D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 8 / J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 9

Association for PPerspectiveerspective Humanistic Psychology ahpweb.org THE EGO AND THE ETERNAL by Don Mihaloew ECOPSYCHOLOGY’S ROOTS by Mark Schroll ATP NEWSLETTER pages 20–25

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Alternatives Beyond Psychiatry Honen the Buddhist Saint Ayahuasca Hallucinogen Out of Denial

DECEMBER 2008/JANUARY 2009 ahp PERSPECTIVE 1 ASSOCIATION for HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGY

. . . since 1962, kindred spirits on the edge, where human potential and evolving consciousness meet AHP principles include integrity in personal and profes- sional interactions, authenticity, and trust in human relationships, compassion and deep listening skills, and respect for the uniqueness, value, independence, interdependence, and essential oneness of all beings.

KEN EHRLICH AHP–ATP Joint Board Meeting, Calistoga, California, July 2006: back row: AHP President Cuf Ferguson, ATP Co-President Stu Sovatsky, Ray Siderius, Ray Greenleaf (ATP), Deb Oberg, Don Eulert, Colette Fleuridas (ATP), PAST PRESIDENTS AHP Past President Bruce Francis, Olga Bondarenko, Stan Charnofsky, Beth Tabakian (ATP); front row, Kathleen JAMES F. T. B UGENTAL AHP OFFICE & PERSONNEL Erickson, Bonnie Davenport, MA Bjarkman, Ken Ehrlich, Chip Baggett, ATP Co-President David Lukoff. SIDNEY M. JOURARD 510/769-6495; Fax: 510/769-6433, E. J. SHOBEN, JR. [email protected], 1516 Oak St., Suite #317, CHARLOTTE BÜHLER Alameda, CA 94501-2947, ahpweb.org Membership Director: Bonnie Davenport, S. STANSFELD SARGENT [email protected] AHP MEMBERSHIP JACK R. GIBB Web Producer: John Harnish, [email protected] connect with conscious community, GERARD V. H AIGH CEC Coordinator: Deb Oberg, [email protected] enhance quality of life, FLOYD W. 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2 ahp PERSPECTIVE DECEMBER 2008/JANUARY 2009 Perspective magazine

COVER ART: December 2008 / January 2009 HANGGLIDING ON MT. TAMALPAIS MARIN COUNTY, CALIFORNIA C O N T E N T S PHOTOGRAPH BY DAVID CORBY COPYRIGHT 2006 DAVID CORBY (AKA MISKATONIC) HTTP://WWW.MISKATONIC.COM

NEWS & COLUMNS AHP PERSPECTIVE 4 • CALENDAR OF EVENTS Editor-in-Chief: Kathleen E. Erickson [email protected]; 415/435-1604 8 • JOURNAL OF HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGY: Fall 2008 Fax: 415/435-1654; P. O. Box 1190, Tiburon CA 94920 Contents and Commentary . . . Kirk Schneider ATP Newsletter Editor: David Lukoff Consulting Editors: Don Eulert, David Lukoff

DEADLINES/GUIDELINES: Jan. 1 for Feb. issue, Mar. 1 ARTICLES for Apr. issue, May 1 for June issue, July 1 for Aug. issue, Sept. 1 for Oct. issue, Nov. 1 for Dec. issue. Manuscripts: up to 2,500 words. 10 • The Ego and The Eternal: Ruminations on Include brief bio and photo: TIF/JPEG/print. Edited for brev- Cosmic Cooperation . . . Donald M. Mihaloew ity and clarity. 16 • Ecopsychology’s Roots in Humanistic and Transpersonal ADVERTISING: For advertising rates, see page 9. Psychology . . . Mark A. Schroll The PERSPECTIVE is published bimonthly for members of the ASSOCIATIONS FOR HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGY AND ATP NEWSLETTER TRANSPERSONAL PSYCHOLOGY. Use and cite with attribution of Author, publisher (Association for Humanistic Psychology), and issue date. 18 • Conference Review: The First International Congress on The PERSPECTIVE is free to members of the Associations for Humanistic Ecstatic States . . . David Lukoff Psychology and Transpersonal Psychology. 19 Bridging Nature and Human Nature, April 1–5, 2009, Society • ASSOCIATION FOR HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGY for the Anthropology of Consciousness, Portland, Oregon 1516 Oak St., Suite 317, Alameda, CA 94501 . . . Mark A. Schroll (510) 769–6495, [email protected], ahpweb.org 20 • Relaunching of the International Transpersonal Association

22 • Institute for Transpersonal Psychology Opens Community Center for Health and Wellness JOINT MEMBERSHIP AHP–ATP 22 • Faculty Positions at California Institute for Integral Studies and the Institute for Transpersonal Psychology $159 includes all benefi ts of 22 • Transpersonal Salon Evenings Professional Membership in both 22 • Russia and America Building Bridges in Spiritual Psychology AHP Professional Member benefi ts: 23 • Tribute to a Transpersonal Pioneer: Rumold Mol •Six stimulating, information-packed issues of our magazine, AHP Perspective . . . David Lukoff •Substantial discounts on AHP events, regional & Annual conferences •4 annual issues of the Journal of Humanistic Psychology 23 • Stanislav and Christina Grof Audio Archive •Continuing Education Credits for Conferences and Events 24 Conference Review: Eurotas 2008: Planet, Culture, and Con- • •Listing in online Directory of Humanistic Professionals sciousness: The Development of Humanity in the 21st Century •Discounts on AHP Perspective and ahpweb.org ad rates, mailing list rentals . . . David Lukoff, Katherine Philbin, Sean M. Saiter, Steven Schmitz •Eligibility for professional liability, group health, disability, and life insurance •Opportunity to link your website directly with ahpweb, as a Memberlink REVIEWS •Access to ahpweb’s “Members Only” section for news and opportunities

26 • Alternatives Beyond Psychiatry by Peter Stasny and Peter ATP Professional Membership Benefi ts: Lehmann, editors, Preface by Robert Whitaker . . . Ben Gray •Subscription to the semiannual Journal of Transpersonal Psychology 26 • Honen the Buddhist Saint: Essential Writings and Official •Access to all 35 years of Journal (JTP) articles and hundreds of audio and Biography edited by Joseph A. Fitzgerald, Introduction by video recordings of past conference presenters •A searchable Networking List of members Alfred Bloom, Foreword by Clark Strand . . . Samuel Bendeck Sotillos •ATP’s Listing of Professional Members 28 • A Hallucinogenic Tea, Laced with Controversy: Ayahuasca in •Listing in the ATP Professional Members Guide, access to the listserv the Amazon and the United States by Marlene Dobkin de Rios •Reduced rates for Newsletter classifi ed advertising and Roger Rumrrill . . . Stanley Krippner •ID and Password to Members Only section atpweb.org, with full-text 29 • Out of Denial: Piecing Together a Fractured Life by Robert K. archives of the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology and audio Anderson . . . Excerpt archives of the past ATP conferences from 1990 to the present

DECEMBER 2008/JANUARY 2009 ahp PERSPECTIVE 3 CALENDAR OF EVENTS

AHP-Sponsored Events

DUELING DUALISM: WORKING WITH TOUCH DRAWING: A METHOD OPPOSITES, PARADOXES, AND FOR CREATIVE SPONTANEOUS EXPRESSION UNCONSCIOUS FORCES DEBORAH KOFF-CHAPIN BFA DON MIHALOEW, EdD LMFT CFLE Touch drawing is a simple yet profound expressive arts method and Understand limiting behavioral patterns shaped by unconscious forces. therapeutic approach. A practical, hands-on experiential day long Practically examine core issues, reframe personal directions, learn how to workshop will focus on internal process and how to move fingertips live intentionally and purposefully in a dualistic world. Jungian, Adlerian, on paper over paint to form impressions on the underside of the Existential–Humanistic, Object Relations, and Systems notions: a shift from page, leaving a visual record of the inner process. No artistic cognitive, ego only to a numinal, ego archetypal approach confidence necessary. Be delighted. SPONSORED BY AHP & IONS Northwest • 6.5 CECs • AHP discount • SPONSORED BY AHP & IONS Northwest • 7 CECs • 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. $95 includes materials/lunch • AHP discount • 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. January 17, 2009 • Portland, Oregon, The Grotto (incl. lunch) February 21, 2009 • Seattle, Washington, East Shore January 24, 2009 • Seattle, Washington, Seattle Healing Arts Unitarian Spring Hall February 28, 2009 • Bellingham, Washington, Wise Awakenings February 22, 2009 • Portland, Oregon, The Grotto Register: https://www.123signup.com/register?id=zjyyb; (includes lunch and materials) http://www.transformativegroups.com/duelingdualism.htm Contact: [email protected]; Information: http://www. Contact: [email protected] touchdrawing.com; Register: https://www.transformativegroups.com; https://www.123signup.com/event?id=zjvdg DASSIE HOFFMAN: INTRODUCTION TO VOICE DIALOGUE, AN INTRO- DUCTORY WORKSHOP IPSALU TANTRA KRIYA YOGA RETREAT Dassie Hoffman, with DR. PAT SHEEHAN, RN, DNS Ph.D., LCAT, ADTR, SPONSORED BY AHP • 19 CECs • $250, $225 & Bridgit Dengel AHP, $450/couple, $175 repeater Gaspard, LMSW February 27–March 1, 2009 • Indianapolis, Indi- Learn about Voice Dialogue through ana • Body & Spirit Studio this experiential workshop that in- cludes complete facilitation, interactive June 5–7, 2009 • Indianapolis, Indiana • Body group exercises, and discussion & Spirit Studio SPONSORED BY AHP • 5 CECs Contact: The Conference Works! (800) 395–8445 VOICE DIALOGUE TRAINING FOR MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONALS LEVEL Register: http://www.ConferenceWorks.com I 39 CECS January 24–25, 2009, New York City, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. February 21–22, 2009, New York City, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. March 21–22, 2009, New York city, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. VOICE DIALOGUE TRAINING FOR MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONALS LEVEL II 39 CECS April 18–19, 2009, New York City, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. May 16–17, 2009, New York, City, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. June 6–7, 2009, New York City, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. JOSEPH CHILTON PEARCE Contact: http://www.newyorkvoicedialogueinstitute.org Spiritual–Creative Unfolding (212) 956-0432; All trainings will take place at the New York Voice Dia- Joseph Chilton Pearce presents his Spiritual–Creative logue Institute, 161 West 54th Street, Suite 804, New York, NY 10019 Unfolding workshop, exploring the “model imperative” by which all development unfolds, how to move beyond “fight or flight” and take a “leap” toward a new consciousness. RIE MITCHELL PH.D. Follows the Braden/Martin seminar. Jungian Sandplay Therapy SPONSORED BY AHP, COSPONSORED BY ATP • SPONSORED BY AHP • 4 CECs • 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. 9 CECs February 15 • Northridge, California • March 13–14, 2009 • Pasadena, California March 20–21, 2009 • Seattle, Washington CSUN Campus Contact: The Conference Works! (800) 395–8445 or Contact: Stan Charnofsky at CSUN for details: register at http://www.ConferenceWorks.com [email protected]

4 ahp PERSPECTIVE DECEMBER 2008/JANUARY 2009 AHP CONFERENCE

A Multidimensional Intercultural Workshop: Exploring the Culture-in-the-Self and Intercultural Power Dynamics

AHP PRESIDENT CARROY U. “C UF” FERGUSON, PH.D. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR., HOLIDAY, JANUARY 19, 2009, FULL-DAY WORKSHOP, 6 CECS, $125. CROWN PARADISE HOTEL, CANCUN, MEXICO, $80 PER NIGHT INCLUDES ALL MEALS/TAXES/TIPS CONTACT crownparadise.com/cancun/crown/index.html or [email protected] OR AHP AT (510) 769-6495 This is the first of a series of experiential workshops designed to assist participants in exploring a multidimensional intercul- tural phenomenon called “culture-in-the-Self.” Beneath surface culture(s) for each person on the planet is a world of inner energy vortexes, coalesced around internalized “cultural thought and emotional phenomena” that operate at a core level of Self, individu- ally and collectively, to influence core worldviews and paradigms about who we are, what is possible or not, and how to view the Mind-Body-Spirit connection. There will be two sections to this workshop. In the first section, practitioners and other participants will learn about six prin- ciples for increasing awareness of the culture-in-the-Self, experiential methods for getting in touch with the culture-in-the-Self, its multidimensional nature, and its relation to core worldviews and paradigms, and the twelve Spiritual lessons associated with exploring the culture-in-the-Self, and will identify ways that the culture-in-the-Self can both help or hinder work with clients in a variety of helping arenas, as well as help or hinder how one relates to “the other” in a variety of human relation contexts. In the second section, participants will be invited to engage in processes to create an environment that will allow them to express whatever belief system they hold and to explore a “power equal” way for cultures to come together and communicate.

FOR HOTEL INFORMATION GO TO: crownparadise.com/cancun/crown/index.html TO MAKE HOTEL RESERVATIONS, GO TO http://www.crowntastic.com/cancun/documents/ahp.html All meals, drinks, taxes, and tips are included. The rate for Standard Ocean View room is $80 per person or $140 for a single, or upgrade to the Crown Club floor for $100 and $150 for single and double.

