I decided to interview Michael Washburn because the outlook presented in his books seems very helpful to people searching and struggling with personal spiritual issues. Washburn -- a philosopher who integrates psychology with religion -- asserts that who we ordinarily think we are (our ego) is only a part of our experience. The vaster part he calls the Dynamic Ground, in which he unites what others call our unconscious, our instincts, our libido, and the spiritual forces that inspire us. In other words, Washburn insists that Jesus, Freud, Buddha, and even medieval alchemy were all offering us, as closed-minded egos, ways to open up to the realm of the unconscious and spirit -- even though those pioneers and their followers may not have agreed with each other's ways of expressing that understanding.
Further, Washburn wants us to appreciate that we can hardly avoid a spiritual life eventually, because the ego causes its own misery and despair if it remains closed to the world it has made unconscious. The ever-so-common "mid-life crisis" is closely related to the ancient's "dark night of the soul". What's happening in such cases, explains Washburn, is the opening of the ego to the forces it had closed itself off from, in its earlier necessary stage of development. His model shows us the lifelong see-saw between the larger Dynamic Ground (call it God if you like) and the individual self, who at birth is immersed comfortably in the larger Ground, then gradually develops an identity of body as separate, then mind as its own, and then as an adult, bumps up against its own limits in so identifying.
The ego, Washburn teaches, is
good enough at operating in the 3-dimensional world of matter and unilinear
time, but cannot of itself encompass the world of eternity in which this
3-dimensional world is suspended. Also, the ego's development from infancy to
adulthood inevitably involves traumas that later limit its flexibility in even
the 3-dimensional world. In the effort to transcend those limits (to become more
effective in concrete goals like work and family) the ego meets opportunities to
transcend itself, and so to open up again to the Dynamic Ground. This is the
experience we adults have called transpersonal, transcendental, or spiritual. It
comes from the same "place", says Washburn, as the libido, our dreams,
our demons, our neuroses -- what our culture and our traditional psychologies
have perhaps misleadingly labeled as a "lower" rather than the
"higher", "more spiritual" realm.
PB:
Michael, you assert, more forcefully than mainstream psychologists, that forming
a strong ego is not sufficient for us as adults. So instead of regarding
people's search for higher meaning as a luxury, a childish self-absorption, or a
sign of abnormal personality, you say that such a search is normal. The road may
be difficult and at times confusing, but it is a normal, necessary progression.
Why do you think this happens? And how did you come to that view?
MW: I think there are two reasons, and you have touched upon one of them. The goals of adult development, as most of us pursue them, advertise more than they deliver. We pursue the course of ego-identity development, we pursue relationships, we pursue careers, we pursue accomplishments. And I think that implicit in those pursuits is the assumption that if we are successful there, then we will be fulfilled in life. Intellectually we stand back and say, "No, of course not, we're not that naive." But I think that while we are involved in that kind of project, we really do believe that that is the case – and therefore we set ourselves up for disappointment and disillusionment. To succeed in our adult, worldly goals and find out that we are still deeply dissatisfied, and that the world somehow just hasn't satisfied some of our very deepest needs, can be a critical, crisis point in our adult life. And for some it can be very severe, I believe, leading to a sense of existential meaninglessness and alienation, leading to questions of "why?" and "what more?"
These kinds of experiences typically carry with them the beginning of a real spiritual hunger -- however undefined it may be. That's one point. A second point -- and here I go back to Jung -- is that the first half of life is the period during which we develop our egos, and establish ourselves in the world. While we are doing that, we typically have a very outward focus, and for that reason we turn our backs on some essential resources of the deep psyche (which Jung refers to as the collective unconscious). Among those resources are such things as instinctuality, much of our affective or emotional life, creative potentials, and spiritual possibilities. So our development during the first half of life tends to be a bit one-sided. If, later in life, we suffer a profound disillusionment in our experience of the world, we may find ourselves turning back towards psychic resources that previously we had repressed.
This is
the beginning of what I have called "regression in the service of
transcendence", which I think most people would know better using the term
of St. John of the Cross, "the
dark night of the soul". It can be a very long, difficult, and trying
period. For people who find themselves in this passage -- as I did 20 years ago
-- it is helpful to know that it is a passage. It's helpful to know that
perseverance and patience are important, and that it is a time to grow in faith.
