Chapter 6: A very promising, scientific solution to Chalmers' Hard Problem (CHP) for the case of my deep religious experience of purgation.

(This very promising, scientific solution to CHP is performed by using the System Dynamics (SD)-based Feedback Phenomenological (FP) methodology to formally analyze purgation's core consciousness data residing in my long term memory (LTM). That data is associated with my ten hour religious experience of purgation. Purgation culminated in the great experience of mystical union. However, mystical union is not being analyzed here. Mystical union cannot be analyzed using SD, because mystical union is not dynamic. Eventually, my analysis of mystical union will start with the application of the first law of thermodynamics.)

Arlen Wolpert

System Dynamicist and Independent Scholar

(Draft of June 2,2008)

SUMMARY

A subjective or deep inner experience began to present itself to me at about noon on April 8,1962, nineteen days after my 30th birthday: 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. This was the very beginning of my ten hour religious experience of purgation, which culminated in the great, 4 to 7 second, experience of mystical union. During those beginning moments I was baffled: I thought, "Where is this experience within me coming from?" Right there was the key problem: Where does this experience originate? In science this problem - associated with the onset and the continuation to the end of subjective or deep inner experiences - is an example of what is now being called Chalmers Hard Problem (CHP). The four paragraphs below answer the following three questions:

1. Where did the ten hour religious experience of purgation originate?
2. Under what conditions did my subjective or deep inner experience become labeled as a ten hour religious experience of purgation?
3. How was it possible for my religious experience of purgation to proceed all the way to its ten-hour completion and then culminate in the great experience of mystical union - despite purgation's intense PsychicStress, Fear, and Anxiety?

However, it is very important to be aware that during the releasing process of a trauma the trauma's associated psychic stress, fear, and anxiety are usually too much to bear for the experiencer. He or she usually panics, has a nervous breakdown, and then develops some sort of mental illness. Therefore, in order for the experiencer to be able to deal with that psychic stress, fear, and anxiety associated with the release of a trauma, the experiencer must use prayer, religious preparedness, etc. Such activity is the Primary Purpose of Religion. That is, my blessed prayers and religious preparedness enabled me to bear the anxiety, fear, and psychic stress without panicking, having a nervous breakdown, etc. This allowed me to go through the emotional crisis and arrive at a complete abreaction or release of my trauma. Because I used prayers, etc, throughout the ten-hour release of my trauma and because the experience was rooted deeply in my heart, my spontaneous religious response has dominated my memory of the abreaction or release of my trauma.

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 phenomena. 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. 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 and 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.

I will now present how I was able to get the answers to the above three questions:

Getting the answer to Question #1: Identifying the noumena or the origin of the purgation experience.
(This is the scientific solution to Chalmers' hard problem [CHP] for the case of my deep ten-hour religious 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 transcendentally ground phenomena in a scientific way, 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, shown in Section II in Chapter 6, the SD-based FP methodology scientifically structures the data for purgation 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. The methodology is illustrated by showing how it is used 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 associated or linked 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 take the various causal loop diagrams generated for purgation in Step I and convert them into a mathematical, SD-based, flow diagram for core consciousness during purgation. That flow diagram for purgation is shown a few pages below in Figure 2. The SD flow diagram for purgation and its mathematical model enabled me 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 - shown in Figure 2 - and its associated mathematical model were able to simulate all 38 core consciousness variables associated with the ten hour experience of purgation. This was done by iteratively and patiently adjusting the preliminary mathematical model, as I strived to eventually match the various simulations with the dynamic core consciousness data in my LTM. This ten year analysis was a labor of love.
• Step III: Use Forrester's second book on the SD methodology (Forrester 1968b) to transcendentally ground the phenomena for purgation. To transcendentally ground the phenomena means to identify the noumena or the material objects in my neurophysiological system driving the phenomena. Note that those phenomena had already been organized into an accurate, SD-based, flow diagram in Step II. That accurate flow diagram is shown a few pages below in Figure 2. Now, here is how Step III, transcendental grounding, works: By studying the contents of Forrester's second book, the analyst determines that the flow diagram in Figure 2 is structured as a second-order negative feedback system (SONFS). Once this task has been accomplished, the analyst knows that the dynamics of the noumena he is searching for is structured as a SONFS, because the dynamic noumena are driving the dynamic phenomena, shown in Figure 2. For example, a promising candidate for the noumena for the case of purgation is pairs of cramped or paralyzed antagonistic muscles (probably heart muscles) that are being released or abreacted, because it is well known that the dynamics of such muscles operate as a SONFS.

My analysis of core consciousness during purgation began in 1984 and has continued steadily right up to the present time. The key breakthrough was Step III, above. It occurred in 2007. 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 use Steps I and II of the FP methodology 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. 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 transcendental objects or noumena that are the origins or driving forces of my core consciousness during purgation. This comprehensive analysis of purgation illustrates how the SD-based FP methodology was able to solve CHP for my deep inner experience of purgation.

1. In Steps I and II the SD-based FP methodology was used to construct the 38 variable SD flow diagram 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 of Chapter 6). The flow diagram in Figure 2 was completed in 1994.
2. Then, in 2007 I began to use perhaps the most critical and most important step, 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 is identified, the dynamic characteristic of the noumena is also identified.
3. Then, to determine the noumena 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 estimated 72 minute period when the spontaneous releasing of the cramped or paralyzed heart muscles occurred. That estimated 72 minute period occurred between the estimated 545 minute mark and the estimated 617 minute mark (see Figure 1 in Section II.B of Chapter 6).
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 pairs of cramped antagonistic heart muscles released during purgation.
7. Therefore, the dynamic noumena - that drove my dynamic core consciousness phenomena during purgation as a SONFS - was probably releasing a dozen or so pairs of cramped or paralyzed, antagonistic, heart muscles over an estimated 72 minute period.
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 summary of my solution to CHP for the case of purgation:

1. Determining the precise location in my heart of the cramped, antagonistic heart muscles. This is a very difficult "easy problem" (see Chalmers' statement about the easy problems of consciousness at the end of this summary).
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 at the end of this summary). 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 my SD-based, FP analysis of purgation is shown in Chapter 6, Section II.B, item 11.

Getting the answers to Questions #2 and #3:

How the experiencer of the release of the trauma was able to use his prayers and his religious preparedness to survive the oncoming PsychicStress, Fear, and Anxiety associated with the release of his trauma. During this successful survival effort, the experiencer used his prayers, his imagination, and his faith to negotiate the dangerous experience of purgation. Alas, he got through purgation with the blessed Lord at his side. Then, purgation culminated in the deep experience of mystical union.

A non-praying and unreligious experiencer would not have used those critical religious linkages in the Figure 2 flow diagram feedback loop. As a result, he would not have gotten to the ForgivenessResponse and the release of each KnotsInHeart. Instead, the unreligious experiencer would have been completely stymied, lingering with his PsychicStress and FearOfDeath. Eventually, he would have panicked and had a nervous breakdown. Avoiding such a fate is the primary purpose of religion.

Figure 2: The system dynamics model or flow diagram or noema for core consciousness during purgation or dark night of the soul:

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 getting ready to be released. All traumas ripen, but they are usually not completely released. However, 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 complete 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.)

What Is Chalmers' Hard Problem?

• Here is David J. Chalmers' (1995) statement of the hard problem:
  (For further study of the nature of the hard problem, please access Chalmers' 1994 Tucson I paper.)

  "Researchers use the word 'consciousness' in many different ways. To clarify the issues, we first have to separate the problems that are often clustered together under the name. For this purpose, I find it useful to distinguish between the 'easy problems' of consciousness and the 'hard problem' of consciousness. The easy problems are by no means trivial - they are actually as challenging as most in psychology and biology - but it is with the hard problem that the central mystery lies.

  "The easy problems of consciousness include the following: How can a human subject discriminate sensory stimuli and react to them appropriately? How does the brain integrate information from many different sources and use this information to control behavior? How is it that subjects can verbalize their internal states? Although all these questions are associated with consciousness, they all concern the objective mechanisms of the cognitive system. Consequently, we have every reason to expect that continued work in cognitive psychology and neuroscience will answer them.