AHP-Sponsored Events

STAY ON THE CUTTING EDGE OF THE EVOLUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS! ONLINE OR IN-PERSON WITH MARY BELL, SPIRITUAL HEALER, TEACHER, AUTHOR, AND CHANNEL ONLINE SERIES INCLUDES: HEALING BRAIN CHEMISTRY, CHANGING PATTERNS IN DNA, INTEGRATING EVOLUTIONARY CHANGES, RELEASING ASTRAL ENERGIES, AND MATERIALIZING YOUR DREAMS This is the foundational online class for the Foundation for Unity Consciousness. It contains eight individual sessions that were originally recorded live online, plus several other instructional recordings. An On-Demand Healing Program with Mary Bell, Spiritual Healer and Facilitator www.foundationforunity.com (480) 247–7263

FOR AHP SPONSORSHIP OF YOUR EVENT, PLEASE CONTACT THE EVENTS COMMITTEE CHAIR DEB OBERG AT [email protected]

DECEMBER 2008/JANUARY 2009 ahp PERSPECTIVE 5 CALENDAR OF EVENTS

AHP-Sponsored Events

VOICE DIALOGUE: Miriam Dyak, Ph.D., and Cassandra Cosme De Pree SPONSORED BY AHP • 36 CECs for each topic series THE NATURE OF RELATIONSHIPS: AN ADVANCED VOICE DIALOGUE FACILITATOR’S TRAINING March 15–16, April 12–13, May 17–18, 2009 • Redmond, Washington LEARNING THE LANGUAGE OF ENERGY: A VOICE DIALOGUE GREGG BRADEN & HOWARD MARTIN FACILITATOR’S TRAINING September 6–7, October 4–5, November 8–9, 2009 • Red- together again, teach SHATTERING FALSE LIMITS & mond, Washington ACTIVATING YOUR HEART’S INTELLIGENCE DEEPENING CONNECTIONS: CREATING A CORE SHIFT IN THE Gregg and Howard provide an insightful understanding of the global shift and WAY WE LIVE OUR RELATIONSHIPS will be held three times how to create a more coherent environment in every aspect of your life. in 2009 Miriam Dyak SPONSORED BY AHP • 9 CECs March 29–30, 2009 • Redmond, Washington April 10–11, 2009 • Easter Weekend • site to be determined June 7–8, 2009 • Redmond, Washington Contact: The Conference Works! (800) 395–8445 or register at October 18–19, 2009 • Redmond, Washington http://www.ConferenceWorks.com The Voice Dialogue Institute, Sammamish, Washington [email protected] http://www.thevoicedialogueinstitute.org/ PERSONAL MYTHOLOGY: A TRANSFORMATION STORY INTENSIVE WITH STANLEY KRIPPNER, PhD SUSAN BURNS, MA LMHC NBCCH In an experiential weekend intensive, notable consciousness CAREER TRANSITION IN CHALLENGING and transpersonal expert Stanley Krippner offers his effective, TIMES: CREATING AN INTEGRALLY MEAN- classical, and newly revised approach to personal transforma- INGFUL AND SUSTAINABLE FUTURE tion using the development of personal story for self-healing Crumbling systems are bringing us to a tipping point of sustain- and personal growth. Learn from a master an amazing ability. Stressors are high with the challenges of career changes transpersonal system of how to work with your stories and and life transition, while advocates for social and economic reform others’ stories. say “be the change.” Learn how to find emergent transformational SPONSORED BY AHP & IONS Northwest • 15 CECs • AHP discount • spousal discount • Friday 7 – 9:30 p.m.; objectives, best practices, navigate and free confusion. Saturday 9 – 9:30 p.m., Sunday 9 – noon SPONSORED BY AHP • AHP discount • 1–5 p.m. April 17–19, 2009 • Portland, Oregon, The Grotto, March 21, 2009 • Seattle, Washington http://www.transformativegroups.com/duelingdualism.htm $295 incl. all meals Contact: [email protected] May 1–3, 2009 • Seattle, Washington, Bastyr University, $295 incl. all meals August 28–30, 2009 • Bellingham, Washington, $280 includes meals Contact: [email protected]; JAMES O’DEA Register: http://www.transformativegroups.com YOU WERE BORN FOR SUCH A TIME! NAVIGATING PERSONAL TRANSITION AND HIGH DONNA EDEN with David Feinstein, Ph.D., EVOLUTIONARY STRESS ENERGY MEDICINE FOR WOMEN AND Discover how templates for social healing and social synergy apply to THE MEN WHO LOVE THEM your own work. In a time of high evolutionary stress and transition, SPONSORED BY AHP • COSPONSORED BY as change accelerates and emerging worldviews have greater space ATP • 12 CECs for inclusion and acceptance in broader social contexts, we will July 9–12, 2009 • Southern California explore our own assimilation of change and deeper transformation. area, site to be determined SPONSORED BY AHP & IONS Northwest • 9 CECs • $125 includes lunch, dinner, July 23–26, 2009 • Portland/Seattle area, snacks • AHP discount • 9 a.m. – 9 p.m. April 4, 2009 • Seattle, Washington, Seattle Unity site to be determined Contact: [email protected]; Register: https://s07.123signup.com/ Contact: The Conference Works! (800) servlet/SignUp?PG=1531100182300&P=1531100191157002900 395–8445 http://www.transformativegroups.com/jamesodea4-04-09.htm Register: http://www.ConferenceWorks.com

6 ahp PERSPECTIVE DECEMBER 2008/JANUARY 2009 CALENDAR OF EVENTS

AHP-Sponsored Events

JOHN GRAY TELECONFERENCE ANNOUNCING AHP ONLINE ON RELATIONSHIPS: UNDERSTANDING THE HARDWIRED TELECONFERENCING FOR CECS IN 2009 GENDER DIFFERENCES AND THE BIOLOGY THAT SUPPORTS THEM NEW programs that will save you time and money!!! 4-week teleconference based on his As we know, everyone is very busy and our fi nancial newest book Mars and Venus Together resources are being challenged, so AHP will be offering Forever: Relationship Skills for Lasting online continuing education credits (CECs) during 2009. Love Week 1 Expectations, gender diffrences, how to With no travel or hotel expenses, these online teleclasses create new foundations, needs, hardwiring, and and webinars will leave virtually NO carbon footprint brain development, week 2 Stress hormones as and will be available to you at the time that is conve- messengers and rulers of our emotions. Oxytocin versus testosterone and the effects on intimate nient for you. sexual relations. Giving less to get more. Week 3 Anatomy of fighting and how to survive and AHP is developing an online catalog of classes for your flourish. Asking questions versus taking action. 14 convenience and ongoing education. common mistakes women make. How to use time out—the art of making up. Rules of fight avoidance. Week 4 Dysfunctional behaviors are not gender differences. Discovering AHP’s fi rst teleconference presenter in 2009 will be the fight free zone. The power of Venus talks. Filling up one’s tank by fostering their JOHN GRAY, author of Women Are from Venus, inner life. Men Are from Mars and of Why Mars and Venus SPONSORED BY AHP • 21.5 CECs • $160 • AHP discount Collide, in April (see announcement to the right). April 6, April 13, April 20, April 27, 2009 • online Contact: [email protected]; or call Bhimi at (310) 466–7600; http://www.onespiritnetwork.com

ATP Cosponsored Event BRIDGING NATURE AND HUMAN NATURE Annual Meeting of the Society for the Anthropology of Consciousness, April 1–5, 2009 Portland, Oregon The roots of humanistic and transpersonal psychology are entwined with ecopsy- chology and the Society for the Anthropology of Consciousness (SAC). The “bridge” theme of this conference, to be held at McMenamins historic Edgefield Resort at the entrance to the beautiful Columbia River Gorge, represents an interdisciplin- ary coalition of groups rallying together to reassess science and culture and the interface of technology and nature. Representing a call for a more systemic, process- oriented, intimate/sensual understanding of the universe in which we live, a call essential to bridging nature and human nature and reinventing our narrative construction of science and culture. Information: http://www.sacaaa.org.

DECEMBER 2008/JANUARY 2009 ahp PERSPECTIVE 7 JOURNAL OF HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGY

Journal of Humanistic Psychology Vol. 48, No. 4, Fall 2008

— Kirk J. Schneider

TABLE OF CONTENTS KIRK SCHNEIDER SPECIAL SECTION: Maslow in Retrospect: A Centennary Celebration . . . Edward Hoffman, Section Editor

A Person-Centered Approach to the Treatment of Combat Veterans with Post-traumatic Stress Disorder . . . Adam Quinn

On the Road to Being: My Personal Journey into Existential Theory and Practice . . . Manijeh Badiee

To See or Not To See “Schizophrenia” and the Possibility of Full Recovery . . . John Breeding

Enlightened or Delusional? Differentiating Religious, Spiritual, and Transpersonal Experiences for Psychopathology . . . Chad V. Johnson & Harris Friedman

8 ahp PERSPECTIVE DECEMBER 2008/JANUARY 2009 JOURNAL OF HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGY

EDITOR’S COMMENTARY

am delighted to present this special centenary is- ment Therapy (ACT), as you will find out when you sue celebrating the birth and life of JHP’s found- read the article. er, Abraham Maslow. I never had the privilege to meet Maslow in person, but have “met” him n “To See or Not To See ‘Schizophrenia’ and the Imetaphorically many times—both through the pages Full Possibility of Recovery,” John Breeding of this Journal and in my own musings about human- takes us into the heart of another side of the ism. About a year ago, JHP board member and Maslow existential–humanistic critique. Elaborating on biographer Edward Hoffman approached me about Ihis last article (“The Case of Sohrab Hassan: Assault developing this special commemoration of Maslow, and on Liberty in the Texas Mental Health Courts,” JHP our lead section is the fruit of his remarkable labor. In 46: 243–254, 2006), Breeding concisely and effectively this centenary section, you will find my introduction questions “schizophrenia” as a brain disease, and the to the section with some thoughts on the relevance of socioeconomic climate that promotes it. This view has Maslow’s legacy for today’s JHP readers, plus moving gained even more currency recently with a followup and scholarly tributes to Maslow not only from Edward study of the alternative, minimally medicating psychi- Hoffman, but from past JHP editors Tom Greening atric facility “Soteria House.” See “A Systematic Review and Miles Vich, and from esteemed colleagues Nelson of the Soteria Paradigm for the Treatment of People Goud, John Levy, David Rennie, and Dmitry Leotiev. In Diagnosed with Schizophrenia” in the Schizophrenia light of these commentaries, I hope you will take some Bulletin 34: 181–192, 2008. I look forward to the follow- time to consider Maslow’s far-ranging—and still very ups on these followups. timely—impact. n our final article, Chad Johnson and Harris n the balance of this issue, we have several ar- Friedman continue the tradition of unpack- ticles that owe their inspiration in no small part ing the possibilities of extraordinary states of to Maslow’s legacy. In the first article, Adam consciousness. In “Enlightened or Delusional,” Quinn documents the critical effect of person- IJohnson and Friedman investigate the problem of how Icentered therapeutic dimensions on veterans suffer- to differentiate religious–spiritual–transpersonal ex- ing from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This periences from those that are deemed pathological. Al- is, obviously, a highly relevant topic today, especially though this terrain has been plowed before (e.g., in the in light of the recent coverage (e.g., in the January work of Stan and Christina Grof), Johnson and Fried- 2008 American Psychological Association Monitor) on the man bring to it a fresh and empirically sophisticated importance of “evidence-based” treatment of veterans perspective. See, for example, how they differentiate the with PTSD. Quinn questions the viability of some of “value-laden” Diagnostic and Statistical Manual category these treatments as stand-alone remedies, and makes a of “spiritual and religious problem” from the multifac- compelling case for person-centered qualities as core to eted and subtly nuanced phenomenon of spiritual and optimal healing. religious awakening. — KIRK SCHNEIDER n the next article, Manijeh Badiee makes a wonderful case, particularly for re- form-minded graduate students, for the inspirational qualities of existential–hu- Imanistic theory and practice. Herself a re- cently minted graduate, Badiee details her own journey from the dispassionate mainstream to the passionate “alternative” of philosophical and therapeutic existentialism. However, she does not simply dismiss her former mainstream training; but views it in a rich new context. This context includes such ostensibly cogni- tive–behavioral approaches as Action Commit-

DECEMBER 2008/JANUARY 2009 ahp PERSPECTIVE 9 The Ego and the Eternal: Ruminations on Cosmic Cooperation — Donald M. Mihaloew

