Order is Heaven's first law.
-Pope
Every phenomenon of cryptesthesia must be preceded by an exterior energy
that has started it. Some unknown vibration that has set in motion the
latent energies of our human mind, unaware of all its powers.
_ Charles Richet
I want more ideas of soul-life, I am certain that there are more to
be found.
-J. Jeffries
Miracles do not happen in contradiction to nature, but only in contradiction
to that which is known to us of nature.
-St. Augustine
The "I" who observes the universe is the same "I" who controls it. The
concept of separate "I's" is a myth.
-E. Schroedinger
There is nothing abnormal in the world-there is only the lack of understanding
the normal.
-Swami Puri
Our unconscious existence is the real one and the conscious world is
a kind of illusion, an apparent reality constructed for a specific purpose
like a dream which seems a reality as long as we are in it.
-C. Jung
What we see is not nature, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.
-W. Heisenberg
Can you walk on water? You have done no better than a straw. Can you
fly in air? You have done no better than a bluebottle. Conquer your heart;
then you may become somebody.
-Ansari of Herat
The solution to the problem isn't that you abandon rationality, but
that you expand the nature of rationality so that it's capable of coming
up with a solution.
-R. M. Pirsig, in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
The future is affected by what we imagine because the future is effected
by what we imagine.
-J. C. Gowan
FOREWORD
by Dudley Lynch
(From Teleido Letter 1:4, March, 1979, © 1979 by Teleido Letter, 827 Westwood Dr., Richardson, TX, 75080, used by special permission.)
"The Road to El Dorado"
FOR EDUCATOR J. C. GOWAN CREATIVITY POINTS THE WAY TO "THE NUMINOUS"
For many of us, the journey of creativity begins and ends as a highly practical trip, in quest of our own versions of a better mouse trap, method of scheduling, means of processing or whatever. Creative problem-solving,we call it.
With patience, the learning of some new techniques for thinking, and a proper respect for the potential of "idea incubation," we usually come out ahead, ending up with not only our "problem" solved but with new insights into ourselves.
What we may fail to realize is that other fascinating possibilities exist. This, at least, has been a recurring theme for educator John Curtis Gowan during the Seventies. Gowan's search began, perhaps predictably, in quest of a solution: How best to educate the gifted (the 2nd edition of a wide-ranging anthology of which he is a co-ed itor, Educating the Ablest, is just off the presses of F. E. Peacock Publishers). But while peering into the store window of creativity, Gowan thought he saw other, even more exciting "realms."
In Trance, Art and Creativity (Creative Education Foundation, 1975), he wrote:
"If there is one entrance for Western scientific man into the arcana of developmental progress and self-actualization, that entrance is creativity. For it allows him, while still retaining his respectability as a cognitive thinker, to have intuitive brushes with the numinous element through creative outpourings from the preconscious. And it is heuristic, for it prepares him for the mind-expansion into psychedelic realms which inevitably follow."
Gowan's contention is that creativity is merely a way station or
entry point for those willing to undertake an epic developmental journey
on which the individual seeks to deal more and more intimately with the
general. Lately, he's been hard at work arranging a road map with commentary
of the Normal and Altered States of Consciousness that mark the way for
the committed quester.
Teleido-letter asked Gowan for an update on his taxonomic art,
and the following is culled from the papers he forwarded:
For Gowan, all discussion about creativity starts with "the numinous element." In his view, this is Jung's "collective unconscious," the Aztecs' "Smoking Mirror," the Hindus' "clear light of the Void," Emerson's "Oversoul," and the "Holy Ghost" or "Ground of Being" of Christian theologies. Gowan prefers to think of it impersonally as "a giant computer having access to all knowledge, intelligence, and power, but accessible to each of us under the proper conditions." It is a high-voltage, elemental force; playing with it haphazardly is foolhardy. His studies have always been of ways "to get in touch with the ground of being without losing [the "insulation" surrounding] ego-consciousness."
