A Heuristic and HSSI Exploration of Experiencing Interplay between Spiritual Guidance and Synchronicity within Person-Centred Encounters A thesis submitted to The University of Manchester for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities 2018 Christa M Gorsedene School of Environment, Education and Development List of Contents List of Figures ………………………………………………………………………………………………. 6 Lists of Tables and Appendices ……………………………………………………………..……………. 7 Abstract ……………………………………………………………………………………………………… 8 Declaration ………………………………………………………………………………………………...... 9 Copyright Statement ……………………………………………………………………………………… 10 Acknowledgements ……………………………………………………………………………………….. 11 The Author …………………………………………………………………………………………………. 12 Chapter 1: Preface ………………………………………………………………………………………. 13 Chapter 2: Introduction and Prequel ………………………………………………………………… 15 Seeds of this research ……………………………………………………………………………………. 15 Meeting Mungo ……………………………………………………………………………………………. 16 Consideration of terms ………………………………………………………………………………….... 17 My stances ……………………………………………………………………………………………...…. 19 Narrowing the research project ………………………………………………………………………….. 22 Widening again beyond the narrow gateway ………………………………………………………..… 23 The overarching metaphor that arrived on the fell …………………………………………………….. 25 The run-up: introducing the researcher ……………………………………………………………….... 26 Diploma statement data ………………………………………………………………………………..… 28 How many personal examples to give? ………………………………………………………………… 33 Dowsing ‘arrives’ ………………………………………………………………………………………..... 34 Exceptional experiences’ diversity ……………………………………………………………………... 35 The official PhD begins …………………………………………………………………………………... 41 Chapter 3: Methodology and Methods ………………………………………………………………. 45 Initial research-topic choice ……………………………………………………………………………… 45 Methodological choice issues …………………………………………………………………………… 46 Heuristic methodology ……………………………………………………………………………………. 46 The person-centred approach and heuristics ………………………………………………………..… 48 Heuristics’ exploratory nature ……………………………………………………………………………. 49 Methods regarding participants ……………………………………………………………………….… 51 Participant sessions …………………………………………………………………………………….… 55 2 Moustakian analysis ……………………………………………………………………………………... 56 My research crossroads …………………………………………………………………………………. 58 The research question…………………………………………………………………………………….. 61 My research crossroads-process continued ………………………………………………………….... 62 Methods regarding synchronicity ……………………………………………………………………...… 65 So what methodological version(s) am I using? ………………………………………………………. 65 Advice to readers unfamiliar with heuristics ……………………………………………………………. 68 Literature searches and applications ………………………………………………………………….... 69 Chapter 4: Participant experiencings ………………………………………………………………... 72 Fourteen ‘wheeling-bird’ participants in their own words ……………………………………………... 73 My experiencing of the ‘wheeling birds’ ………………………………………………………………... 80 A ring of participant findings …………………………………………………………………………..… 80 My experiencing of the whole ring ………………………………………………………………………. 91 Common experiencings had or observed by me at the participants’ ‘hub’ …………………………. 92 Interview of Christa-then …………………………………………………………………………………. 95 Benedict and Scarlett; Cathy (and Jamie) ……………………………………………………………... 96 Chapter 5: Experiencing synchronicity ………………………………………………………….… 100 Great Space ……………………………………………………………………………………………… 103 Münsterland …………………………………………………………………………………………….... 105 Darkness …………………………………………………………………………………………………. 109 Lodge returns …………………………………………………………………………………………..... 111 Sea experiences ……………………………………………………………………………………...…. 118 Information ……………………………………………………………………………………………….. 121 Loving things …………………………………………………………………………………………….. 122 Remember, remember ………………………………………………………………………………….. 124 Closings ………………………………………………………………………………………………...… 125 Whole-sequence experiencings ……………………………………………………………………..… 126 Chapter 6: Immersion in literature, texts and experiences 1: Synchronicity (with methodological interludes) …………………………………………………………..… 128 Jungian and other benchmarks ……………………………………………………………………..…. 130 Perceiving synchronicities’ effects …………………………………………………………………..… 131 3 Synchronicity supervises ………………………………………………………………………………. 133 Synchronicities encourage my researching ………………………………………………………….. 134 Synchronicity nurturing relationships ………………………………………………………………….. 136 Synchronicities challenging …………………………………………………………………………..… 137 Synchronicities seeding, sustaining and growing ……………………………………………………. 139 Creative synchronicity ………………………………………………………………………………...… 140 Synchronicity, cosmology, philosophizing …………………………………………………………..... 143 Synchronicity counselling ………………………………………………………………………………. 146 An overarching apprehension ………………………………………………………………………….. 