God is as incapable of creating the perishable as ego is of making the eternal. — A Course In Miracles, Chapter 4 Knowledge is the specifi c nature of the psyche. — C. G. Jung, Corpus Hermeticum X, 9 For one thing is needful: that a human being attains his satisfaction with himself . . . only then is a human being tolerable to behold. Whoever is dissatisfi ed with himself is always ready to revenge himself and we others will be his victims. — Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science

hereas spirit, cosmos, is supposed to be the highest level of To imagine that an external Creator can and all other numinal intelligence on Earth be as constantly have any limitations at all runs counter concepts for deities narrow, repressed, inflated, and unruly to this hierarchal model depicting a enjoy an almost as humans certainly exhibit being? supreme being that is nothing like us. universalW acceptance, even reverence, I think of little that is as important The second icon that goes down in ego does not, even though both are for us as therapists and non-therapists this plucky statement is that the ego, equally and widely manifested in our alike to grapple with and come to an so bent on superiority and dominance, human minds. Little time is given to understanding of as the relationship emerges as quite limited and is shocked the understanding of the concept of between the earthly/pluralistic and the at being so. Ego, therefore, gets a bad the ego outside of the formal study of universal/mystical. Until recently, the reputation from lay and professional ego psychology. It is usually passed off discussion of any spiritual or numi- alike by how it handles this indignity. as a negative entity, as in egocentricity. nal processes in the human being was The ego always seems to get miffed as it Here we focus on examining the ego considered, by mainline psychology, to strives for survival and prominence and and the relationship between it and the be wholly unsubstantiated and there- never quite makes it. And in a three- numinal cosmos and establish a new fore irrelevant. But we have seen in level cosmos, the ego leads us to believe paradigm positing ego is an ontologi- our lifetimes a growing emergence and that it, itself, is the deity. So, it seems we cally necessary step toward the evolu- acceptance of this topic in professional have a deity that cannot make anything tion of the human being in the process psychological literature. Scott Peck has inferior and an individual selfhood that of completion”/“individuation”, the declared that if you go all the way into is appalled at not being superior. Jungian words for enlightenment. It is psychology, you will emerge into spiri- further asserted that an interweaving of tuality. This is my personal experience FUNCTION OF THE EGO IN these two concepts produces no organic and the reason for this article. Since RELATION TO CONSCIOUSNESS conflict in contrast to most moral, axi- both ends of this spectrum exist, all In Jungian terms, the ego is the seat of ological, and/or religious dualisms. of us are contained somewhere in this consciousness and is made of the same dynamic crucible. The more we know basic fabric as all consciousness. Hence, FOCUSING QUESTIONS about it, the more evolved or differenti- the notion of the “Imago Dei” can make How did ego manifest in the world? ated we can become. sense. But the individual ego is actually What is its job or function? What only a small fraction of all the available would humans’ lives be like without it? THE PROBLEM AND THE ISSUE consciousness in the whole Self, just as And how is it all possibly an illusion as Since our Western culture is based on a the waves of the ocean are also made up many Eastern philosophies assert? And Judaic-Christian worldview, the quota- of the same water but each wave is not if so, what is it that asks the question tion above from A Course In Miracles the whole ocean. The main reason ego of its own experience? Why is there calls into question two distinct and mas- gets a bad reputation is because it has a conflict and evil when, in the West, we sive cultural icons. The first is that a tendency for hubris, that is, of inflat- define our creator as wholly good and “deity” may not be as omnipotent as we ing itself beyond the scope of its basic positive? And how can something that mortals tend to think we must believe. function, that of individual awareness

10 ahp PERSPECTIVE DECEMBER 2008/JANUARY 2009 EGO AND ETERNAL anthropologist Levy-Bruhl, referred to that separates us from all others. We all them as “participation mystics.” This know that we are not someone else and in a basically “I–It” physically dualistic is when there is no apparent differ- therefore “I must be myself ”! Yet, this world. In Greek mythology, hubris was ence between self and other and where is also where the problem lies, i.e. the described as “rivaling the gods” for meaning has not yet been questioned, thinking that we are separate from each which the individual always paid a price as in newborn infant’s experience. Self, other and from Creation itself and yet, in karma-like fashion, not as punish- as ego self, comes into being when such ironically, always seeking intimate re- ment but as a reality lesson. It seems discretion is called for and always with lationships to compensate. In transper- exquisitely clear that no individual safety as its backdrop. As soon as the sonal thinking, this separation is absurd. human being could ever come up with “I–It” perception comes into view, the But through an existential lens, which is what the Cosmos has created for itself developing person comes out of Eden where the young ego starts out, nothing much less even understand it all, but and faces this new and troubling reality could be truer. No discretionary center that does not stop ego from feeling it in such a way as to maintain a sense of means no self. No self is a major threat must ascend in order to be safe. Ego belonging and, therefore, security. This to the personal consciousness and is al- is quintessentially all about fear-based is always done at the expense of the ways met with, at least, a defensive tack, safety-seeking, since we all experience fundamentally true self and brings on if not a full-blown attack. It is in this what Adler called “cosmic inferiority.” the development of a pseudo-self, other- sense that ego may just be the same as It seems that the ego itself is the wise known as personality. Discovering memory! New brain research shows the last to know that it was not made for just how clients have come to hold the brain to be a conservative organ not ex- the eternal task of transcendence and beliefs they do is an extremely impor- pending more energy than it needs to. creation in the first place. Being thus tant part of the therapeutic process. It registers that what happened before abashed, we need to stop and see our It is their story, and it is our grist for is what is happening now even though egos as possessing a different, and quite ongoing sessions. Ego, then, seems to be that “now” is past. The mind is slow to necessary, set of functions than our the “sine qua non” of human experi- update and defaults to past protocol. egos can understand at the outset. This ence. Whether we call it personality, We are prone to Daniel Goleman’s is one entry place for effective therapy. typology, identity, or common sense, “amygdala hijacking” and are certain of As troublesome as egos are, they seem we all have a kind of self-consciousness the need for ego defenses to rise to the to belong. And if they belong, maybe we need to understand and therefore “design” their scope of practice so that they don’t bound out, over, and into what they cannot do. But what are they for? Maybe if we could discover why they are so prevalent and so prominent, we could also discover why they are so necessary. It is obvious that egos pro- liferate, or, at least the illusion of ego. And so it behooves those of us in lead- ership capacities, whether as therapists, healers, parents, grandparents, teachers, etc., to have a sturdy, workable concept of ego so that we do not douse it and rob our children and clients of such an obvious and valuable resource. But play- ing creator, which ego typically thinks it is, is not a reason we have or are one! Maybe we should start by asking the question of what human life would be like if there were no such thing as what we identify as ego. The Genesis account of creation would have us think that we would be better off without such con- sciousness, remaining totally innocent and devoid of existential and ethical discretion. Anthropology suggests that this is the way our earliest, animistic progenitors lived. Jung, borrowing from

DECEMBER 2008/JANUARY 2009 ahp PERSPECTIVE 11 EGO AND ETERNAL external world that comes at it and the is compensatory and emerges to have internal world out of which flows one’s others fill the void for them. It com- threat. It’s all about fear of loss. perceptions of knowing what to do here pensates for some real or imagined flaw For those of us with a slight or mark- in life. As above, little is as hard as do- not even consciously recognized in the edly Eastern philosophic bent, talk of ing therapy with an adult who has not individual “ego” consciousness. When ego is either unnecessary, since the self accomplished much or anything in their questioned by the outside, defensiveness is seen as all illusion, or reprehensible lives, not only because they actually emerges and sometimes even explodes to consider something so troublesome haven’t, but because through trauma upon those who ask about it. But this as being necessary and trustworthy. they did not have the necessary devel- is a good thing, for it at least indicates But let us look through the eyes of oped self-capacity in the first place to an intentionality to be something more therapists and teachers, people who meet the needs of the world. They offer than it is. Angry defensiveness indicates rely upon the capacities of their client us very little to grab on to for growth a drive toward something held as valu- recipients for the forward motion of and development to take place. The able even if only the most basic kind of growth to occur. I find that the hardest newest study out now regarding the survival, for anger is not so much a process I face in my forty-some years of elements of successful therapy states feeling as it is a strategy. So, embed- private practice working with change that whereas the relationship between ded in this kind of behavioral dynamic and growth is the overly defended cli- client and therapist is vital, equal to this is evidence of both the basest and best ent. There isn’t enough of something process is the self-capacity of the client. of what ego is. It is the manager of to have the person present as confident, What do they bring for us to use to the separate self as well as the major whole, solid, courageous, flexible, open, help them realize their actual, but now block to ultimate connection with and expansive. These are the hardest cryptic, destinies? Denial systems are the Higher Self, humanity at large, types: who are rigid, frightened, closed, hard enough to work with, but worse is and Cosmic Oneness overall. With- paranoid, uncertain, and dysthymic, a client so frightened of and defended out this manager function, one would not because they have these traits, against the world they cannot perceive not survive. We would remain totally per se, but because they lack a core of the possibility of any potential. This dependent throughout our “mean, small, resiliency and reflectivity, which keeps is what happens in clients diagnosed in nasty, brutish and short” lives, quoting them narrow, stuck, and unimagina- the Axis II category. It’s not that they Hume. There would be no intentional- tive. It’s not what diagnosis they have have defenses but that that is all they ity, no drive, no impetus to acquire and but what capacity they lack. And this have, and, therefore, lack cohesion attain, no interest in pleasure-seeking, element of what is or isn’t there is what and flexibility. and no sense of any purpose. In short, I am referring to as ego, the operating an egoless person would be totally system of the personality, the executive POSSIBLE ANSWERS depressed, unable to move about function, the manager, the circumspect Let us then consider that there is not re- their world with any conscious pos- overseer whose job it is to be vigilant by ally only one ego but rather two, the one sibility and would be worse off than addressing the external world in such a we most speak of in common parlance animals because at least animals have a way as to become a recipient of all that being the most suspect. It may be better vivid intentionality to survive. Life has to offer. It is the general man- understood as the Shadow Self rather We all persist for something greater ager with a team full of prima donnas than the ego, per se, because it is chiefly than what we experience in any mo- trying to coordinate a winning season. composed of repressed and disowned ment. And while this egoic state, per se, To this end, we need to treat it with re- unconscious material. The other ego, is not the problem, it becomes prob- spect and care, as well as with pity and the executive function, as I am offering lematic for two distinct reasons. One is compassion, for its job is massive. Jung here, is a quite positive element without that, in its fear, ego stops developing in says that “all the greatest and most which we would surely perish on this any fully human, destined way. It gets important problems of life are fun- Earth. Aside from the mythology, per- stuck and digs in for safety. And sec- damentally unsolvable. . . . They can haps Adam and Eve were just hungry! ondly, it sets up shop by creating clever never be solved, but only outgrown.” In common conversation, when we ways of compensating for rather than Think of ego, then, as an overly respon- come upon an insecure person who uses growing through its real and imagined sible self-agency which must needs be excessive energy to prove themselves flaws. This is where ego turns sour, on top of everything in order to, well, worthy, we often speak of that person for it is so afraid of being incomplete be on top of everything. as having a “big ego.” The implication and inadequate, that it erects defenses Upon not being up for life in the here is that, by definition, ego is bad, to stay alive and by so doing creates physical and emotional dualism in as in narcissistic selfishness. And while barriers to its own selfhood. Adler which it lives, it falters and compensates this kind of behavior can certainly be referred to this process as the Law of by “acting as if ” it is competent and troublesome, think of ego here as like Overcoming, translated as the means confident, i.e. inflated. By way of fur- halitosis, that is, that it is better than no of compensating and overcompensating ther definition, I am proffering ego as breath at all! It’s not that ego, per se, is for these “feelings of inferiority” that an element on the front line of both the bad, but that the expression of itself we have come to think of as our very

12 ahp PERSPECTIVE DECEMBER 2008/JANUARY 2009 EGO AND ETERNAL to a functional one, one that calls for courage and resiliency, the very lives. So, paradoxically and tragically, qualities lacking in people with little we try to save ourselves by strangling or no ego executive function. Freud’s our potential! Better to stagnate into system is an adjustment-focused process our comfortable middle than to walk where symptoms (anxiety) are to be to our edges and fail, we reason, recognized as the presence of pathol- being thoroughly immersed in our ogy and is, at base, a behavioral model smaller-self egos. Do therapists need resting on unconscious material. Jung’s a better explanation as to why our system is a developmental, evolution- work is so difficult and why we need ary process where symptoms are seen extensive training to lead clients to as an incompleteness in the personality their edges for self-discovery? In this structure based on a lack of awareness sense, the larger the executive-type of anything beyond egoic conscious- egos, the easier our work is because ness. To Freud, the purpose of therapy this kind of ego is able to self-assess, is “to bring people to normal misery,” innovate, generalize, and stay in tact whereas in Jung, the focus of therapy DON MIHALOEW in the face of sometimes horrendous is on digging deep enough to see that accomplish, but not as ego. It is in this personal regrets, dark memories, and all Life is spiritual in nature and that paradoxical crucible all of us as indi- cruel criticisms. there is no real end to what can be viduals find ourselves and, as puppies It has been stated over and over that apprehended. This is where the ego inside a paper bag, try exhaustively to power corrupts and absolute power as executive simply runs out of fuel extricate ourselves from this confusing corrupts absolutely. But what is really and where the ego as commander-in- dualism. But doing so only with the ego happening is that it is not power or chief gets rowdy. Care must be taken only tightens the bag around us and has intentionality, per se, that corrupts, but by therapists and parents alike not to us act even more foolishly. As Emerson rather the absence of it and the drive overwhelm the individual’s egoic level, wrote, “the soul is lost mimicking the soul”! to get it. This is Jung’s basic theory and certainly not to undershoot it. This It is not by ego strength or develop- as to the presence of evil. It is also is a focus of another paper, but suffice ment alone that the soul will find its Adler’s idea that a sense of failure, as to say here that amongst the best mate- true destiny as co-creators and col- an inferiority complex, makes people rial on this topic is the early research on laborators of the Universe. Yet, without compensate in ways that injure other ego-development by Judith Loevinger. I the original ego self-construct, we can people, as Nietzsche states so em- highly recommend this approach which never arrive at any meaning that can phatically. It is in this very chasm of underlies the field of ego psychology. sufficiently disturb us into seeking other self-limiting beliefs based on fear that People having grown up under the paths. When in therapy, clients with ego is led, Faust-like, down the road of watchful eye of superego, and this enough ego to know something is not ego-only existence. Freud has helped would include all of us, typically abort right but not enough to be able to look us understand what happens here, for the very experience for which we are beyond ego for answers need a guiding in his system, there are really only two, destined merely by defending their light. Ego is a one-dimensional tool op- not three, parts to the self, these being selves. The ego thinks the defense of erating in a three-dimensional environ- the super-ego and the id. According to self leads to prominence and safety. ment and is not aware of there being him, the ego simply developed not Redoing Descartes, “I am safe now, a fourth, this being the numinal world at all to be the chariot that could therefore I must be right”! But people of the spirit. How does ego-bound self lead us to our spiritual destinies, having grown up with sufficiency of then learn about this fourth dimension a la Jung, but rather as a means of inclusion, potency, and attachment if it is so tied into itself ? Since ego is a protecting our selfish, boundless ids are actually able to move beyond this windowless room, how does it begin to from scrutiny and punishment by basic motive of safety. They are able to see through the density it has devel- the super-parent. As such, there is no look beyond their egoic constructs of oped? How does it extricate itself from genuine independent ego-process in uniqueness, specialness, and superior- identifying with ego-only constructs? Freudian psychology. ity as mere compensations, but usually The answer to these questions lies in But ever since Freud, the history only, alas, after hitting bottom somehow. a totally non-Western worldview, one of psychology has all been about the The dark side of ego is so powerful that asserting that humans contain a natural, entry of a genuine, non-contingent, it convinces the self of its ultimate le- a priori, internal, and intrinsic capac- independent personal element that gitimacy as is, without any transforma- ity for Oneness. This departs from a allows for tension and conflict to exist tion that lifts people into states of new rational, three-level Western universe along with its capacity to derive some awakenings. It is like enlightenment is with its emphasis upon an external meaning out of the chaos. [Ego] It has seen by the ego as a major threat, the godhead unlike anything in the indi- moved from a basic morality system very thing the ego-self is destined to vidual person. It is best summarized in