  "The hard problem, in contrast, is the question of how physical processes in the brain give rise to subjective experience. This puzzle involves the inner aspect of thought and perception: the way things feel for the subject. When we see, for example, we experience visual sensations, such as that of vivid blue. Or think of the ineffable sound of a distant oboe, the agony of an intense pain, the sparkle of happiness or the meditative quality of a moment lost in thought. All are part of what I am calling consciousness. It is these phenomena that pose the real mystery of the mind."

• Here is Francis Crick and Christof Koch's insights on the solution to Chalmers' hard problem:
  (The hard problem was discussed in the December 1995 issue of Scientific American. The excerpt by Crick and Koch, below, was obtained from that article.)

  "We believe that at the moment the best approach to the problem of explaining consciousness is to concentrate on finding what is known as the neural correlates of consciousness - the processes in the brain that are most directly responsible for consciousness. By locating the neurons in the cerebral cortex that correlate best with consciousness, and figuring out how they link to neurons elsewhere in the brain, we may come across key insights into what David J. Chalmers calls the hard problem: a full accounting of the manner in which subjective experience arises from these cerebral processes."

• Here is John Searle's insights on the problem of consciousness:
  [Searle JR. 2000. Consciousness. Annual Review of Neuroscience 23:558-559.]

  "What exactly is the neurobiological problem of consciousness? The problem, in its crudest terms, is this: How exactly do brain processes cause conscious states and how exactly are those states realized in brain structures? So stated, this problem naturally breaks down into a number of smaller but still large problems: What exactly are the neurobiological correlates of conscious states (NCC), and which of those correlates are actually responsible for the production of consciousness? What are the principles according to which biological phenomena such as neural firings can bring about subjective states of sentience or awareness? How do those principles relate to the already well understood principles of biology? Can we explain consciousness with the existing theoretical apparatus or do we need some revolutionary new theoretical concepts to explain it? Is consciousness localized in certain regions of the brain or is it a global phenomenon? If it is confined to certain regions, which ones? Is it correlated with specific anatomical features, such as specific types of neurons, or is it to be explained functionally with a variety of anatomical correlates? What is the right level for explaining consciousness? Is it the level of neurons and synapses, as most researcher seem to think, or do we have to go to higher functional levels such as neuronal maps (Edelman 1989, 1992), or whole clouds of neurons (Freeman 1995), or are all of these levels much too high and we have to go below the level of neurons and synapses to the level of the microtubules (Penrose 1994; Hameroff 1998a, b)? Or do we have to think much more globally in terms of Fourier transforms and holography (Pribram 1976, 1991, 1999)?

  "As stated, this cluster of problems sounds similar to any other such set of problems in biology or in the sciences in general. It sounds like the problem concerning microorganisms: How, exactly, do they cause disease symptoms and how are those symptoms manifested in patients? Or the problem in genetics: By what mechanisms exactly does the genetic structure of the zygote produce the phenotypical traits of the mature organism? In the end I think that it is the right way to think of the problem of consciousness - it is a biological problem like any other, because consciousness is a biological phenomenon in exactly the same sense as digestion, growth, or photosynthesis."

Section I: The three step Feedback Phenomenological (FP) Methodology.

Introduction

Here is the strategy for obtaining the noumena or transcendental objects, driving the phenomena or core consciousness data in the experiencer's LTM:

1. Use Steps I and II of the three step, SD-based, FP methodology to model and simulate the phenomena. The phenomena are a collection of core consciousness data stored in the analyst's LTM during the time of the deep subjective experience. The SD-based, FP methodology then structures the phenomena (in the "natural attitude") as a multiloop nonlinear feedback system (MNFS). That structure is shown in Figure 2.
2. Use Step III to determine the order or structure of the feedback system associated with the dynamic phenomena, shown in Figure 2. That order or structure is a second order negative feedback system (SONFS). Therefore, for the case of the noumena, the order or structure of the feedback system associated with the dynamic noumena must mirror the structure of the dynamic phenomena in Figure 2.
3. Then, the analyst must find the material objects or noumena in the neurophysiological system that operate with the same behavior patterns as the phenomena. When those objects or noumena are dynamic, they will be driving core consciousness during the deep subjective experience. For example, because of the above mirroring, the FP methodology can be used to scientifically solve Chalmers' hard problem (CHP) for the case of any deep subjective experience.

Steps I and II of the SD-based FP methodology are well known to system dynamicists. For Step I see (Richardson 1981 or Sterman 2000). For Step II see (Forrester 1961). Step III is the key to the noumena, leading toward the solution to Chalmers' hard problem. To prepare yourself for using Step III, please study (Forrester 1968b). A brief summary for my entire analysis of purgation is given at the beginning of Chapter 6, which is this chapter.

Step I: Causal Loop Feedback Phenomenology (CLFP):

Step II: Mathematical Feedback Phenomenology (MFP):

Now, it is important to state here a fact psychologists are very familiar with: The dynamic data of core consciousness during deep experiences, like trauma or religious experiences, are very precisely and permanently retained in long term memory (LTM). Using this fact, which I became aware of during my experience with the CLFP step, the objective of my MFP analysis focused on constructing a formalized SD model (see Forrester 1961) that uses simulation to precisely describe my memory of the dynamics of my core consciousness data in my LTM during purgation. This key task was performed by mathematically modeling and then simulating - in an iterative way - a relatively simple set of aspects or variables of core consciousness during purgation, moment by moment, over each variable's or aspect's 10 hour duration. This iterative process was performed until the actual dynamics of each aspect or noemata of my core consciousness during purgation had been precisely described (using moment by moment simulations) and purgation's two sector structure or flow diagram or noema had been carefully determined. There are, presently, 38 variables or noemata in that formalized SD model of purgation, 23 of which are aspects of my core consciousness during purgation. This MFP analysis of purgation is given in Section II, below.

I was completely absorbed with the above two steps of this analytical process. However, the analysis took a great deal of time to complete: The CLFP period took about two years, from December 1984 to some time in 1986 or 1987; the MFP period or step took about 8 years from 1986 or 1987 to December 1994. Metaphorically, the results of the CLFP analysis could be thought of as like a model T Ford; the MFP analysis could be thought of as like taking the old model T Ford apart and rebuilding it into a more exact machine with fairly precise capabilities. Much was learned about purgation during the initial CLFP period or step. What I learned enabled me to begin the MFP step. That step is a much more serious, mathematical-based, analytical process.

The relatively simple 38 variable, two sector, MFP model of purgation, shown at Figure 2 below, could have been refined more and more as my insights grew deeper and clearer. Also, the number of variables or noemata I was using could have been increased as the variables or noemata of the MFP analysis become more comprehensive and more refined. There is no limit to the potential depth and fineness of detail of the analysis. However, one must be willing to give the time required for such a refined analysis. In 1994 I was 62 years old. Time was running out for me. I had to move on to other, more pressing, tasks.

MFP is unique. It is a formalized, first-person, mathematically-based, SD analysis of the dynamics of core consciousness data during a deep experience. Such an analysis has never been done before. Its application to purgation is the first use of the MFP methodology. The MFP analysis of purgation reveals that the SD-based MFP methodology is the keystone of the RSP, the rigorous science of philosophy (Farber 1943/2006) toward which prominent phenomenological philosophers - like Brentano and Husserl - had quested for, but had never attained. Note carefully: The CLFP and MFP analyses are SD-based analyses. SD is the underlying analytical tool of the first and second steps of the comprehensive, analytical methodology I am calling Feedback Phenomenology (FP).

So, it is important, now, to look at the SD methodology, which underlies the FP analysis, from a broad perspective for a moment. SD can be used to model and simulate the dynamics of any kind of system that is changing or moving. In this book I am focusing my SD analysis on the dynamics of my own core consciousness system during the 10 hour experience of purgation. However, core consciousness during the 4 to 7 second state of mystical union is in a timeless state: There is no change in core consciousness during the timeless and changeless state of mystical union. Therefore, neither SD or FP can be used to model and simulate a core consciousness that does not change. That is, SD cannot model and simulate a changeless, and hence a timeless, state like mystical union. Nevertheless, I believe the state of mystical union will eventually be scientifically analyzed, starting with the first law of thermodynamics (see this link for a discussion of a scientific approach for analyzing mystical union). As for the history of SD, it was conceived and developed by Jay W. Forrester (Forrester 1961). The analytical power, brilliance, and simplicity of the SD method is only one of the great achievements of Forrester's legendary career at MIT. I believe his SD methodology satisfies the requirements for being the logos, an all encompassing methodology for analyzing any kind of system that is changing or moving. The concept of the logos was first introduced by the ancient Greek philosopher, Heraclitus.

