WillSpirit!

There is a state of mind, known to religious men, but to no others, in which the … time of tension in our soul is over, and that of happy relaxation, of calm, deep breathing, of an eternal present, with no discordant future to be anxious about, has arrived.

William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, 1902

James describes exactly the condition that I’ve been enjoying since the middle of January. However, he must be mistaken when he concludes that this state of mind is available only to religious men, because I am by no means religious. Setting that important discrepancy aside, the psychologist’s numerous case studies prove that a profoundly wise and peaceful state of human existence awaits us; our task is to find ways to achieve and retain this higher mode.

James’s classic compilation and analysis of spiritual growth experiences exerted a major influence on Bill Wilson, the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. It helped Wilson and his compatriots as they created a system to facilitate spiritual transformation in alcoholics. Here is Wilson’s description of his own awakening (from the ‘Big Book’ of AA, 1939):

All about me and through me there was a wonderful feeling of Presence… A great peace stole over me and I thought, ‘No matter how wrong things seem to be, they are right’.

This transformative experience helped Wilson, a hitherto hopeless drunk, remain sober for the rest of his life. There was a time when I doubted that such a change was possible; I may even have questioned Wilson’s sincerity. But in the year 2000, after returning to AA following a long absence, I went through a series of experiences very similar to his. Here is a description of one of them, taken from a previous essay on this site:

I stood at a locus from which I viewed creation arising from subatomic scales to fill the entire span of the modern universe, in a near-instantaneous ‘vision.’ As I saw these things, I inhaled the atmosphere of all-encompassing love and ‘rightness’ that animates everything. I heard a chorus of celestial voices, and felt myself basking in a divine affection that erased all doubt that God existed, that life had meaning, and that I mattered.

Although that episode and others like it had an enormous impact on me ten years ago, I did not know how to maintain elevated states of understanding; as a result I sank back into a stubborn and miserable depression that crushed me for at least six years. Fortunately, as long term visitors here have read, transcendent awareness returned in January. As before, it was my work within the AA framework that made my heart receptive to transformation. Here is the result, once again quoting from an earlier piece (Note that this time around the experience did not feel referenced to ‘God’ or any other overtly religious concepts.):

I perceived the evanescence and formlessness of the human mind, the interplay between humans and nature, and how everything intertwines in the awesome depths of creation. The way the human spirit dwells amidst vast spreads of time, space, and scale became clear to me in ways that surpass words…The scope of this new perspective crushes into triviality many of my prior concerns.

Recently I’ve mentioned Quantum Change: When Epiphanies and Sudden Insights Transform Ordinary Lives, by William Miller and Janet C’de Baca. Like William James, these authors document many awakening experiences. Although James presented some transformations that came on gradually and others that were sudden, Miller and C’de Baca focus on ones that happened abruptly, as acute life-altering events. They cite many spiritual and secular leaders who have described swift openings of consciousness. The Buddha, Mahatma Gandhi, Mohammed, George Fox (the founder of Quakerism), Malcolm X, Florence Nightingale, Joan of Arc, Leo Tolstoy, C.S. Lewis, and saints Paul, Augustine, and Theresa of Avila all underwent rapid and profound transformations of consciousness. The list could go on and on.

Citing work of James E. Loder, Miller and C’de Baca tell us that such experiences unfold in a characteristic sequence. “Something disrupts the way in which the person has been perceiving reality and making sense out of life…’an insight, intuition, or vision appears’…frequently accompanied by a great emotional release and a deep sense of relief. Then, with time, the person integrates and interprets the experience…and new patterns of thought and action emerge.”

It is likely that these psychic events are generated by novel patterns of neurologic activity. In fact, patients with temporal lobe seizures recount rather similar feelings. In Phantoms in the Brain by V.S. Ramachandran and Sandra Blakeslee, the authors paraphrase such patients:

I finally understand what it’s all about. This is the moment I’ve been waiting for all my life. Suddenly it all makes sense…I have insight into the true nature of the cosmos.

These patients have demonstrable anomalies in their brain waves, so in at least these cases the new consciousness can be traced to altered neural activity. Often such people retain their elevated understanding of cosmic significance even between acute episodes. The authors speculate that new neural channels are opened that “permanently alter—and sometimes enrich—the patient’s inner emotional life.” These patients have seizure disorders, but there is every reason to suspect that even the brains of people without electrical abnormalities can be decisively transformed by powerful spiritual episodes.

In the five weeks since the onset of my altered consciousness, I have indeed observed major alterations in my ‘inner emotional life’. As I’ve mentioned in recent posts, the change has by no means left me in an unwavering state of bliss; the heightened and peaceful awareness comes and goes. Sometimes despair threatens to reassert control. On the other hand, I am learning that by taking some simple and concrete steps I can bring myself back into alignment and sidetrack my old neurotic patterns.

My message today is straightforward: humans have the capacity for elevated states of consciousness that reduce psychic distress. These psychological modes open the mind to broader ways of seeing life, reveal order and refuge in the cosmos, and often increase one’s desire to behave altruistically. Because they remove people from the narrow, egocentric and damaging patterns that society encourages from birth, these improved frames of mind may represent a natural maturation of the human mind. They can occur as religious epiphanies, but they can also develop as completely secular insights. Subsequent posts will explore the ways a person can make such transcendence more likely and more robust.