Chapter 7. The Transcendental Feedback Phenomenological Method (TFP). A discourse on my formalized method for analyzing consciousness during trauma, either the traumatic experience itself or the traumatic release of an earlier trauma.

7.1. Introduction

7.1.1. Keywords associated with TFP:

consciousness, phenomenology, meaning, philosophy, behaviorism, neurophysiology, psychiatry, religion.

7.1.2. Abstract for this chapter on TFP:

TFP is a method for examining core consciousness during either a traumatic experience or the release of the effects of an earlier trauma, including uncovering subtleties of consciousness, essences, and meanings. It applies system dynamics (SD) to convert the ideas of Husserl's Transcendental Phenomenology into a relatively simple formalized science for analyzing trauma or the release of trauma. This methodological advance positions TFP as a powerful analytical tool for clarifying and refining concepts and issues in transcendental phenomenology. It is also leading toward implementing a surge of new and insightful work in philosophy, consciousness studies, deep psychology, and religion. Key reasons why TFP succeeds are: TFP's use is illustrated in Chapter 8 by applying it to recall and analyze core consciousness during the release of an earlier trauma. In the West the religious name for this particular release of trauma is called purgation. I am calling it the purgative phase of my 16-hour religious experience. Such an analysis is leading toward a resolution the trauma associated with the release of an earlier trauma. Thus, TFP simplifies and implements the formalized search for the deepest truths of the inner life and the quest for presuppositionless foundations for science, particularly in the fields of philosophy, depth psychology, and religion.

7.1.3. Introduction to TFP.

Some philosophers, psychologists, and mystics believe that successful analysis of deep traumatic experiences is the key that leads toward understanding the essences and meanings of human existence or, at least, understanding a good deal of the essence and meaning of the traumatic experience itself. The Transcendental Feedback Phenomenological method (henceforth referred to as TFP) goes a long way toward implementing the opening up and deepening of either philosophical, deep psychological, or religious/spiritual reflection on one's own consciousness during such an experience. The first philosophical attempt at a meditation like this in the modern era was made by Descartes (Husserl 1977). Later, in the late 19th century and during the first half of the 20th century similar, but deeper, meditations by those in the field of Husserlian transcendental phenomenology (henceforth referred to as HTP); particularly Brentano (1874), his student Husserl (1931a), and the sociologist Schutz (1932, 1962), revealed much of the subtleties of consciousness. However, their work failed to put HTP on a formalized scientific basis. The great value of TFP is that it provides the key tool needed to convert Husserl's important - but abstruse and unwieldy - HTP method into a relatively simple formalized science. That tool is system dynamics (henceforth referred to as SD), a powerful and relatively simple formalized analytical technique that emerged in 1961 from intense work on servomechanisms at MIT during World War II (Forrester 1961, 1968, 1997; Richardson 1981, Sterman 2000).

In Sections 7.2 and 7.3 of this Chapter the reader is briefly introduced to the SD based TFP methodology for analyzing trauma or the release of trauma and to its phenomenological reduction and its transcendental reduction. Then, the recursive 10-step TFP method for making those two key reductions is detailed in section 7.4. Chapters 8 and 9 then illustrate how one applies the TFP methodology by making a phenomenological and transcendental reduction of the changing horizon of core consciousness during the release of trauma. This release of trauma is associated with a religious experience of mine that occurred in 1962. As you recall from the previous Chapters, that 16-hour experience occurred at the end of a 5-year religious crisis (see Table I at Chapter 1.1.1). No psychedelic drugs, anti-psychotic agents, or any other type of drug or herb were involved. In the West the experience is called purgation culminating in mystical union (henceforth referred to as PMU). Chapter 2 presents a narrative that includes the 16-hour experience of purgation and mystical union (henceforth referred to as PMU-16).