Step III: Transcendental Grounding step of Feedback Phenomenology (TGFP):

During the very important Step III the analyst examines the Figure 2 flow diagram of core consciousness during purgation, determined in Step II. In general, Step III takes the flow diagram, developed in Step II, and then determines the noumenon or the part of the experiencer's neurophysiological system that is driving the moment by moment change going on in the experiencer's core consciousness. Step III is finding out or diagnosing what was actually going on within my body physically or materially or neurophysiologically or behavioristically. In particular it was finding the particular part of my neurophysiological system that was driving my core consciousness during purgation.

To obtain the identity of the transcendental object, to know its location, and to understand its dynamics, the analyst used the order of the FP model of core consciousness during purgation - determined in Step II. In Step II the analyst found that the order of the SD model of purgation was a second order negative feedback system (SONFS). It turns out that the dynamics of muscles have this very same type of feedback system. This insight enables the analyst of purgation to search for muscles that were being released. If they are found, they are the muscles driving core consciosness during purgation. Those muscles would have the kind of dynamics within the experiencer's body that mirrors the dynamics of the experiencer's core consciousness. The analyst of purgation then uses this insight, together with the help of consultants, such as a neuroscientist and a cardiovascular expert to determine both the kind of moving part and the moving part's specific location in the experiencer's neurophysiological system. After working alone with the SD technique of Step III for the case of purgation since 2007, it was stated just above that I presently believe the specific location of the moving part in my neurophysiological system is at a point where cramped antagonistic heart muscles were being abreacted or released. That is the dynamic noumenon or transcendental object that is driving core consciousness during purgation.

• In Step I of the FP methodology the analyst used the SD-based, causal loop technique to search through the dynamic data of extended consciousness and core consciousness during the analyst's five year religious crisis, leading up to the religious experience of purgation and mystical union (PMU). This data is stored in the analyst's LTM. He then drew on the core consciousness data from his LTM, using the SD-based causal loop technique, to begin constructing a very preliminary feedback system for core consciousness during the five year religious crisis. This is the initial, orientation step of the analysis of purgation. It is not scientific, but I found it to be a very insightful and natural way to begin modeling core consciousness during purgation. Step I opened up the memory of my religious experience, a memory that had laid dormant for 22 years. Those 22 years occurred between 1962, when I experienced PMU at the age of 30, and 1984, when I began recalling core consciousness during purgation from my LTM. Step I is called Causal Loop Feedback Phenomenology (CLFP).
• In Step II the analyst began using the insights gained from Step 1 to begin constructing an SD-based, formalized, scientific model of the dynamic, core consciousness system operating during purgation. Eventually, as the data in the analyst's LTM was, iteratively, perceived more and more precisely, the resulting 38 variable SD model structures core consciousness during purgation as a multiloop nonlinear feedback system (MNFS). This structure has the same structure as the neurophysiological system underlying consciousness. From this model, the analyst was able to simulate - more and more accurately - the varying intensity and the varying dynamics of each of those 38 variables. Those variables represented the simultaneously operating aspects of core consciousness, operating moment by moment during purgation. This magnificent Step II is called Mathematical Feedback Phenomenological (MFP). This MFP analysis gives a precise MNFS model of core consciousness during purgation and a, moment by moment, dynamic description of purgation, based on moment by moment simulations of each of the 38 variables or aspects of core consciousness during the 10 hour experience of purgation.
• Step III is an uncompromising search for the dynamic transcendental object. Step III is called Transcendental Grounding Feedback Phenomenology (TGFP). An example of the Step III procedure is given in the abstract associated with the solution to Chalmers hard problem (CHP) for the case of purgation.

Section II: How Steps I, II, and III of the Feedback Phenomenological (FP) methodology are used to analyze the deep subjective religious experience of purgation.

Introduction

Normal, everyday, experiences are dynamic and appear to be 100% dominated by extended consciousness. Deep or traumatic or religious experiences also appear to be dynamic, but they are dominated by core consciousness. During the experience of purgation the experiencer's consciousness is almost 100% dominated by core consciousness. On the other hand, consciousness during the 4 to 7 second state of mystical union does not change. It is not dynamic and, therefore, cannot be modeled and simulated. The focus of the FP analysis of purgation, presented in this paper, is on core consciousness. Extended consciousness has been bracketed out. (To more fully sense or understand the first and second paragraphs, it is necessary to carefully study my narrative of PMU in Chapters 1, 2, and 3 of my book manuscript.)

This deep religious experience of PMU occurred in 1962 when I was 30 years old. My memory of that great experience never fades. It is well known that deep and traumatic experiences, like my religious experience, never fade. They are only repressed. Indeed, every moment by moment detail of core consciousness during that religious experience can be remembered, even now after all the years since it was first recalled in 1984. Most of the time the experiencer does not attempt to recall the experience of PMU. Most of the time he or she is distracted by social or worldly or less important personal matters.

My FP analysis of purgation has been proceeding in the following way:

• Between 1984 and 1999 I used Steps I and II of the SD-Based FP methodology to mathematically model and simulate core consciousness during purgation. The reason I was able to do this was because the SD methodology structures all systems, in this case my core consciousness system, as a multiloop nonlinear feedback system (MLNF). This is the same structure as the neurophysiological system underlying core consciousness.
• Then, during the period between the Summer of 2007 and the Spring of 2008 I have been using Step III during my attempt to transcendentally ground the experience of purgation in my neurophysiological system. My work indicates that purgation and mystical union (PMU) were what was experienced during the successful abreaction or release of my trauma. Please note that the religious experience (e.g. the phenomena that are experienced in core consciousness) and the abreaction of the trauma (e.g. the release of noumena or sets of cramped or paralyzed heart muscles caused by the trauma) occur simultaneously. Therefore, purgation and mystical union are what I experienced during the successful abreaction of my trauma. (I believe the energy release associated with the abreaction or release of the trauma is the key to the understanding of mystical union.)
• The work described above indicates that my completed experience of purgation culminating in mystical union is the sign of the successful release or abreaction of the trauma that I had experienced when I was 9 or 10 years old. Also, it indicates that the abreaction did not cause my nervous system to degenerate by way of a nervous breakdown.
• However, the development of my heart had been arrested for 20 or 21 years, from the age of 9 or 10 to the age of 30, because of the existence of cramped or paralyzed muscles in my heart during those 20 or 21 years. Therefore, after mystical union I had to go through a long religious process that has led either to the overcoming of my arrested development (see Chapter 4) or to learning how to live with that arrested development.

Purgation culminating in mystical union (PMU) is central to all major religions. It is stage 11 and 12 of my fourteen stage religious crisis shown at Table I, below. Table I also gives the names of stages 11 and 12 in the language of a few other major cultures or religions.

FP is a marriage between system dynamics (SD) and Edmund Husserl's phenomenology (Husserl 1982). After FP's development since 1984, it appears to me that FP is slowly becoming the rigorous, presuppositionless science of philosophy for which Husserl and his teacher, Brentano, strived for throughout their careers in phenomenology, but never attained. I believe FP is becoming the rigorous and presuppositionless science, because the FP methodology uses SD to make a formalized mathematical analysis of my own core consciousness during purgation and because the analysis is testable (see item 11 in Section II.B, below). Essentially, the FP method coordinates the SD analysis of purgation with some of Husserl's phenomenological concepts and some of his philosophical ideas. These results are leading toward an integrated many dimensional understanding of the great religious experience that is at the heart of all religions. This many dimensional understanding includes: neuroscience, cognitive science, consciousness studies, physics, system dynamics, integration of science and religion studies, phenomenology, philosophical studies, psychiatry, psychology, cultural anthropology, and religious studies.

Section II.A: How Step I of the FP methodology is used to analyze core consciousness during my experience of purgation.

