General Theory of Religion:

Volume I: Fundamentals.

Arlen Wolpert

System Dynamicist and Independent Scholar

(Book manuscript draft of May 10,2008)

(The work presented here supersedes all my previous scientific publications in the fields of religion, philosophy, phenomenology, psychiatry, and system dynamics.)

INTRODUCTION

Table of Contents

Introduction.
Chapter 1: An Engineer's Story, a narrative of my five year religious crisis and its culmination in mystical union in 1962.
Chapter 2: Purgation.
Chapter 3: Mystical Union.
Chapter 4: My religious development during the years that followed mystical union.
Chapter 5: The Feedback Phenomenological (FP) methodology for thoroughly analyzing and understanding consciousness during a deep experience.
Chapter 6: Application of FP to thoroughly analyze and understand purgation (This is also the solution to Chalmers' hard problem for the case of purgation).
Chapter 7: Key insights arising from my search for the Truth.

Abstract

A system dynamics-based Feedback Phenomenological (FP) analysis of consciousness during a ten-hour religious experience of purgation, which just preceded an estimated four-to-seven second experience of mystical union, shows that at this profound essence or core of each major religion resides this same sacred structure and essence. As a result, the analysis forms a general theory of religion: e pluribus unum. The work then goes further, establishing the long-sought-for integration of science and religion by rooting this profound essence or core of religion in biology. As a byproduct, the analysis solves the central problem in the emerging field of consciousness studies, Chalmers' hard problem. The presentation contains much personal material on my religious life and experiences. This is necessary as preliminary for both the formalized analysis of such material and to understand the way I have led a religious life. The fullest presentation of these ideas - with over 500 links - is at http://world.std.com/~awolpert

Key Breakthroughs: The breakthroughs listed below are going to lead to insights and, ultimately, to scientific revolutions in psychiatry, philosophy, phenomenology, and in science itself. Most importantly, these breakthroughs are leading to the integration of science and religion.

1. A general theory of religion: This is a scientific theory that goes to the heart of every major religion in the world.
2. The primary purpose of all major religions.
3. The formalized modeling and simulation of consciousness during my ten hour religious experience: This scientific analysis of a religious experience has never been performed before. In addition, this mathematical model has a first person perspective. That first person perspective for a scientific analysis will be the start of the second half of the scientific revolution. The first half of the scientific revolution has always been limited to a third person perspective.
4. The system dynamics-based, Feedback Phenomenological (FP) methodology. This methodology is establishing the long-sought-for scientific approach to a phenomenological (philosophical) analysis of consciousness. In anticipation of this scientific breakthrough in phenomenology, Franz Brentano, Edmund Husserl, and others had already called the coming advent of such a methodology the Rigorous Science of Philosophy.
5. The scientific solution to Chalmers hard problem for the case of my deep religious experience of purgation. The detailed solution is shown at Chapter 6. This solution is leading to key breakthroughs in the science of consciousness. For example, it is identifying the noumena in the experiencer's neurophysiological system that is driving the phenomena of consciousness during purgation. The presentation of the solution in Chapter 6 illustrates how the powerful Feedback Phenomenological (FP) methodology is used. (also see Key #5 of the General Introduction below).
6. The formalized modeling and, moment by moment, simulation of consciousness during the release of a trauma. This formalized analysis enables one to understand how both the mind and the body work together when a trauma is being released. This breakthrough is leading to a revolution in the sciences of psychiatry and psychology.

Personal Introduction

You may ask: How are we to examine the peak experience of either Moses, the sages of the Upanishads, Parmenides, Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, Ramakrishna, or other revered avatars and saints? My position is that many people have had a peak experience. Only a few of these people have been known and have had followers: After the peak experience some have become arhats or avatars; others - those who have attained steady wisdom (Plato, Symposium) - have become bodhisattvas [Buddhist], sthitaprajnas (The Bhagavadgita II:54-72), saints [Christian], etc; others have anonymously devoted themselves to family and community and, if they are recognized, are sometimes called a mensch [yiddish], a standup guy [US slang], etc. Still, others are problematic and difficult to categorize. It would be best to have an avatar or a saint or a mensch make a scientific analysis of his or her peak experience so we could base the general theory of religion on that analysis. Lacking that, the theory will be based on an analysis of my own experience. I give the following credentials for such an undertaking:

1. I experienced purgation, culminating in mystical union, in 1962.
2. I have been immersed in religious thinking since then.
3. I have never joined any religion.
4. I am a theoretical mechanical engineer and system dynamicist with an MSME degree.

General Introduction

Section I: The Five Keys that Open Up the Heart of this Book

Key #1: The Primary Purpose of Religion.

Yea,
Though I walk through the valley
Of the shadow of death
I will fear no evil:
For thou art with me;

from Psalm 23 of the Bible or the Old Testament

To get deeper into this Primary Purpose of Religion, I would now like to tell you a little more about walking the plank: The desperate minutes during purgation, when I was in danger of panic, a nervous breakdown, etc. Those were the crucial ten minutes of my life. With the profound help of the Divine I made it through those crucial ten minutes when the first knot in my heart was being released. The knots in my heart were caused by my childhood trauma. Walking the plank takes place when the first knot of the trauma is being released. All traumas are eventually released. Once my religious preparedness was able to deal with the first knot, my heart and my imagination were then more able to deal with the entire 10 hour release of the dozen or so knots in my heart during the release of my trauma. With the profound help of the Lord I made it through in one piece.

Then sings my soul, my savior God to thee: How great thou art, how great thou art.
(from a favorite Gospel song of the Christians)

A. In order to go deeper into the Primary Purpose of Religion, first let me introduce you to the following phrases: "Walking the razor's edge" or "walking the plank" or walking the way that is said to be "straight is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life...."

1. From the Hindus: To walk the razor's edge...

   "Like the sharp edge of a razor is that path,
   difficult to tread and hard to cross."
   Katha Upanishad: 3:14.

2. From the Christians: Straight is the gate and narrow is the way..

   "Enter ye in at the straight gate: for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:
   Because straight is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it."
   Matthew 7:13-14.

3. From that Saturday matinee movie, when I was somewhere between 6 and 13 years old. As I recall, the movie was about the life of a young seaman on a 19th century sailing ship, whose ship encounters the dreaded pirates. The movie was being shown over at that 52nd and Lyndale theatre in Minneapolis, sometime between 1938-1945: To walk the plank.

B. Now, let me introduce you to the dynamics of my religious experience, using system dynamics simulations:

Figure 1: Simulation of my entire 16 hour religious experience.

Listed below is a more detailed description of what was going on during my religious experience, simulated in Figure 1 above.
(The timetable for my entire 16 hour religious experience, given below, is even further detailed in the narration at The Heart Begins to Open section of Chapter 1. Please note that the simulations of the #3 and #4 PsychicStress variables are not accurate between the 555 minute mark and the 617 minute mark. That is because the release of the knots in my heart were happening too fast to be simulated accurately when the simulation covers a 960 minute period: For example, at times knots were being released every 30 or 60 seconds during that period. Figure 3 below corrects that problem: It presents more detailed and more accurate two minute simulations of the variables during that relatively fast moving period. It also gives the reader a better understanding of how a knot was released.)

• 0 minute mark to the 60 minute mark: The simulation begins at noon Pacific Standard Time (PST). It starts with the 15 minute walk from the monastery to the cab stand, during which my heart began to open. This opening of my heart continued on until about the 180 minute mark and then was stable for about 6 hours. However, at the time of the arrival of the cab at the Los Angeles airport, my PsychicStress had not begun to rise.
• 60 minute mark to the 120 minute mark: The one-hour wait at the airport. The intensity of PsychicStress began to rise during this period.
• 120 minute mark to the 450 minute mark: The flight from LA to Boston, leaving LA at about 2:00pm PST and arriving at Logan airport in Boston around 10:30pm EST. (Notice the preliminary peak in PsychicStress around the 180 minute mark. That peak served as a kind of warning to me to get ready for what was coming: The walking of the plank!)
• 450 minute mark to about 10 minutes before the 555 minute mark. This period began when I arrived at Logan airport and includes the discussion with the state police officer at the airport plus the cab ride from the airport to my apartment plus about one-hour of preliminaries - thinking, pacing the floor of my apartment, etc. - before lying down on my bed at about 10 minutes before the 555 minute mark. The 555 minute mark is when the crucial first knot in my heart was going to be released.
• About 10 minutes before the 555 minute mark to the 617 minute mark: This is the one-hour unstable or oscillating period of purgation during which the 12 KnotsInHeart are purged (Figure 3, just below, shows - by way of simulation - how the experiencer of purgation walks the plank during the release of 3 of the 12 KnotsInHeart.). The 10 minutes before the 555 minute mark were the most critical minutes of my life. That was when the first knot in my heart was going through the deep religious and neurophysiological process of being released. Those were the desperate 10 minutes when I really had to walk the plank. I have never been the same since those desperate ten minutes, particularly the final 3 or 4 minutes of those 10 minutes.
• The great experience of mystical union, lasting anywhere between 4 to 7 seconds, occurred around the 617 minute mark. (After the releasing of the dozen or so knots in my heart during purgation, the religious experience culminated in mystical union.)
• 617 minute mark to the 960 minute mark: Deep sleep.
• Awaken at sunrise to the Divine State at the 960 minute mark.

Figure 3: Two minute simulations during the walking of the plank.

PrayerQuality = (0.5)*(PrayerIntensity + PrayerTrueness).......eq.1

C. Now, I need to tell you about my childhood sexual trauma. It occurred when I was 9 or 10 years old. Traumas eventually release themselves, spontaneously. My trauma was released when I was 30 years old. The spontaneous releasing process of my trauma was the driving force of my consciousness during my religious experience of purgation culminating in mystical union.

1. Certain key memories from my childhood that I can still remember fairly well.
2. The studies and insights of Charcot, Breuer, Janet, Freud, and the bold J.M. Masson on hysteria. {See publications by Charcot, (Freud 1966), Masson, etc.}
3. The results that have been emerging from the many years I have spent scientifically analyzing my consciousness during my experience of purgation culminating in mystical union.

