Sacred Science Person-centred Inquiry into the Spiritual and the Subtle John Heron Endymion Press Auckland First published as a paperback in 1998 by PCCS Books, Llangarron, Ross-on- Wye, Herefordshire, HR9 6PT, UK. Sacred Science: Person-centred Inquiry into the Spiritual and the Subtle ISBN 1 898059 21 7 British Library Cataloguing in Publication data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress catalog record available First published as an e-book at www.human-inquiry.com in 2008 by Endymion Press, South Pacific Centre for Human Inquiry, 11 Bald Hill Road, R.D.1 Kau- kapakapa, Auckland 0871, New Zealand. This e-book is a reprint of the text of the 1998 edition by arrangement with PCCS Books. Page size: 15.6 cm by 23.4 cm. Font: Times New Roman 10 pt. Other paperback books by John Heron: Participatory Spirituality, Lulu Press, 2006* Cosmic Psychology, eighth edition, Endymion Press, 2006* Living in Two Worlds, third edition, Endymion Press, 2006* Helping the Client, fifth edition, Sage Publications, 2001 The Complete Facilitator's Handbook, Kogan Page, 1999 Co-operative Inquiry, Sage Publications, 1996 Feeling and Personhood, Sage Publications, 1992 *Also available as an e-book Contents Preface x Part 1: Perspectives of lived inquiry 1 Introduction and background 1 A pioneer approach 1 A self-generating spiritual culture 2 Gender-laden perennialism 3 Religious feminism 4 The nature of the self 6 Sacred science 8 A basic quaternary of terms 8 The transpersonal, ego and person 9 Personhood, autonomy and process theology 10 Personal experience as inclusive 12 Mediated-immediacy and inquiry 14 Co-operative inquiry 16 Lived inquiry 17 Inquiry warrants 18 A little bit of personal history 20 A simple map 21 Spiritual and subtle currents in contemporary culture 23 Liberal theology 23 Process philosophy and personalism 23 Existentialism and phenomenology 24 Poststructuralism 24 The human potential movement 24 Religious studies 25 Hindu and Buddhist teachers 25 Encounters with the after-life 26 The spiritual and the subtle 28 International Centre for Co-operative Inquiry 29 2 Spiritual inquiry and projected authority 31 Spiritual studies 31 Spiritual innovation and tradition 31 The authoritarian blight 32 Spiritual projection and authority 34 Four stages of projection 35 Contents The distortions of spiritual projection 38 Initiation old and new 40 Lived inquiry, intermediate projection, a self-generating spiritual culture 42 Fallacy of the perennial philosophy 43 Tradition and inquiry 46 Indoctrination, training and inquiry 48 3 Spiritual inquiry and the authority within 50 Internal spiritual authority 50 Critical subjectivity 51 Spiritual life within 52 Other accounts of the spiritual life within 52 Co-creating with immanent spirit 53 Appropriate discourse with the other 54 The relevance of co-operation 56 Spiritual deconstruction 56 Co-operative spiritual inquiry 58 Solo and group precursors 59 A balance of triads 60 Dipolar and polymorphous theology 60 4 Issues in subtle inquiry 63 The subtle 63 Three phases 64 Relevance of co-operative inquiry 65 Presuppositions and guiding principles 66 Initiation through imagined experience 67 Shifts of mentation and declarative validity 67 A canon of subtle inquiry 68 Heron's beard and Occam's razor 68 Applying the canon 69 Refraction theory 70 More about method 71 5 The challenge of cartography 73 A launching map 73 The lure of the east 74 Washburn and Grof 74 Maps from monopolar patriarchs 76 iv Contents Evolution reduced to reflux 80 Emergent evolution as intrinsic to creation 82 Inflation of the nondual 83 6 A dipolar map of the spiritual and the subtle 86 Provisional criteria for a new map 86 Complementarity, dipolarity and integration 86 Cartography as warranted belief 87 A dipolar map of the spiritual and the subtle 88 The spiral and figure of eight 94 7 Methods for the second form of spiritual transformation 101 Spiritual transformation 101 Method, route and knack 101 Tacit-to-explicit knacks 102 Consciousness, life and trained attention 105 Method, metaphysic and acting out 107 What happened to Buddhism? 108 Meditation, letting go and the dark return 108 Non-attachment and relationships 110 Doctrinal roots of authoritarianism 111 Reticence about reincarnation 111 Not enough ‘good life’ 111 Authoritarianism run amok 113 A perinatal template for doctrine? 