Section II.B: How Step II of the FP methodology is used to scientifically analyze core consciousness during my experience of purgation

Figure 2: The system dynamics model or flow diagram or noema for core consciousness during purgation or dark night of the soul:

1. The architecture of the model in Figure 2:
   The architecture of the model of core consciousness during purgation has a quickly operating (milleseconds to seconds) parallel processing cognitive mechanism in the upper sector that interacts with a relatively slow system (seconds to hours) in the lower sector. The former originates in the thalamocortical system and is nonconscious; the latter originates in the limbic-brain stem and neurocirculatory system and is mostly conscious. Jackendoff (1987) calls the former the computational mind and the latter the phenomenological mind. Communication between these two sectors of the model is provided by about seven transducers or transition variables, six of which are associated with prayer and attention and one of which is a kind of energy within the mind (PsychicEnergyFactor). These transducers are conscious.

   All of the conscious variables in the lower sector of the model are named in what Husserl called the 'natural attitude.' For example, KnotsInHeart is not a thing. It has no reality as such. There are no knots in the heart, but there may be cramped or paralyzed muscles in the heart. Thus, naming the variables in the natural attitude means the name it feels like to the experiencer as he recalls his core consciousness during the 10 hour experience of purgation. It is not the name of what is actually going on in the experiencer's body. Thus, simulating the variables of purgation in the natural attitude is a way to present a moment by moment description of my experience of purgation.

   Thus, the model's representation for my core consciousness (Damasio 1999) is shown in the lower sector. The intentionality of consciousness during purgation is about a somatosensory mental image. This mental image is about the heart opening against a resistance in the form of knots in the heart. This mental image does not exist. Using the insights of Meinong (1904), Husserl's Transcendental Phenomenology labels such intentionality, 'intentional inexistence.' The mental image does not exist, because it is not a material object. Further, hearts are not opened and they don't have knots. However, eventually, in the second phase of the FP analysis, the SD-based FP analysis finds that what exists are antagonistic heart muscles. Even though the mental image does not exist, it can be modeled and simulated because there is a one to one relationship between the movement of the heart muscles and the dynamics of the mental image. The mind uses the imagination to convert the movement of the heart muscles to the dynamics of the mental image. That is why it is called a somatosensory mental image. There is a saying that a picture is worth 1000 words. For a person experiencing the incredibly stressful and fearful dark night of the soul or purgation, a mental image is worth 1000 neurophysiological facts. Hence, in the crisis of purgation the mind uses a somatosensory mental image. An image makes it easier and quicker for the mind to comprehend and to act or respond to the essentials of what is sensed within. Variables of the model associated directly with the somatosensory mental image include HeartOpenness, KnotsInHeart, FearDeathDueToKnot, and the set of feedback loops associated with them. ForgivenessResponse, PsychicStress, and OpeningPressure are also associated with this mental image. A simulation of these conscious variables allows us to get a good description - in the natural attitude - of core consciousness and how it is driven, moment by moment, during the stressful and fearful experience of purgation.

   The 11 variables representing the nonconscious cognitive mechanism are located in the upper part of the model, above a semicircle that goes just above KnotOriginInsight, AttentionalFocus, and PsychicEnergyFactor. I conceived or invented this cognitive mechanism sector and use it, because it is able to work well with the lower part of the model. Eventually, this cognitive mechanism sector will be replaced by a model developed by scientists in the field of cognitive science. At present we must use my invented model. It incorporates the concept of redundancy from engineering; Miller's (1956) concepts from information theory concerning channel capacity and recoding; Miller's 'magical number seven' used in cognitive science; and the retrieval accuracy of short term memory concept developed by Schouten and Bekker (1967), Wickelgren (1979), and Luce (1986). The concept of redundancy comes into play during mystical union when the primary information processor shuts down and the background information processor takes over in its place. How the model of consciousness operates when time stops during mystical union will be discussed more fully in items 4 and 5, below.

   Preliminary definitions of each of these variables are given by the 38 variable (11 in the upper sector, 27 in the lower sector) mathematical model, shown in item 6 below. The constants in the equations and the table functions have been tuned to give an accurate simulation of the 10-hour Dark Night or purgative stage right up to the moment just preceding mystical union. Of the 38 variables, 23 are aspects of core consciousness. All 23 are located in the lower sector. The simulations of these 23 aspects of core consciousness are all simultaneous. For example, simultaneously, the experiencer (myself) was conscious of the dynamics or change of the following aspects of core consciousness during purgation: the rise in the opening pressure on my heart, an opening heart, the presence of a knot in my heart and the removal of a knot, the rise and fall of the intensity of fear of death and psychic stress, the rising intensity and falling intensity of my prayer, the rise and fall of the degree of attentional focus of my mind, etc.

2. Dynamics:
   In my normal life HeartOpenness was stable at 5% of maximum possible openness and there were a stable set of twelve KnotsInHeart. This is shown at Time=0 in the simulation at Figure 1 at item 3, below. (Keep in mind that these numbers are only my best estimates: the initial value of HeartOpenness could have been anywhere from 2% to 10% or 15%; the initial value of KnotsInHeart could have been anywhere between 8 and 15 knots.) However, just after the beginning of the Dark Night or purgation (Time>0), the phenomenological mind undergoes a change in such a way that OpeningPressure jumps from its NormalOpening Pressure of 5% all the way up to 80%. This is reflected by the fact that I have programmed AdditionalOpeningPressure to go from 0 to 75% at Time = 0. To understand the initial dynamics of the model at this point, keep in mind that the flow diagram for the 10-hour experience of purgation shown in Figure 2 has, at present, only two sectors. Eventually, the flow diagram or noema of core consciousness for the entire religious crisis may have 3 or more sectors. Therefore, the step input from AdditionalOpeningPressure is assumed to come from or originate in either a shift in loop dominance (Forrester 1985) or a bifurcation (Strogatz 1994) associated with a projected, but not yet modeled, adjacent sector or sectors. This step input causes limbic-brain stem variables in Figure 2, such as HeartOpenness, PsychicStress, FearDeathDueToKnot, KnotsInHeart and the like, to change or become dynamic, all coordinated by way of the feedback loops in the structure.

   KnotsInHeart, HeartOpenness, and the three memories in the cognitive mechanism are called state variables by mathematicians. In system dynamics terminology they are called stocks or levels or accumulations. Each stock or state variable has the characteristic of accumulation, analogous to a bathtub accumulating water. Using this bathtub analogy, 'How open is the heart at this moment?' is analogous to 'How full of water is the bathtub now?' ForgivenessResponse, HeartUnfoldmentRate, PrimaryInformationProcessingRate, BackgroundInformationProcessingRate, and InnerSensingRate are examples of rates. They act like either the bathtub's inlet faucets or outlet drains. Whether the faucet is an inlet faucet or outlet drain is indicated by the large arrowhead. (Eliminate the darkened arrowhead and use the open arrowhead to indicate the direction of flow of the thing or entity that is passing through the 'faucet'.) The much smaller arrowheads indicate the direction of causation. For example, the arrows coming from PrayerTrueness and PrayerIntensity and pointing at PrayerQuality indicate that the first two variables determine the value of PrayerQuality at any time. Specifically, the mathematical model gives the following definition of PrayerQuality:

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

   When PrayerQuality reaches 100%, which is the 'forgiveness threshold', the ForgivenessResponse is triggered and one KnotInHeart is removed in a ratchet-like fashion. (The knot is removed, rather than added, because the undarkened arrowhead points away from the KnotsInHeart stock.) Action then shifts to a negative feedback loop associated with HeartOpenness and PsychicStress: The removal of this one knot begins to unseal the restricted and rigid or tight heart, causing PsychicStress to decrease rapidly, which then causes the HeartUnfoldmentRate 'faucet' to open. This causes HeartOpenness to fill or open further, causing PsychicStress to rise again as the heart begins to encounter the next knot. As a result FearDeathDueToKnot, and then PrayerIntensity, and WillfulAttention, begin to rise again. The rise in fear and attention leads to a shift in loop dominance: Action shifts to the cognitive mechanism, which is essentially a negative feedback loop concerned with solving the problem of the origin of the knot (Ellis 1995). The fear and attention driven PrimaryInformationProcessingRate in the cognitive mechanism speeds up, leading to an increase in KnotOriginInsight. This increasing insight is concerned with the solution to the following problem: What is the particular sin, guilt, or hatred that is at the origin of this next knot? The gradual solution to this problem and my gradual acceptance of this solution leads to greater PrayerTrueness and then greater PrayerQuality until the latter reaches the 'forgiveness threshold,' triggering the ForgivenessResponse again. Then, the next knot cycle begins.