Here are some memories from my youth and my college years: I believe these memories are related to the trauma:

1. An experience of hysteria: When I was 11 years old and making the stressful transition in the Fall of 1943 from grade school to the 7th grade in junior high school, my legs became paralyzed for a few hours. Earlier, on my way to school that day, I stopped by at a friend's house and then we walked to school together. He told me his older brother had rheumatic fever. I thought about this during the morning until I began to think I was 'catching' rheumatic fever. Eventually, in early afternoon my legs became paralyzed. I couldn't walk. My father came from work to pick me up at the school nurse's office about 3 or 4pm. When we got home and my father carried me in and layed me down on my bed, my father talked to me for about a half hour and eventually convinced me my legs could not have become paralyzed by rheumatic fever. Then, he told me in a loving way and with manliness and conviction that I could get up and walk. I did so and ran out to play with much joy.
2. I was a fairly good tennis player in high school and college. Some top players in Minneapolis had remarked from time to time that I had one of the best backhands around. My second serve was arching, spinning, curving, wildly bouncing, and hard to handle (I am exaggerating a bit here). However, when I would get toward the end of any close tournament singles match, I always lost - much to my frustration and disappointment. This was particularly true in my college years. The most contemptuous words in all of athletics are reserved for such a person: 'He choked!' Freud's words are 'strangulated emotions.'
   (Item 2 has to be examined carefully for bias. I may be making a last ditch effort in my old age to free myself from the label given to me in my youth.)

D. Now, let me describe my particular religious preparedness. (This religious preparedness was very important in saving me during the experience of purgation, when my childhood trauma was being released. My religious preparedness enabled me to successfully walk the plank without panicking and having a nervous breakdown.) So, here are four of the factors that made up my religious preparedness:

1. My precious mother: My Jewish mother's sincere and simple mentioning of God during my early childhood, which led to my simple childhood prayers to God.
2. Sunday school: My simple Reform Jewish religious training in Sunday school from the age of 5 to about 15 years old.
3. Community and history: The time I went with my parents and close relatives to the Synagogue during the High Holy Days of 1945 when I was 13 years old. It was about a month after the end of World War II and the news was just coming in about the Holocaust. Many of the leaders of the Jewish community of Minneapolis were there. Everyone seemed serious. My uncle pointed out the owner of the great Minneapolis Lakers basketball team. He seemed serious, too.
4. The critical religious link to my Jewish ancestors: When I was somewhere between 7 and 15 years old, my father took me up a flight of stairs to an area above the auditorium at the Synagogue and showed me the sacred Everlasting Light. Just below the Light was a plaque with the name of my revered grandfather, who died when I was about three or four years old. My grandfather had escaped from being forced into the Cossack army by fleeing Lithuania at 16 years of age. He then came to the US seeking freedom. Trained as a tailor, he began his life in the US by picking up rags off the streets of New York and then washing, sewing, ironing, and selling them.

E. Simulations are just not capable of vividly describing what it's like to walk the plank. Let me try to give you a more vivid description or narration: In this narration of what it's like to walk the plank, I am trying to narrate as accurately as I can how my religious preparedness dealt with that crucial first knot:

After the first 9 hours of purgation, particularly after experiencing the preliminary peak in PsychicStress at the 180 minute mark, shown in Figure 1, I knew I was dealing with an opening heart that was stymied by a knot. However, as the first knot began its 10 minute releasing process, particularly during the last 3 or 4 minutes before the 555 minute mark in Figure 1, my stress, my fear, and my anxiety started to mount. It was clear that the situation was getting critical.
(This is where I believe panic and a nervous breakdown would have occurred. However, I had already begun to use my religious preparedness. So, I hadn't panicked yet.)

My first step, using my religious preparedness, was to pray: "Lord, save me." Then, slowly and prayerfully, I began to use my imagination and my religious belief to associate the knot with a particular sin in my life and I asked the blessed Lord - now taking on the role of a Judge in the scenario - for forgiveness of that sin. My religious belief told me that, if the Judge were to accept my plea, the sin would be forgiven and the knot would then be released. But, there was no release! I didn't panic, though. At that point, using my imagination, I felt the wise and manly Judge was not releasing the knot yet, because He wanted to make sure I was really serious about asking for forgiveness of that sin. But during this delay I noticed my stress, fear, and anxiety were increasing rapidly. My situation was getting desperate. Time was running out, but God was with me: I had not panicked yet.

Then, out of nowhere, my imagination stepped forward and countered my rising fears and anxiety. My imagination said: "The Judge is not playing around. He is deadly serious and He wants to know if I am serious! He can see through my half-hearted attempts at prayer."

I liked that kind of a guy! No nonsense. Finally, I had found a guy who was serious. He had a much greater standard for integrity and trueness than I had ever had. Now, as my state of mind rose to extreme desperation, I began to pray in earnest. I prayed with an intensity and integrity that was far more profound and intense than the way I had prayed before: I prayed with all my heart and soul. Then, the Judge, calmly standing back and carefully assessing the situation, decided that forgiveness of my sin was justified and, in a very detached way, He allowed the knot to be released at the 555 minute mark.

Because of the integrity and thoroughness by which the Judge conducted this examination during the release of the first knot, I knew He had things under control: I was in good hands. More importantly, I now knew that despite His aloofness and detachment He wanted me on his side. I began to recognize He was a very rare kind of guy: A serious, no nonsense, straight shooting, type of Judge. He was able to penetrate straight into my very heart and soul. (That was where my manhood was bravely waiting for its liberation.)

Then my heart began to open further and I encountered the next knot. "During the tenth hour the above scenario - with many variations - went on relentlessly for about a dozen knots. Yes, the tenth hour was about fear, anxiety, release, and the liberation of my manhood that occurred during this abreaction or release of my childhood sexual trauma. However, the tenth hour was also about a series of intense, serious, earnest, and sacred pledges or promises, made knot by knot in the presence of God. (God always watches over or supervises the activities of the Judge and the person who is being judged.)

In this way - by using my imagination, my prayers, and my religious belief - I was able to walk the plank. This very dangerous process had the potential to either result in panic, a nervous breakdown, and some form of psychosis or result in the release of the cramped or paralyzed heart muscles and convert that release into the intense, profound, and sacred religious experience of purgation culminating in mystical union.

If I had not called upon the Divine and used my imagination, my prayers, and my religious belief, I would have panicked and had a nervous breakdown. Instead, with the Lord at my side I had walked the plank!

F. Now, let me tell you how the process, leading eventually to 'walking the plank,' began for me:

• Here is the sacred mantra that began my adventure with God. (When it is said in a religious sense, it is my experience that it is slowly murmured - from time to time - only to oneself. I said it with integrity, and it came from the bottom of my heart.) I began saying the mantra while I was working at the MIT spinoff company. The mantra came to me in a natural way. I started saying it about one year before my experience of mystical union. I said the mantra slowly, with determination:

  "I'm goin' for broke. I'm gonna do or die: I'm goin' all the way."

• Here is a narrative of only one aspect of the desperate situation I was in. Nevertheless, it (and many other aspects) eventually prompted me to begin murmuring my particular version of the sacred mantra, given above. It's an excerpt from An Engineer's Story at Chapter 1:

  "My desk was crowded into a small room with those of four other engineers. I was chain-smoking three packs per day of strong, unfiltered cigarettes, filling the room with smoke and, at times, a prolonged, fitful cough. I was trying to make an intense effort to concentrate in order to raise the level of my status but was hindered by dissipating habits that I could see were destroying me. My colleagues were young, bright, and versatile engineers. They wondered why management let this strange, ill-mannered, and arrogant person in the door. I felt out of place, put upon, and rejected. A promising career and vital health had sunk to this level. Perhaps I could have settled for mediocrity - slavery in one form or another - but to my mind I was in a battle for my life." (Please open up the link just above. It is very important.)

Key #2: A Brief Introduction to the General Theory of Religion.

Table I, below, gives the 14 stages of my 53 month religious crisis. The details of Table I give the reader a brief and concise base for the concept of a general theory of religion.

Key #3: Why a Culture Cannot Survive without Religion.

(Why has religious belief survived throughout the whole history of mankind?)