DECEMBER 2008/JANUARY 2009 ahp PERSPECTIVE 13 EGO AND ETERNAL thing, per se, but just so incomplete that no humility. It pushes its way into the no eternal satisfaction comes from it, center of everything in order to prove the three laws of Dharma which posits leading to compensation and overcom- its worth, usually to itself, first. Jung that the Spirit, the Buddha-Nature, the pensation, i.e. fear wrapped in bravado. goes on to say, “One does not become Imago Dei is imprinted into all sentient Until we run the ego’s course, we will enlightened by imagining figures of Life and that it constantly draws us never realize our true potential and that light, but by making the darkness to this reality. It is, in short, a Living of human Life overall. We need to start conscious. The latter procedure, how- Universe where all creation is shared by thinking of ego as necessary but not ever, is disagreeable and therefore not all creation. It counters the notion of a sufficient. We need to see it as a scared popular.” Adler, Jung, and Freud all had three-story universe of heaven, earth, child in a supermarket trying its best to one major thing somewhat in common, and hell and instead preserves the idea find its parent and, upon failing, getting that being the apparent nature of the of a cooperative co-creatorship. This ugly, i.e. desperate. We need to think of personal unconscious. They saw it as was the “aha experience” Edgar Mitch- ego as the shuttlebus that takes us to containing material of which the ego ell underwent on his return from the the airport but not as the airplane that had no knowledge. But here the similar- moon and seeing and shooting “Earth- is to fly us to our ultimate destination. ity ends, for in Freud, the unconscious Rise”, the most copied photograph in We need to be able to stay intact as we was seen as “the boiling cauldron,” filled human history. It occurred to him that face our personal setbacks before we can as it was with guilt over sexual desires. we are all made of star-dust, that is, muster the energy to hang in with our Jung, more consistent with Adler’s that we are all One. Upon returning, he selves even when they look so foreign to view who saw it as “the unadmitted,” founded IONS, the Institute of Noetic us. This is the aim of therapy. refers to the shadow as a place where Science, in an attempt to blend science “everything that I don’t want to be” and spirit. Dharma states that although GENERAL THERAPEUTIC is relegated. Inside Jung’s shadow, or, we are physical beings seeking per- CONSIDERATIONS personal unconscious, (as distinct from sonal meaning and safety, we are first Therapy is where we have permission to the Archetypal Unconscious), then, is a and foremost spiritual beings having a be limited, even weird, since our collec- lot of fine human qualities that simply physical experience! This turning of tive egos do not permit this elsewhere. don’t jibe with the individual’s self-im- reality on to its head can be rather, well, Somewhere we need to see our selves as age. And for the individual to realize heady! The dualistic physical reality of loveable and worthwhile even in the face their total potential, they would have our world and our bodies have sucked of our distorted egoic errors of percep- to walk into and through their personal so much of our latent energy into mere tion and behavior and be understood shadow because the repressed material survival-searching that we have little and accepted. Life invites us to our in there is as much a part of the Self as energy or desire left over to imagine basic destiny of realizing our coopera- what ego sees in its own consciousness. anything other than personal security, tive place as individuals in the cosmic We must become open to our whole thus never getting beyond Maslow’s panoply of Oneness. In this way, we potential. Jung said that the purpose of first two layers of his needs hierarchy. can experience a sense of participation life “is not to be good, but to be whole.” This is where we must honor ego by and completion in the flow of Life. But His was not a moralistic approach, but having the intellectual and emotive relying on ego to make sense of this is an ontological one in which the cosmos capacities to keep our bodies safe from futile, like thinking the shuttlebus is the was a beckoning entity that made Itself danger so that we can live long enough airplane and then driving off the end of fully available for anyone who had the to perhaps realize the basic, constitu- the runway only to blame the airport. courage to look, first, into their shadow tional nature of our selves, that being When Jung states that “knowledge and then choose increased, integrated that we are spirit-in-a-body entities is the specific nature of the psyche,” consciousness over safety. As he said, “I rather than bodies only seeking spiritual he is not talking about intellectual or had to wrench myself free of god, so meaning. This is all ego is supposed to even cognitive information gathering. to speak, in order to find that unity in do, i.e. keep us safe, alive and striving. He is referring to the organic connec- myself which god seeks through man.” Its job is not transcendence. And any tion of the cosmos and all that is in it, It was an inevitably natural way to live. time the ego thinks it is transcending, including human beings. He is allud- And ego-centered living is only natural it is really undergoing a severe bout of ing to a Oneness model of ontology up to the point where it can escape the ego-inflation, usually the result of not where everything and every person is gravitational pull of the dualistic need having been acknowledged and included composed of the same basic substance, for security. Beyond this point, it is enough in the early years. The other that substance being consciousness, the unnatural. It is a mangled Mephistoph- two laws of Dharma, simply put, are prima materia of awakening, enlighten- elian manipulation. to discover who and really what we are ment, and individuation. and then to use that in the service of If only ego would know this. This SPECIFIC THERAPEUTIC others. But without the first law active is the problem with ego as shadow. It CONSIDERATIONS within our larger selves, any service to still maintains its centrality even in the The ego, being necessary but not suf- others will be self-serving, not a bad face of obvious limitedness. There is ficient, needs to soften and allow for the

14 ahp PERSPECTIVE DECEMBER 2008/JANUARY 2009 EGO AND ETERNAL of the choices it made while inside the too important to take seriously, to see ego-trance. It will then approach the Life only as matter. This is the way of inclusion of its basic nature to develop. shadow, enter it slowly, begin integrat- the ego, trying its best to make sense But before it can do that, it has to have ing the dark material in there, and only of life while wearing blinders. It was a discrete life of its own, no matter then stand at the threshold of the nu- Keats who said that “when you know how problematic it is, before it indi- minal, the Archetypal Collective where Earth is the vale of soul-making, you viduates, or becomes awake. In keeping Oneness can start emerging into view. will know what to do here.” Ego must with sound therapeutic considerations There is a saying attributed to Will take itself off the hook and allow for about entering a client’s story only at Rogers: “good judgment comes from earth-only efficiency. This can only be the ego level in which they operate, experience and a lot of that comes from done in conjunction with the Deep Self. when a therapist encounters an ego bad judgment.” But the bad judgment is Ego is not Ultimate, yet it is an eternal deficit, the job is to help build the ego like the halitosis mentioned earlier. The and important instrument to develop through what I call “self-claim.” For problem is that ego always interprets and move through, so that we can hear it is only through a person’s daring to its actions as necessary and positive the beckoning of the Eternal Ultimate. move past their pseudo-self and into and therefore cannot learn from its own In this sense, ego is the gateway to the their darkness that they can just begin experience. It sees itself as separate. It Eternal. It was Ram Dass who said that to see through the density of ego does not know that it is encircled in a we have to have an ego first in order consciousness and peer into the light of oneness relationship with the eternal. It to move beyond it. The only way to their inherent spiritual nature. People is bent on survival and will always have discover what this ultimacy is and how must know that they are choosing, to be right in order to feel the safety it we stand within it rather than under or and why, before there is any chance of craves. Rumi said that “Perfection is not against it is to have had, first, a sense of transformation or even paradigm shift. for the pure of soul; there may be virtue ego-self and all the limitations and tri- Of course, clients don’t usually enter in sin.” The Dharmic principle rests on als commensurate with it. For it is only therapy for this purpose. They come the notion of a living, beckoning uni- through these trials that the ego can because their egos have run them into verse that calls for authenticity and will learn that it is not ultimate. It takes real the ground and they are in pain. Fur- allow us to suffer over and over again strength to rise up out of one’s demise ther, they want simultaneously to not until we learn something. After all, in the hopes of discovering something hurt any more and also to not have to how many times does something have more durable than ego. James Hillman change. This is classic ego unconscious- to happen before it occurs to us! Karma is quoted as saying “troubles are calls ness, hubris at its worst, and we have all is an opportunity put before us by an from the gods.” They are opportunities been there. As such, therapists cannot actively seeking, eternal cosmos. And for the individual to grow beyond its judge their clients but rather sit with to interpret suffering as singly onerous own safety-oriented lifestyle and into their egoic pain and understand the is to miss the point of the Life process. something more closely aligned with developmental nature of consciousness. It’s not about safety anymore but rather completion. Ego knows nothing of des- Adler asserted that everybody is doing about the development and evolution of tiny until it is on its back looking up, at the most they can at any point in time the soul–Self. which time it either softens or hardens. and that if they could do more they Karma is simply unlearned lessons. Both responses are geared for surviv- would. But ego puts the brakes on any Therapists need to continually reflect ing, but only the first one is focused on such thing, and to the demise of itself with clients, and parents with children, thriving. As it enters this vast arena of because it is the best ego can do! Not to as to how they think what they are unknown entities, the urge is to rush be outdone, the ego simply fabricates doing is going to work. There is no back to the familiar. Here is where we the story to maintain its exoneration . . . morality in this approach, only function. must support the ego-self to continue and starts the atrophy of consciousness And truly, neurosis has been rightly moving to its edges to discover more . . . and relationships. defined as doing the same thing over about one’s self, and in so doing devel- Ego maintains an ideal sense of and over and expecting different results. oping empathy for others. For once we self and arranges its life around the This is the little “s” self bereft of its begin seeing ourselves as distorted and establishment of that personal desire. beginnings, its composition, and its des- building a lifestyle on limiting beliefs, But if you take the Ideal Self and tiny. It’s like the angry carpenter who we no longer judge others. We finally subtract the Actual Self, it equals the exclaimed, “Damn it; I’ve cut this board enter the realm of the authentic human individual’s “Shoulds.” At this point, the THREE times and it is STILL too being, where the focus is no longer on less developed the ego is, the more it short.” How the ego softens and opens being right or good but upon becoming will opt to exercise its Shoulds in the is not the mystery it appears to be when whole and therefore connected to the direction of bolstering its Ideal Image. you think in terms of Dharmic process working of the eternal cosmos. The stronger, larger, more developed where we are seen as intrinsically spiri- ego will opt in the opposite direction of tual and needing to learn Oneness while FROM HERE, WHERE? looking at and accepting its Actual Self, first here in the form of “Twoness,” that The issue is not with ego, as such, but that which came into being as a result is, dualistic matter. Life, as such, is way identification with it. We are all just

DECEMBER 2008/JANUARY 2009 ahp PERSPECTIVE 15 EGO AND ETERNAL Ecospsychology’s Roots in Humanistic born too young! In its fear, ego lures us into thinking that what it knows is all there is to know. And when you and Transpersonal Psychology have six billion people all doing this, it’s a wonder we are surviving at all. Thanks only to our objective, intrinsic — Mark A. Schroll god-consciousness, we actually might! Thinking of ego not as an entity in I see the resignation of nothingness Maslow is looking out the window, itself but only as one phase of a whole I hear the repercussions of pointlessness. saying “It’s not enough, humanistic psy- long line of developmental tasks may be I’m completely torn chology is not enough.” This initiated one way to tolerate it in one’s self and My whole attitude bears my scorn. Maslow’s thinking about the limits of in others. Its job is basically regres- I hear the silence of another day humanistic psychology, and it was dur- sive, that is, to once again return to a While our existence gets wiped away, ing this time he became influenced by place of Eden-like safety and ease. But You know the games that we all play. Aldous Huxley’s view of trans-human- with innocence, there is no awareness. I see you’re playing with my tolerance, ism. Greenway later suggested creating And without awareness, there is no Gotta rise above this consciousness. what he called a psychoecology. Stanley egoic self-consciousness to understand — Tim Masters, Lincoln, NE, 1997 Krippner recalls in his last conversation greater realities. And without an egoic with Maslow that Abe spoke of found- self-consciousness seeking to under- he calling out for a rein- ing a new psychology he was calling stand greater realities, there can be vention of science and trans-human psychology. Krippner no courage to face the shadow. And culture, for a new philoso- adds that, “as we talked about it, in without that courage to face the shadow, phy of life, for a new myth, retrospect, I now realize he was talking there would be no openness to the holy recentlyT gained support from Donald about what we now call ecopsychol- spirit. And without this holy spirit, Rothberg who argues humankind’s ogy. We should therefore extend our there would be no entry or awakening cultural evolution has reached a “crisis concerns—go trans-human—and not into an enlightened non-dual existence. of modernity” (Rothberg, 2006, The make this a human-centered psychol- This last piece is the destiny of all of Engaged Spiritual Life). Indeed the ogy. Unfortunately, Maslow never had us in order to move beyond living lives existence of all natural systems—soil, this dream realized and [I now believe] of quiet desperation. Consider these plants, animals, human communities— that ecopsychology is absolutely criti- immortal words from Longfellow who are precariously balanced on the politi- cal” (Krippner, Sept. 8, 2006, “Ecopsy- wrote, “Life is long and life is earnest, cal, economic, and individual choices chology, Transpersonal Science and and the grave is not its goal. Dust to that each of us need to make in our lives Psychedelics”). dust and ashes to ashes were words not to create a sustainable culture. Choices Greenway’s research later rose to written for the soul.” in technology, agriculture, and our con- national attention through the efforts Life satisfaction becomes a matter of sumer buying habits that will encourage of Elan Shapiro, a graduate student of alignment of ego with eternal, rather a co-evolutionary relationship with the Greenway’s. In 1989 Shapiro (respond- than elimination or annihilation of nonhuman world. A relationship where ing to the first Gulf War) formed an either. As long as we live on a physical the needs of the present generation do anti-war group at UC Berkeley whose planet, replete with dualistic realities, not deprive the quality of life of future discussion included psychoecology, we need an ego manager. However, it generations; where renewable sources later morphing into ecopsychology needs to be one tuned in to its overall of energy and building materials can (Schroll, 2007, http://trumpeter.atha- purpose, function, and place within, and eventually meet the needs of industry bascau.ca/index.php/trumpet/article/ as determined by, the greater wisdom and the lives of every person. This call view/940/1353). of the Unconscious Psyche. There can for a reinvention of science and culture To recreate in our awareness the be no materialism versus spirituality is our need to shift our personality turbulent social psychological context argument. Both ego and eternal are real orientation from deficiency-motivation within which both humanistic and and need acknowledgment. Carl Jung to being-motivation and transcendence, transpersonal psychology emerged— has said: “If we do not find our destiny, whereby all of these concerns seek to let’s recall one of the most shocking we will meet our fate.” This is the fun- find representation in the emerging images of our 21st century selves that damental cooperation. transdisciplinary focus group known as came screaming into our lives—the ecopsychology. stark vocals of the song “21st Century DONALD M. MIHALOEW, Ed.D., Ecopsychology has its origins in hu- Schizoid Man”—whose lyrics explode LMFT, is Assistant Adjunct Professor in manistic and transpersonal psychology, with a rant characteristic of the 1960s Counseling Psychology at Portland State as Robert Greenway recalls that one day revolution in sound, presentational University. in late fall 1962 on a rainy afternoon style, and content:

16 ahp PERSPECTIVE DECEMBER 2008/JANUARY 2009 ECOPSYCHOLOGY’S ROOTS dent and the transpersonal, we get sick, to begin. Except that I think the tree isn’t violent, and nihilistic, or else hopeless even going to be real, but a plastic counterfeit. and apathetic” (Maslow, 1968, Toward A In fact, even the tramps may turn out to be Cats foot, iron claw, Psychology of Being, p. iv). Recognizing automatons . . . though of course there will be Neurosurgeons scream for more this, it is hard to say whether psychol- great, programmed grins on their faces. At paranoia’s poison door ogy was influencing pop culture or if (Roszak, 1969, p. xiv) Twenty-first century schizoid man. pop culture was influencing psychology; because in 1969, Alan Watts was also Is this discovery that we are nothing Blood rack, barbed wire, describing the emotional autism of Sin- more than soulless creatures playing Politicians’ funeral pyre field’s 21st century schizoid man in Does the starring role in some theater of the Innocents raped with napalm fire It Matter?: Essay’s on Man’s Relationship absurd really the image of the world Twenty-first century schizoid man. to Materiality, telling us that: and of the future that we have all been waiting for? It certainly is not the vision Death Seed, blind man’s greed, . . . people, whether Western or Eastern, need of the future I have been waiting for, Poets’ starving, children bleed, to be liberated and dehypnotized from their yet before any of us slips into some- Nothing he’s got he really needs, systems of symbolism and, thereby, become kind-of deep depression about this Twenty-first century schizoid man. more intensely aware of the living vibrations dismal prediction of the future—it is of the real world. For lack of such awareness important we call to mind that “if ” is These are the words and poetic il- our consciousness and consciences have become the key word in Roszak’s scenario of luminations of Peter Sinfield, whose calloused to the daily atrocities of burning the future. That is, if the resistance of inspirations in 1969 flayed our skins, children with napalm, of saturation bomb- the counter culture fails, if we fail to and burned these thoughts into our ing of fertile earth with all its plants, wild wake up from the trance of EuroAmeri- brains, assisted by the searing blast of animals, and insects (not to mention people), can science; if we fail to transform our controlled fusion known as the musical and of manufacturing nuclear and chemical present crisis of perception into an group King Crimson. Seinfeld’s chilling weapons concerning which the real problem is opportunity for transformation; if we reference to the schizoid personal- not so much how to prevent their use as how do not reclaim the transcendent and the ity type continues to loom large on to get them off the face of the earth. [If we transpersonal within our lives; if we fail the horizon of humankind’s future, can ever hope to survive this madness, we will] to take responsibility during this crucial warning us to wake up from our dis- need to become vividly aware of our ecology, moment in our evolutionary history. If sociation from self, society, and nature, of our interdependence and [our] virtual we do not become active in the political because the schizoid person is no longer identity with all other forms of life. process needed to create better com- in touch with their feelings. Instead, (Watts, 1969, p. xiv). munities, if we neglect the cultivation the schizoid person lives in a state of of our transpersonal growth; if we do psychological disconnection from other Watts could have written these words not reclaim our need for communion people and the world of nature. All yesterday, and we owe it to his and and “primal kinship with nature that of us are in danger of becoming this Maslow’s legacy to honor their vision shamans and modern psychological schizoid man. and to give birth to ecopsychology. research both agree is the key to living This schizoid man is what Ralph Equally poignant, as if it could be a vital, full, and creative life” (Swan, Metzner refers to in his book Green today’s top news story, this prevailing 1992, personal correspondence), then Psychology as “the collective psychopa- spirit of dread, anxiety, and dissocia- and only then will our New Year be thology of the relationship between tion was eerily summarized in Theodore ringing in the stark predictions regard- human beings and nature,” or in other Roszak’s The Making of A Counter Cul- ing humankind’s future that Greenway, words “dissociation” (Metzner, 1999, pp. ture: Reflections on the Technocratic Society Krippner, Maslow, Metzner, Roszak, 94–97). Psychology should therefore and Its Youthful Opposition: Rothberg, Swan, Watts, and many oth- be on the front lines of the endeavor to ers have echoed and predicted. examine our worldview, and ourselves, If the technocracy in its grand proces- I therefore invite all of you to “Bridg- but mainstream psychology is cur- sion through history is indeed pursuing to ing Nature and Human Nature,” April rently dominated by technophiles, who the satisfaction of so many . . . universally 1-5, 2009, the annual Society for the approve technology’s consumptive be- ratified values as The Quest for Truth, The Anthropology of Consciousness meet- havior and instrumental use of nature. Conquest of Nature, The Abundant Society, ing (co-sponsored by ATP) to discuss Metzner sums up humankind’s schizoid The Creative Leisure, The Well-Adjusted Life, the history and future of ecopsychology. personality disorder in Chapter 6, “The why not settle back and enjoy the trip? The Among the many important topics that Psychopathology of the Human–Nature answer is, I guess, that I find myself unable we will discuss is: Should ecopsychol- Relationship.” to see anything at the end of the road we are ogy become a focus group within APA’s 1969 witnessed ATP’s birth, whose following with such self-assured momentum Division 32? [see page 7] inception found inspiration in Maslow’s but Samuel Beckett’s two sad tramps forever 1968 vision that “without the transcen- waiting under that wilted tree for their lives MARK A. SCHROLL, Ph.D., [email protected]

DECEMBER 2008/JANUARY 2009 ahp PERSPECTIVE 17 ATP NEWSLETTER CONFERENCE REVIEW The First International Congress on Ecstatic States

Hanover, Germany, May 22-26, 2008 — David Lukoff Organized by the Department for Psychiatry, Social Psychiatry, and Psychotherapy of the Hanover Medical School, and the German College for Transpersonal Psychology

ore than 200 partici- cultures have developed pants attended this technologies and rituals Congress, includ- to achieve ecstatic states ing psychologists, of consciousness. Since psychiatrists,M physicians, psycho- the 1970s, humanis- therapists, neuroscientists, social tic and transpersonal workers, scientists, and interested psychology have been laypeople from Poland, England, discovering the connec- Holland, Russia, the U.S., and Ger- tion between ecstatic many. It was organized by Assistant Peak-Experiences (a Professor Torsten Passie, M.D., term Abraham Maslow M.A., and Professor Hinderk M. coined) and psychologi- Emrich, M.D., Ph.D., from the Ha- cal health, and psycho- nover Medical School, and Professor therapeutic techniques TORSTEN PASSIE AND WILFRIED BELSCHNER AT THE CONFERENCE Wilfried Belschner, PhD., Univer- that induce these states. sity of Oldenburg, who heads the The Congress organizers were lost a great deal of weight. In this German College for Transpersonal able to enlist a range of interna- pilot program, the doctors used the Psychology (DKTP). tionally renowned experts in the drug Ecstasy (MDMA) along with Since prehistoric times, ecstatic field who considered the phenom- psychotherapy to help the patient experiences occupied a central posi- enon of ecstasy on the conceptual, work through his fear and face tion in cultural development, as can experimental, and practical levels in his situation in a more open and still be observed in the Far East its psychological, neurobiological, relaxed way. In two months, he had and in non-industrial societies. In cultural, and transcultural dimen- regained weight, reported feeling occidental history, ecstatic experi- sions, including its potentially positive about whatever remained ences have been demonized and healing effects. In a professional of his life, and reunited with his marginalized—but still significant setting, people could talk about girlfriend. Most of the sessions in religious practices, somatic and ecstatic states of consciousness, were like that—about cutting-edge psychological experiences, sexuality, what they are, how to achieve them, research, experiments, new theories, youth culture, and psychotherapy. what can come from them, and and therapists determined to open Ecstatic experiences can pu- various cautions. Several present- up their practices to embrace and rify and transform human beings, ers discussed how ecstasy can come include ecstasy, bliss, spirituality, change their perspectives and val- from sexual intercourse and how and the transcendence in higher ues, give life new meaning, and have orgasmic release can be directed via states of consciousness. healing effects. This makes them intention to achieve higher states of Participant P. M. H. Atwater important to consider in developing spiritual transcendence; also the use stated: “I really felt I was at the a spiritually oriented psychotherapy. of various drugs, disciplines, ritu- epicenter of some of the finest While scientific research in the als, chanting, music, incense, etc. A minds in the world, and I took full West has been looking at ecstatic dramatic case was shown on video advantage of that.” For a fuller experiences mainly as marginal of a man dying of cancer who was account, see PMH Atwater’s NDE phenomena of psychological life, panic-stricken with uncontrollable News at http://atwaterndenews. many cultures in Asia and shamanic fear, regrets, and worries. He had blogspot.com.

18 ahp PERSPECTIVE DECEMBER 2008/JANUARY 2009 ATP NEWSLETTER BRIDGING NATURE AND HUMAN NATURE April 1-5, 2009, Portland, Oregon, http://atpweb.org/sacaaa/index.asp

— Mark A. Schroll he first cosponsored meet- . . . a family, a community, a nation, a ing of the Society for the planet” (Wynne, 1987, p. 466). Anthropology of Con- We invite your voice and your sciousnessT and the Association for stories in an open call for papers Conference Location Transpersonal Psychology will and a growing list of presentations. address the eco-crisis. “What we These include a 2-hour symposium Edgefi eld encompasses a lush 74-acre parcel need is a new vision of the world,” on April 4 on the “History and Fu- of farmland at the mouth of the spectacu- says Liv Ullman in her role as Sonja ture of Ecopsychology” with Ralph lar Columbia River Gorge with historic Hoffman in Fritjof Capra’s film Metzner, Stanley Krippner, Adele buildings of all sizes artfully restored and Mindwalk (1991). This need for a Getty, and Robert Greenway, mod- rich with cozy interiors, tranquil ponds, new vision of the world is the need erated by Mark A. Schroll. “We pro- and dazzling gardens. The stately main for a new world interpretation, a pose that the concerns people have Edgefi eld building (circa 1911), with more new world orientation, the “call for expressed while waving the banner than 100 European-style guestrooms and an essential/integral science”: a of ecopsychology are not limited to hostel accommodations, is a national new paradigm or myth. The Greek the new discipline of psychology. historic landmark. Edgefi eld offers a fi ne word mythos means telling a tale. It is more likely that a transdisci- dining restaurant, classic pub, and numer- We are searching for a new way of plinary field is emerging that will ous small bars. Edgefi eld’s onsite brewery, speaking, a new way of telling our draw from all of the current social, winery, and distillery offer tasting rooms for stories, a new way of framing our behavioral, and life sciences, in handcrafted ales, wines, and spirits. Each questions. Using the word myth in which a variety of research strate- spacious guestroom is furnished in charm- this way allows us to find gies will be required for ing turn-of-the-century decor. There are a sense of com- data collection as well no televisions or telephones in the rooms, mon ground as for application. encouraging tranquility, as do the rocking with storytell- To help shape this chairs on the verandas. Wireless Internet ing and folk- field, we intend to connections, however, are available. On the lore. Accord- present sugges- grounds you will fi nd a plethora of diver- ing to Elaine tions for a clear sions including trails, golf course, pool hall, Wynne, in S. understanding onsite massage and spa, outdoor heated Foster and of ecopsychol- soaking pool, onsite glass-blower and pot- M. Little, ogy’s history, tery maker, artwork everywhere, recent-run editors, definition, and vi- movie theater, and gift shop with treasures Betwixt and sion of its future.” from the Pacifi c Northwest and the world. Between: Patterns of Ralph Metzner’s Masculine and Feminine books include Green Initiation (Open Court, 1987, Psychology (1999), The Well is world-renowned for his work in pp. 482-488): “If we want to change of Remembrance: Rediscovering the dreams, shamanism, psi research, our lives, we must first change our Earth Wisdom Myths of Northern and consciousness studies, and stories.” Story in this sense refers to Europe (1994), The Unfolding Self: many books. Robert Greenway our own inner voice, our personal Varieties of Transformative Experi- worked with Abraham Maslow at narrative, or the things we tell our- ence (1998), and The Expansion of Brandeis University in the early selves about our life and the lives of Consciousness (2008), all contribut- days of humanistic and transper- others in this world. Our lives are in ing to this movement. Adele Getty sonal psychology, and is a pioneer in fact made up of stories, as Wynne is author of A Sense of the Sacred: the “eco-psychology” field. explains: “Stories are the glue, the Finding Our Spiritual Lives through Don Eulert is Director of the essence that holds a people together Ceremony (1997). Stanley Krippner Center for Integrative Psychology,