7.2. Key Concepts and Ideas:

7.2.1. What is a transcendental feedback phenomenological reduction (TFP reduction)?

  1. Both a TFP and a HTP reduction have two phases, a phenomenological reduction phase and a transcendental reduction phase. The phenomenological reduction phase refers to the reflective examination of the changing horizon of one's own core consciousness during either a deep traumatic experience or release of trauma in order to obtain the structure of core consciousness during either the trauma or release of trauma and then to describe that experience. For TFP that means using SD to structure core consciousness during the experience as a multiloop nonlinear feedback system and then mathematically modeling and simulating that core consciousness over the duration of the experience. The modeling produces the definitive SD flow diagram. Husserl called this structure the noema. The simulations result in an accurate, moment by moment, description of either the trauma or the release of an earlier trauma. Husserl called this description the noesis. The aim of the transcendental reduction is to obtain the essences and meanings of the experience. This transcendental reduction phase is carried out from as many angles or aspects or subreductions as possible. It is performed by meditating on the results of the phenomenological reduction and then ultimately intuiting the essences and meanings of core consciousness during the experience. The essences will include the very important and fundamental mental imagery and intentionality of core consciousness, together with - but not limited to - the physical, behavioristic, etc. subreductions. These intuitions or insights lead toward the resolution of a great deal of the trauma. When this has been accomplished, much of the motivation driving the analyst's TFP reduction ceases. In the process a great deal is learned about the nature of the mind: core consciousness, intentionality, mental imagery, archetypes, the neurophysiology underlying one's core consciousness and mental imagery, and the autonomous conditioned learning that occurs during trauma.
  2. The uniqueness of the TFP Reduction should be noted. It is a novel system dynamics based procedure for performing such a transcendental phenomenological reduction. It is a simpler, more detailed, and more formalized method than Husserl's (1927) HTP method. Because of this TFP opens the way for a new upsurge in the, now dormant but potentially explosive, field of transcendental phenomenology. Keep in mind that the deep, powerful, and controversial field of transcendental phenomenology was almost destroyed by the intellectual politics in Germany during World War II (Thevenaz 1962).

7.2.2. How is meaning obtained?

When one makes a transcendental phenomenological search for meaning one must be alert to the subtleties associated with such a search:
  1. The search for meaning of a traumatic experience is, to a large extent, based on a first-person analysis of one's own core consciousness or subjectivity during that experience. Therefore, formalized sciences - like physics, chemistry, biology, neuroscience, etc. - cannot give us meaning, because such sciences are limited to making a third-person formalized analysis of objective phenomena (Gurwitsch 1966). On the other hand, an HTP reduction of trauma and its advanced form, a TFP reduction, are capable of obtaining meaning, because they examine the first-person details of one's own consciousness from moment to moment during either a deep traumatic experience or release of an earlier trauma. The SD-based TFP Reduction presented here is unique because, at present, it is the only formalized first-person approach to the meaning of an experience.
  2. Nevertheless, a TFP Reduction is limited to a certain extent in its ability to determine meaning. For example, the TFP reduction and its simulations of core consciousness ultimately yield a great deal of the meaning of PMU-16, but the system analysis considers only 16 hours of a 5-year religious crisis. Because of this, it does not consider the psychological dynamics of the 30 years of life that preceded my 1962 experience of PMU-16 nor does it consider the psychological dynamics of the years that followed it.
  3. Here are the steps of a more comprehensive procedure for determining the meaning of PMU-16:
The full meaning of PMU-16, then, must encompass all three steps: the TFP Reduction of PMU-16 and the two PFAs. The two PFAs have not been performed yet.

7.2.3. What is core consciousness?

  1. The TFP reduction of consciousness is focused only on core consciousness. This term originates with Damasio (1999): Here is his definition:
    "... consciousness is not a monolith, at least not in humans: it can be separated into simple and complex kinds, and the neurological evidence makes the separation transparent. The simplest kind, which I call core consciousness, provides the organism with a sense of self about one moment - now - and about one place - here. The scope of core consciousness is the here and now. Core consciousness does not illuminate the future, and the only past it vaguely lets us glimpse is that which occurred in the instant just before. There is no elsewhere, there is no before, there is no after. On the other hand, the complex kind of consciousness, which I call extended consciousness and of which there are many levels and grades, provides the organism with an elaborate sense of self - an identity and a person, you or me, no less - and places that person at a point in individual historical time, richly aware of the lived past and of the anticipated future and keenly cognizant of the world beside it.

    "In short, core consciousness is a simple, biological phenomenon; it has one single level of organization; and it is not dependent on conventional memory, working memory, reasoning, or language. On the other hand, extended consciousness is a complex biological phenomenon; it has several levels of organization; and it evolves across the lifetime of the organism. Although I believe extended consciousness is also present in some nonhumans, at simple levels, it only attains its highest reaches in humans. It depends on conventional memory and working memory. When it attains its human peak, it is also enhanced by language.

    "The supersense of core consciousness is the first step into the light of knowing and it does not illuminate a whole being. On the other hand, the supersense of extended consciousness eventually brings a full construction of being into light. In extended consciousness, both the past and the anticipated future are sensed along with the here and now in a sweeping vista as far-ranging as that of an epic novel.

    "If it is true that core consciousness is the rite of passage into knowing, it is equally true that the levels of knowing which permit human creativity are those which only extended consciousness allows. When we think of the glory that is consciousness, and when we consider consciousness as distinctively human, we are thinking of extended consciousness at its zenith. And yet, as we shall see, extended consciousness is not an independent variety of consciousness: on the contrary, it is built on the foundation of core consciousness. The fine scalpel of neurological disease reveals that impairments of extended consciousness allow core consciousness to remain unscathed. By contrast, impairment that begin at the level of core consciousness demolish the entire edifice of consciousness: extended consciousness collapses as well. The glory that is consciousness requires the orderly enhancement of both kinds of consciousness. But if we are to elucidate the glorious combination, we are well to begin by understanding the simpler, foundational kind: core consciousness."

