II.1. Key breakthroughs emerging from the scientific analysis of consciousness during the experience of purgation, including the proposed verification test of the analysis.:

1. First let me say that the idea of a General Theory of Religion (GTR) began for me in late 1962 while reading the Hindu sage, Vivekananda (1893). I was so interested in his writings, because I came across them in 1960 or 1961 only a year or so before I had experienced purgation and mystical union (PMU). Indeed, I carried his book, Karma Yoga and Bhakti Yoga, in my back pocket alot. Vivekananda's insights on the similarities at the sacred core of various religions deeply underlies my work on the GTR. Then, in late 1984 I began using Jay Forrester's system dynamics (SD) to formally analyze core consciousness during the 10 hour purgation phase of my religious experience. As a result of insights developed during the early phase of this SD analysis, roughly between 1984 and 1985, I began to put together Table I and the Reference section of Chapter 1 of PART I. This Table and the Reference section give further indications of the possibility of a general theory of religion.
2. Now, this book brings together all the key breakthroughs since 1984 that have emerged from my formalized SD analysis of consciousness during PMU. The analysis is beginning, and I believe will eventually lead to, the full development of both the GTR and the integration of science and religion. The development has been particularly intense since 1984. Please note, though, that all my SD-based, peer reviewed, scientific publications on religion of 1992, 2001, and 2002 and all the ideas in talks I have presented since 1992 at scientific conferences, religious conferences, and at other venues at various locations in the world have been superceded by the work presented in this book. This book begins to firmly establish the GTR on a formalized, presuppositionless scientific basis. It also begins to firmly establish a formalized system dynamics (SD) based integration of science and religion. This integration of science and religion revolution is analogous to Newton's scientific revolution. This book and all of its ideas have been in a state of constant development since 1962.
3. My SD analysis focuses on the most sacred of religious experiences: purgation culminating in mystical union. In this book I will refer to this experience as PMU. The analysis starts by using SD to model and simulate core consciousness during the first stage of PMU: my ten hour religious experience of purgation. It does this by structuring core consciousness during purgation as a multiloop nonlinear feedback system. This is the same structure as the neurophysiological system underlying consciousness during purgation. This SD analysis deeply describes the experience of purgation. As my SD analysis of purgation proceeded, it formally and presuppositionlessly justified or confirmed the idea of a GTR by ultimately finding that the experience of purgation is grounded in the human body, specifically in the release of heart muscles that had been cramped or paralyzed during a childhood sexual trauma.
4. From a philosophical perspective, if my analysis had found that consciousness during purgation was not grounded in the body, my analysis would have been philosophically labeled solipsism. Indeed, solipsism was the nature of my analysis right up to 1999. However, my SD analysis slowly progressed through the solipsism stage to where - in 1999 - I was able to discover from the details of my SD analysis that consciousness during purgation was grounded in my body. Therefore, my SD analysis has progressed from being philosophically labeled solipsism (Lane 2001) to being philosophically labeled a unique kind of scientific or phenomenological methodology.
5. This new methodology that was required to enable the above breakthrough to the GTR and to the integration of science and religion is called Feedback Phenomenology (FP). FP is the marriage of Forrester's feedback-based, system dynamics (SD) and Edmund Husserl's phenomenology. It is the realization of the rigorous science of philosophy (RSP) that the philosophers Franz Brentano and Husserl quested for but never attained throughout their long careers. It is this methodology that underlies all the breakthroughs presented here. (see both the Foreword at section II.5 of PART II and Chapter 5 in PART III).
6. Thus, my SD analysis of purgation is now a scientific, philosophical, and religious breakthrough in the understanding of purgation. As a result, scientific specialists and other types of intellectuals - such as system dynamicists, philosophers, phenomenologists, psychoanalysts, psychiatrists, psychologists, neurophysiologists, cardiovascular physiologists, cognitive scientists, biologists, evolutionary scientists, anthropologists, etc - can now converge on my SD analysis of purgation because it has been scientifically grounded in the body. Through their studies, these specialists can slowly and steadily advance the present state of the GTR and the integration of science and religion. The scientific analyses resulting from their work, together with a serious and wide-ranging religious confirmation, will lead to the clearing up of the confusion and political correctness that now dominates the intersection between science and religion. Along the way some of the above scientific studies associated with purgation will eventually lead to the neurophysiological correlates of consciousness during purgation. These neurophysiological correlates are needed to conduct the scientific test of the grounding of purgation in the body. The nature of that critical test is described in phases II and III of my Feedback Phenomenological (FP) analysis of purgation in Chapter 5 in PART III.
7. As a biproduct of the above purgation breakthrough, this book - especially Chapters 4 and 5 - is contributing toward the solution to the critical problem in the emerging field of consciousness studies: Chalmers' hard problem. My formalized, presuppositionless, system dynamics-based contribution focuses on first describing purgation by using FP to model and simulate core consciousness during my ten hour experience of purgation and then grounding that carefully described experience in the neurophysiology of the body. Both the acceptance of the scientific validity of this biproduct of the breakthrough by scientists in the science of consciousness community and the acceptance of the relevance and sacredness of my experience of purgation by sages in the religious community is key. Acceptance from both communities of my contributions to the solution of Chalmers hard problem will go a long way toward bringing science into harmony with the essence of religion.