• During the time when primitive tribes were spreading throughout the world, the quality and effectiveness of the religions of those primitive tribes were forced to develop. That was because of the competitive nature of that migration. The competition between tribes during that expansion or migration caused religions to develop or evolve to the point where a religious scenario, such as the scenario described in Key #1 when I had to 'walk the plank', enabled tribesmen to survive the abreaction or release of a tribesman's past battlefield trauma. Because of the competition, religion was gradually forced to develop or evolve to the point where tribal culture had the ability to teach religious preparedness to tribal children and youth. Later this religious preparedness was capable of inspiring warriors. They learned to use prayer, religious belief, and imagination. This kept battlefield traumatized tribesman safe from the panic that could come at any time during the abreaction or release of a past battlefield trauma. This kind of religion was able to instill religious preparedness and the feeling of closeness to the Divine during the childhood period of the future warrior. Eventually, this is what was needed in order for the tribal warrior to walk the plank during the abreaction or release of a past battlefield trauma.
• I base the above conjecture on my particular case of not panicking during purgation. My experience of walking the plank indicated that my religious preparedness saved me from panic, from a nervous breakdown, and - eventually - from some form of psychosis, like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or major depression. In my case, my experience of walking the plank showed that - without the blessed Lord to help me - a nervous breakdown and psychosis would have followed the panic during the, very dangerous, spontaneous abreaction or release of my childhood sexual trauma.
• Therefore, the above example of walking the plank illustrates the reason why religious belief deepened in tribes to become central to tribal culture: Religious belief became critical for the survival of a primitive tribe. A primitive tribe could not survive or come out the winner in competition with neighboring tribes, if too many of its tribesmen had become mentally ill after panicking during a non-religious abreaction of a previous battlefield trauma. Recall that my experience of walking the plank indicates that when a person's trauma starts to be abreacted or released without religious preparedness on the part of the traumatized person, panic and a nervous breakdown are likely. Imagine a rich primitive tribe with a religion whose spiritual power had slowly become lax or weakened or undermined. Such a tribe would eventually have many mentally ill tribesmen idly hanging around the tribal village accompanied by their caretakers. Then, perhaps a starving, desperate, but religious, neighboring tribe - sneeking around the bushes and watching such a tribe - gets enough courage to attack and destroy that tribe and take over its territory.
• As time went by, religious story-telling, religious scenarios, and other techniques were used by those migrating religions. Eventually, religious preparedness grew more and more effective in some of the tribes. Only those tribes eventually survived. Those surviving tribes were the seeds of the surviving religions now existing around the world.
• Summary: Religious belief, prayer, and imagination can be used to enable the warrior to survive the abreaction or release of a past battlefield trauma. (Note: A few of the former traumatized warriors may be conditioned by the successful abreaction or release of trauma to emerge from the abreaction, spiritually charged and ready to fight at an inspired level.)
• It is very important for the reader to penetrate toward the insight that using religious preparedness, religious belief, prayer, and imagination can save the traumatized warrior or traumatized tribesman from panic, a nervous breakdown, and mental illness, while that abreaction or release of his trauma is going on. As a result, the warrior will come through the release of the trauma in one piece. Please note that religion's most recent competitor or rival - the combined community of psychiatrists, psychologists, and pharmaceutical manufacturing companies - has no way of stopping panic and a nervous breakdown from occuring during the abreaction of a trauma.
• Now, going beyond my conjecture on the value of religion for the survival of a primitive tribe, I will state that I believe religious preparedness, religious belief, prayer, and imagination are critical for the survival of a modern culture or a modern civilization. Because of my scientific analysis of my religious experience, I hold the position that the above ideas carry over into the modern era, making prayer, imagination, and religious belief the only effective way to avoid panic, a nervous breakdown, and possible psychosis resulting from the abreaction of trauma.
• At this point I would like to note that the psychiatric community - and the pharmaceutical industry associated with it - make a lot of money dealing with mental illnesses that result from a trauma that has been unsuccessfully abreacted in a non-religious way. It appears that eliminating religion would be very good for the financial condition of psychiatrists and for the profits of corporations in the pharmaceutical industry. For example, purchases of antidepressant drugs and antipsychotic drugs are the third and fourth highest category of pharmaceuticals sold in the USA. Their total sales were $20.7 billion in 2004 (Wall Street Journal, 7/27/05, D1) and growing. If there were to be a revival of the legendary skills of religion in a culture, it would eventually reduce the demand for psychiatrists and, perhaps, cause the psychiatrist's income to drop sharply. It would also reduce the profits of the pharmaceutical industry.
• The highly regarded Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard is taking a position toward mental illness that complements the position taken by this General Theory of Religion (GTR). There may be a way to integrate these two approaches through an open collaboration:
  1. The Broad Institute believes the application of the most advanced genomic tools will solve the problem of what is causing mental illnesses, like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depression. Once the genomic cause is known for each illness, the Broad Institute believes conceiving and developing novel, more effective treatments for such illnesses can finally be accomplished. The Broad Institute is now involved in a 10 year, $100 million project along these lines.
  2. The GTR's scientific position is that mental illness begins to develop only at the moment when the abreaction or release of a trauma has led to panic and a nervous breakdown. When the nervous breakdown occurs the abreaction process or the release of the trauma ceases, usually during the unsuccessful releasing process of the first set of cramped, antagonistic heart muscles. However - and this is very important - if there is no panic and nervous breakdown during the abreaction of the trauma, the release of the trauma will be successfully completed and mental illness will not develop. The GTR's position is that the primary purpose of religion is to avoid the nervous breakdown and its resulting mental illness. Therefore, if a study of a person's genomics shows a tendency toward - for example - schizophrenia, it will only begin to develop in that person after the nervous breakdown occurs. Note carefully: a genuine religious person has been prepared to keep the panic and nervous breakdown from occurring. This has been carefully described in Key #1 of Section 1 of this Introduction, where it was shown that religious preparedness gives a person the ability to avoid panic and a nervous breakdown during the abreaction of a trauma. Therefore, I believe this is the most important and the most central phenomenon for trauma scientists and psychiatrists to study. The key idea here is that if the panic and nervous breakdown do occur during the abreaction, then and only then will the results of the Broad Institute's genomics approach - described above - come into play.
  We are asking the Broad Institute to consider making the integration of these two approaches to the origin and cure of mental illness the centerpiece of their very important 10 year, $100 million project. Success on such a broad and open collaboration between science, psychiatry, and religion could not only bring about cures for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depression, but could also bring about deep integration and teamwork between genomics, psychiatry, the pharmaceutical industry, religion, and culture. Such integration and teamwork will always be desperately needed in a modern culture.

  In the modern era, it is so critical that leaders of the government, the industrial community, the business community, the scientific community, the pharmaceutical industry, the universities, the psychiatric community, and the religious communities learn to work together. I believe such teamwork would bring about a healthy, vibrant culture: A culture as free as possible from those mental illnesses that result from the panic and nervous breakdown associated with the abreaction or release of a trauma.

Key #4: A Narrative of my Experience of Purgation Culminating in Mystical Union.

The Heart Begins to Open

The purification resulting from renunciation came about by a supreme effort of the will and by Grace, but the second stage of the purification that followed proceeded passively. A force began to manifest itself in me and I could do nothing but pray. My will was powerless to effect this Force. It began in the following way:

I returned to Southern California at the end of March 1962 for another ten day vacation after successfully completing the project. I was still running true. I was charged and in a state of openness. On this visit I went to another monastery run by the same Order of monks. Again I found myself in a holy atmosphere (11). I had a deeply restful, enchanting, profoundly moving week, many times bubbling over with mirth and on one occasion, hearing a beautiful piece of religious music, I was unable to contain a weeping which became a prolonged sobbing from the bottom of my heart.

Around noon on Sunday I left the monastery to return to Boston for work the next day. I was to take a cab to the Los Angeles airport and then a non-stop flight to Boston. I had plenty of time. The cab stand was about a half-mile away. I was walking down a hill with a small suitcase in my hand. As I walked reflectively and in peace down that hill in the warm and brilliant Southern California sun, my heart slowly began to feel full. My mind was drawn inward. In this mood I arrived at the cab stand. I told the driver my destination. He was a rather cool and playful young man in his early twenties. I noticed that I was very friendly and mirthful - quite unusual for me since I usually never spoke to cab drivers. During the ride I was joking and at times giggling and had a great time for the half hour drive to the airport. At one point the driver asked me if I had had a 'joint' before getting into the cab. Of course, I had not.

At the airport, however, the warmth or power in my heart began to deepen. I was sitting in the waiting area for the flight but found I could not stay seated. I got up and began to pace the floor of the waiting room. I was well dressed and groomed in a fine conservative suit. Perhaps it was a rather strange sight. The thought occurred to me I was on the verge of a heart attack, but I was only thirty and in good health so dismissed the idea.

The plane was quite full. I took my assigned seat by the window. After the plane circled LA and turned East, the Force in my heart began to get intense. My heart was opening!! There was a struggle going on in my heart. The Force was opening my heart and, because of my fear, my will was waging a losing battle to close it. The opening of my heart brought about a fear - indeed - a terror. At the same time I felt a degree of love for all, forgiveness, brotherhood and sisterhood for all.

I called for the stewardess. I told her something was wrong with my heart. She got me out to the first aid area and gave me oxygen, but it had no effect. She took me to the first class area where there were fewer passengers and I could be alone. The Force continued to try to open my heart and I was in a state of terror, for fear I would die shortly. I kept getting up and walking to the drinking fountain to quench the fire in my breast. I must have drank at least two gallons of water during the five and one-half hour flight.

A few times the stewardess came by to see how I was. Once she sat down next to me. She seemed quite curious about me. She was about 24 or 26. Under the ceiling spotlight I could see her features were delicate but her beauty had now passed its peak. There were the first signs of tension wrinkles around her eyes and mouth. Close up I could sense something about her that had gone cold and there was a sadness underneath her makeup. She was neglecting what I could see was a precious soul. In the course of our quiet conversation I told her, in a somewhat oracular way, 'Please leave this terrible job.' She asked me why I thought it was so terrible. I said, in effect, she was being paid to be pleasant and gay to the passengers even though her heart and soul didn't feel it any more. She needed an honest job. With my heart so open, I knew my intuition was sure and I could see these things clearly, quite in the same way that the lay of the land can be seen and understood better when standing at an elevated place. Under ordinary circumstances such a conversation would have set the stewardess' teeth on edge, but with my heart so open she seemed to sense my good will and took what I said to heart.

Nevertheless, when I arrived in Boston about 10:30pm, I was met by a powerfully built and rather serious airport state police officer. He was about 35 or 40 years old. He escorted me from the plane ahead of the others and led me to the airport shelter. Normally I was rather aloof from police officers, indeed I didn't like authority of any kind, but when the officer met me my heart was so open I felt all men were my brothers. As I walked aside of him to the shelter, I found myself putting my right arm around his broad shoulders. I became aware of the gun at his holster but it made no difference to me. In the state of mind I was in, I felt toward him like toward an elder, beloved brother meeting me at the plane. I chatted with him and thanked him for his trouble and great courtesy and assistance. I told him I had just left a monastery and was overwhelmed by being in a crowd of people and that I would be alright once I got home. Besides being an optimistic prognosis to calm myself, it also seemed to be an appropriate way of explaining my openness and feelings of brotherhood and also of avoiding being detained. Ordinarily this tough, no-nonsense police officer would have given me a difficult time but instead, like the stewardess, he seemed to sense the integrity of my feelings.