  2. Damasio's useful definitions of core and extended consciousness above are, in my opinion, only a first pass. If one reads the narrative of the religious crisis in Chapter 2, called An Engineer's Story (Wolpert 1996), particularly the excerpt concerning the 16-hour experience of purgation and mystical union (PMU-16) and compares it with the core consciousness modeled in Figure 2 and partially simulated in Figure 1 and Figure 3, it will refine the distinction between core and extended consciousness. For example, during the first nine hours of purgation both core and extended consciousness are operating with extended consciousness still quite active, particularly because I had to deal with interaction with the public. During the last hour core consciousness is clearly dominant. A TFP Reduction is capable of modeling and simulating the relatively simple kind of consciousness during PMU-16 that I am tentatively associating with Damasio's concept of core consciousness. Extended consciousness during purgation appears to me, at least for the present moment, to be too complicated for the human mind to model and simulate, with or without TFP.

7.2.4. What is the epoche and bracketing?

In the TFP reduction of purgation in Chapter 8, I bracketed-out extended consciousness during the first nine hours of purgation and only analyzed core consciousness. Husserl called this bracketing-out procedure an 'epoche' (Follesdal 1998). I had never heard of the term, epoche, when I began the TFP analysis of PMU-16 in 1984. Rather, this particular epoche came to me in a very natural way because I was desperate to recall and get to the essences and meanings of PMU-16. I was convinced - from the moment I began - that progress toward the essences and meanings of PMU-16 resided at the deep level of core consciousness, where the heart is opening against restricting knots.

7.2.5. How is a TFP reduction integrated with Husserl's transcendental phenomenology (HTP)?

It is important for the reader to carefully study Chapters 8 and 9, because together they give a worked out example of a TFP reduction, illustrating key terminology used by Husserl for his important, but very abstract, concepts and ideas: For example, Husserl's term, noema, is realized in the SD flow diagram; the variables represented in the noema are called noemata; the temporal process of purgation, dynamically described by means of the 23 simulations carried out over a period of 10 hours, is called the noesis; Husserl's term, hyle, is realized in the various auxiliaries, rates, and table functions of the flow diagram; his term, intentional objects (the mental image and the archetype) are realized in the state variables or stocks of the flow diagram (Follesdal 1998).

7.2.6. Two of Husserl's maxims, 'the natural attitude' and 'back to the thing itself,' are fundamental concepts in both the TFP and HTP methods:

The narrative of the 16 hour experience of PMU-16 in Chapter 2 is an example of the 'natural attitude.' In that narrative I discarded, for the time being, all that I had read or been told about concerning religion, religious experiences, etc. Now I went 'back to the thing itself' and, reflectively, described the flow of consciousness during the experience, the phenomenon, as best as I could. Using 'the natural attitude,' I employed phrases like 'my heart began to open' or 'there was a knot in my heart.' That kind of phrasing is all right for mystical literature, but when the analyst enters the philosophical or scientific domain and starts making a TFP reduction and uses the natural attitude when naming the model variables in the flow diagram - such as KnotsInHeart, FearOfDeathDueToKnot, HeartOpenness, etc. - that's just too much for the usual mindset of the present Western philosophical or scientific community. They ask me, the TFP analyst, to define these technically bizarre names for the variables. This causes a temporary standoff.

However, the TFP analyst, having experienced PMU-16 himself, knows that in the flow of his consciousness during that experience there arose such mental phenomena as an opening heart, knots in his heart, fear of death because of the knots, etc. He know if he had not named the variables using the 'natural attitude' he could not have simulated consciousness during the actual experience nor have intuited the essences and meanings of the experience. Therefore, he knows that he was justified in naming and modeling the mental phenomena of consciousness during the release of the earlier trauma of the deep and traumatic experience using the 'natural attitude,' bizarre as such terminology for mental phenomena may seem to Western philosophers and scientists. Most importantly, he knows that if he had defined the bizarre soft variables at the beginning of the analysis, he would have deprived his intuition, indeed robbed it, of its rightful domain. This will become clear in Chapters 8, 9, and 10.

Therefore, the TFP analyst states the following rule (epoche) to be used during a TFP Reduction: The analyst must suspend or bracket-out the desire to define the technically bizarre soft variables. At the same time he makes the following deal with his scientific critics: The rule is to be justified by its results. For the case of purgation, the results given in Chapters 8 and 9 include the clarification of the noema and noesis concepts by the flow diagram; the intuitive insights about somatosensory mental imagery and archetypes; the intuitive insights emerging from the physical, behavioristic, etc. subreductions; and the intuitive insights about the meanings of PMU-16 that are the culminations of the TFP reduction of PMU-16.