Frequently it may not look like faith, because the old idols have disappeared,
and the old god-ideas have fallen by the wayside. It therefore can look like a
loss of faith, and a loss in one's life-direction generally. But this can really
be a turning point in faith, the beginning of a mystery, a movement towards an
"I know not what" that, though distressing, can also be the real stuff
of spiritual experience and of a spiritual relationship.
PB:
There is a somewhat growing recognition and acceptance of what you're talking
about under a label that may not encompass it all -- "spiritual
crisis" or "spiritual emergency". Did you write your second book,
"Transpersonal Psychology in Psychoanalytic Perspective", at least
partly to add such an understanding to conventional psychotherapists, so they
might learn how to help people coming to them in this critical stage and be able
to give them a lot more than they get from conventional psychologists?
MW:
I'm not sure that was one of my intentions, but it has been a gratifying
consequence of both of my books. I've been contacted by a number of
psychotherapists, some of whose clients have experienced difficulties of
spiritual awakening and transformation, difficulties of faith. And they've told
me that my writings have been helpful to them in being able to provide a
coherent framework and a way of understanding what their clients might be
experiencing.
PB:
Do you feel there's still a need in professional psychology -- and in our
culture generally – to alert people ahead of time, so to speak, before they
even encounter that crisis, with the knowledge that it's something they should
expect? And also to have tools available when people do turn to psychologists,
to priests, and even to talk radio -- wherever people turn when they feel
confused and want guidance? It seems to me that what you wrote would be very
effective for people once they read it, but the general culture and the general
psychological profession may not yet be acting from that point of view.
MW:
Yes, I think that's right. I think that from the point of view of the general
psychological, psychiatric establishment, there still is a pathologization of
anything that has to do with difficult religious experience. We are overcoming
that, I am pleased to say. There is a growing. appreciation that a passage into
spiritual life can be psychologically very challenging, and that we should
expect it as a common occurrence, and learn better to understand it so we can
deal with it when it happens. I think we are in a better situation as far as
those possibilities are concerned
than
we have been in the past. But there's still some way to go.
PB:
Another important characteristic of your work is the overlap of different
psychologies and religions. You seem very comfortable with such an overlap, even
though a lot of other academics, philosophers, psychologists and intellectuals
seem reluctant to embrace such a wide variety of perspectives. You seem able to
find common core experiences out of which those different traditions and
approaches emerged. And also, you seem nicely to construct a common language
without using many new terms, without adding jargon, but just broadening and
specifying common terms so that, as I sometimes like to list them -- you have
Freud and Jesus and alchemy and yoga and existentialism all able to talk to one
another! Without them being hostile! MW:
Yes, it is a very odd group! Agreed. I am a philosopher by profession, and
though I teach the history of Western philosophy, I also teach courses in
Eastern philosophy. So my interest in philosophy
really does stretch beyond our own cultural and historical heritage. As for
religion, I have a profound respect for all religious traditions without being a
member of any one of them. For that
reason, I don't feel like I've had to violate any sectarian boundaries. I just
simply appreciate all the religions about which I have some knowledge. For me,
following a multi-disciplinary, multi-cultural
course of study has been very enriching to my own understanding.
Was there a time -- perhaps when you were a teen-ager or a little bit later --
when you first stepped out of whatever religion you were originally raised in?
Or were you raised in no religion at all?
MW:
Well, I was born in Provo, Utah. My family's background is the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter Day Saints (the Mormons). But I wasn't really raised within
that group and faith. Instead, I was raised with a respect for religion without
the requirement of religion. I must say that I am pleased that was so, because
it kept me curious without narrowing my vision.
PB:
Despite your openness to many religions, you reject the concept of
"Original Sin" and argue instead for understanding humankind's
"fall from grace" through your term "Original Repression".
Can you explain that?