The Dark Night of the Soul: The Heart is Purified and Prepared for the Culminating Experience

I took a cab and arrived about 11pm at my South End lodgings. They consisted of two rooms on the second floor of an almost-deserted rooming house overlooking - to the right - the extensive federal housing project near the Cathedral. The dull red brick buildings and barren clothes-lines at the edge of the project could be seen from my front window by the light of the street lamps. The window faced a large tree-lined, but neglected, park called Blackstone Square. Next door - to the left - was a Syrian Church with a domed roof overhung by a huge tree, now bare of leaves in early April. A light, quietly emanating from the ornate glass window in the dome, soothed my soul as I paced the rooms.

Finally I was alone. I lay down on my bed. I knew very little about the writings of the mystics at the time. I did not know that I was now entering purgation or the Refiner's Fire or the Dark Night of the Soul (18) that would purify my heart and make me fit for Union with God:

"But who may abide the day of His coming,
And who shall stand when He appeareth?
For He is like a Refiner's Fire." Malachi 3.2

The events in the cab and on the plane were the beginning but the Dark Night of the Soul began in earnest when I laid down on my bed. As I have said, the fire in the heart led to the opening of the heart. The heart continued to open slowly and inexorably, step by step, like a flower. As it did, it produced forgiveness - forgiveness of those I felt had wronged me, who had teased and mocked me. These vexations departed from my heart one by one as they came to my mind - like water drops from a lotus leaf. At the same time there came to my mind, one by one, things I had done which lay buried in my conscience undermining my life. I prayed for the Lord to forgive me and He did so, one by one (19).

Simultaneous with this forgiveness was terror and joy. I was in terror of losing my life. The Fire or Force was opening my heart and I was naturally terrified since my heart had never been open that wide. Fear keeps the heart closed so if the heart is opened beyond its normal position it produces terror. To alleviate this terror I had to forgive. It allowed the heart to tolerate being opened at that degree of opening. As this proceeded, hatred slowly left my heart and it slowly became more purified.

Then the heart opened more. More terror. More sin and error came to my mind one by one and I asked the Lord to forgive me and He did so one by one. The terror lessened. The heart opened wider. More joy. More terror. More prayers. And as the heart opened ever wider my joy increased to ecstasy or rapture (20).

At the same time I was dealing with another aspect of the terror of losing my life: the dread or remorse that I would lose my worldly ties. I would die in this lonely place never to see my dear ones again. My worldly hopes and dreams would end here never to be fulfilled. Clinging to life, I begged the Lord, Oh save me. Let me live.

This Prayer of Salvation during such an emotional crisis deepened my attachment to God with Form. To confirm and permanently establish this attachment I made a Covenant with God with Form. Once this firm attachment was made I could remove myself from worldly attachments and all its associated complexities and my fears could more easily be borne (21). Only the most simple and fundamental structures of the mind-heart system were now being employed. This stabilized my mind and enabled my heart to continue the process of opening. It opened amidst joy, ecstasy, terror and anxiety while at the same time there was a fierce attention of my mind and being on that which was within.

The Great Silence

Gradually, then, over a period of about an hour this Refiner's Fire succeeded in bringing about an opening and purifying of my heart and bringing along with it peace to my conscience. As a result, my thinking process was able to rest. As this occurred, all of my mind - all of my being - was freed to focus on the present moment within where there existed the blessed open heart. In this undistracted, dramatic state my mind became one pointed. That was its natural, purified state. Then, suddenly, all action within me ceased (22). The pumping of my blood, the beating of my heart, the quivering or hum of my nerves (or perhaps the latter was my body shaking) ceased quite abruptly and I was left in a state of profound silence (23). I had crossed over to the Great Silence (24).

In that state I no longer felt the previous terror, joy, or anxiety. Instead I felt I had come into my True Home, where I was Free(21, 25). I had left the World and was in a state of Pure Being. In that state my mind could not think; it could only observe inwardly and record (26). I had no power to recall or analyze. All of my mind and being continued to focus on the present moment within during the transition into the Silence and at the Silence. In that state of mind and being, my system was satisfied that it had penetrated to the core. Its energy then ran out. It let go and I fell into a swoon: a deep and abiding sleep (27).

It was the silent night, the holy night.

Presently I awoke. It was daybreak. All was peace, bliss. Within me lapped the Living Waters: a serene, wave-like energy of such a subtle frequency that it was capable of flowing evenly throughout my head and body as if they were both made of one substance(4, 28). I was in such a state of peace and bliss, pervaded by a feeling of inner goodness, that the experience has led me to believe this is what is known as Heaven (29). My sincere and earnest search for the Truth during the previous 53 months had finally been satisfied (30). I no longer felt that I must seek the ground of my life, the base upon which to build a sound life. I felt I had found the Ground of My Being: the philosopher's stone, the Formless, the Timeless, the Unconditioned, Knowledge, Bliss (31).

This I now feel is God: no more, no less. Reflection on those blessed hours since early April 1962 has led me to that conclusion (32).

Key #5: Here is the brief summary of my scientific analysis of the religious experience of purgation, which includes the solution to Chalmers Hard Problem (CHP) for the case of purgation.

(Note: To pursue the details of my analysis of purgation in the most recent draft of Chapter 6, please click on this link.)

Brief Summary

1. Where did the ten hour religious experience of purgation originate?
2. Under what conditions was it possible for my religious experience of purgation - with all of its associated anxiety, fear, and psychic stress - to proceed all the way to its ten-hour completion and then culminate in the great, 4 to 7 second, experience of mystical union?

However, it is very important to be aware that during the release of a trauma the anxiety, fear, and psychic stress are usually too much for the experiencer. He or she usually panics, has a nervous breakdown, and experiences some form of mental illness. In order for the experiencer to be able to deal with that anxiety, fear, and psychic stress, the experiencer must use prayer, religious preparedness, etc. That is, my blessed prayers and religious preparedness enabled me to bear the anxiety, fear, and psychic stress during the 10-hour experience of purgation. This allowed me to go through the emotional crisis associated with purgation and arrive at a complete abreaction or release of my trauma. In parallel with this successful abreaction was my profound religious experience of purgation culminating in mystical union.

In my particular case my cramped or paralyzed heart muscles spontaneously went through the process of releasing themselves. The dynamics of my releasing heart muscles drove the dynamic data of my core consciousness. That dynamic data of core consciousness was then immediately and permanently stored in my long term memory (LTM) at the time of that abreaction or release. The data of core consciousness being stored in my LTM was about the dynamics of my core consciousness during the entire ten hour purgation experience, including the core consciousness data about the state of openness of my heart. (Please note: Because my cramped or paralyzed heart muscles were spontaneously releasing themselves one by one, it naturally caused the state of my cramped up heart to begin to return to its full or open or natural position: Therefore, my heart was opening.)

Twenty two years later, in 1984 when I was 52 years old, I began the system dynamics-based analysis presented in Chapter 6. The first thing I delved into was the dynamic core consciousness data for my ten hour experience of purgation. Immanuel Kant would have called that dynamic core consciousness data associated with purgation, stored in my LTM, the dynamic phenomena of purgation. Also, he would have called the estimated 12 pairs of cramped or paralyzed, antagonistic muscles in my heart, that were - one by one - being spontaneously abreacted or released, the dynamic noumena.

Now, I need to present how I obtained the above solution to CHP. That is, I need to present how my system dynamics-based scientific analysis of purgation obtained the results summarized in the above four paragraphs.

My analysis leading up to identifying the noumena has been focused on analyzing the core consciousness data of the phenomena stored in my LTM, because I am proceeding according to Newton's Rules of Philosophizing rather than Descartes' Discourse on Method. Proceeding according to Newton's method, which is now called the scientific method, eventually resulted in the transcendental grounding (Natorp/Kim 2003) of core consciousness during the deep inner experience. The aim of transcendental grounding is to identify the dynamic physical objects or noumena in my neurophysiological system that were driving the phenomena: This phenomena was my core consciousness during my entire experience of purgation.

Though Kant (1724-1804), Franz Brentano (1838-1917), Paul Natorp (1854-1924), the Marburg School of Neokantianism (1870-1920), Edmund Husserl (1859-1938), Ernst Cassirer (1874-1945), and others (see Holzhey 2005) studied such phenomena deeply, they were unable to scientifically solve CHP, because science was not advanced enough in the 18th, 19th, and the first half of the 20th century. The solving of CHP could only have been attained after the first half of the 20th century, because it was only after World War II that the two critical breakthroughs in science, required for solving CHP, occurred:

1. The publication of the powerful System Dynamics (SD) methodology (Forrester 1961, 1968b).
2. The invention of computers for implementing the SD methodology, particularly implementing the solution to sets of simultaneous nonlinear differential equations.

SD is the underlying analytical tool of the three step Feedback Phenomenological (FP) methodology (For a short introduction to these three steps see the next paragraph. Later, you can also study Chapter 5 or Section I in Chapter 6.) Using the three steps of the SD-based FP methodology, I am able to mathematically analyze my first person core consciousness data residing in my LTM. In that analysis the SD-based FP methodology scientifically structures that data in a very compatible way: As a multiloop nonlinear feedback system (MNFS). The reason the FP methodology is compatible with biological phenomena is because the MNFS structure is the same structure as the entire neurophysiological system. The neurophysiological system underlies and drives core consciousness.