This rule and its justification can be further substantiated: Recall that a TFP reduction is meant to be used only on either traumatic experiences or the release of an earlier trauma during which the experiencer is aware of the operation of core consciousness. During such anxious, fearful, and stressful experiences the mind's imagination becomes a powerful agent or factor affecting the mental phenomena that appear in consciousness. This includes the imagination's important contributions to the healthy functioning of the mind and also its contribution to the mind's delusions.

Thus, the 'natural attitude' results in setting up the conditions that allow the analyst to employ three modes or domains of his or her mind at the same time: the analytical, the intuitive, and the meditative. When making a TFP reduction, the analyst is constantly in the meditative mode at the very same time as he or she is studying, analyzing, and intuiting the various aspects of consciousness. Like a person fishing in a pond on a quiet morning, the TFP analyst's meditative mode is passively watching and waiting to collect in his bucket the essences and meanings that emerge:

  1. Watching the recursive clarification of core consciousness during the phenomenological reduction when he is using the analytical mode during steps 1 to 8 of the TFP method, shown in section 7.4 below.
  2. Awaiting the recursive emergence of the intuitions during the transcendental reduction in steps 9 and 10 that ultimately reveal the essences and meanings of the experiences.

7.2.7. Bounded rationality, intuition, and meaning and their relationship to a TFP and HTP Reduction:

It should be noted here that the SD-based TFP reduction can never do full justice to the infinite subtlety of either core or extended consciousness. Think, for example, of a poetic idea or a religious experience. Nevertheless, a TFP reduction deals with this bounded rationality (Simon 1982) by being an artificially intelligent bootstrapping operation in steps 1 to 6 of the 10-step recursive cycle. This bootstrapping prepares the intuitive capabilities of the magnificent human mind for dealing all by itself with the remaining steps 7 to 10 of the recursion. Using the combination of steps 1 to 6 and then steps 7 to 10, the analyst's mind dives, recursively, deeper and deeper toward the infinite subtlety of core consciousness.

As stated above, such rationality is bounded: it can never formally capture this infinite subtlety (qualia) of core consciousness, such as 'the redness of red' or 'the sound of a distant oboe.' However, as the TFP reduction dives deeper and deeper, the mind's intuition is capable of eventually revealing something far more important to the analyst than scientifically understanding qualia: The intuiting of the essences and meanings of the experience itself! An example for the case of PMU-16 of intuiting essences is shown in Chapter 8; for intuiting meanings see Chapter 10.

7.2.8. Specifically, what aspects of SD give TFP the firepower to convert Husserl's transcendental phenomenology (HTP) into a relatively simple formalized science?

  1. SD's multiloop nonlinear feedback structure for the flow diagram is the same structure as the neurophysiological system that underlies consciousness.
  2. The SD method allows the analyst to disaggregate consciousness into many simultaneously operating aspects while integrating and structuring those aspects as a multiloop nonlinear feedback system. Neuroimaging confirms this approach: The neurophysiological system is disaggregated into many parts and those parts are operating simultaneously during an experience, just like the variables do in a multiloop nonlinear feedback system.
  3. The flow diagram is a map of consciousness for an experience, because the SD method (Forrester 1961) geometrizes the resulting integral or differential equations underlying such a structure. This geometrizing is of great value to the analyst because it compresses and stores into one image vast amounts of very abstract recalled information about consciousness during the experience.
  4. The fifth principle of system dynamics (Forrester 1993), 'quantification of unmeasured but important concepts and relationships,' empowers both the use of soft variables and the 'natural attitude.'
  5. It should also be noted that despite the incomplete structure of consciousness that presently exists in the flow diagram for PMU-16 and its mathematical model, that incomplete model is still able to simulate, minute by minute, the reference modes of all 23 conscious variables during the 10-hour purgation phase of PMU-16. For example, the archetype of Death has not yet been incorporated into the flow diagram. Despite this, the 23 aspects of core consciousness were accurately simulated second by second throughout the experience. This includes the intense and critically important 60 minute knot removal period of purgation during PMU-16. These simulations lead right up to the moment of cessation in mystical union. This flexibility of an SD analysis allows the TFP method to operate recursively.

