or will we choose policies that are truly egalitarian? Just below the surface of civilization lurk the ancient wounds of our divisive past Will we have the wisdom and courage not to reopen these wounds and instead choose to embrace the entire human family, even if in the short run it may cost our personal family? The sur­ vival of the species may hinge on how we answer this question.

If ego-death is the term frequently used to describe the spiritual death of the individu­ al, we can, by extension, describe the spiritual death of collective humanity as species ego-death. My suggestion, then, is that the coming ego-crisis may ignite a process of social transformation so profound as to trigger species ego-death A The question then becomes, What would the death of the species-ego look like? What form would such a collective transformation take?

At one level, this death will likely involve the loss of certainly deeply held ways of viewing the world, the collapse of deeply embedded intellectual and social paradigms. The intellectual and social revolutions that have poured out of the mod­ ern mind are indicators that our species-ego has been falling apart for a long time now-the eclipse of Biblical supremacy and the birth of global ecumenism; the end­ ing of constitutionally sanctioned patriarchy and the growth of the women's move­ ment; the collapse of the Newtonian-Cartesian world view and the birth of quantum theory, followed by the new cosmology; the creation of weapons so destructive that they dare not be used; the emergence of the global economy and now the discovery that our industrial civilization is ecologically unsustainable. Clearly whatever lies ahead is only the culmination of a process that has been underway for some time. And yet, I believe that the final death of the species-ego will have occurred only

92 The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology,2000, Vol.32, No. 1 when the existential separation we presently feel has yielded to a collective experi­ ence of deep existential interpenetration, when narrowly defined self-interest has been replaced by a deeply felt, globally extended compassion.

At this level, species ego-death may take the form of the collective collapse of the expe­ rience of living in isolation. It would involve a deep shift in how we feel about each other and the universe itself. In place of the sense of separation and alienation that is normal, even normative, for the modem mind may arise a new feeling for the inherent wholeness of life, with circles of compassion rippling through life's web. In the coming age of scarcity, we will have no choice but to reassess our entire relationship to the physical uni­ verse and to reevaluate the deep existential needs that are driving our patterns of con­ sumption. As we are forced to break our addiction to physical definitions of ourselves and our well-being, a deeper, more spiritually attuned sense of self may rapidly emerge, more rapidly than we could ever have predicted from this side of the crisis.

But could we not create this kind of psychospiritual change now, before the eco-crisis is upon us? Clearly we could, but we seem to lack the will to do so. Duane Elgin (1993) argues that the eco-crisis may, in fact, be necessary to bring this transformation about:

Despiteall our good intentions,withoutthis comingera of collective distress and adversity, the human familyis unlikely to awaken to its globalidentity andevolutionary responsibility. It is the immensesuffering of millions--even bilIions-of precious humanbeings coupled withthe widespread destruction of manyotherlife-forms thatwill burn throughour compla­ cencyandisolation.Needless suffering is the psychological andpsychicfirethatcan awaken our compassionand fuse individuals,communities,and nations into a cohesiveand con­ sciously organized global civilization.(p, 121)5

If the crisis of sustainability does bring about the ego-death of our species, what will have died, I think, is primarily our pervasive sense of being disconnected from each other and from everything around us. If we make the choices that clear away the psy­ chological debris of our divisive history, we may begin to experience more conscious­ ly the web that weaves all life into a single fabric. Purification is followed by awaken­ ing, and this Great Awakening would mark a new beginning for humanity. The age of the heroic individual may yield to the age of the heroic community.

Since the publication in 1934 of Lovejoy's The Great Chain of Being, it has been widely held by many transpersonal thinkers that the great saints and sages who have already passed through their individual dark night of the soul have given us glimpses into humanity's evolutionary future by showing us what we are collectively becom­ ing. Their spiritual accomplishments are sometimes said to have created the psychic seeds that are functioning as strange attractors to focus the collective awakening of humanity. And yet, if the events described here come to pass, I think it will fall to those who are actually living during these critical years to function as psychic bridges between these great beings and humanity's future. In the highly unstable, supercharged world of tomorrow, those who have already made the transition indi­ vidually that humanity is trying to make collectively, who already think and act as ecologically responsible global citizens, who have lifted from their hearts the divi­ sions of race, religion, class, gender, nation, and so on, may function as catalysts for the emergence of a new form of human awareness. In such a highly charged future,

The Eco-Crisis and Species Ego-Death: Speculations on the Future 93 individual efforts to bring transpersonal, social, political, and ecological sanity into global consciousness may have far-reaching consequences indeed.

NOTES

'The Final Declarationof the 1990ViennaConferencestates:"In severalscctursthe deteriorationof the environmenthas reachedathresholdbeyondwhichdamageisirreversible."Despitethisfact,a recentstudyentitledDefendingtileFuturestates that "No governmentin the worldhas madeanymajorchangein policydesignedto converttheunsustainableto the sustain­ able"(George,1995,p. 32),A devastatingsynopsisof our ecologicalpredicamentcan be foundin Laszlo(1994,Chap.2).

'Elgin.predictsthatby2025, twopowerfultrendswillconvergetocreatea globalcrisis-e--unprecedentcdmaterialadversitywill confrontequallyunprecedentedcommunicationsopportunity.Withina generation,theworldreservesof easilyaccessibleoil willbe depleted,we willadd another3 billionpeopleto the planet.and theclimateisexpectedto becomemorevariabledueto globalwarming.Just whenwe willneedmorefoodthaneverbefore,petrochemicalfanningwillbecomeprohibitivelyexpen­ siveandthe weatherincreasinglyunreliable,makingit "no longera probabilitybuta certaintythatwe willface an immensely difficultand challengingtimein human affairs."On the positiveside, a combinationof revolutionarytechnologiesincluding fiber-optics,user-friendlydatabasesystems.communicationssatellites,andvoice-recognitioncomputerswithtranslationcapa­ bilitywillmergeto "producea globaltelecommunicationsnetworkof sumniugdepth,breadth,andsophistication.In short,our "globalbrain"willburstf01111and"tumon"duringthefirsttwodecadesofthetwenty-firstcentury"(Elgin,1993,pp.248-249).

'In their book, The ComingAge of Scarcity,Michael Dobkowskl and Isidor Wallimann,write: '''Hell' is the fundamental instabilitythat will arise as membersof an overpopulatedplanetcompetefor increasinglyscarceresources"(Dobkowski& Wallimann,1998,pp. 286-287. citing Hcilbroncr, 1980).

'As far as I am aware,Ken Ring (1984,p, 205) was the first researcherto suggestthat the species mightbe approaching somethinglike a "planetarynear-deathexperience,"an ideapickedup andextendedby MichaelGrosso (1985,Chap, 14). StanGrof (1985, pp. 426-433)bringsa perinatalperspectiveto the globalcrisisin Beyondthe Brain,

'Peter Russell (l995, p. 157) also believesthal the present crisis may function as an "evolutionarycatalyst" propelling humanityto the next stage in its evolution.

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Christopher Bache, Ph.D" is a professor of religious studies in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Youngstown State University, Youngstown, OB, and atfjunct professor in the IJepartment of Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness at the California Institute of Integral Studies, He is the author of Lifecycles: Reincarnation and the Web of Life and Dark Night, Early Dawn: Steps to a Deep Ecology of Mind.

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