Here is a short introduction to the three steps of the SD-based FP methodology for analyzing core consciousness during purgation:

• Step I: Use the causal loop method or technique (Richardson 1981, Sterman 2000) to organize or structure the core consciousness data in my long term memory (LTM) in the form of a causal loop diagram, which is somewhat similar to a feedback system. Although the causal loop method is very helpful to the analyst during the early stage of the analysis of core consciousness during purgation, the causal loop method is not formalized. That is, it is not associated with mathematics. As a result, the causal loop diagram cannot be detailed and structured in such a way that it can be used to model and simulate core consciousness during purgation. Ultimately, the analyst must formally structure core consciousness during purgation and transcendentally ground that structure. In order to accomplish this the analyst must proceed to the use of Forrester's system dynamics (SD) methods in Steps II and III, below.
• Step II: Use Forrester's first book on the SD methodology (Forrester 1961) to convert the Step I causal loop diagram for purgation into an SD-based flow diagram for core consciousness during purgation. The SD flow diagram for purgation and its mathematical model enable the analyst to simulate core consciousness during purgation. For example, after a ten year analysis (from 1984 to 1994) my 38 variable SD flow diagram for purgation and its associated mathematical model are able to accurately simulate all 38 core consciousness variables associated with the ten hour experience of purgation. The accuracy comes from iteratively and patiently adjusting the preliminary mathematical model in order to eventually match the dynamic core consciousness data in my LTM. This ten year analysis of mine was a labor of love.
• Step III: Use Forrester's second book on the SD methodology (Forrester 1968b) to transcendentally ground the accurate SD-based flow diagram for core consciousness during purgation, developed in Step II. Now, studying the contents of Forrester's second book, the analyst finds that the flow diagram for core consciousness during purgation, developed in Step II, is structured as a second-order negative feedback system (SONFS). The analyst then uses that SONFS flow diagram structure in his search for the noumena, or dynamic material object or objects, within his neurophysiological system that were driving core consciousness during purgation. The key to this search is as follows: The dynamics of the noumena or material objects must be structured as a SONFS. A promising candidate would be pairs of antagonistic muscles, because the dynamics of such material objects or noumena operate as SONFS.

My analysis of core consciousness during purgation began in 1984 and has continued steadily right up to the present time. The list of nine items below gives the sequence of scientific tasks I have been performing since 1984, together with the collection of observations and insights that I became aware of during that analytical period. Basically, I used Steps I, II, and III of the SD-based FP methodology to analyze the core consciousness data in my LTM. Please note that all the core consciousness data for purgation, residing in my LTM, is associated with or driven by the dynamic noumena. That core consciousness data was dynamic. It varied - moment by moment - during my ten hour experience of purgation.

In summary, here is how this SD-based FP methodology was used to solve CHP for the case of core consciousness during purgation: I first focused on my core consciousness data, associated with my deep ten hour religious experience of purgation. It resided in my LTM. I then used Steps I and II of the FP methodology, shown above, to analyze that data. (For details of this formalized analysis and construction of the purgation feedback system, see Section I and Section II of Chapter 6, below). The results of this scientific task are summarized in item 1 of the nine item list below. Then, by focusing on Step III, I obtained the results summarized in items 2 thru 9 of the list below. In those items my SD-based FP analysis of core consciousness during my experience of purgation identifies the probable dynamic physical objects or noumena that are the origins or driving forces of my core consciousness or religious experience of purgation. This comprehensive analysis of purgation will illustrate how the SD-based FP methodology has probably solved CHP for my deep inner experience of purgation.

1. Steps I and II of the SD-based FP methodology, described above, were used to construct the 38 variable SD flow diagram for purgation and its associated mathematical model. This construction used the core consciousness data collected in my LTM during my experience of purgation (see Figure 2 and its derivation in Sections I and II just below in Chapter 6). The flow diagram in Figure 2 was completed in 1994.
2. Then, in 2007 I began to use Step III. First the Step III technique found that the flow diagram for core consciousness during purgation, developed in item 1 above and shown in Figure 2, is a second-order negative feedback system (SONFS). Once the order of the flow diagram or feedback system for core consciousness during purgation is identified, the dynamic characteristics of the noumena or material objects that are driving that core consciousness is also identified.
3. Then, to determine the particular kind of noumena that is driving the phenomena, I needed to search through all the dynamic physical objects within my neurophysiological system and find those dynamic objects that operate as a SONFS. At this particular early period in my search I have found only one promising candidate: Any set of dynamic antagonistic muscles operates as a SONFS.
4. During my 10 hour experience of purgation I sensed or observed that the dynamics of purgation was being experienced mainly in my heart. Therefore, if the promising candidate is antagonistic muscles, they must be heart muscles.
5. The great stress, fear, and anxiety - accompanying the releasing process of each set of antagonistic heart muscles - indicated that those muscles had been cramped or paralyzed prior to the time when the spontaneous releasing of the cramped or paralyzed heart muscles occurred.
6. During the Step II analysis (which is located just after the Introduction in Section II of Chapter 6), I sensed or estimated that there were about a dozen or so sets of cramped antagonistic heart muscles released during purgation.
7. Therefore, the dynamic noumena - that drove my dynamic core consciousness during purgation as a SONFS - were probably spontaneously releasing a dozen or so sets of cramped or paralyzed, antagonistic, heart muscles.
8. I then asked myself what had caused the cramping or paralyzation in my heart muscles. I then remembered I had a childhood sexual trauma when I was 9 or 10 years old: The trauma had probably caused the cramping or paralyzation.
9. Therefore, the origin or driving force of the purgation experience was probably the abreaction or release of the effects of my childhood trauma.

Additional information associated with the above brief summary:

1. Determining the precise location in my heart of the cramped, antagonistic heart muscles. This is a very difficult "easy problem." (see Chalmers statement of the easy problems of consciousness, just below)
2. Determining the neurobiological correlates of consciousness (NCC) during purgation. This is also a very difficult "easy problem." (see the statements on CHP by Crick, Koch, and Searle, just below) These difficult "easy problems" are available for analysis only after the CHP breakthrough for purgation has been precisely solved (see item 1 just above). Once item 1 has been solved, the neuroscientists and cardiovascular experts need to neurophysiologically link the dynamic sets of cramped, antagonistic heart muscles with the dynamic core consciousness going on during the experience of purgation. (My early conjecture is that the key to this linkage is understanding the operation of the experiencer's somatosensory system. It looks to me like that system extends all the way from (1)the cramped heart muscles that are being released to (2)the postcentral gyrus in the experiencer's cerebral cortex. The location of the latter part of the somatosensory system is probably where the dynamic core consciousness associated with purgation had been generated during the release of my trauma.)
3. The method for testing the scientific validity of the SD-based, FP analysis of purgation is shown in Chapter 6, Section II.B, item 11.

Section II: Notes on the present state of this book manuscript:

• This is a draft of the General Theory of Religion (GTR). The Primary Purpose of Religion (PPR) is the reality or core or ground of the general theory of religion and the integration of science and religion.
• The 13 page Introduction, and Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, and 7 are in fairly good shape.
• Chapters 5 and 6 present the technical and scientific foundations of this book. Chapter 5 is a very important chapter. It presents the three step, system dynamics-based Feedback Phenomenological (FP) methodology. FP is starting to get into fairly good shape, particularly the most recent and final Step: Step III about transcendental grounding.
• Chapter 6 is the solution to Chalmers' Hard Problem (CHP) for the case of core consciousness during the deep, subjective, religious experience of purgation. It is based on the three step FP methodology presented in Chapter 5. Chapter 6 is slowly getting into very good shape. There is a detailed brief summary of the solution to CHP at both Key #5 just above and at the beginning of Chapter 6. That brief, concise, and intense summary contains rare system dynamics (SD) based, scientific insights on the nature of consciousness during the religious experience of purgation: The structure of consciousness, together with the entire religious scenario imagined by the experiencer during his successful experience of purgation, is driven by the dynamic structure associated with the release of cramped heart muscles.
• I recommend the reader start with the 13 page Introduction and Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, and 7. Then, he or she should browse through Chapters 5 and 6. Those two Chapters are the focus of my work at present. It would be good if the reader would revisit those two Chapters from time to time, watching their future development.
• I presented the breakthroughs to both the origin of religion and the primary purpose of religion to a number of evolution scholars, one-by-one, at the IRAS Conference at Star Island in early August 2005. (Those two breakthroughs are discussed in various ways in the Introduction: First, in Key #1 and then in Key #3 of Section I.) The two breakthroughs were enthusiastically received by the bold and daring Prof. Stacey Ake, professor of philosophy and biology at Drexel University.
• I am working on a summary of the book. I am debating whether or not I should include it in this book.
• Once this book has been refined and detailed, my main task begins: To meditate on the insights and breakthroughs. During this meditation process I hope to slowly deepen and clarify the book, if the Lord wills. This will lead toward the book's publication.

Dive deep, Oh my mind: Dive deep.

PART I

The Religious Experience and Its Aftermath

Chapter 1: An Engineer's Story (1):

Worldly Life Spiraling into a Crisis

I had been traveling in Europe and India during the previous two years and thought of myself as a big-time adventurer, but in reality I had been floundering since 1957 when a tragic event had occurred to someone very dear to me. Though I was a 28-year-old engineer with a specialization in great demand and had been a student of one of the founders of that specialization, emotionally I had become, in those three short years, like a teenage runaway. In this structurally weakened state I had become entangled with, and addicted to a wanton, dominant, experienced, mediterranean woman of 35. Back in college in the midwest I had been an hermetic, crew cut, student-athlete and had never come across a woman like her. Though she was street-smart there was a sensitivity and vulnerablity to her that I was only dimly aware of at the time. In addition to being addicted to her I had also become psychologically addicted to cigarette smoking. I was developing other degenerative character traits as well which, though minor at the time, held within them the seeds of destruction.

My desk was crowded into a small room with those of four other engineers. I was chain-smoking three packs per day of strong, unfiltered cigarettes, filling the room with smoke and, at times, a prolonged, fitful cough. I was trying to make an intense effort to concentrate in order to raise the level of my status but was hindered by dissipating habits that I could see were destroying me. My colleagues were young, bright, and versatile engineers. They wondered why management let this strange, ill-mannered, and arrogant person in the door. I felt out of place, put upon, and rejected. A promising career and vital health had sunk to this level. Perhaps I could have settled for mediocrity - slavery in one form or another - but to my mind I was in a battle for my life. (2)

The Crisis and a Supreme Effort to Save My Life

"This is the most awe striking period in the long history of France and Britain. It is also beyond doubt the most sublime. Side by side, unaided except by their kith and kin in the great dominions and by the wide Empires which rest beneath their shield - side by side, the British and French peoples have advanced to rescue not only Europe but mankind from the foulest and most soul-destroying tyranny which has ever darkened and stained the pages of history. Behind them - behind us - behind the Armies and Fleets of Britain and France - gather a group of shattered States and bludgeoned races; the Czechs, the Poles, the Norwegians, the Danes, the Dutch, the Belgians - upon all of whom the long night of barbarism will descend, unbroken even by a star of hope, unless we conquer, as conquer we must, as conquer we shall.