8. In addition, I am working on a breakthrough to a scientific and religious understanding of the second stage of PMU: my sacred experience of mystical union. However, the results so far are not ripe for publication. This potential breakthrough is an attempt to scientifically ground mystical union in the body (the present state of this work on mystical union is summarized at section II.3 in PART II).
9. There are other breakthroughs or potential breakthroughs in this book, as well. For example, the primary purpose of religion has been rediscovered. The primary purpose of religion is to aid or protect people who are going through potentially nervous breakdown-producing situations. Two examples of nervous breakdown-producing situations are the intense stress, fear, and anxiety sometimes experienced by warriors ("There are no atheists in the trenches.") and the intense stress, fear, and anxiety experienced during the release or abreaction of a trauma.
10. This primary purpose of religion is explained in this book by using the second example in paragraph 9 above: The release or abreaction of the effects of a trauma. The process of releasing or abreacting the effects of a trauma is key: That process often leads to panic and a nervous breakdown. However, this nervous breakdown-producing situation is very subtle. Little is known about the release of a childhood sexual trauma and little has been written about it, but the abreaction or release of such a trauma occurs quite often. One of the problems psychologists encounter is connecting a trauma with its release. The period of time between a trauma and its release or abreaction can vary as widely as 0 years to 20 or 30 years. The specific trauma and its release or abreaction that I am studying and analyzing in this book is, of course, my own experience. That childhood sexual trauma occurred in 1941 or 1942 when I was 9 or 10. The trauma's release or abreaction occurred in 1962 when I was 30.
11. The operation of the primary purpose of religion when focused on the abreaction or release of a childhood sexual trauma is as follows: Religious prayers, feelings, and concepts can be drawn upon by a traumatized person to enable him or her to undergo that trauma's abreaction or release without panicking. By drawing upon religion in order to avoid panic during the release of a trauma, the traumatized person will not experience a nervous breakdown during the release and will not experience the psychotic life that may follow that nervous breakdown. Instead, the strangulated emotions and the physical effects, such as cramped or paralyzed heart muscles, caused by the traumatized person's trauma will be released. During this release the religious experiencer is experiencing the sacred experience, called in the West purgation or dark night of the soul. In Hinduism the same religious experience associated with the release is called overcoming samskaras, etc. When this release is completed he or she will experience an unsurpassable Greatness during the blessed and sacred experience of mystical union or what Hindus call samadhi, etc. (See the very important paragraph 12 in section II.2 in PART II. It carefully narrates how religious ideas, prayer, and imagination enable me to release the effects of the trauma without panic and without a nervous breakdown.)
12. After experiencing PMU the formerly traumatized person becomes what I will be calling a mystic. He or she goes through a redevelopment period, known in religion as "working out one's salvation with diligence." During the redevelopment period the mystic tends to remember how he or she was conditioned during the (in my case) 10 hour experience of purgation. The mystic also tends to remember the profound experience of the unsurpassable Greatness and the profound experience of his or her ego ideal during the 4 to 7 second experience of mystical union. These rememberances are of immense help to the mystic as he or she goes through this redevelopment process after PMU (see the Foreword at section II.5 in PART II).
    I believe the potential for the development of the mystic during the process of "working out one's salvation with diligence" is unlimited.
13. Now, here is a conjecture on the evolutionary origin of religion. This conjecture is based on the above insights or breakthroughs. The process associated with the evolution of religion will occur wherever primitive tribes exist throughout the world. During the time of the rapid evolution of religion, intense rivalry existed between neighboring primitive tribes. The high point of the evolution of religion process occurred at that time because religion enabled tribesmen to avoid a nervous breakdown, particularly tribesmen in small tribes. Imagine a large, rich, and powerful primitive tribe that began neglecting religion, having become overconfident after many successful battles. Note carefully: as a result of this neglect of religion the large, rich, and powerful tribe had many tribesmen who had experienced a nervous breakdown (see paragraphs 9, 10, and 11 above). Not only were these tribesmen unable to fight effectively, their presence tended to weaken the spirit and the inner structure of the tribe. Take a small, rival, neighboring tribe, one that was still focused on the primary purpose of religion and hence a tribe that had very few psychotic tribesmen: Such a tribe had a chance to invade and destroy the arrogant, proud, haughty, overconfident tribe that had neglected religion. The intense development of religion in primitive tribes at that time - and its evolutionary roots in the cardiovascular and neurophysiological system of the surviving tribesmen - makes the primary purpose of religion of paragraphs 9, 10, and 11 above, still relevant to this very day. [Already, one evolutionary scientist has confirmed this paragraph 13 conjecture on the evolutionary of religion (For more on that scientist's confirmation, see paragraph 14 in section II.2 in PART II.).]

Arlen Wolpert
November 10,2005
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