7.2.9. Why is the TFP reduction important?

The TFP reduction is not a trivial accomplishment. Its relative simplicity and its formalization give seekers of truth easier access to a deep penetration into philosophy, consciousness studies, depth psychology, and spiritual experience than does Husserl's important - but abstruse and unwieldy - HTP methods. In addition, a first-person analysis of consciousness is the beginning of philosophy, as not only Husserl has held but Augustine, Descartes, Hume, Kant, and various sages and schools of thought from Asia and other corners of the world. It also provides a telescope or microscope for recalling, observing, and mathematically analyzing the changing horizon of one's own consciousness during either a traumatic experience or the release of an earlier trauma. Further, it enables the scientific world to formalize, for the first time, both the structure and the intensity associated with first-person subjective mental processes. Perhaps the most important results of this work, though, will be that TFP's mathematical formalization sets the stage for the process of rigorously establishing presuppositionless foundations for science, particularly in the highly politicized fields of psychoanalysis, philosophy, and religion (Gurwitsch 1966; Husserl 1977).

7.3. Insights about performing a TFP reduction of either trauma or release of an earlier trauma, as illustrated by the history of my TFP reduction of the purgation phase of PMU-16.

The key question in this section is: How were the essences and meanings of the release of an earlier trauma, specifically the release of trauma during the (also traumatic) purgation experience obtained?

7.3.1. Finding the Eidos (essence intuited during the eidetic seeing): The critical moment of transition from the phenomenological reduction to the transcendental reduction during the TFP reduction of purgation:

The first thing I did when making the TFP reduction of the purgation phase of the PMU-16 experience was to perform the epoche. I bracketed-out extended consciousness and focus on core consciousness. The next thing I did was to recursively use steps 1 to 6 of the TFP method to obtain the phenomenological reduction. This includes the structure for core consciousness during the release of trauma in the form of the flow diagram (noema) and the description of the release of trauma via the simulations (noesis). Next, the analyst performs the transcendental reduction via steps 7-9. This is done in the following way: He or she begins by recursively examining the noemata or the variables of the flow diagram to intuit its various intentional objects. For release of trauma, these intuited objects are discovered to be mental images and archetypes. Next, the analyst penetrates deeper to discover other essences of core consciousness during the release of trauma, via the physical, behavioristic, visceral, nonlinear, etc. subreductions (see Chapter 8).

It sounds fairly easy, but the mental imagery of the purgation phase of PMU-16, a somatosensory mental image and an archetype, were not easy for me to discover, particularly the mental imagery of the heart opening against knots. It took me twelve years! In 1987, three years into my TFP reduction of PMU-16, I showed my model or flow diagram to a leading system dynamicist. He asked me: 'What do HeartOpenness and KnotsInHeart mean or refer to?' I was perplexed by the question, because I did not comprehend Brentano's (1874) concept of intentional inexistence. Indeed, I had never even heard of it. (Intentional inexistence will be explained both below and at Chapter 8.2.4). Nevertheless, the system dynamicist's question remained in the back of my mind. The turning point came in 1999 while I was reading about mental imagery (Ellis 1995). Suddenly I realized that those two state variables or stocks, HeartOpenness and KnotsInHeart, represented the key parts of a mental image. This intuition is the first stage of the eidetic seeing, but it is not the Eidos. Nevertheless, this intuition brought about a revolution in my understanding of consciousness and a deepening of my understanding of the TFP reduction of the purgation phase of PMU-16. That dramatic moment marked the sudden transition from the phenomenological phase to the transcendental phase of the TFP reduction. Indeed, the core of the transcendental reduction was revealed to me at that moment. My mind began to deepen.

To be specific, once the mental image for purgation was intuited, two further intuitions or insights emerged during the following 2 or 3 months:

  1. I began to understand how my mind used imagination during purgation for practical, indeed, survival purposes: Here are the details underlying this understanding: While I was on the airplane from Los Angeles to Boston - particularly during the first few hours after take-off - I was in a state of great anxiety. I felt I was about to die from the heart opening against the restraining knots and the stress associated with it. I didn't know what was causing the heart to open or what to do about it. This state had the quality of anxiety: fear without an object or an originating cause. This anxiety then activated my imagination. It quickly went to work to supply the missing object and the missing cause. First off, I need to say that under such anxiety there was an inherent inclination in me to pray, like a soldier praying in the trenches under intense bombing (e.g. 'Lord save me.'). But I sensed somehow that such prayer needed a scenario, particularly because I was experiencing unrelenting anxiety. As a result my imagination began to conjure up a prayer scenario involving past sins that had a structure whose intentional objects were a mental image of the heart opening against knots and an archetype of Death. For the scenario, the archetype of Death needed to take the role of an agent of God who judges sin. These two image-like products or objects of my imagination are modeled using state variables or stocks (The archetype has not been included in the flow diagram yet, but it is being planned to be structured as a stock.). At any rate the scenario itself, structured as the noema or flow diagram and described by the simulations, was constructed correctly and with enough flexibility, because it enabled me to successfully use prayer to deal with the great stress, fear, and anxiety during the purgation period of PMU-16. If my anxiety-driven imagination had not succeeded in conjuring up the correct and flexible scenario, I believe the dynamics of my consciousness and imagination would have become unstable or too rigid and would have disintegrated into an unmanageable psychotic episode (Deikman 1971). I believe prayer was crucial to my survival.
  2. I came across a quote from Sherrington (1906) on reflexes associated with heart muscles that I used to intuit how the mental image is related to the neurophysiological system. Specifically, how the mental image is reified in antagonistic heart muscles (see chapter 8.2.1). This is called a somatosensory mental image. Thus, the antagonistic heart muscles are, indeed, the key physical correlates underlying the phenomena of purgation. This means that the operations of the antagonistic heart muscles is the Eidos. It is intuited in this second stage of the eidetic seeing.
The image was both dynamic and orderly, because what Damasio (1999) calls the proto-self is constantly monitoring the body's inner states. In this case the proto-self is monitoring the movements of these sets of heart muscles. The imagination, which perhaps also gets signals from the protoself, then generates an image that has its neurophysiological correlates in antagonistic sets of heart muscles. This physical basis for the mental image gives orderliness to the dynamic functioning of the somatosensory mental imagery, allowing it to be modeled using SD. It is the internal analogue to Helmholtz's (1971) insights on the orderliness of dynamic visual mental imagery produced by moving external objects.