DECEMBER 2008/JANUARY 2009 ahp PERSPECTIVE 19 ATP NEWSLETTER San Diego, and was the Guest Edi- (Evergreen State College), Hill- Approach” will be co-chaired by tor of the February/March 2007 ary S. Webb (Ph.D. candidate at Rachel Cooper and Robert Harper AHP Perspective issue on Ecopsy- Saybrook Graduate School), Ian J. (Vancouver Island University, Van- chology, and he will be giving a Prattis (Failsafe: Saving the Earth couver, British Columbia). 1-hour poetry reading addressing from Ourselves, 2008), and Alan Evgenia Fotiou (University of the conference theme, outside on Drengson (Emeritus, University of Wisconsin, originally from Athens, April 2 during the lunch break. On Victoria, founding Editor of The Greece), is organizing a symposium April 3, David Lukoff (whose DSM Trumpeter: Journal of Ecosophy), on ayahuasca based on her research category “Religious and Spiritual and Sharon Mijares (The Root of in Peru with indigenous shamans. Problem” is a condition for men- all Evil: An Exposition of Prejudice, Papers are also sought for a sym- tal health, and not a pathology) is Fundamentalism, and Gender Imbal- posium that A. Muhammad Maruf presenting his latest thoughts in the ance, 2007) will present on shaman- is organizing on “The Psychology symposium “Spiritual Emergence ism and gender. of the Dream and Sufi Stories.” and the Greening of Psychothera- Diane Hardgrave (University of Saturday evening April 4 a Keynote py.” Chairing this symposium will Nevada Las Vegas) will chair a sym- banquet will examine the future of be Sara Lewis (Columbia Univer- posium on “Mind/Body Approaches how ecopsychology, eco-anthro- sity), who is both a psychotherapist to Biomedicine and Medical pology, shamanism, transpersonal and anthropologist. Additional Anthropology,” presenting her re- psychology, and more are coming papers are sought in this open call; search on the effects of meditation together and creating something and CECs will be given for this on boosting the immune system. new. The first hour of this Key- symposium. Sonya Pritzker (University of Cali- note event will feature two or three The morning of April 4, Dr. fornia Los Angeles) will present on short papers, followed by a 2.5-hour Constantine Hriskos (Colby Col- learning to bridge nature and self freewheeling conversation forum. lege, Maine) will chair the sym- via the mind and body in Chinese The first deadline for abstracts is posium “Bateson, Postmodernism, medical education. A symposium on December 15, 2008, and I’ll extend and Shamanism.” This symposium “Consciousness: The Non-locality this deadline for those who contact includes papers by Sarah Williams Hypothesis--A Multi-Disciplinary me with a title needing more time.

Relaunching of the International Transpersonal Association

he International community of scholars and Transpersonal Associa- scientists who wanted to tion (ITA) was launched continue this international in 1978 by Stanislav exchange and collabora- Grof,T its founding president, along tion. In contrast to the As- with Michael Murphy and Rich- sociation for Transpersonal ard Price, the founders of Esalen Psychology, which held Institute in California, to promote annual conferences in Cali- transpersonal education and re- fornia, ITA was explicitly search, and to create international formed to develop interna- transpersonal conferences. Several tional conferences, as it had international conferences during become obvious that the STANISLAV & CHRISTINA GROF & THE DALAI LAMA AT AN the previous six years had created a transpersonal vision was EARLY ITA CONFERENCE IN DAVOS, SWITZERLAND

20 ahp PERSPECTIVE DECEMBER 2008/JANUARY 2009 ATP NEWSLETTER being embraced globally. Prior to the Conference, another group it was decided, to name the So far 13 ITA conferences have group was discussing the need for new organization ITA after the been held in diverse locations. (Au- an international association. Harris original ITA—and to continue the dio downloads of presenta- tions from many of these conferences and photos of the conferences are available on the ATP Mem- ber website, atpweb.org.) However, after the 2004 ITA Conference in Palm Springs, California, the ITA dissolved when Stanislav and Christina Grof had to discontinue their participa- MEETING AT THE 2008 ATP CONFERENCE WHERE ITA WAS BORN tion for health reasons. Friedman, Editor of the Inter- ITA tradition, including its in- national Journal of Transpersonal ternational conferences. Stanislav REBIRTH Studies (see http://www.transper- Grof gave his blessing to the idea David Lukoff, Co-president of sonalstudies.org), was looking for of incorporating ITA again. The ATP, began to explore the pos- an organization to sponsor this ITA was reincorporated on May sibility of forming a new umbrella Journal, and it seemed to Friedman 27, 2008. The initial officers are organization for the 28 worldwide that an international journal would Friedman serving as its President, transpersonal associations (see the be best sponsored by an interna- Lukoff as Vice President, and Har- ATP Guide to the Transpersonal tional organization, something he telius as Secretary and Treasurer. Internet at http://atpweb.org/In- began to discuss with the Managing Plans to hold the next such confer- tlTranspOrgs.asp) modeled after Editor of the IJTS, Glenn Hartel- ence in either Brazil or Russia are Eurotas, which is an umbrella orga- ius, and with Les Lancaster, IJTS’s under discussion. In addition, an ex- nization for 18 European Transper- Coordinating Editor, who had also pansion of the ITA board to include sonal Associations (http://www. received a small grant from the leaders from the global transper- eurotas.org). He created a Google British Psychological Society to sonal community is planned, as is Group for the International Asso- fund the development of a website development of a website that can ciations of Transpersonal Psychol- to link the international transper- link the international transpersonal ogy (see http://atpweb.org/goog- sonal community. community. legroup). During the ATP 2008 As a followup to that meeting, Current plans also call for a Conference in New Delhi, Lukoff there was discussion on the Google transfer of the IJTS to ITA. All in sponsored a meeting to discuss Group regarding the shape and all, these are exciting times for the forming such a group, which was direction of this new organization. international transpersonal com- well attended, including by Har- Friedman advocated exploring a munity, and everyone interested is ris Friedman, Glenn Hartelius, Les resurrection of the ITA name, and invited to participate in ITA’s newly Lancaster, and many others. after much debate on the Google unfolding future.

DECEMBER 2008/JANUARY 2009 ahp PERSPECTIVE 21 ATP NEWSLETTER

ITP OPENS COMMUNITY CENTER FOR Russia and America HEALTH & WELLNESS Building Bridges in he Community Center for Health & Wellness is a nonprofit Spiritual Psychology community counseling center and training institute that offers a wide variety of counseling services. It combines contempo- Vladimir Maykov, Yuri rary psychotherapy with transpersonal values that focus on the Zinchenko, and Victor Petrenko integrationT of body, mind, and spirit. It offers an affordable fee structure to from Moscow State Univer- increase the accessibility of services to a wide range of clients. sity, on January 31, 2009, 6225 As it develops in the coming years, the CCHW will include a program Doremus Avenue, Richmond, for the treatment of trauma, a marriage and family therapy program, and a California, 94805, rsvp spiritual guidance program, as well as the psychotherapeutic and counsel- [email protected] ing services it presently offers. The vision for CCHW is that it will be a resource for the community in addressing a wide variety of life issues from AN ALL DAY CONVERSATION, a whole-person perspective. 744 San Antonio Road, Palo Alto, California 1–10 p.m. COME FOR ALL OR PART 94303 (650) 493-5006 OF THE DAY AND MEET THESE DISTINGUISHED RUSSIAN COL- LEAGUES AS WE CREATE INTER- NATIONAL PROJECTS TOGETHER

Siberian Shamanism, Transper- sonal Psychology and Psy- Faculty Positions at Transpersonal Salon Evenings chotherapy, Contemplative Practice in Eastern Orthodox CIIS and ITP The Future of Transpersonal Traditions, Human–Dolphin Psychology, January 23 and Research, Religious Practice February 13, 2009, 7:30-10pm in Post-Communist Russia, he Integral Counseling Barely 10% of the Indo-Tibetan The Russia–India Connection, Psychology (ICP) Pro- archive has been translated. Come Cross-Cultural Trauma and gram of the California learn about the other 90% that Addiction Psychology, Creativ- Institute of Integral resolves debates on: ity and Spirituality, StudiesT (CIIS) is accepting applica- - Pre/transpersonal ego development Dostoyevski and Existential tions for two full-time faculty posi- - Sexuality and Spirituality Psychology, Psychic Research, tions. The ICP program prepares - Why Dualism Is Good World Peace Studies and Activ- students for the MFT license and a - Lifelong Spiritual Awakening ism, Yoga, Tantra and Bud- career in psychotherapy. The Clini- - Ascending and Descending Paths dhism in Russia, Planning for cal Psychology Doctoral Program - What Is Enlightenment? the Second World Congress on at the Institute of Transpersonal - What should a transpersonal Psychology and Spirituality, Psychology has an opening for psychotherapy of the future Moscow, 2010 a full-time faculty position. Both be able to do for clients? Stuart Sovatsky, Ph.D., http:// schools are keeping the positions 6225 Doremus Avenue, Richmond, home.jps.net/~stuartcs?about. open until filled. More information California, 94805, 510 232 8262 html; www.atpp.ru/association/ on these positions is available on the E-mail [email protected] to reserve news/?ID=2011; http://www. school websites: http://www.ciis. your place, $5 for ATP members, worldcongressps2008.org/ edu, and http://www.itp.edu $10 for others. event/presenters.aspx

22 ahp PERSPECTIVE DECEMBER 2008/JANUARY 2009 ATP NEWSLETTER Tribute to a Transpersonal Pioneer RUMOLD MOL

umold Mol, who died have gotten so used to his sturdy in September 2008, and warm presence, and his total was one of the found- devotion to the ideals of EURO- ing fathers of the TAS. With the East–West Project, transpersonalR movement in Europe. he went to endless trouble to help Currently there are 18 European extend our work to Central and transpersonal associations, and Ru- Eastern Europe, which had been cut mold was the Johnny Appleseed of off for so long from the West. His RUMOLD MOL the European transpersonal move- achievement has been enormous and ment. A feel for his contributions continues to grow and bear fruit. can be gleaned from these excerpts from the Eurotas Newsletter (issue 50 From Monique Tiberghien in Belgium: at http://www.eurotas.org). I think of all the trips and work- shops we organised together in the Stanislav and Christina From Rumold’s friends in Poland, different countries of Europe. How Tanna Jakubowicz-Mount and Jacek enthusiastic and creative he was for Grof Audio Archive Majews: We are deeply sad to know this action even in the difficult mo- that Rumold, our close friend and ments! Never tired, he was always very generous benefactor of the ready to travel to help our friends to he Stanislav and Chris- Polish Transpersonal Forum, build their associations and train- tina Grof Archives passed away a few days ago. He ings. He created many links and did Fundraiser held at the played an important part in estab- many good things in his life, so I am California Institute of lishing the transpersonal move- sure he is travelling to the light. TIntegral Studies on April 21, 2007, ment in Poland, coming here for raised enough to digitize and put the first time in 1992 to ask us if From John Drew in Europe: Dear online 134 presentations from ITA we could organize a transpersonal Rumold, It was not only the work and ATP conferences. Added were conference before we even knew you supported so closely in Central talks form the 1984 ITA Conference what “transpersonal” meant. Later and Eastern Europe, but also your in Kyoto and from ATP conferences he helped and inspired us, working great support at the EUROTAS an- in the 1970s. Members can listen consistently through the East-West nual conferences in Poland, in Italy, to new talks by Elisabeth Kubler- Eurotas Foundation to facilitate in Hungary, in Germany, in Luxem- Ross, Robert Bly, Edgar Mitchell, contacts between Eastern and bourg, in Portugal, in Romania, in Jack Kornfield, Frances Vaughan, Western Europe. Thanks to this London, in Russia, in France, and in John Welwood, Angeles Arrien, and work, we established close links and Germany. You were always practi- many others. friendships with such fine transper- cal, always visionary, always want- A retreat with Jack Kornfield and sonal trainers and mentors. ing good things to happen both for Stan Grof is also now part of the the transpersonal movement and for Stanislav and Christina Grof Ar- From Beata Bishop in the UK: It’s EUROTAS. You were always there chives. With these additions, there hard to imagine any EUROTAS when you were needed with the are now more than 300 presenta- meeting without Rumold. Those of faithful Ank not just at your side, tions from ATP and ITA confer- us who have been involved in our but leading you on and encouraging ences online at atpweb.org organisation from the earliest times you. — John