"Today is Trinity Sunday. Centuries ago words were written to be a call and a spur to the faithful servants of Truth and Justice: Arm yourselves, and be ye men of valour, and be in readiness for the conflict; for it is better for us to perish in battle than to look upon the outrage of our nation and our altar. As the Will of God is in Heaven, even so let it be."

I tried with all my will to break off with the woman through the Spring and Summer of 1961 but my blessed heart would not be dominated by my will. I kept returning to her like a drug addict week after week. In the end my heart found the way to leave her:

One steamy Friday night in August my thoughts of her became particularly intense. The conflict between my desire for her and my integrity had become critical. I was in my apartment in the negro Blackstone Square area of the South End. Instead of driving over to her apartment, I decided to walk. She lived about two miles away near Egleston Square which at that time was on the border between the white and negro neighborhoods.

In walking along old Columbus Avenue, I found my heart and soul open to the sights and smells and sounds of the night: small-time gamblers milling around outside a barber shop; the pimp and the woman strolling down the broad sidewalk, he with his flashy suit and greased down hair, she with her dynamite smile and curvaceous body. The gospel song coming from somewhere:

"Deep in my heart I do believe that
We will overcome some day." Carolina Hymn

Further up the avenue, I noticed a drug addict lying on the ground amid the litter of tin cans and broken glass; then there was the strong smell of stale liquor and cigarette smoke wafting from an open door of a bar. Further still, I noticed a round woman coming out of the laundromat with her bundle of clothes and her soulful eyes - those soulful eyes, so deep - so different from the cold, hard eyes of technology.

Through all these scenes I past until I finally arrived at the door of the mediterranean woman's apartment near Egleston Square and knocked at her door. She was dressed in a short pink nightgown that fell only to the top of her thigh. A wave of lust ran through my whole body. I laid down on the living room carpet on my back overwhelmed by the walk, the sights of the steamy hot night, and the passion that flowed through my body. My heart and my soul and my pores and my veins were open. My blood was pulsing in every part of my body. She mounted me with her pink nightgown as I lay there and writhed on me. This did not effect the subtler level of my mind and heart where my concentration had been focused during the walk. My openness and depth of feeling gave me a detachment where mind and soul lay passively, watchfully beneath the passions that she was stirring up. As she writhed on me, a power developed in this passivity and transformed my lust. Presently I got up, tried to excuse myself, and left. I never saw her again: my addiction to her had somehow vanished.

"He unto whom all desires enter
As waters into the sea,
Which, though ever being filled, is ever motionless,
Attains to peace,
But not he who hugs his desire."
Bhagavad Gita II:70

Arete: Competitive Pressure Forces Excellence Out into the Open

The intellectual strain was not the only strain involved. I was experiencing another strain that I sensed would be difficult to manage later when I would have to do the detailed designing and building of the device. This second kind of strain involved interaction with my co-workers. I would be required to interface with and coordinate the activities of a number of people - draftsmen, machinists, technicians, foremen - within a tight schedule. At the same time I would have to work out more of the theoretical underpinnings of the design. Underlying these activities was the baffling politics and power structure of my peers. Usually work like this should be done only by those who are well integrated into the organizational structure and have good informal communication and support systems. For a lone wolf with obviously few social and communication skills, in particular the lack of a subtle understanding of political games, it is utter folly. I was setting myself up to be crucified. By any rational standards I should have remained at my desk with my theoretical work. In my ignorance I was completely unaware of the difficult situation I was getting into, but I did sense a supreme struggle ahead.

To my mind this was the critical moment of my life. I felt in my bones that I had to do or die; that the issues in my life had finally been joined; that this struggle was the meaning of my life. The reason for this rare conviction was that I had, temporarily at least, achieved an alignment of a number of elements of my mind, as when a rackety complex machine is carefully adjusted by a skilled mechanic and begins to hum. At long last I was running true. At that point I trusted in God that He would not abandon me if only I be true (8).

Around that time I sensed a barrenness caused by the renunciation I had recently undergone. I needed a rootedness not only in the mind and spirit but in the heart and soul. I sensed that I had to dig deeper in my quest (9). At that time, early November 1961, I felt I should take a ten day vacation before embarking on my task.

"Just as I am, though tossed about
With many a conflict, many a doubt
Fightings without, and fears within
O Lamb of God, I come! I come!"

Transcendence and Grace

Around Wednesday I left San Diego by bus and hitchiking seeking a place associated with the book. I found it very much by chance. It was a monastery far up in the foothills of the Santa Ana mountains (10). I approached the simple Spanish style retreat in a state of adventure, openness, and hope. As I entered the gate and before meeting anyone, I felt a sort of peace come over me as if I had entered an enchanted land. I found that the monastery was maintained by a monk and about five brothers. They allowed me to stay with them for a visit.

My system went into a different mode during the course of that first day. The peace that my heart and mind had felt earlier continued on and deepened during the three or four days of my visit. I sensed a subtler level of thought and feeling. A subtler vibration within my heart was being energized. I was in a holy atmosphere (11).

I was tempted to remain - as the sun was setting on Sunday night - but realized I must finish my project first.

I returned to Boston on the night flight out of San Diego and came to work late Monday morning with renewed energy and resolve: I would prove that I was a good engineer and then return.

I did not know it at the time, but I was now beginning the process that would prepare me to eventually walk the razor's edge!

Concentrating again upon my work, there began - and developed over the next few months - a slow awakening of a subtler level of my heart from its lifelong slumber. This brought me slowly into an entirely new state: one which transcended the previous more primitive state. I found myself dealing with stress through prayer and tears. The tears, finally unlocked, soothed the deep sadness of my soul. They alleviated my withdrawal symptoms (12).

Also my ability to cope increased. This can be illustrated by Churchill again as taken from the notes of Major General E. L. Spears on May 31,1940 (13):

"At the meeting of the Supreme War Council in Paris during the evacuation of Dunkirk, Churchill reported to the French that 165,000 men had been evacuated including 10,000 wounded and 15,000 French. Reynaud, the French President of the Council, at once drew attention to the small number of French withdrawn. Weygand, the Chief of the French General Staff, chimed in 'But how many French? The French are being left behind!' His voice was high, querulous and aggressive.

"Churchill looked at him for a moment. The light had died out of his face, his fingers were playing a tune on the edge of the table; out came his lower lip as if he were going to retort, and I expected one of those sentences that hit like a blow, but his expression changed again. It was evident that he felt every indulgence must be shown to people so highly tried, undergoing so fearful an ordeal. He looked very sad, and as he spoke a wave of deep emotion swept from his heart to his eyes, where tears appeared not for the only time that afternoon. 'We are companions in misfortune', he said, 'there is nothing to be gained from recrimination over our common miseries.'

"The note he had struck was so true, went so deep, that a stillness fell over the room, something different from silence, it was like the hush that falls on men at the opening of a great national pageant. I imagine all thoughts were turned inwards, questioning whether each one was observing that precept. It was important in its results, for the note it struck was maintained throughout the meeting; goodwill, courtesy, and mutual generosity prevailed."

At this stage and during the ensuing months my heart and my brain were working in tandem. Coming out of work one evening, briefcase in hand, I began to weep as I caught sight of the late November sunset. The old heartless life was in abeyance. Thinking went on constantly day and night until the project was completed. When the design seemed to be unworkable, all I had to do was walk the streets at night and the solution would come (14). At times I walked the Boston streets that winter without a coat, warmed only by the inner fire coursing my brain and body (4). Such was my state (15). Competition with my peers became a minor factor; dissipating habits were tossed off with ease one by one. I was now dealing with an awakening heart, tears, a transcendent purpose, prayer and openness, and concentration at a fiery level (12).

I felt this was my life at stake, the end of the line of my genes. I had to pull out all the stops. Centering myself in the openness of prayer at the eye of the storm, I seemed to gain control of the very pulse of life. The powerful winds of my spirit had been caught now by my sails; the rod of iron of my will was in my right hand ruddering me; and the waves of my emotions were dangerously whipping across my bow. As the great adventure proceeded I sensed an immense ocean within me, its deep, slow, surging waves powering my heart and soul (4) (16).

"Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee;
How great Thou art, how great Thou art!"

The Seeker of God then went to his salvation by way of the Refiner's Fire, the second stage of his purification.

The Heart Begins to Open

I returned to Southern California at the end of March 1962 for another ten day vacation after successfully completing the project. I was still running true. I was charged and in a state of openness. On this visit I went to another monastery run by the same Order of monks. Again I found myself in a holy atmosphere (11). I had a deeply restful, enchanting, profoundly moving week, many times bubbling over with mirth and on one occasion, hearing a beautiful piece of religious music, I was unable to contain a weeping which became a prolonged sobbing from the bottom of my heart.

Around noon on Sunday I left the monastery to return to Boston for work the next day. I was to take a cab to the Los Angeles airport and then a non-stop flight to Boston. I had plenty of time. The cab stand was about a half-mile away. I was walking down a hill with a small suitcase in my hand. As I walked reflectively and in peace down that hill in the warm and brilliant Southern California sun, my heart slowly began to feel full. My mind was drawn inward. In this mood I arrived at the cab stand. I told the driver my destination. He was a rather cool and playful young man in his early twenties. I noticed that I was very friendly and mirthful - quite unusual for me since I usually never spoke to cab drivers. During the ride I was joking and at times giggling and had a great time for the half hour drive to the airport. At one point the driver asked me if I had had a 'joint' before getting into the cab.

At the airport, however,the warmth or power in my heart began to deepen. I was sitting in the waiting area for the flight but found I could not stay seated. I got up and began to pace the floor of the waiting room. I was well dressed and groomed in a fine conservative suit. Perhaps it was a rather strange sight. The thought occurred to me I was on the verge of a heart attack, but I was only thirty and in good health so dismissed the idea.