Prior to the transition involving the critical insight about the mental image and the above two intuitions, my work was vulnerable to the accusation of solipsism (Lane 1998, 1999, 2001a, 2001b). At present solipsism is wrongly dismissed as an erroneous procedure in Western philosophical and intellectual circles (Stace 1952). Along with Stace I believe solipsism is not an erroneous procedure. Rather, the TFP reduction began as solipsism in 1984 and continued along productively, using the natural attitude, until the critical transition in 1999, described above. At that time the TFP reduction made the transition from the phenomenological reduction phase to the transcendental reduction phase and took on the characteristics of a science. Thereafter, TFP insights followed quickly and led to the physical, behavioristic, and other subreductions. The archetype of Death, mentioned above and also discussed at Chapter 8.2.2, was recalled and recognized in 2000.

The concept of intentionality of consciousness signifies all consciousness is consciousness of 'something' (Thevenaz 1962, p48). We stated that the somatosensory mental image was one of the two intentional objects of consciousness during purgation, but the mental image is not a physical object nor is the archetype a physical object. Deep down, what was really being perceived by my mind during purgation was the Eidos, the action of the antagonistic heart muscles, but in order for the eidetic seeing to be useful for the action of the experiencer, the imagination must present the combined action of those antagonistic heart muscles and their associated hyle, to the experiencer in the form of a mental image and an associated scenario. In phenomenological terminology the mental image has intentional inexistence but is, nevertheless, the intentional object of consciousness. The noema with its noemata, including the mental image, represents the structure of the scenario. The Eidos, antagonistic heart muscles, has the quality of existence but is not the intentional object. Thus, the mental image and the archetype were 'something,' even though they didn't exist. They were the centers of my attention throughout purgation and, hence, were the intentional objects of consciousness during purgation, despite the fact that mental images and archetypes are categorized as having intentional inexistence.

We mentioned hyle above: There was also the appearance in core consciousness of relatively minor aspects or elements of the scenario: what Husserl called hyle and James (1950) called the 'fringe of consciosness.' Hyle appear to be variables in the flow diagram or noema's feedback loops that are associated with the above intentional object. In SD hyle are modeled in the form of rates, auxiliary variables, and table functions. For the purgation stage of PMU-16, hyle are such variables as fear, stress, prayer, forgiveness, etc. Each of these variables would increase from time to time to become an intense focus of consciousness and then recede to the 'fringe of consciousness' during the twelve cycles when the knots were being purged. The mental image is also dynamic. It changed throughout purgation with the knots in the heart slowly ratcheting down one by one and the heart slowly opening or widening. Nevertheless, the various intentional objects in the form of the mental image and the archetype, remained the center of my focus. This is why the key to the various intentional objects is the state variables, the essential organizing variables underlying the feedback loops and their associated hyle. But the analyst must keep in mind that, on a deeper level of the transcendental plane, the real object that was the center of the action was the antagonistic heart muscles.