DECEMBER 2008/JANUARY 2009 ahp PERSPECTIVE 23 ATP NEWSLETTER CONFERENCE REVIEW EUROTAS 2008 David Lukoff I have attended six Eurotas Katherine Philbin conferences. The included meals The theme of this year’s confer- allow for time to catch up. But this It was hard for me to imagine work- ence was “Planet, Culture, and was the first Eurotas meeting for ing with a translator at EUROTAS Consciousness: The Development my wife, Christel. She jumped right this year. I was scheduled to give of Humanity in the 21st Century.” in with a two-hour workshop- on a two-hour workshop that I had Presentations included: folktales, and she helped to build designed for my dissertation study. the Day of the Dead altar together It is an experiential workshop that - The Contributions of Transper- with two women from Mexico. I consider successful if it brings sonal Psychology to the Evolution Christel and the two women in the my participants to tears. Yet most of Planetary Consciousness photograph had all brought some of the participants in my workshop - Rituals, Rites of Passage, and things to make a traditional altar, would not understand English. I Psychotherapy and you can see the result in the decided to take on the challenge - Shamanic Traditions and New photo below. by seeing how I might reach my Paradigm in Tanspersonal Pycho- After the conference, I had four multicultural participants in a truly therapy days to immerse myself in Dali, transpersonal manner—beyond - Immune System Consciousness Gaudi, Miro, and Picasso, and other words, beyond such ego attach- - Reaching Spiritual Maturity delights of Barcelona. The next ments as language. - Developing Human Conscious- conference will be in Italy, October Since my workshop centered ness 15-17, 2010, and I hope to be there. around Yoga practices such as asana, pranayama, and yoga nidra, I knew that with some guidance and modeling by me, they would catch on to the techniques, and as they practiced the benefits would soon become self-evident: the mind clearing and calming, the heart rate slowing to a steady and deep rhythm, the body making its peace with the tension harbored within. The truth is that the young woman who translated brought it all together for the Spanish-speak- ing participants. She worked seam- lessly with me, translating the most essential points gently and with a soft, clear voice. She shadowed me in a way that only a talented trans- lator could, picking up on nuances and going with the flow so that the CHRISTEL LUKOFF, MAGDA LOPEZ DE LA MORA, AND CECILIA PEREZ MENENDEZ participants relying on her never missed a beat with the simultaneous For more information on the Eu- English I was speaking. Having a Presenters were from Western and ropean Transpersonal Associations translator in tune with my intention Eastern Europe, Russia, the United (Eurotas) and their conferences, go and who got the nuances I was try- States, South Africa, and India. to www.eurotas.org ing to convey was irreplaceable.

24 ahp PERSPECTIVE DECEMBER 2008/JANUARY 2009 ATP NEWSLETTER

needs to continue to reach out to other disciplines and would generally benefit from continued col- laboration with other professionals. In all, I feel that my ideas were well-received. I cannot wait for the opportu- nity to present at the EUROTAS conference again in the future if not for anything more than to reconnect with VICTOR RODRIGUES, PRESIDENT OF EUROTAS, the friends I made this AND MAGDA SOLÉ, CONFERENCE CHAIR year in Barcelona.

Sean M. Saiter Steven Schmitz Cafe con leche (cafe amb llet in Cata- Just as each European lan), wine for lunch, jamon serrano, country has its own unique Gaudi, the Gothic quarter, compact flavor, so does each Eurotas cars, world-class public transporta- Conference. The Conference tion, and very friendly people. For organizers, Associació Cata- me, having spent seven years of my lana Transpersonal (ACT), childhood in Spain, making my way arranged an excursion to to Barcelona was a no-brainer. the sacred mountain and STEVEN SCHMITZ AT MONTSERRAT The number of countries repre- monastery at Montserrat, sented at this humble gathering was a transcultural party, and a talent (3) drumming, and (4) the shamanic truly a sampling of diversity under show. I found many opportunities to journey. I also provided an experi- the banner of “the transpersonal.” network and converse with profes- ence of a Shamanic Journey Circle I learned how important it is to re- sionals involved with Transper- for the attendees, which included spect not only the language barriers sonal Psychology in many diverse shamanic journeying to live drum- but also the varying perspectives cultures. Each experience supported ming. As at the past conferences, the of what “transpersonal” means to the conference slogan, “Love for all attendees showed a strong interest different people. As an American, cultures, light for consciousness, in shamanic practices. for me this is a humbling and much and peace for our lovely planet.” I presented a gift from the appreciated realization. I presented for the third con- Institute for Transpersonal Psy- I was scheduled to give a presen- secutive year on my work as a chology (ITP) to Magda Solé in tation on what my vision of the Transpersonal Counselor and gratitude for inviting ITP faculty future of transpersonal psychol- Shamanic Practitioner. In this year’s and students to the Conference, and ogy is. I gave a brief overview of workshop, “The Healing Power of to acknowledge her contribution to transpersonal psychology’s West- the Shamanic Journey Circle,” I pre- “international collaboration in the ern philosophical heritage and why sented four aspects of the journey field of Transpersonal Psychology.” it arose as a reaction to the natural circle that can facilitate the spiritual Many thanks to Magda Solé and the science road that psychology chose healing process: (1) being together ACT team for an informative and to pursue. I also proposed the idea in a circle, (2) creating sacred space, enjoyable conference in Barcelona. that transpersonal psychology

DECEMBER 2008/JANUARY 2009 ahp PERSPECTIVE 25 REVIEWS build strategies toward implement- publisher and international activ- ing humane treatment and provide ist of the movement of (ex-) users freedom of choice. and survivors of psychiatry, and his ALTERNATIVES BEYOND Sixty-one authors (ex-users and co-editor Peter Stastny. The latter is PSYCHIATRY survivors of psychiatry, therapists, a founding member of the Interna- BY PETER STASTNY AND PETER psychiatrists, lawyers, relatives, tional Network toward Alternatives LEHMANN, EDITORS, PREFACE BY care-givers, politicians, and social and Recovery (INTAR), an advoca- ROBERT WHITAKER scientists) offer insights into new cy platform for the most important Peter Lehmann Publishing, 2007, practices, therapeutic alternatives, alternative approaches from around 431 pp., $40, £19, ISBN 978-0- and positive examples of democrat- the world. For many years, he was 9788399-1-8, ISBN 978-0-9545428- ic partnerships with those who have Associate Professor of Psychiatry 1-8. been diagnosed with mental health at the Albert Einstein College of problems. Medicine in the Bronx and conduct- Reviewed by Ben Gray ed several publicly funded research projects in the area of vocational o review, synopsis, rehabilitation, social support, and or commentary can self-help, in collaboration with indi- possibly do justice to viduals who had survived personal the meaningful, often crises and psychiatric interventions. heartfelt,N and profound accounts The editors seem an ideal pair to of (ex-) users and survivors of enlighten the readership about a the psychiatric system, activists, broad spectrum of alternatives and and academics involved in their to provide a synthesis of interven- movement that are presented in the tions that protect against unwanted innovative and new book Alterna- medical methods and advocacy for tives Beyond Psychiatry. alternatives beyond psychiatry. Certainly the book provides no The book will be of great help and unilateral and easy answers, but assistance to people with emotional rather encourages diverse perspec- distress and mental health issues, tives, interventions, dialogues, and their caregivers, professionals seek- methods for dealing with mental ing more holistic and democratic illness. It asks the questions, put approaches of treatment, as well as simply: academics and activists involved in Above all, the book is full of the movement of (ex-) users and What helps me if I go mad? How can personal (and therefore humanized) survivors of psychiatry. The book I find trustworthy help for a relative accounts of those who have been is set to become a classic and radical or a friend in need? How can I protect failed, trapped, forgotten, or even alternative in itself, and will influ- myself from coercive treatment? Where abused by the psychiatric system, ence alternatives beyond psychiatry can I talk to like-minded people about with its over-reliance on power- now and in the future. my own experiences with psychiatry ful anti-psychotic medication and and about my life? What should I do the sovereign ability to administer BEN GRAY, Ph.D., is a Senior Research if I can no longer bear to work in unfreedom and forced treatment. Fellow at Canterbury Christ Church Uni- the mental health field? What are the The majority of articles are versity, in Essex, United Kingdom. He has alternatives to psychiatry? (p. 15) specialist chapters about alterna- an established reputation covering research tives and ways of realizing these on the social exclusion of marginalized The book is a brave attempt to alternatives and humane treatment, groups in the health and social care systems. begin to tackle these difficult issues written by (ex-) users and survivors via a collection of reports from of psychiatry, by professionals or anti-psychiatric, radical-psychiat- relatives, or in cooperation. ric, non-psychiatric, and post-psy- There is not even a shade of the HONEN THE BUDDHIST chiatric alternatives in different typical split—we the “experts” (who SAINT: Essential Writings countries. The book highlights the own the objective truth), they the and Official Biography pressing need for structural change “ex-patients” (who made only sub- EDITED BY JOSEPH A. FITZGERALD, in psychiatry and appraises the jective personal experiences)—in INTRODUCTION BY ALFRED BLOOM, individual, organized alternatives the book. The typical hierarchy is FOREWORD BY CLARK STRAND and measures that need to be taken overcome, which is to the credit World Wisdom, 2006, $20, 192 pp., in order to effect this change and to of Peter Lehmann, self-employed ISBN 1933316136

26 ahp PERSPECTIVE DECEMBER 2008/JANUARY 2009 REVIEWS in Japan alone, the spiritual legacy of Honen has for the most part not been recognized in the West. Reviewed by Samuel Bendeck Honen understood the challenges Sotillos of the socio-religious upheavals of the era in which he lived that led Only repeat the name of Amida [Amitabha] him to emphasize the significance with all your heart. Whether walking or stand- of a spiritual method that could ing, sitting or lying, never cease the practice of it accommodate the diverse types even for a moment. This is the very work which of human individuals regardless unfailingly issues in salvation, for it is in accor- of social status and even spiritual dance with the Original Vow of that Buddha. competency. Honen devoted his life — Zendo (Shan-tao) to teaching and practicing Nembut- su—the repetition of Namu Amida onen the Buddhist Saint: Butsu—“Hail to Amitabha Buddha” Essential Writings and or “the Name of Amida Buddha,” Official Biography is which he confirmed was a method a remarkably acces- available to all who practiced it with Hsible edition of the original volume sincerity, especially for those living dialogue that the current world ur- that was first translated in 1925 by in an age marked by the “decline of gently needs. The spiritual method Reverend Harper Havelock Coates the Dharma” (mappo): of Nembutsu taught by Honen is the and Reverend Ryugaku Ishizuka quintessence of Hindu (sanatana entitled Honen the Buddhist Saint: In the next place, if we look at it from dharma) japa-yoga “He who thinks His Life and Teaching (Chionin, the standpoint of difficulty and ease, the of Me constantly” (Bhagavad Gita 1925). This initial work was ency- Nembutsu is easily practiced, while it is 8:14), in the Zohar (Book of Splen- clopedic in scope consisting of five very hard to practice all the other disciplines. dor) of Jewish mysticism “The Holy volumes offering the most detailed For the above reasons thus briefly stated, we One speaks His Name”, in Christi- study of Honen available in the may say that the Nembutsu, being so easily anity known as the “Jesus Prayer” English language. The drawback practiced, is of universal application…. If or “Prayer of the Heart” exem- of this monumental work was its the Original Vow required the making of plified by St. Paul’s dictum “pray inaccessibility, as it was daunting images and the building of pagodas, then without ceasing” (I Thessians 5:17), for Buddhist practitioners and lay the poor and destitute could have no hope of in the dhikr of Sufism (tasawwuf), readers to approach. However, this attaining it. But the fact is that the wealthy or the mystical dimensions of Islam new abridged edition makes Honen and noble are few in number, whereas the “Remember Me and I will remem- available to scholars, practitioners, number of the poor and ignoble is extremely ber you” (Qur’an 2:152). This also and lay readers alike providing what large. If the Original Vow required wisdom extends to the Shamanic traditions, is most noteworthy in the life of and great talent, there would be no hope of for they “know the One true God this great medieval Japanese monk that birth for the foolish and ignorant at [Wankan-Tanka, the Great Spirit], and in his teachings. The Intro- all; but the wise are few in number, while and…pray to Him continually,” as duction contains a comprehensive the foolish are very many…. We conclude Hehaka Sapa or Black Elk (1863- overview of Pure Land Buddhism therefore, that Amida Nyorai, when He was 1950) confirmed. Honen reminds written by Alfred Bloom, a foremost a priest by the name of Hozo [Dharma- the modern world of a universal authority on Shin Buddhism, and kara] ages ago, in His compassion for all method by which the resuscitation there is also a Foreword by Clark sentient beings alike, and in His effort for of the central organ of all spiritual Strand, a Buddhist teacher, practi- the salvation of all, did not vow to require traditions, East and West, may be tioner, and writer. the making of images or the building of born anew and thus flourish once Honen Shonin Genku (1133- pagodas conditions for birth into the Pure again. 1212) was a 12th century Bud- Land, but only the one act of calling upon dhist priest and saint revered as His sacred name. (p. 66) SAMUEL BENDECK SOTILLOS received the founder of the Jodo (Pure an M.A. in Integrative Education from Norwich Land) school of Buddhism, and he It needs to be remembered that University and an M.A. in Transpersonal Psychol- had preeminent disciples such as Honen did not invent the spiritual ogy from the Institute of Transpersonal Psychol- Shinran (1173-1263). It is striking method of Nembutsu. This method ogy. He has had extensive training in transpersonal that although the practice of Pure was known and practiced under and humanistic psychology approaches, visited Land Buddhism (Jodo-Shu) contin- different names and forms—it is sacred sites throughout the world, and had contact ues to increase, with an estimated ancient and primordial—providing with noted spiritual authorities. He currently twenty million living practitioners an integral approach to interfaith works as a mental health clinician in California.