The plane was quite full. I took my assigned seat by the window. After the plane circled LA and turned East, the Force in my heart began to get intense. My heart was opening!! There was a struggle going on in my heart. The Force was opening my heart and, because of my fear, my will was waging a losing battle to close it. The opening of my heart brought about a fear - indeed - a terror. At the same time I felt a degree of love for all, forgiveness, brotherhood and sisterhood for all.

I called for the stewardess. I told her something was wrong with my heart. She got me out to the first aid area and gave me oxygen, but it had no effect. She took me to the first class area where there were fewer passengers and I could be alone. The Force continued to try to open my heart and I was in a state of terror for fear I would die shortly. I kept getting up and walking to the drinking fountain to quench the fire in my breast. I must have drank at least two gallons of water during the five and one-half hour flight.

A few times the stewardess came by to see how I was. Once she sat down next to me. She seemed quite curious about me. She was about 24 or 26. Under the ceiling spotlight I could see her features were delicate but her beauty had now passed its peak. There were the first signs of tension wrinkles around her eyes and mouth. Close up I could sense something about her that had gone cold and there was a sadness underneath her makeup. She was neglecting what I could see was a precious soul. In the course of our quiet conversation I told her, in a somewhat oracular way, 'Please leave this terrible job.' She asked me why I thought it was so terrible. I said, in effect, she was being paid to be pleasant and gay to the passengers even though her heart and soul didn't feel it any more. She needed an honest job. With my heart so open, I knew my intuition was sure and I could see these things clearly, quite in the same way that the lay of the land can be seen and understood better when standing at an elevated place. Under ordinary circumstances such a conversation would have set the stewardess' teeth on edge, but with my heart so open she seemed to sense my good will and took what I said to heart.

Nevertheless, when I arrived in Boston about 10:30pm, I was met by a powerfully built and rather serious airport state police officer. He was about 35 or 40 years old. He escorted me from the plane ahead of the others and led me to the airport shelter. Normally I was rather aloof from police officers, indeed I didn't like authority of any kind, but when the officer met me my heart was so open I felt all men were my brothers. As I walked aside of him to the shelter, I found myself putting my arm around his broad shoulders. I became aware of the gun at his holster but it made no difference to me. In the state of mind I was in, I felt toward him like toward an elder, beloved brother meeting me at the plane. I chatted with him and thanked him for his trouble and great courtesy and assistance. I told him I had just left a monastery and was overwhelmed by being in a crowd of people and that I would be alright once I got home. Besides being an optimistic prognosis to calm myself it also seemed to be an appropriate way of explaining my openness and feelings of brotherhood and also of avoiding being detained. Ordinarily this tough, no-nonsense police officer would have given me a difficult time but instead, like the stewardess, he seemed to sense the integrity of my feelings.

The Dark Night of the Soul: The Heart is Purified and Prepared for the Culminating Experience

Finally I was alone. I lay down on my bed. I knew very little about the writings of the mystics at the time. I did not know that I was now entering the Refiner's Fire or the Dark Night of the Soul (18) that would purify my heart and make me fit for Union with God.

"But who may abide the day of His coming,
And who shall stand when He appeareth?
For He is like a Refiner's Fire." Malachi 3.2

Simultaneous with this forgiveness was terror and joy. I was in terror of losing my life. The Fire or Force was opening my heart and I was naturally terrified since my heart had never been open that wide. Fear keeps the heart closed so if the heart is opened beyond its normal position it produces terror. To alleviate this terror I had to forgive. It allowed the heart to tolerate being opened at that degree of opening. As this proceeded, hatred slowly left my heart and it slowly became more purified.

Then the heart opened more. More terror. More sin and error came to my mind one by one and I asked the Lord to forgive me and He did so one by one. The terror lessened. The heart opened wider. More joy. More terror. More prayers. And as the heart opened ever wider my joy increased to ecstasy or rapture (20).

At the same time I was dealing with another aspect of the terror of losing my life: the dread or remorse that I would lose my worldly ties. I would die in this lonely place never to see my dear ones again. My worldly hopes and dreams would end here never to be fulfilled. Clinging to life, I begged the Lord, Oh save me. Let me live.

This Prayer of Salvation during such an emotional crisis deepened my attachment to God with Form. To confirm and permanently establish this attachment I made a Covenant with God with Form. Once this firm attachment was made I could remove myself from worldly attachments and all its associated complexities and my fears could more easily be borne (21). Only the most simple and fundamental structures of the mind-heart system were now being employed. This stabilized my mind and enabled my heart to continue the process of opening. It opened amidst joy, ecstasy, terror and anxiety while at the same time there was a fierce attention of my mind and being on that which was within.

The Great Silence

In that state I no longer felt the previous terror, joy, or anxiety. Instead I felt I had come into my True Home, where I was Free(21, 25). I had left the World and was in a state of Pure Being. In that state my mind could not think; it could only observe inwardly and record (26). I had no power to recall or analyze. All of my mind and being continued to focus on the present moment within during the transition into the Silence and at the Silence. In that state of mind and being, my system was satisfied that it had penetrated to the core. Its energy then ran out. It let go and I fell into a swoon: a deep and abiding sleep (27).

It was the silent night, the holy night.

Presently I awoke. It was daybreak. All was peace, bliss. Within me lapped the Living Waters: a serene, wave-like energy of such a subtle frequency that it was capable of flowing evenly throughout my head and body as if they were both made of one substance(4, 28). I was in such a state of peace and bliss, pervaded by a feeling of inner goodness, that the experience has led me to believe this is what is known as Heaven (29). My sincere and earnest search for the Truth during the previous 53 months had finally been satisfied (30). I no longer felt that I must seek the ground of my life, the base upon which to build a sound life. I felt I had found the Ground of My Being: the philosopher's stone, the Formless, the Timeless, the Unconditioned, Knowledge, Bliss (31).

This I now feel is God: no more, no less. Reflection on those blessed hours since April 1962 has led me to that conclusion (32).

References and Notes:

1. An Engineer's Story is similar in form to Parmenides' allegorical proem (Burnet 1948) given below. It introduces his Fragments.

   "The car that bears me carried me as far as ever my heart desired, when it had brought me and set me on the renowned way of the goddess, which leads the man who knows through all the towns. On that way was I borne along; for on it did the wise steeds carry me, drawing my car, and maidens showed the way. And the axle, glowing in the socket - for it was urged round by the whirling wheels at each end - gave forth a sound as of a pipe, when the daughters of the Sun, hasting to convey me into the light, threw back their veils from off their faces and left the abode of Night.

   "There are the gates of the ways of Night and Day, fitted above with lintel and below with a threshold of stone. They themselves, high in the air, are closed by mighty doors, and Avenging Justice keeps the keys that fit them. Her did the maidens entreat with gentle words and cunningly persuade to unfasten without demur the bolted bars from the gates. Then, when the doors were thrown back, they disclosed a wide opening, when their brazen posts fitted with rivets and nails swung back one after the other. Straight through them, on the broad way, did the maidens guide the horse and the car, and the goddess greeted me kindly, and took my right hand in hers, and spake to me these words:

   "Welcome, O youth, that comest to my abode on the car that bears thee, tended by immortal charioteers! It is no ill chance, but right and justice that has sent thee forth to travel on this way. Far, indeed, does it lie from the beaten track of men! Meet it is that thou shouldest learn all things, as well the unshaken heart of well-rounded truth, as opinion of mortals in which is no true belief at all. Yet none the less shalt thou learn these things also, - how passing right through all things one should judge the things that seem to be."

   (The text of the translation is from: John Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy , 4th edition(Adam & Charles Black, London,1948) 172.)
2. The disintegration of moral character - loss of integrity and the descent into dissipation and obsession - often leads to desperation and sets the stage for a religious conversion. Many of the teachings of religion focus on this crisis. (See for example, 'The Sermon' from Moby Dick by Herman Melville.)
3. The successful attitude of the seeker of God, the warrior, and creative men and women appear to be identical. It is the attitude of detachment. The essence of detachment is to let go of the clinging to life. Some aspects of this idea are illustrated below:
   • Matthew Kelty, O.C.S.O., Aspects of the Monastic Calling (St. Joseph's Abbey, Spencer, MA), 15-16.

     "It may happen many times, but it is certain to happen at least once that one's whole life depends on a moment's willingness to lay it on the line. This happens to most people. To anyone willing to look closely there may come a moment in one's life which in every sense of the word is a moment of destiny, a moment to which one can, in later years, look back and realize that everything was leading to that point, and everything flows thence from it. There is no way of knowing when such a moment may come; indeed, one may not even recognize it until long after. But one thing is certain: you will muff it unless you have learned how to lay it on the line. And the secret in that art is simple: you have to risk all to gain all."

   • Michael Polanyi, The Tacit Dimension (Doubleday, Garden City, NY, 1966), p76.

     " . . there is a widespread opinion that scientists hit on discoveries merely by trying everything as it happens to cross their minds. This opinion follows from an inability to recognize man's capacity for anticipating the approach of hidden truth. The scientist's surmise or hunches are the spurs and pointers of his search. They involve high stakes, as hazardous as their prospects are fascinating.The time and money, the prestige and self-confidence gambled away in disappointing guesses will soon exhaust a scientist's courage and standing. His gropings are weighty decisions."

   • Jung, Development of Personality, 175-176.

     "True personality is always a vocation and puts its trust in it as in a God. . . . vocation acts like a law of God from which there is no escape. The fact that many a man who goes his own way ends in ruin means nothing to one who has a vocation. He must obey his own law, as if it were a daemon, whispering to him of new and wonderful paths. Anyone with a vocation hears the voice of the inner man: he is called."

   • Jalaluddhin Rumi

     "Without cause God gave us Being; without cause give it back again. Gambling yourself away is beyond religion."

   • S. Freud, Attitude Toward Death, 290.

     "Life is impoverished, it loses in interest, when the highest stake in the game of living, life itself, may not be risked. It becomes as shallow and empty as, let us say, a . . . flirtation, in which it is understood from the first that nothing is to happen, as contrasted with a . . . love affair in which both partners must constantly bear its serious consequences in mind."