149 Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………………………..…… 151 Chapter 7: Immersion in literature, texts and experiences 2: Spiritual guidance …………. 152 On starting version 1 ……………………………………………………………………………………. 152 Part one : engagement with texts and experiences that came …………………………………….. 153 An exemplifying pithy vignette ……………………………………………………………………….… 154 Bigger gate-crashes start ………………………………………………………………………………. 155 Indubitable synchronicity arrives ………………………………………………………………………. 157 Just one science-head? ………………………………………………………………………………… 159 An ineluctable narrative viewpoint …………………………………………………………………….. 161 A mess of struggles and encouragements …………………………………………………………... 161 Things clicking into place ………………………………………………………………………………. 163 Round tables and good communication ………………………………………………………………. 167 Heatedness concerning sauces ……………………………………………………………………..… 169 Coolness with spirituality ……………………………………………………………………………….. 171 Denying resistance is futile …………………………………………………………………………….. 172 Other apprehensions this far …………………………………………………………………………... 174 Part two : engagement with searched-out texts ……………………………………………………… 175 Conclusions …………………………………………………………………………………………….... 181 Chapter 8: Creative syntheses ………………………………………………………………………. 183 The pyramid …………………………………………………………………………………………….... 183 The poem …………………………………………………………………………………...……………. 184 Chapter 9: Ethics …………………………………………………………………………………….… 186 4 The many-factored story ……………………………………………………………………………..… 186 Working on ethics post-viva ……………………………………………………………………………. 188 Researcher fitness ………………………………………………………………………………………. 190 Approaching potential participants …………………………………………………………………….. 191 Sensitive research ………………………………………………………………………………………. 192 Vulnerable participants …………………………………………………………………………………. 193 Dual relationships ……………………………………………………………………………………….. 194 Relating with participants …………………………………………………………………….…………. 196 Researcher wellbeing …………………………………………………………………………………… 197 Retrospective overview …………………………………………………………………………………. 199 Publication ……………………………………………………………………………………………..… 199 Ethics concerning Mungo ………………………………………………………………………………. 200 Chapter 10: Discussion (with preliminary interlude) ……………………………………………. 203 Preliminary interlude …………………………………………………………………………………….. 203 The discussion proper starts …………………………………………………………………………... 205 Unusual characteristics of HSSI theses ………………………………………………………………. 205 My research’s special characteristics and contributions ……………………………………………. 206 Meta-level experiential outcomes of my research …………………………………………………... 208 Discussions concerning synchronicity ………………………………………………………………… 210 My synchronicity-experiencing dialoguing with literature …………………………………………… 212 Feeling stupid; pondering roles ………………………………………………………………………… 215 Proceeding from Plaskett ………………………………………………………………………………. 216 My experiencing in dialogue with spiritual-guidance and pca literature …………………………… 217 Surprise late illumination concerning the person-centred approach ……………………………..... 217 Suitability of the methodology ………………………………………………………………………….. 221 Uniqueness of this research; contributions to knowledge ………………………………………..…. 222 Conclusion – the heart of the matter ………………………………………………………………..… 224 Stop press ……………………………………………………………………………………………..… 224 Appendices …………………………………………………………………………………..…………. 226 Bibliograpy …………………………………………………………………………………………..….. 245 References …………………………………………………………………………..………………….. 285 5 Figures Figure 1: My twofold experience of phenomena widening out …………………………….……….. 23 Figure 2: Pole-vault process sequence ………………..……………………………………………… 26 Figure 3: My new experience types, of uncertain boundaries and overlap, within LUE …………. 37 Figure 4: Pole-vault sequence, to show final stages ……………………………………………….... 42 Figure 5: Book-finding synchronicity at E encouraged telling the F to E story ……………………. 44 Figure 6: Heuristic methodologies’ essential evolution, and my research’s positionings ………... 66 Figure 7: Green rabbits …………………………………………………………………………………. 68 Figure 8: Two literature sources; two literature uses ………………………………………………… 69 Figure 9: Texts chaining together with EHEs …………………………………………………………. 70 Figure 10: Empathic Mungo-indicated image-pair ………………………………………………….. 101 Figure 11: Lucy and Christa: Blade-heart / Great space …………………………………………… 104 Figure 12: Christa’s cosmic egg-stone ……………………………………………………………….. 112 Figure 13: Girl Rising …………………………………………………………………………………… 143 Figure 14: Pen mightier than sword ………………………………………………………………...… 155 Figure 15: Bohr’s coat-of-arms ………………………………………………………………………… 164 Figure 16: Aerial view of fylfot maze, Darwin Gardens, Ilkley ……………………………………… 164 Figure 17: Triskellion (Book of Kells) ………………………………………………………………….. 165 Figure 18: Quaternio of cosmic principles as agreed by Jung and