3. A closer look at the knot removal mechanism:
   

   Figure 3: Two-minute simulation of four of the 23 aspects of core consciousness during the Dark Night of the Soul or purgation:

   

   The four simulations in Figure 3 above focuses in on a two-minute period between the 607 and 609 minute marks. This two minute period occurs during the 72 minute unstable period shown in Figure 1, between the 545 and 617 minute marks. This 72 minute unstable period is the period during which all 12 KnotsInHeart are purged. Once all the 'knots' have been purged, mystical union occurs during the 617th minute. My experience of mystical union has enabled me to estimate that it lasted anywhere from 4 to 7 seconds.

   Figure 1: 960 minute simulation of four of the 23 aspects of core consciousness during purgation or dark night of soul:

   

   Please note that in Figure 3 and Figure 1 I am showing the simulations of variables such as Time, FearOfDeath, etc. with 5 place accuracy (e.g., 607.84 minutes, 87.2%), but obviously I can not recall consciousness during my experience with such accuracy. What I am actually doing is making these kinds of simulations and then stepping back and evaluating if this simulation compares well with my memory of the actual experience. If it does not compare well, I either change a constant in the mathematical model shown at item 6, below, or, if the situation calls for it, I change the structure of the model shown in Figure 2. Then, I resimulate until all the simulations of variables simultaneously match the experience. Please bear with me on my use of 5 place accuracy. Engineers do things like this; scientists don't like it. The engineer is focused on the first 2 or 3 digits. He is thinking: "Maybe the 4th and 5th digit can be used when converting from hours to minutes to seconds, etc. It wouldn't hurt to use 5 digits." This iterative process took me many, many months, but it was a labor of love. During this iterative process I was recalling the sacred and fascinating experience of purgation and mystical union in finer and finer detail.

   Thus, Figure 3 above shows a simulation of an intense two-minute period of the Dark Night of the Soul or purgation during which the 5th, 4th, and 3rd knots in the heart were purged. For example, the 4th from the last knot is removed at the 607.84 minute mark as shown by curve 1. Then begins the 3rd from last knot removal period, a 47 second period from the 607.84 to the 608.63 minute mark, during which curve 4, FearDeathDueToKnot, rises because of rising PsychicStress caused by the heart opening against the knot restriction variable, MaximumBearableUnboundedness (see Figure 2). This fear and trembling associated with a rising FearDeathDueToKnot leads to a rise in PrayerIntensity. Note: when a rising PrayerIntensity is approaching 100% it is like the prayer intensity of a drowning man, when he is about to go down for the last time. PrayerTrueness is insightful, focused prayer. When PrayerTrueness is approaching 100%, it is like the trueness one feels when a rackety complex machine is carefully adjusted by a skilled mechanic and begins to hummm or run true. (PrayerTrueness's simulation and PrayerIntensity's simulation are not shown in Figure 3.) PrayerQuality, shown as curve 2, is made up of both PrayerIntensity and PrayerTrueness (see equation 1 on the previous page).

   At the end of this 47 second period, just before the removal of the 3rd from last knot at the 608.63 minute mark, is the culminating point of the 3rd knot removal period when, in fear and trembling, the mystic-to-be accepts in the depths of his heart the deep insight into his sin, hatred, or guilt. This high value of PrayerTrueness is what is needed to bring PrayerQuality to 100%, the 'forgiveness threshold,' and trigger the ratchet-like action of the ForgivenessResponse, causing the removal of the 3rd from last knot at the 608.63 minute mark.

   Then FearDeathDueToKnot drops suddenly from 87.2% of maximum all the way down to around 1% of maximum. At that relatively peaceful and blissful state of core consciousness there is extreme thankfulness to the Lord. This extreme thankfulness comes about because the blessed Lord has answered his earnest prayer, granted forgiveness, and thus saved the pilgrim from impending death due to the stress, anxiety, and fear caused by the third from last knot.

   "Forgetful of myself,
   My head reclined on my Beloved,
   The world was gone
   And all my cares at rest,
   Forgotten all my grief among the lilies."
   (from the 'Dark Night' by John of the Cross).

   Then the 2nd or next to last knot period begins, as the cycle repeats itself in this purgation or dark night of the soul. Meanwhile, TruenessOfMind (curve 3) is rising inexorably as the knots are purged, leading eventually to mystical union after the last knot is removed.

4. Dynamics associated with mystical union:
   The flow diagram or model in Figure 2 incorporates the controversial idea that mystical union cannot occur by WilledAttention alone. To do that, it brings into play what I am calling NaturalAttention. It works like this: At the end of the purgation all twelve knots had been purged from my heart and the heart was opening, paced by the HeartAdjustmentTime. Because there were no longer any KnotsInHeart now, PsychicStress and hence FearOfDeath and hence WilledAttention had all dropped to zero. AttentionalFocus was increasing now only because of a rise in NaturalAttention. The rise in NaturalAttention had resulted from a pure, knot-free heart (KnotsInHeart = 0) that had caused TruenessOfMind to go into an exponential rise. The rise in TruenessOfMind was exponential, rather than sudden, because of the smoothing factor (Forrester 1961) in the equation for TruenessOfMind (see its equation in the mathematical model in section 6, below). The resulting powerful and increasing NaturalAttention and then increasing AttentionalFocus caused a steady decreasing of the RetentionTime in short term or working memory. As the RetentionTime decreased, RetrievalAccuracy associated with short term memory decreased until it eventually reached the 'insufficient accuracy' shutoff point. This triggered the PrimaryInformationProcessor in the cognitive mechanism to shut down. (See the equation for PrimaryInfoProcRate in the mathematical model shown in section 6.) However, because of redundancy built into the cognitive mechanism, cognition immediately switched over to the BackgroundProcessor. The shutdown in the PrimaryInformationProcessor caused the cessation of all inner sense, including the inner sense of time, the ability to think, imagine, will, and make immediate recall. My conjecture here is that these are all associated solely with the PrimaryInformationProcessor. This conjecture is based on my experience during the moment of transition from purgation into mystical union. During the 4 to 7 seconds of shutdown I found myself in the timeless state of mystical union. This is indicated when the value of the artificial output variable, ReadinessForUnion, goes off to infinity.

5. The background processor:
   The kind of consciousness that is associated with what I am calling the background Processor is a timeless and unchanging state. This state has been known by all people who have experienced mystical union, samadhi, etc. Thus, this state of consciousness has been known of for millenniums: Hindus have called it the purusha or saksin; ancient Greeks have called it nous; Spinoza called it 'that part of the mind that is eternal.' Husserl appears to have called it the pure ego, but I am not sure of that. The cessation of operation of the primary information processor during mystical union left the pilgrim without the sense of inner time and the ability to think, imagine, will, and make immediate recall. However, during this state of mystical union the background processor - working automatically - allows the pilgrim to timelessly and consciously be aware of the unsurpassable greatness for a duration that lasted anywhere from 4 to 7 seconds. Awareness of this unsurpassable greatness is my idea of the knowledge of God. The background processor processes and records that observed information into LongTermMemory2. Later, when the experiencer (who is now what I define as a mystic) descends from the state of mystical union and correspondingly the primary information processor returns to operation, the mystic can use the primary processor to recall the information recorded by the background processor about mystical union. That is because information processed and stored in long term memory by the background processor during mystical union is preconscious. That is, the information is permanently available for conscious recall.