7.3.2. The Physical Subreduction

In 1996 I presented a poster on my SD analysis of consciousness during purgation, as it existed at that time, at the Tucson II conference on consciousness. The central theme of that conference was Chalmers' (1995) hard problem. During the conference I realized that the various aspects of consciousness in my flow diagram for PMU-16 and their simulations were what the scientists in the field of consciousness studies were seeking. It was, indeed, the long-sought-for method for making a formalized first-person analysis of consciousness and it also showed in detail how the method was used to make some of the transcendental reductions for PMU-16. I also saw that those aspects of consciousness in the flow diagram could be reduced to neurophysiology, particularly centered around the physiology of the neurocirculatory system and the central nervous system (CNS). These would illustrate the associated third-person analysis of consciousness that the Tucson II scientists were looking for. A neurologist (Guha 1991) had informed me of these third-person implications of my work in 1991. However, I did not press my solution to the hard problem in 1996, because my mind and emotions were not yet ready to fully accept a physical reduction of my religious experience. However, once I had made the key reductions of purgation (PMU-16) in 1999 - the intentional object and the mental image with its neural correlates in antagonistic heart muscles - Chalmers' hard problem was essentially solved (see Chapter 9).

Among other things the solution to the hard problem for the purgation phase of PMU-16 resolves the four-centuries-old conflict between science and religion. Whether or not the scientific world or the religious world is willing to accept this resolution of the controversial conflict is another question. Acceptance is predicated on the strength and boldness of those who are struggling to uphold what Searle (1993) calls the Western Rationalistic Tradition. Nevertheless, once the scientific world gets wind of the power of the TFP method, work on the archaeology of core consciousness could begin.

Consider how deep the physical subreduction for PMU-16 could go if scientists applied the Guyton Model (Guyton 1972, 1973, 1980).: It is an:

"... extensive model of the entire circulatory system first developed in 1971 and continually updated since ... Basically, the model consists of [about 500 equations] covering circulatory dynamics, body fluid control, and the various systems that control the circulation, including nervous, hormonal, and local tissue controls ... [For example, the model] deals with the interplay of many factors required for control of body fluid volumes, including thirst, salt appetite, natriursis, renal autoregulation, hemodynamic factors, regulation of interstitial fluid volumes, reflex control of the circulation, etc."

Using insights gained from the TFP analysis of purgation, it may be possible that a Guyton Model systems analysis could be performed to understand how my cardiovascular and neurocirculatory system were regulated during the purgation phase of PMU-16. For example, it may be possible to explain - among other things - the terrific thirst I experienced on the flight from LA to Boston (see the narrative of PMU-16 at Chapter 2).

7.3.3. The Behavioristic Subreduction

The flow diagram or noema for PMU-16 deals with (although not in great detail yet) 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 Figures 2 and 4). There are an estimated twelve cycles of autonomous reinforced conditioned learning, centered around the ForgivenessResponse. These twelve cycles of purgation are nested within one cycle of consummatory reinforced conditioned learning centered around the mystical union response (see Chapter 8.3.2). This set of reinforced conditioned learnings is important, because it underlies the subsequent religious teachings of the large number of mystics throughout the world who have experienced PMU.

7.3.4. Toward the meanings of the experience (step 10 of the recursive TFP method):

The present state of my efforts to obtain the meaning of PMU-16, using the TFP Reduction, is based on reflections from the very beginning of my study of the experience in 1984. Key focus was reflection on the critical moment when core consciousness during purgation made the sudden transition to consciousness during mystical union. The resulting insights into meaning, shown in Chapter 10, were intuited during a one year period between 1999 to 2000. They include the intuition of the nature of God, the meaning of life, and the essence of faith. The intuition of these insights gave me great satisfaction. I had earnestly sought them since the beginning of my religious journey as a 25 year old in 1957. It was then that a tragedy had occurred, leading to the collapse of the purpose and meaning of my life.

7.3.5. Summary of the history of the reduction:

The TFP reduction's recursive road to the transcendental reduction of purgation initially traveled the road of the phenomenological reduction of purgation through the region of solipsism. In my analysis of PMU-16 the solipsism region was traversed very productively from 1984 to 1999. However, my feeling of lack of groundedness in that solipsism region ultimately drove me along the road toward the transcendental or eidetic reduction, where mental images, the intentionalities, the neurophysiological reduction, and other subreductions were intuited. Key tasks were accomplished along this road: My first task was to recursively construct, during the solipsistic phenomenological reduction period, a fairly good flow diagram (1987-1994). Meditation on that flow diagram led to the recognition of the mental image (1999) and the archetype (2000). These aspects of the eidetic reduction continued while the various subreductions began emerging in parallel with it. That is, once the correlate for the mental image in antagonistic heart muscles was discerned (1999), the analysis began to travel toward the physical (1999), behavioristic (2001), and other subreductions. Therefore, during the period of the recursive reduction a transition was made in 1999 from the solipsistic phenomenological phase (1984 - 1999) to the scientific transcendental phase (1999 - present) of the TFP reduction. So far, the TFP reduction of core consciousness during PMU-16 has revealed the following:
  1. The flow diagram or noema for purgation and its associated noesis in the form of simulations of various aspects of consciousness during purgation.
  2. The two intentional objects:
  3. The physical reduction, particularly the Eidos.
  4. The behavioristic reduction.
  5. Some of the meanings of the experience.