113 The resolution of differences 114 Part 2: Co-operative inquiry reports 8 Procedures 116 Initiating an inquiry 116 A journey of opening 117 Personal meaning 118 Indoctrination or opening 119 Access, impact, first and second order stabilization 121 An outline of inquiry stages 122 Apollonian or Dionysian 123 Transformative and informative inquiries 125 9 Reports, adequacy and viability 126 v Contents Primary and secondary outcomes 126 The status and purpose of reports 126 Studies and stories 127 Apollonian and Dionysian 127 Adequacy and viability 128 The inquiries: viability and adequacy 129 The reports 130 Issues about record-keeping 130 10 Spatiotemporal extensions 132 Membership and time structure 132 Initial hypothesis 132 Cycle 1: there(near)-now ASC 133 Cycle 2: there(near)-now ASC 134 Cycle 3: here-now and there(near)-now ASC 135 Cycle 4: there(far)-now ASC leading into here-now and there(far)-now ASC 136 Cycle 5: there(near)-now leading by stages to there(far)-now adding here- now ASC 137 Cycle 6: there(near or far)-now ASC 138 Cycle 7: there-then(past) ASC 138 Cycle 8: here(space-1)- there(space-2)-now ASC 139 Cycle 9: here(space-1)-there(space-2)-now ASC 140 Review and forward planning 140 Evaluation 140 Findings of the inquiry 142 11 Impressions of the other reality 145 Membership and time structure 145 Initial hypothesis and overall design 145 Cycle 1: A ritual for receiving impressions of the other reality 146 Cycle 2: A ritual for receiving impressions of the other reality 147 Cycle 3: Noticing the other reality at the edge of the visual field 148 Cycle 4: Procession and entry to the other reality in the fogou 148 Cycle 5: A sword in the other reality 150 Cycle 6: Closing ritual at a stone circle 151 Evaluation 152 Findings of the inquiry 155 vi Contents 12 The bliss nature and transtemporal regression 157 13 Knacks in entering altered states 161 Overview 161 A classification of the knacks 163 Physical sensation knacks 163 Intuitive knacks 163 Surrender knacks 164 Mediumistic knacks 164 Intellectual knacks 164 Psychodynamic knacks 165 Devil’s advocate procedure 165 Issues for further inquiries into knacks 165 Evaluation 166 The relevance of biculturalism 167 14 Charismatic expression 168 15 Transpersonal activities in everyday life 173 Overview 173 First reflection meeting 174 Second reflection meeting 175 Third reflection meeting 176 Fourth reflection meeting 177 Fifth reflection meeting 179 Sixth reflection meeting 180 Seventh reflection meeting 181 Inquiry outcomes 182 Nuggets on personal transformation 183 Practical knowledge outcomes 184 Knowing how to commune with trees 184 Knowing how to open to a greater spiritual reality 185 An individual report 186 Evaluation 187 16 Transpersonal inquiry within a self-generating culture 189 Overview 189 Self-generating culture findings 190 History of the transpersonal inquiry 190 Findings of the inquiry subgroups 193 vii Contents Entering into clairvoyance from attention to closed eye idio-retinal images 193 Entering altered states by sustained mutual gazing 194 Entering altered states by sustained mutual gazing, combined with holistic pulsing 194 Exploring out-of-the-body experience 194 Tapping in to subtle energy of various kinds - exploring subtle energy telekinesis 194 Entering transtemporal regressive states 194 Evaluation 195 17 Ritual and interpersonal process 196 The invitation 196 Inquiry strands 196 Recorded outcomes 199 Evaluation 200 18 Empowerment in everyday life and group life 202 Overview 202 Findings 204 Dipolar holonomy 205 Evaluation 206 19 Co-creating 207 Overview 207 Evaluation 209 Theory and method of co-creating 210 Preface 210 Theory 210 General application 213 Application within co-creating sessions 215 Teaching points 222 20 Coming into being 225 The evolution of the wavy group 225 Evaluation 228 Epilogue to Part 2 230 Just a start 230 Theological stripping 230 Advantages and disadvantages 231 viii Contents Part 3: A participatory worldview 21 Participatory research 234 One page description of co-operative inquiry 234 Co-operative inquiry and its inquiry paradigm 235 Reality as subjective-objective 236 An extended and holistic epistemology 238 A collaborative methodology 240 Practical flourishing an end in itself 241 A self-generating culture 243 22 Participatory theology and cosmology 245 God and what there is 245 Participatory theology 246 The theology of embodiment 247 Feeling the presence of the world 247 The concept of presence 248 Presence-as-such 249 Imaging being in a world 250 Consciousness-as-such 251 Immediate present experience and the theology of action 252 Inquiry into Being 253 Participatory cosmology: a conjecture 254 References 255 Index 261 ix Preface I am most grateful to all the co-inquirers - from Australia, Germany, Holland, New Zealand, UK, USA - who have participated in the several co-operative in- quires reported in this book, for their creative colleagueship and redoubtable in- tegrity in researching the spiritual and the subtle. I also appreciate the notes, comments and reports which many of them have made available to me, and which I have included as citations in the text,