DECEMBER 2008/JANUARY 2009 ahp PERSPECTIVE 27 REVIEWS of several historical and cultural ranges from the use of this tea events discussed in A Hallucinogenic (referred to as “yage” and a number Tea, Laced with Controversy. One of different names in various parts author, Marlene Dobkin de Rios, is of the rain forest) by tribal people A HALLUCINOGENIC TEA, a medical anthropologist with fac- going back some 8,000 years, to the LACED WITH CONTROVERSY: ulty appointments at the University syncretic religions, UDV and Santo Ayahuasca in the Amazon of California Irvine and California Daime (“Give Me Health”), inspired and the United States State University Fullerton; her by the visionary experiences of BY MARLENE DOBKIN DE RIOS AND co-author, Roger Rumrrill, is a two 20th century Brazilian rub- ROGER RUMRRILL Peruvian journalist who has written ber tappers. There are few flaws in Praeger/Greenwood, 2008, $50, two dozen books on topics ranging this account; however, the authors 168 pp., ISBN-13: 978-0313345425 from narco-trafficking to the sociol- have neglected to mention a third ogy of indigenous people in South ayahuasca-based religion, Barquinha Reviewed by Stanley Krippner America. Both authors have carried (“Little Boat”), also envisioned by a out extensive Brazilian living n 2006, the United States fieldwork, and the in the Amazon Supreme Court legalized the interviews they rainforest. The use of ayahuasca for the U.S. present of sha- authors correctly branch of the Centro Espirito mans and other note the dwin- IBeneficiente União Do Vegetal spiritual practi- dling supply of (the Beneficent Spiritist Union of tioners appear to the vegetation Vegetation, UDV). Representatives be both authentic needed to concoct of the U.S. federal government had and valid. the brew, but do threatened to arrest and prosecute Dobkin de Rios not mention that UDV members if they continued and Rumrrill it has been suc- to practice their religion, with its identify Banisteri- cessfully cultivat- purportedly illegal sacrament. opsis caapi (which ed in other parts However, the UDV’s lawyers argued contains harmine) of the world. that their rights were guaranteed and Psychotropia Finally, there are by the First Amendment of the viridis (which needless repeti- Constitution as well as by the contains dimeth- tions of some ma- Religious Freedom Restoration Act yltryptamine) terial; yet a good of 1993, which protects groups as the two most story certainly not able to exercise their religious commonly used bears repeating. practices freely because of the fed- components of Dobkin de Rios eral government’s actions. Supreme the mind-altering “tea,” although and Rumrrill present a remarkably Court Chief Justice Roberts made the latter component may vary from balanced overview of this “halluci- an apt comparison to the legal use one part of the Amazon to another. nogenic tea, laced with controver- of peyote by the Native American The authors could have gone on sy.” On the one hand, the director Church, writing: “If peyote was to observe the incredible nature of of Takiwasi, a Peruvian rehabilita- permitted . . . for hundreds of thou- this discovery. Here were people tion center, claims that two out of sands of Native Americans practic- without modern technology who three alcoholics and drug addicts ing their faith, it is difficult to see chose, among 80,000 Amazonian undergoing his ayahuasca-centered how those same findings alone can plant species, the leaves of a bush program have been rehabilitated. preclude any consideration of a containing a brain hormone (DMT), Furthermore, a study co-authored similar exception for the 140 or so which they combined with a vine by Dobkin de Rios and published American members of the UDV containing substances (principally in the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs who want to practice theirs.” The harmine and tetrahydroharmine) compared 80 UDV adolescents Supreme Court did not mention that inactivated an enzyme of the with a group of matched controls, that in 1992, Brazilian governmen- digestive tract, one that would finding the UDV group to be “more tal agencies, following a careful otherwise block the effect. It is as responsible, respectful, and con- examination of anthropological, if they intuitively knew about the cerned about the welfare of others” sociological, and pharmaceutical molecular properties of plants and (p. 122). On the other hand, the data, had granted official permission the art of combining them for the beta-carbolines in this brew have for the religious use of ayahuasca purpose of altering their ordinary the potential to interact danger- (known as “hoasca” in Brazil). conscious functioning. ously with amphetamines and anti- This dramatic court battle is one The panoramic scope of this book depressive and antianxiety medica-

28 ahp PERSPECTIVE DECEMBER 2008/JANUARY 2009 REVIEWS STANLEY KRIPPNER is professor have I done?,” I think to myself. of Psychology at Saybrook Graduate “I know why she’s laughing,” I tell tions, as well as with fermented School and a former president of the Doug. “A couple years before the or processed foods, and with some Association for Humanistic Psychology. marriage ended, I had a vasectomy. beers and wines (supporting the Judy and I were hardly having sex practice of fasting before ingest- at all—I was in the middle of the ing). Finally, the authors document worst depression of my life. But I the many negative effects of “drug OUT OF DENIAL: Piecing had a vasectomy so she wouldn’t tourism” and the charlatans who Together a Fractured Life have to keep taking the pill. It was often provide tourists with the tea BY ROBERT K. ANDERSON a grand, empty, self-sacrificial act. a few hours after they walk off an Lulu, 2008, $16, 257 pp., ISBN I can still hear the metallic snip of airplane. 97814357120619 those scissors. What a fucking joke!” Several of the authors’ statements “What’s the joke?,” he asks. coincide with my own observations Excerpt “My marriage, my whole life.” (albeit far more limited). Native More silence, more scribbling. practitioners often refer their n my second year of coming By the time the sac lands in my patients to Western physicians and out, I reported a disturbing lap, I’m relieved to discover it’s hospitals, even though the favor dream to my therapist. I was neatly sewn up like a coin purse, is not returned. Suggestion and dating a man and though I testicles intact. In the next scene expectation play major roles in a Icared for him deeply and felt at- of the dream, I am on a quest, go- person’s ayahuasca experience. The tracted, I couldn’t come to climax ing from house to house, milling teachings of the French pedagogue with him. Often I could barely through crowds of strange men Allan Kardec had a powerful impact feel him taking me in his hand or at one party after another. I am on the doctrine of both UDV and mouth. This was the primary prob- excited, bewildered, and lost, trying Santo Daime, especially his perspec- lem being addressed in therapy, but to find someone or something, I’m tive on mediumship and reincarna- of course it was only the tip of the not sure what. At the last house, I tion. Biopiracy, the appropriation iceberg; most of the talk was about receive a call from my father. of native rituals and medicines what lay beneath the waters. “Go home, your house is in ruins,” by Westerners, runs rampant and In the dream, I am sitting cross- he says matter-of-factly. needs to be opposed more strongly legged in the alley behind our I hurry home to find our Fifties- by governmental and interna- house on Quail, where I grew up, style rambler apparently intact, tional agencies, with the support idly poking at cinders with a stick. nestled snugly under the spreading of anthropologists and other social I hear derisive laughter and look oak that shades the broad sloping scientists. up to see a figure standing on the lawn. But on entering, I’m shocked About 70 percent of the world’s fire escape of a building across the to find the interior totally gutted indigenous people are served by way. It’s my ex-wife, or, wait, it’s —not a stick of furniture, the win- ethnomedicine and ethnopsychia- my boyfriend—no, he’s standing dows stark, the walls stripped to the try, not by the Western allopathic just behind her. The figures blur studs, the rafters gaping overhead. paradigm that has become the and separate and merge again. The All that remains is a mirror inside dominant power player in global mocking laughter is Judy’s. She’s the entry way. I look, and I’m sweat- healthcare. As drug tourism and throwing me something, tossing ing blood, oozing red from every eco-piracy continue to increase, back something I’ve given to her, pore; I shake my head and look and as the supply of well-trained and as I track its arc high in the again, and this time I watch myself shamans and other native practitio- sky, I realize to my horror, it’s my decompose like a corpse, the images ners continues to decrease, it is not severed scrotum. flashing before my eyes in stop-ac- only the Amazonian rainforest that Doug sits opposite me, cool and tion photography, the flesh rotting needs preservation. The knowledge unflappable as always, smartly and peeling back from my bones. of tribal people who maintain life dressed, firmly toned, his dark “That’s it, then I wake up.” Doug styles, traditions, and rituals that moustache crisply trimmed, taking is scribbling furiously now. I imag- embody an admirable balance with notes and saying nothing. ine him rushing into print as soon the ecosystem are increasingly at I watch the sac spin wildly as the session is over. risk at a time when the Earth is in through the air, flopping end over “Wow, that’s some dream,” he says desperate need of what this hallu- end, and feel frantic that my tes- as he finishes. “What do you think cinogenic tea can provide. Yes, it is ticles will spill out and be lost to it means, what did you feel after- laced with controversy; but perhaps me forever. The laughter intensifies wards?” it is also laced with wisdom. to a shriek, and my face burns with “Despair,” I say. “The ridiculous, shame. “What have I done, what utter folly of it all, my grand hol-

DECEMBER 2008/JANUARY 2009 ahp PERSPECTIVE 29 REVIEWS and desire. I am learning to cope At the close of the session when with the impetuosity of the male I report my dream, Doug and I low gesture, the whole marriage. sex drive, dealing with the problem stand for our ritual handshake. It’s I sacrificed my sexuality, and for of getting sexual too quickly, then an elegant space where we do this what? Judy didn’t even desire me, playing catch-up with my feelings work, decorated in tasteful greys and there I was grimly striving year and addressing issues of trust after and whites, raised a step from the after year to make something work the fact. I am learning, belatedly, to rest of the office and set off by that was inherently impossible. How like men; I have desired them from two white round wooden pillars—a do I even begin to make up for what afar, now I am learning to like them sanctuary of sorts. On the wall be- I’ve lost?” My eyes fill with tears. up close. All these issues and more hind him is a print by M. C. Escher “Well, Bob, look at it this way, you I am confronting clumsily, in a kind that I have noted countless times got your balls back, didn’t you?” I of delayed adolescence, without before, but never really seen til now. laugh. Doug has a practical wis- rules or rituals or role models to A hand holding a pencil is drawing dom, a way of putting things into guide me. And everything, like the on a piece of paper another hand perspective. least shift of a lover’s weight, regis- holding a pencil. The two pencil “I think it’s a classic coming- ters in bed. points converge, forming an end- out dream,” he says, and with his “No less loop in one of gentle coaching I begin to find in wonder those curious Escher the shifting, shimmering nuance you have puzzles—where does of the details, what lies just the trouble the action begin and other side of despair: hope. I see coming,” end, what is reality the man–boy playing in the alley, he says. and what is dream or my boyfriend like a guardian angel Doug intention, who is the standing watch on the fire escape, gives me drawer and who is my home cleanly stripped and ready permis- the drawn? for one helluva remodeling job, and sion, and “Is that about my bones spanking clean, ready for confi- therapy?,” I ask, new life. It’s all of a piece, this life dence, thinking of the of mine. I will put on the new man; to trust act of self-creation I will take as my own this glorious myself embedded in the act adventure of discovery, uncharted, and of self-understand- unauthorized, heady with risk and impro- ing—the authoring promise, with no guarantee of an vise. He of one’s own being. outcome, no seal of approval from is one of He smiles. “In all any authority other than my own. the first my years of practice, In our dozen or so sessions, Doug fully out, you’re the first client and I do not solve the problem of well- who’s ever seen the my not climaxing—that’s for later. adjusted connection.” What he gives me is an openness to gay men I have met, and he tells me Thinking back now, after all these the adventure, a flowing with what enough about himself that I have years, as embedded as I am in the it has to teach me. a sense of where this life of mine writing of this memoir, I think the “Isn’t it rich?,” he says during one might lead. Not to back-alley sex, drawing describes that process as particularly fruitful session, looking alcoholic stupor, mindless hedo- well. I am writing, and I am written; up from his notes to comment on nism, hysterical self-caricature, or a I tell my story, and my story tells the sea of issues percolating just lonely old age—what I have feared me. It’s an endless loop, this act of below the surface. Rich indeed, the from the dark picture painted by living and re-“membering”. mix of grieving, shame, ingrained the mainstream culture—but a life tricks of mind, mistrust of the body of purpose and character. But I, a BOB ANDERSON is retired, a writer, and sex itself, the fear of moving mostly conventional man, will have and a long-time facilitator in the Anger forward and embracing an unknown to write my own script. Management Program of The Men’s future, all the impediments to my “My lover and I have been togeth- Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. being present in the moment, any er ten years now,” Doug tells me [email protected]. He moment, not just the sexual mo- one day when I am confessing my contributed several articles to the MEN ment. In my coming out, I am map- fears about charting these waters. TALK issue of the AHP Perspective ping whole new circuits of thinking “We never expected that or planned of October/November 2007. His book and feeling, learning how to inte- on it, it just happened, negotiated a can be found at Lulu.com grate fantasy and reality, tenderness day at a time.”

30 ahp PERSPECTIVE DECEMBER 2008/JANUARY 2009 Invite Your Participation in 2ND INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE INTEGRATING SPIRITUALITY AND ORGANIZATIONAL LEADERSHIP (ISOL 2009 ) February 9–12, 2009 INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH WORKSHOP ON SPIRITUAL AND ETHICAL FOUNDATIONS OF ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT (SEFOD2009) February 5–7, 2009

Both events will be held in Pondicherry, India Echelon Institute of Technology, Faridabad, India

DECEMBER 2008/JANUARY 2009 ahp PERSPECTIVE 31 NON PROFIT U.S. POSTAGE PERSPECTIVE PAID INDIANAPOLIS, IN PERMIT NO. 7489 ASSOCIATION FOR HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGY MIDWEST AHP 7138 ENGLISH BIRCH LANE INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA E-MAIL: [email protected] WEBSITE: http://ahpweb.org

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32 ahp PERSPECTIVE SEE CALENDAR ON PAGES 4–5 FOR EVENTS/WORKSHOPSDECEMBER 2008/JANUARY 2009 12/2008