MW: My thinking about these ideas began because I was dissatisfied with the two major reasons often given for what might be called humankind's alienated or unenlightened condition. Eastern religions tend to say that our "ignorance" is the cause of our alienated or unenlightened condition, while many Western forms of spirituality say the cause is Sin. I found neither argument appealing or persuasive. For example, in Zen, other forms of Buddhism, and in Hinduism, we're told that we are already "no-mind", "nirvana", or "atman", and all we need to do is simply awaken to what we already are. So my thinking was, "Gee, what is it I need to do to myself? How do I transform myself? What practices do I enact?" And I was told, especially by people like Krishnamurti (who represents this view in perhaps its most strict presentation), "There is nothing to do. Simply to see. Be who you already are. Awaken and coincide with your already enlightened condition."
For some reason I just couldn't profit from or learn from that point of view. It seemed too simple a cause and suggested too easy a solution for a situation of much greater gravity and difficulty. But when I turned to the West's major answer, namely Sin, it seemed as though we got too much cause! And too harsh a cause. In the Biblical story of Adam and Eve, we're told, at least allegorically, mythologically, that our most remote ancestors committed a sin; they turned away from the sacred. And because they did that (at least some of the traditions say) this sin is reperpetrated with each succeeding generation. They teach us that we are inherently guilty in our existence. So that to overcome alienation and achieve some kind of realization, wholeness, and enlightenment, is going to be harder than is necessary. So I was discontented with both those traditional views and hoped that there was some middle ground.
What's
true in the traditional notion of "Original Sin" is that we are
predisposed to turn our back on -- or to repress (to put it psychodynamically)
-- the sacred within us. I believe that this happens very early in the history
of individual development, much as the Biblical symbols suggest it happened very
early in the history of humankind. When it is very young, the emerging ego finds
itself both attracted to the Dynamic Ground and fearfully dependent on it. This
relationship is mirrored in the young toddler's external reliance upon the
mother as both the primary source of love and the primary source of frustration
when the child is not fed, held or otherwise cared for. In order to achieve some
measure of independence from these prodigious, awesome experiences, the young
ego inevitably seeks tobuffer or separate itself. It does that by reducing both
its interpersonal intimacy with the mother (or primary caregiver) and its
acceptance of the internal flows of feeling that I call the Dynamic Ground. It
creates a Primal (or Original) Repression. Repression is not a sin when
committed at this age. It is a necessary part of the development of the ego. It
adds something positive to our overall development. It gives the ego an
independent space in which to grow. It's not a crime, it is a developmental
necessity.
PB:
Yet you also say that the continuance of this repression into adulthood can lead
to behaviors that people may more understandably call sin, or evil?
MW:
Yes, although those are still extremely harsh words and I'd prefer other terms.
Although repression is not a sin at first, but is rather a necessary
infrastructure for the development of the ego, there comes a point when, as
adults, our ego is mature and strong and no longer needs to be separated from
the spiritual power of the soul. It therefore is able to
PB:
And maybe the mature ego's reluctance does relate in another way to what people
call sin. When an adult repeatedly avoids certain experiences because of traumas
laid down during childhood, he may wind up committing behaviors that are
ordinarily called sinful. He may find
As a
result, it does cause damage to themselves, and to others. And that's when
society, and the moral traditions that
MW:
That's very well spoken. I agree with that entirely.
The
ego is called upon to let go, to expand, and that requires, in Tillich's
expression "the courage to BE". The ego is now ready to face a wider
range of realities and resources and potentialities and relationships -- if only
it has the courage to do so. Yet it doesn't always find that courage.
So
sometimes it retreats, into a smaller self, a former self, a previous routine.
And frequently in retreating, it retreats also into perverse behavior. It is
less than it could have been, and it acts in ways less than it could. So in a
certain sense it's committing a sin against its own greater possible selfhood.
And therefore against the greater possible relationships with other
PB:
And against its own potential to feel more at peace in the world. Because it
maintains these fears as "clothing" which it can then drape around the
next experience it thinks is related to that,
and
it will then have another fearful experience.
MW:
Absolutely so. I couldn't agree more..
End of Part One: For more information, you may contact the interviewer at pbernste@earthlink.net or c/o Educational Services, 8 Ferry Street, Chelsea, MA 02150
Next Issue: Part Two of Paul Bernstein's interview w/ Michael Washburn