7.4. The Recursive 10-Step Transcendental Feedback Phenomenological Methodology (TFP):

The TFP methodology is for use only on either deep traumatic experiences or release of an earlier trauma, because during such an experience the experiencer is aware of the simpler form of consciousness, core consciousness. The deeply meditative characteristic of a TFP reduction means the procedure will take time: The recursive 10-step TFP methodology that follows loops relentlessly over a period of years. In the process of the TFP reduction the noema, intentionality, mental imagery, together with the physical, behavioristic, and other subreductions are intuited from time to time. These intuitions of essences in step 9 then culminate in the intuition of a great deal of the meanings of the experience in step 10. To clarify the 10-step methodology given below, its application to the experience of PMU-16 is given in Chapter 8, 9, and 10. Helpful for understanding the application of TFP, shown at Chapter 8, are the following: Chapter 2 gives the narrative of PMU-16, Chapter 3 helps clarify the experience of purgation, Chapter 4 helps clarify mystical union. Experiences of PMU are found in all cultures (see the references at the end of Chapter 2).

Here are the 10 steps of the recursive TFP procedure or methodology for analyzing either trauma or the release of trauma:

  1. Make the 'epoche' by bracketing-out extended consciousness and focusing on core consciousness. Then take 'the natural attitude' when performing the process of recalling and reflecting on the various aspects of core consciousness during the experience. This recall and reflection is greatly aided by an SD technique for organizing the recall, termed causal loop diagramming. This technique helps the analyst see the elements of the recall as sequences of cause and effect, structured as a set of positive and negative feedback loops.
  2. The recall in step 1 releases pent-up energy (cathexis). This gives the analyst the potential for writing a spirited narrative of the experience. An Engineer's Story is an example of such writing. It is a narrative of the religious crisis leading to, and including PMU-16. It is shown at Chapter 2. See, in particularly, the exerpt starting with paragraph heading, The Heart Begins to Open, and the paragraphs that follow it.
  3. Use other techniques from system dynamics - such as stocks, flows, and auxiliaries, together with one of the SD software packages - to convert the causal loop diagram of step #1 into a system dynamics flow diagram or noema. In the process of choosing the state variables or stocks of the flow diagram for a subjective experience, it will be helpful to determine the intentionalities of the experience. For example, intentionalities of the release of trauma, such as the purgative phase of PMU-16, are about mental images and archetypes. They are modeled using state variables. In SD state variables are called stocks.
  4. Establish mathematical relationships between adjacent variables in the model (e.g., As an example from the model of purgation, the intensity of the variable WilledAttention is dependent on the intensity of the variable FearOfDeath). The flow diagram together with the mathematical relationships between the adjacent variables form a multiloop nonlinear feedback system.
  5. Use the resulting flow diagram and its mathematical model - together with an SD software package - to simulate the model's variables. For example, there are 38 variables in the model of PMU-16 at present, 23 of which represent an aspects of consciousness during the ten-hour experience. One can use the software package to display the simulations of sets of variables side-by-side on graphs to get a moment-to-moment description of various aspects of consciousness as a function of time throughout the experience.
  6. The recall of the actual experience is called the reference mode. When the simulations of step 5 and the reference mode fail to match, first fine tune the model structure and eventually adjust constants in the equations and manipulate table functions. This is done recursively, recalling at subtler and subtler levels until the sets of simulations accurately match the reference mode. This step takes much of time and effort, but, among other things, it succeeds in focusing the analyst's mind so that he or she can recall finer and finer - second by second - details of consciousness during the experience. This is the noesis. Note here that traumatic experiences are retained permanently in episodic memory.
  7. Focus on each element of the flow diagram developed in step 6, while at the same time always being aware of the entire flow diagram or map or total structure. This gives a comprehensive focus to the analyst's mind so that his or her thought about core consciousness during the experience can proceed to more and more subtle and deep levels.
  8. Study relevant literature and scientific papers to gain additional perspective and depth of insight about the various elements or aspects of consciousness shown in the flow diagram or map of consciousness.
  9. Allow intuition to reveal the experience's structure and essences. These may include, but are not limited to:
  10. Allow the meditative mode to collect the intuitions of the meanings of the experience: In the meditative mode the analyst passively watches the work of his or her analytical mode in step 1 to 6 and watches his or her intuition of essences mode in steps 7 to 9, while always awaiting the emergence of further intuitions that ultimately reveal the meanings of the experience. This meditative mode is always going on automatically in the mind of the seeker of truth during the desperate years of the TFP Reduction.

Arlen Wolpert
http://world.std.com/~awolpert/gtr88.html
(Draft of January 12,2004)

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