6. Mathematical model for purgation:
   
   • HeartOpenness(t) = HeartOpenness(t - dt) + (HeartUnfoldRate) * dt
     INIT HeartOpenness = 5
   • HeartUnfoldRate = (OpeningPressure-AveragePsychicStress)*((100-HeartOpenness)/100)/HeartAdjustTime
   • KnotsInHeart(t) = KnotsInHeart(t - dt) + (- ForgivenessResponse) * dt
     INIT KnotsInHeart = 12
   • ForgivenessResponse = IF (PrayerQuality is greater than or equal to 100) THEN (1/DT) ELSE 0
   • LongTermMemory1(t) = LongTermMemory1(t - dt) + (PrimaryInfoProcRate) * dt
     INIT LongTermMemory1 = 0
   • PrimaryInfoProcRate = IF (STMRetrieveAccuracy is less than or equal to 0.5) THEN (0) ELSE (ShortTermMemory*STMRetrieveAccuracy*RecodingFactor/STMRetentionTime)
   • LongTermMemory2(t) = LongTermMemory2(t - dt) + (BackgroundInfPrRate) * dt
     INIT LongTermMemory2 = 0
   • BackgroundInfPrRate = InnerSensingRate-PrimaryInfoProcRate
   • ShortTermMemory(t) = ShortTermMemory(t - dt) + (InnerSensingRate - BackgroundInfPrRate - PrimaryInfoProcRate) * dt
     INIT ShortTermMemory = 7
   • InnerSensingRate = 4200
   • AdditionalOpenPress = 75
   • AttentionalFocus = (WilledAttention+NaturalAttention)*.025
   • AveragePsychicStress = SMTH1(PsychicStress,25)
   • CognitAbilityFactor = 1
   • InformationProcessingRate = IF (STMRetrieveAccuracy is less than or equal to 0.5) THEN BackgroundInfPrRate ELSE PrimaryInfoProcRate
   • HeartAdjustTime = 240*HeartRigidityFactor
   • KnotOriginInsight = .1*PrimaryInfoProcRate
   • MaxBearableUnboundedness = 10/SealmentOfSoul
   • NaturalAttention = TruenessOfMind + 36
   • NormOpenPressure = 5
   • OpeningPressure = NormOpenPressure + AdditionalOpenPress
   • PrayerIntensity = FearDeathDueToKnot
   • PrayerQuality = .5*(PrayerIntensity+PrayerTrueness)
   • PrayerTrueness = KnotOriginInsight
   • PsychicEnergyFactor = (100+HeartOpenness)/100
   • Rapture = HeartOpenness
   • Ratio = UnboundednessOfSoul/MaxBearableUnboundedness
   • ReadinessForUnion = .00001/(STMRetentionTime-(1/600))^2
   • RecodingFactor = (PsychicEnergyFactor*CognitAbilityFactor*((LongTermMemory1/140000)^(2/3)))+1
   • STMRetentionTime = (4/60)/AttentionalFocus
   • TruenessOfMind = 50/SMTH1(KnotsInHeart,1)
   • WilledAttention = FearDeathDueToKnot
   • FearDeathDueToKnot = GRAPH( (PsychicStress))
     (0.00, 0.00), (10.0, 0.00), (20.0, 1.00), (30.0, 5.00), (40.0, 20.5), (50.0, 85.5), (60.0, 97.0), (70.0, 98.0), (80.0, 98.5), (90.0, 99.0), (100, 99.5)
   • HeartRigidityFactor = GRAPH(KnotsInHeart)
     (0.00, 0.05), (1.20, 0.05), (2.40, 0.05), (3.60, 0.06), (4.80, 0.07), (6.00, 0.11), (7.20, 0.17), (8.40, 0.28), (9.60, 0.44), (10.8, 0.67), (12.0, 1.00)
   • PsychicStress = GRAPH(Ratio)
     (0.00, 0.00), (0.1, 1.00), (0.2, 4.00), (0.3, 9.00), (0.4, 16.0), (0.5, 25.0), (0.6, 36.0), (0.7, 49.0), (0.8, 64.0), (0.9, 81.0), (1, 100)
   • SealmentOfSoul = GRAPH(KnotsInHeart)
     (0.00, 0.0001), (1.20, 1.70), (2.40, 3.20), (3.60, 5.50), (4.80, 8.40), (6.00, 12.0), (7.20, 19.0), (8.40, 29.0), (9.60, 44.0), (10.8, 66.0), (12.0, 100)
   • STMRetrieveAccuracy = GRAPH(STMRetentionTime)
     (0.00, 0.00), (0.00167, 0.00), (0.00333, 0.005), (0.005, 0.01), (0.00667, 0.02), (0.00833, 0.04), (0.01, 0.115), (0.0117, 0.275), (0.0133, 0.47), (0.015, 0.61), (0.0167, 0.725), (0.0183, 0.8), (0.02, 0.84), (0.0217, 0.87), (0.0233, 0.895), (0.025, 0.92), (0.0267, 0.94), (0.0283, 0.955), (0.03, 0.965), (0.0317, 0.968), (0.0333, 0.971), (0.035, 0.974), (0.0367, 0.977), (0.0383, 0.981), (0.04, 0.984), (0.0417, 0.987), (0.0433, 0.99), (0.045, 0.993), (0.0467, 0.996), (0.0483, 0.999), (0.05, 1.00)
   • UnboundednessOfSoul = GRAPH(HeartOpenness)
     (0.00, 0.022), (10.0, 0.023), (20.0, 0.027), (30.0, 0.044), (40.0, 0.11), (50.0, 5.20), (60.0, 49.0), (70.0, 100), (80.0, 100), (90.0, 100), (100, 100)

   Use a dt of .005 minutes.

7. The FP analysis of deep experiences like purgation has three steps:
   • In Step I, FP uses the powerful SD methodology to structure my core consciousness during the experience of purgation as a multiloop nonlinear feedback system. This produces the flow diagram or noema for purgation shown below in Figure 2 of phase I of the FP analysis. The mathematical model associated with the flow diagram in Figure 2 is shown in section 6 of phase 1. This mathematical model is able to simulate the dynamics of core consciousness for each of the 38 variables of the flow diagram for the deep experience of purgation. Seven of those 38 simulations are shown below in Figure 1 and Figure 3 of phase 1. Husserl would have called the 38 core consciousness variables the noesis of purgation. Core consciousness is the dominant kind of consciousness during such deep and profound experiences. It just so happens that core consciousness is also simpler, and hence easier, to model than ordinary consciousness (Damasio calls ordinary consciousness, extended consciousness). Therefore, the result of this first phase of the FP analysis of purgation is both the structure of core consciousness during the experience and an accurate, simulated description of core consciousness during the experience. This FP analysis of core consciousness during purgation is performed using variables that are labeled in the form of Husserl's natural attitude terminology. For example, the variable, representing the scientific reality during purgation concerning the number of cramped or paralyzed muscles in my heart is called (in the natural attitude) KnotsInHeart. The SD flow diagram or noema uses the natural attitude labeling all 38 variables. As a result, the 38 variables are able to both describe my experience of purgation and represent the feedback structure or flow diagram of core consciousness during the experience of purgation. Among other things the structure aids in identifying the intentional object or objects. For example, in the mathematical model (shown in section 6 below) the intentional objects are represented by the state variables. In the flow diagram the intentional objects are represented by the rectangular boxes, shown in the diagram in Figure 2. In SD these rectangular boxes are called either stocks or levels or accumulations.
   • In Step II of the FP analysis, the analyst uses both the noema and simulations of the 38 variables of the noesis that were generated in phase I to guide him or her toward a penetration to the physical reality underlying core consciousness: to the neurophysiological and behavioristic correlates of core consciousness during the experience. These correlates eventually lead to the very specific neural correlates of core consciousness. At the moment when the neural correlates are determined in the FP analysis, the analyst is finally dealing with something that actually exists (i.e., something that is a material object). I will need a group of neuroscientists to help me with determining these neural correlates, etc.
   • In the third phase, these neural correlates of core consciousness during the experience of purgation will be used to test the FP analysis. This test will be done by first predicting, and then verifying by testing, the direction of information flow in the neural correlates. The predicting would be made using the results of phase I and phase II of the FP analysis of purgation.
   • Then, in the fourth phase, the FP analyst finally begins to understand the deep experience or the trauma from a broad and more profound perspective. At the end of the FP analysis the analyst has penetrated to the physical reality underlying the experience, understands the delusion associated with the trauma or deep experience, and has a deep, broad, and comprehensive understanding of the scientific origin, reality, and meaning of the experience. For example, I found out to my great surprise that the dynamics of core consciousness during the experience of PMU is reflecting the abreaction or release - at the age of 30 - of a childhood sexual trauma that I had experienced way back when I was 9 or 10 years old. I found out that the releasing or purging of the effects of my childhood sexual trauma, which were the releasing of pent up and cramped or paralyzed heart muscles, is what was occurring in my body during this deep religious experience of purgation that occurred when I was 30. Thus, PMU is what I experienced during the abreaction of my childhood sexual trauma. This releasing or purging of a pent up trauma is the origin and driving force behind the experience of purgation. The understanding of purgation then leads toward an understanding of mystical union.