   • Ramakrishna was in a desperate state of mind just before he attained union:
     M., Gospel of Ramakrishna. pp. 12-14, or Saradananda, Ramakrishna the Great Master, pp 162-3.
   • Here is the charge given to his warriors by the Sioux Indian chief, Sitting Bull, before the battle of the Little Bighorn and the defeat of Custer:

     "It is a good day to die."

   • Bhagavad Gita, II:31-32

     "There is nothing more blessed than a lawful strife."

     (The gloss of Radhakrishnan's translation of this passage states:
     "Krishna tells Arjuna that for warriors there is no more ennobling duty than a fair fight. It is a privilege that leads to heaven.")
   • From Mircea Eliade, Ordeal by Labyrinth, (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1982), 125.

     ". . . the enigma at the heart of life and the universe . . is the fact that no life can perpetuate itself without risking death."

   • Jeremiah 29:13

     "And ye shall seek me, and find me,
     When ye shall search for me
     With all your heart."

   • From the book: Stride Toward Freedom by Martin Luther King:
     King describes a moment of profound crisis in his life during the Montgomery boycott of 1956:

     "In this state of exhaustion, when my courage had all but gone, I decided to take my problem to God. With my head in my hands, I bowed over the kitchen table and prayed aloud. The words I spoke to God that midnight are still vivid in my memory.

     "I am here taking a stand on what I believe is right. But now I am afraid. The people are looking to me for leadership, and if I stand before them without strength and courage, they too will falter. I am at the end of my powers. I have nothing left. I've come to the point where I can't face it alone.

     "At that moment I experienced the presence of the Divine as I have never experienced Him before. It seemed as though I could hear the quiet assurance of an inner voice saying: 'Stand up for righteousness, stand up for truth; and God will be at your side forever.'

     "Almost at once my fears began to go. My uncertainty disappeared. I was ready to face anything."

   • From the 1970s song, Me and Bobby McGee, by Kris Kristopherson:

     "Freedom's just another name for nothin' left to lose."

   • Jesus (Matthew 10:39)

     "He that findeth his life shall lose it:
     And he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it."

   • In Laws Plato defines the essence of all true culture, paideia, as

     " ...the education in arete from youth onwards, which makes men passionately desire to become perfect citizens, knowing both how to rule and how to be ruled on a basis of justice.... arete is defined as the finest possible expression of the inspiration of heroic strife."
     Werner Jaeger, Paideia vol 1

   • From Karl Jaspers, Way to Wisdom (Yale Univ. Press, New Haven, 1954) pp52-53.

     "In love, in battle, in pursuing lofty tasks, men often act without regard for consequences, unconditionally. When a man acts unconditionally his life is not the ultimate, he subordinates it to something else. ...the only escape from ...emptiness is for man himself as an individual to win authentic being as the foundation of his decisions. This has happened in history when individuals staked their lives through obedience to an absolute imperative: they remain loyal where disloyalty would have destroyed everything, where a life saved through disloyalty would have been poisoned, where a betrayal of absolute being would have made a saved life wretched.

     "The purest example is perhaps Socrates. Living in the lucidity of his reason, out of the Comprehensive of nonknowledge, he went his way unswervingly, undeterred by the passions of anger, hatred, self righteousness; he made no concessions, refused to avail himself of the opportunity for flight, and died happy, staking everything on his faith. .......

     "Rare are the philosophers who, without firm allegiance to a community of faith, standing alone before God, have realized the maxim: To philosophize is to learn how to die."

4. What is occurring here is similar to what occurs in social and biological systems which have been driven to stable states far from thermodynamic equilibrium. As they are driven further from equilibrium, such systems experience a series of bifurcations leading to structural changes and increases in energy exchange with the environment.
5. On arete:
   • From Karl Jaspers, Plato and Augustine , trans. by Ralph Manheim(Harcourt, San Diego, 1962) pp15-16.

     "All the early [Platonic] dialogues circle around this one theme [arete ], which springs from concern for the soul. The fundamental concept of arete was inherent in the Greek view of the world. The word applies to all excellence, that of things, but particularly that of men. It refers to the radiance of an excellence that shows itself in contest. ........

     "Platonic philosophy begins with the Socratic thinking about arete and keeps its tie with it to the end. This mode of knowledge is amplified in the course of Plato's work and extends to the whole realm of knowledge: man, the state, the world. What is already present in the early dialogues runs through the whole of Plato's philosophizing, whose power of growth seems to know no limit."

   • Werner Jaeger, Paideia vol 1:

     "In Laws Plato defines the essence of all true culture, paideia , as 'the education in arete from youth onwards, which makes men passionately desire to become perfect citizens, knowing both how to rule and how to be ruled on a basis of justice .... arete is defined as the finest possible expression of the inspiration of heroic strife."

6. Elie Wiesel, Nobel peace laureate, Boston Globe, October 21, 1986:

   "If you want to break out of your despair simply for your own sake, I don't think it will work. You will continue to suffer in your solitude and loneliness. But if you do it for someone else, a child even, one other person, then somehow you can find your way out."

7. On mystical union and psychosis:
   • I intuitively sense that this point is one of the critical bifurcation points that determine whether or not the behavior system that leads to the spiritual experience will remain stable: whether the searcher goes on to Union with God or to either temporary or permanent insanity. (An example of a bifurcation diagram can be accessed.)
   • A. J. Deikman also sees a kinship between the psychotic and the mystic:

     "One of the puzzling phenomena of psychosis is that of the mystical state preceding or marking the onset of many cases of acute schizophrenia. . . . the specific configurations of these states vary from case to case but they share basic features: marked heightening of sense perception; a feeling of communion with people, the world, God; intense affective response; and blurring of perceptual and conceptual boundaries. First person accounts of this type of psychotic experience are strikingly similar to reports of sensate mystical experience and suggest a similar process. In terms of the bimodal model, the experience is one of a sudden, sharp, and extreme shift to the receptive mode: decreased self-object differentiation, heightened sensory intake, and nonverbal, nonlogical thought process.

     "Both mystical and psychotic states appear to have arisen out of a situation in which the individual has struggled with a desperate problem, has come to a complete impasse, and given up hope, abandoned the struggle in despair. [italics added: My experience does not verify this phrase.] For the mystic, what emerges from the 'cloud of unknowing' or the 'dark night of the soul' is an ecstatic union with God or Reality. For the psychotic person, the world rushes in but does not become integrated in the harmony of mystico unio or satori . Instead, he creates a delusion to achieve a partial ordering and control."

     A. J. Deikman, Bimodal Consciousness, Archives of General Psychiatry , 25 (Dec 1971), 481-489.
8. On the concept of Truth:
   • I use the word Truth in the following way: the quality or state of being accurate in alignment or adjustment - used in the mechanic's or carpenter's phrase, in true or out of true.

   • Katha Upanishad I,iii,9. (Ranganatananda Translation):

     "He who has vijnana , buddhi , or Reason for his charioteer,
     And a (disciplined) manas (mind) as the reins -
     He verily attains the end of the journey:
     That supreme state of Vishnu (Brahman)."

9. Quotation of Kant in K. Jaspers, Kant(Harcourt, San Diego,1962), p90:

   "Any fragmentary attempt to become a better man is futile. The foundation of a character lies in the absolute unity of the inner principle of a man's whole life conduct. No doubt . . . there are few men who have attempted this revolution before the thirtieth year, and still fewer who have firmly established it before their fortieth."

10. I.K.Tamini, Glimpses into the Psychology of Yoga (Theosophical Pub. House, Wheaton, IL, 1976), pVII:

    "As our minds get purified and harmonized and the intuitive faculty begins to function, knowledge which we need wells up from within us, and the help and guidance which we deserve comes to us from somewhere, somehow, unasked. This is the law of spiritual life which those who tread the path of yoga should always keep in mind."

11. Prigogine and Stengers, Order Out of Chaos, 163-165. (for example, the formation of Benard cells is very much sensitive to, and dependent on, the existence of a gravitational field.):

    " . . . . matter acquires [fundamental new properties] in far-from-equilibrium conditions: external fields, such as the gravitational field, can be 'perceived' by the system . . . The important point is that . . . . this mechanism expresses an extraordinary sensitivity. The sensitivity of far-from-equilibrium states to external fluctuations is . . . . [an] example of a system's spontaneous adaptive organization to its environment."

12. From J. W. Forrester, 'Nonlinearity in High-Order Models of Social Systems', paper number D-3691-1, March 1985, System Dynamics Group, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139:

    "By shifting loop dominance we mean the process by which control of a system moves from one set of feedback loops to another set, often with dramatic changes in behavior. The several control loops will all have been present in the system from the beginning but some lie inactive until conditions trigger them into operation.

    "The processes behind the typical S-shaped growth curve serve as a simple example of shifting loop dominance. Consider a population expanding toward an upper limit to the carrying capacity of its environment. When the population is well below the limit, population expands exponentially, driven by a linear positive feedback loop in which additions to population increase in proportion to population itself. The positive feedback loop produces the initial upward-sweeping section of S-shaped growth. But as the limit to population is approached, a previously dormant linear negative feedback loop becomes active, interacts nonlinearly with the positive loop, reduces the growth rate of the positive feedback loop toward zero, and eventually takes full control to adjust population toward the limit whenever population deviates in either direction from the limit. The two loops come into operation at different times. First, the positive feedback loop of growth is in control during the early exponential growth phase. Later, the negative feedback loop exerts increasing control to neutralize the positive loop and convert the system to a goal-seeking search for an equilibrium at the population limit. Biological and social systems contain numerous structures that move in and out of dominance as forces shift."

13. Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, Finest Hour, 1939- 1941, Volume VI (Houghton Mifflin Co, Boston, 1983), 438-439.

14. On the relationship of the mind to the object:
    • Plato (Letter 7, 344a):

      "He who is not linked by a tie of kinship with the object will not acquire insight through ease of