8. Neurophysiological correlates:
   • By using the phenomenological concept of intentionality, I am finding that my experience of purgation is about the dynamic mental image of my heart opening against a resistance in the form of knots in my heart. Notice that hearts actually, or physically, don't open and they don't have knots, but that's what it feels like during purgation. As a result my consciousness conveyed that feeling to me during purgation by way of such a mental image. Husserl came up with the term, 'the natural attitude,' for the lucid way core consciousness conveys such feelings to the experiencer.
   • In phenomenology such a mental image is said to have intentional inexistence: That means the mental image does not exist. The image is not a physical object. What exists is some sort of dynamic or moving part within the experiencer's body. The key is to find out what that moving part is.
   • Sherrington (1906) stated that:

     "the contractions of particular sets of muscles in the heart must entail the suppression of activity of other muscles for coordinated movements of the heart to emerge."

   • Now, put together the following: firstly, Sherrington's statement, above, about how muscles in the heart operate; secondly, the simulated dynamic mental image of knot removal in Figure 3, modeled in Figure 2; and, thirdly, how the experiencer is conscious that the heart is opening against a resistance in the form of a knot in the heart in Figure 3 and Figure 1 has led me to the conclusion that the dynamic or moving part in my heart during purgation is antagonistic heart muscles. These heart muscles, working together with my imagination, produced the mental image in my core consciousness. This dynamic mental image is called a somatosensory mental image. Even though this somatosensory mental image does not exist, it can be modeled and simulated because there is a one to one relationship between the changes in the mental image and the movement of the antagonistic heart muscles.
   • Thus, the FP analysis of purgation finds this moving part is located within the heart and it moves just like two antagonistic muscles would move. It is like a two muscle assembly, each of the two muscles working against each other. The muscle or muscles associated with KnotsInHeart are controlled by the parasympathetic nervous system and the muscle or muscles associated with HeartOpenness are associated with the sympathetic nervous system. Because this moving assembly is in the heart, the feelings are very sensitive to it.
   • Working with the imagination, the antagonistic muscles drive the mind to produce a mental image in the 'natural attitude.' That is the kind of mental image that the mind can work with when it wills, prays, imagines, etc. during purgation.
   • It is a commonplace that 'a picture is worth a thousand words.' Now, as the emerging field of consciousness studies develops scientists in that field will begin to say that 'a somatosensory mental image is worth a thousand neurophysiological facts.' The mind of a person operating in the world of action cannot deal with all the neurophysiological facts underlying core consciousness and be effective. It can only deal with things like mental images, etc. As I have explained above, Husserl termed this very efficient joint operation of the mind and its imagination, 'the natural attitude.' It conveys in a very simple way to the experiencer - via his core consciousness - important and vital information that is relevant to what is going on in his body.
   • The three points I will be making, below, are informal. I am not listing neurophysiological correlates. I am just making preliminary conjectures on how the whole neurophysiological system operates: During purgation my mind, in the 'natural attitude', appears to have worked in the following way: Once the somatosensory mental image had established its presence in my consciousness, my ego, imagination, and will were able to proceed as follows:
     • My ego used the mental image to inform or tell my hard working imagination about another job that had to be performed: to begin to deal with the removal of the 'knot.' Speaking metaphorically, my ego system told my imagination, in some incredible neurophysiological way, the following instructions: 'This knot is keeping my heart from opening and, as a consequence, is causing me great stress, anxiety, and fear of death. A scenario needs to be generated in which I can keep myself busy using my memory, imagination, and will to alleviate this stress, anxiety, and fear. I'd feel less anxiety and fear and I'd feel more in control, if I could keep busy in such a useful way. If you could do this, dear imagination, it will save me from going crazy or save me from having a nervous breakdown.'
     • My imagination then began its brilliant work. Using my memory, it generated a scenario in which a particular guilt or sin or error or hatred from the past is represented by this particular knot. On top of that my imagination then generated some simple prayers to 'the Lord' that would 'remove' the knot. These prayers were made part of the scenario.
     • Then, my will, my imagination, and my long term memory - like a band of brothers - performed the prayer to the Lord with great intensity and integrity, asking forgiveness concerning the source of the guilt, etc. This scenario kept my mind and heart and spirit sharp. It kept me busy and in control and it also kept me from panicking during purgation (see paragraph 13 in the Summary at section 2 of Chapter 5).
   • Summary for the neurophysiological correlates for Figure 4: (I need to learn much more neurophysiology before I can use the diagram of the CNS in Figure 4, below, to summarize the insights of items 1-8 of section A.)

     Figure 4: Basic circuits of the central nervous system (CNS).
     [Modification of Figure 1.3 from Stein (1982).]

     

9. Behavioristic correlates, conditioned learning, and unconditioned learning or revelation:
   1. The flow diagram or noema for core consciousness during purgation, shown in Figure 2, details the autonomous mental imagery, ideation, and mediating processes between a stimulus and a response that provides the mystic-to-be with the conditioned learning needed to become a mystic (compare Figure 2 with Figure 4). There are an estimated twelve cycles of autonomous conditioned learning, centered around the ForgivenessResponse. These twelve cycles of purgation are nested within one cycle of consummatory reinforcement due to mystical union.

      The sensory receptor of the stimulus (see Figure 4 above) is AdditionalOpeningPressure. It sends signals which cause a somatosensory stimulation of heart muscles driven by both the parasympathetic and the sympathetic system. This sympathetic stimulation tends to increase cardiac output (HeartOpenness). The parasympathetic system opposes this tendency (KnotsInHeart). This antagonistic stimulation generates the kind of somatosensory mental imagery and its associated ideation and mediating processes between the autonomous stimulation and the ForgivenessResponse that produces the conditioned learning.

      Perhaps, the most critical of purgation's autonomous ideations and mediating processes revolve around the ForgivenessResponse. For example, the threshold or limen for the ForgivenessResponse is at PrayerQuality = 100%. A rise in PrayerIntensity occurs first, but even a high value of PrayerIntensity of around 80% to 100% of maximum is still subliminal. It does not evoke a response, because the equation for PrayerQuality in the mathematical model indicates that for the ForgivenessResponse to occur there is a need for a summation at the synapse:

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

      Thus, PrayerIntensity 'sets' the ForgivenessResponse. That is, it is set in the direction of finding a way to remove the knot in the heart. Then comes the increasing subtlety of ideation originating in the central nervous system (CNS), which is associated with PrayerTrueness. PrayerTrueness incorporates ideations of sin, guilt, etc. Such ideation aids in the eventual elevation of PrayerQuality until it reaches the ForgivenessResponse threshold and elicits the response, which is the removal of a 'knot in the heart.'

      Woodworth and Ladd (1911) clarified the above sequence for the case of a cat trying to get out of a cage to get food: (words in brackets show the analogy of the cat's dilemma with the mystic-to-be's dilemma during purgation)

      "The animal [the mystic-to-be or the experiencer of PMU] desires ... to get out and reach the food [removal of knots in heart]. Whatever be his consciousness, his behavior shows that he is, as an organism, set in that direction [PrayerIntensity aimed at removing knot]. This adjustment [set] persists till the motor reaction is consummated [PrayerTrueness rises until PrayerQuality reaches 100% and the ForgivenessResponse occurs], it is the driving force in the unremitting efforts of the animal to attain the desired end [removal of knot]. His reactions are, therefore, the joint result of the adjustment [set, PrayerIntensity] and of stimuli from various features of the cage [problem solving, PrayerTrueness]. Each single reaction tends to become associated with the adjustment [set]."

      The learning is reinforced after the ForgivenessResponse by the reduction in stress (PsychicStress) and fear (FearOfDeath) and the increase of rapture (Rapture). Therefore, conditioned learning occurs for each of the 12 knots removed during the 10-hours of purgation. In addition, a structured memory trace of new neural connections is made (Hebb 1958).
   2. Then, after my FP analysis of purgation, I studied the structure of consciousness in 'the natural attitude' during purgation in the flow diagram in Figure 2, together with its simulation (see Figure 3). By this study, I was able to understand the conditioning of my mind that occurred during my religious experience of purgation. It became clear that my conditioning would not have occurred without, first, the successful removal of all the knots in the heart, and, second, purgation's culmination in the state of mystical union. If the culmination had not occurred, no culminating reinforcement to my conditioning would have occurred and, as a result, I would not have been conditioned to forgive, to love God, and to pray to God. However, the fact is I was conditioned:
      • I was conditioned to forgive twelve times, each time a knot was purged, during purgation. Mystical union then provided culminating reinforcement to this 12 cycle conditioning to forgive.
      • I was conditioned twelve times to pray to 'the Lord.' I was conditioned that if prayer is to be successful, it must be performed with all of my mind and heart and soul (PrayerIntensity). In addition, I was conditioned that prayer must be true to the very core (PrayerTrueness). I was conditioned to believe that 'the Lord' would forgive guilt, sin, error, or hatred if I prayed in this way. Mystical union then provided culminating reinforcement to this 12 cycle conditioning to pray.
      • Because of the success of prayer in removing the knot and the blessed thankfulness that followed, I was also conditioned to love God, whom I believed had saved my life (see Chapter 2). Mystical union then provided culminating reinforcement to this 12 cycle conditioning to love God.
      • In this way I believe I was conditioned during PMU to be a person who strives to live a religious life.
   3. In summary, the mystic-to-be undergoes the following conditioned learning:
      • The reinforced conditioned learning about the purgation-based aspects of the religious life: a life based on heart-centered prayer and forgiveness of sin, hatreds, guilt, etc.
      • This conditioned learning is confirmed through consummatory reinforcement by the experience of the unsurpassable greatness during mystical union.
      Later, this learning will be part of the mystic's teachings.
10. The neural correlates:

    (.... Needs to be written.....)

11. Testing the FP analysis of purgation by predicting the direction of information flow in the neurophysiological system. A scientific test of the FP analysis of purgation can be made by predicting the directionality of information flow in the neural correlates between the variables in the causal loops of the flow diagram of Figure 2. A test of these predictions, however, can only be performed when neurophysiologists and other neuroscientists are enlisted to greatly refine what is presently my rather brief set of neural correlates of consciousness for purgation. These neural correlates are assembled as part of item 8 of Section II.B of the FP analysis of purgation, just above. (Note: As for mystical union, no test can be made of that part of the FP analysis of PMU, because during mystical union the inner sense of time ceases. If the experiencer - who is also the analyst - does not experience an inner sense of time, the analyst cannot determine movement of information. Hence, the direction of the movement of information in the neurons cannot be determined for mystical union, but the neural correlates can definitely be determined for consciousness during purgation.)

    Testing of the FP analysis of purgation is analogous to the testing that validated Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. In the famous initial test of the General Theory of Relativity, first Einstein had predicted the gravitational effects of Mercury's mass on the movement of light from the Sun to the Earth during the eclipse of the Sun by Mercury. Then, a successful test confirming that prediction excited physicists throughout the world. As more and more tests confirming various other predictions became available, physicists became more and more confident in the validity of the General Theory of Relativity.

    Similarly, as the neural correlates of consciousness for purgation - or the abreaction of my trauma - become more and more refined through the help of neurophysiologists and other neuroscientists, eventually these neuroscientists can predict the direction of information flow in specific neurons at key points in the neurophysiological system of the human body, using the small arrowheads in the feedback loops in the flow diagram in Figure 2. Then the tests are as follows: Neurophysiologists examine both the physical orientation and the direction of causation in critical neurons. Then, if the predictions of direction of information flow in each critical neuron are found to be correct, scientists will become more and more confident in the validity of my analysis of purgation.

12. Understanding the reality underlying the experience of PMU (the essences, meanings, and delusions associated with purgation and mystical union.)

    A. Preliminary Insights:

    Here are some preliminary insights emerging from my scientific analysis of purgation and mystical union (PMU): Cramped or paralyzed muscles in my heart, which were caused by a childhood sexual trauma that I had experienced at the age of 9 or 10, were spontaneously released or abreacted at the age of 30 during purgation. These cramped or paralyzed muscles had been released, one by one, during those 10 hours of purgation (see Figures 1 and 3). When all of the cramped or paralyzed muscles had been released, I went into the state of mystical union.

    Now, the above comprehension of my experience of purgation is based on my scientific analysis that has been going on from December 1984 to the present time. Figures 1, 2, and 3, above, were generated during the system dynamics (SD) phase of that analysis. That system dynamics-based analysis of core consciousness during purgation finds that the flow diagram or noema for core consciousness during my experience of purgation, shown above in Figure 2, is structured as a second order negative feedback system (Forrester 1968b). At the present time I am conjecturing that the structure of a second order negative feedback system is the same structure as that which would result if one were to model the dynamics of the release of cramped muscles. Given the fact that I experienced those muscles as located in my heart, I will assume they were cramped heart muscles. Underlying that conjecture is the fact that muscles act in an antagonistic way. For example, the sympathetic system and the parasympathetic system act antagonistically on any muscle pair. So, eventually a detailed, formalized, SD analysis of the release of cramped heart muscles could be performed by a biomedical specialist, skilled in SD. If the biomedical specialist's SD model of the dynamics of muscles is shown to be a second order negative feedback system, it would indicate there is a high probability that core consciousness during the experience of purgation was transcendentally grounded in the neurophysiology of my heart muscles [look for (Kim 2003) in the bibliography for a link to the writings of the Neokantian philosopher, Paul Natorp, on transcendental grounding].

    However, an important question for the biomedical specialist is: Where were the cramped/paralyzed muscles in my heart located? I was an athlete in my youth and in college. Generally speaking, my heart was sound. Therefore, I am conjecturing that the cramped/paralyzed muscles were probably muscles associated with areas of the heart that were not directly related to the pumping action of my heart.

    B. Based on the above analysis, here is my understanding of the origin of purgation and mystical union:

    1. My FP analysis of PMU, summarized in the above Preliminary Insights section, gives a fairly good basis for conjecturing that when purgation started there were certain muscles in my heart that were cramped or paralyzed (KnotsInHeart = 12).
    2. Once I got the insight that is stated in item #1 above, the question that arose in my mind was: How did those muscles in my heart get cramped/paralyzed in the first place? My conjecture is they became cramped/paralyzed during a childhood sexual trauma that occurred in 1941 or 1942 when I was 9 or 10 years old. Am I sure of this? No, but I have no memory of any other trauma but that trauma. (My ability to remember goes back to when I was about 4 or 4 1/2 years old. It is possible my heart was cramped/paralyzed in the womb or in childbirth or during the years between my birth and 4 years old, but my conjecture that it occurred during the childhood sexual trauma is, I think, more probable.)
    3. It follows from the conjectures in items #1 and #2, above, that those cramped heart muscles had then been slowly put into more and more tension as my body and the rest of my heart grew during the period when my body matured from the age of 9 or 10 to the age of 30. So, at the age of 30 the tension in the cramped muscles would probably be like the tension in the string of a bow when it is drawn for the purpose of shooting an arrow. Following the conjectures further, during my religious experience the tension in those cramped antagonistic muscles was released, muscle by muscle or knot by knot, in 1962 at the age of 30. As the tension in the muscles was released, knot by knot, potential energy in the tense or stretched muscles was converted to the release of what Freud called 'cathectic or bound energy.' This release of the muscles and their 'bound energy' is central to the experience of purgation and mystical union and the freeing of my cramped heart. (Note: the release occurred during a vacation after having finished a stressful engineering project. It will be useful to read my narrative of that project: I had given all my mind and heart and soul to that project.)
    4. Thus, my conjecture is purgation is the sacred experience I underwent in 1962 at the age of 30 during the intense, fearful, but also blessed, release of those cramped or paralyzed