The process of getting in touch with the numinous is aided by altered
states of consciousness (ASC), and he has clustered the possibilities in
these groupings:
THE PROTOTAXIC (states of complete cognitive chaos) which includes (in ascending order of - what? - "enlightenment"), schizophrenia, trance, hypnotism, proactive drugs, and automatic writing.Theoretically, Gowan's fledgling efforts to push humanistic psychology into taking a bold look at transcendental functions was on tentative footing when, suddenly, some equally venturesome voices weighed in from the non-psychological fields of physics and neurophysiology. What brain researchers like Sperry, Gazzaniga, and Bogen were pointing to as the specialized visual nature of the right brain's functions, Gowan could point to as "the herald of the numinous" as experienced in various ASCs. And the new Pribram-Bohm idea of the brain as a hologram interpreting or imaging - a holographic universe has Gowan thinking that perhaps his "levels" of advanced numinous experience are merely the results of that holographic-oriented right brain getting an increasingly better bead on the numinous.THE PARATAXIC (a middle ground of imagery states) which includes archetypes, dreams, ritual, myth, and art.
THE SYNTAXIC (states with increasing cognitive control) which includes creativity, ortho-cognition, alpha biofeedback, meditation, peak experiences, satori or samadhi and higher jhanas.
Based on the right/left brain studies, Gowan says the left hemisphere's function is to support the normal state of consciousness. By holding the left brain "in abeyance," you get an altered state of consciousness. In most ASCs, you get either exterior hallucinations or interior imagery. If these manifestations aren't processed by either brain hemisphere, they "exit" in bodily fashion, often in trance, sometimes producing schizophrenia. If they are expressed directly by the right brain, they produce artistic (or non-verbal) creativity. If the left brain "mediates" the ASC, then we are into Gowan's syntaxic states, which includes verbalized creativity but reach ultimately to a rarefied level Gowan now calls the "transcendental union" of the individual and the numinous.
Without retracing all of his involved reasoning, we can permit him the ecstasy of his contention: "Transcendental union involves an expansion of consciousness in which time, space, and personality having been transcended, there is a state of neither perception nor non-perception ... or to put it another way: in the juncture between the individual and the general mind, duality becomes successively abolished through loosening constraints on the consciousness of time, space, and personality, so that ultimately through knowledge more and more complete, the one becomes the other, and union is reached. This is the 'Omega Point' of Teilhard de Chardin."
If that's not easily comprehended, Gowan thinks it is enough
for now to realize that what was once "the provinces of mystics, schizophrenics,
and other psychological deviates" is being studied with "a new scientific
vigor," bringing validation and classification. He predicts, ". . . Having
found that El Dorado actually exists, and in possession of a rudimentary
map of how to get there, it is logical to expect that more average persons
may try the journey. This makes life a great adventure."
PREFACE
Welcome, across the years, my young friend, who has just opened this book, and, in such magic, has allowed the promethean divinity in the author (for all else is soon dust) to salute the same divinity in the reader.
"Man was born to be free, but everywhere he is in chains." These words are as true today as they were when they were first written, over two centuries ago. Only now, the chains are not material, they are mental. Man's degraded view of himself as a reactive creature, instead of as a cosmic spirit, prevents him from claiming the powers and abilities to which his regnancy entitles him "Daily, with minds that cringe and plot, we Sinais climb and know it not," the poet Lowell told us. This book is an attempt to awaken mankind to his birthright.
Again and again we are told on good authority that "having ears we hear not, and having eyes we see not." We are abjured to "see the Divine beauty"; even the modern shaman Don Juan berates Castaneda for not "seeing." What is this second sight and second hearing which lifts knowledge from dependence on human organs and a physical landscape? Why is it so celebrated by saints and poets, all men of vision, throughout the ages? What is the nature of these higher senses, and what visions do they enable us to perceive? This matter is the task of this book.
Since a preface is nothing but a literary confessional, it is necessary to state at the outset that this collection of essays, unlike other books by the author, has not been assembled with the reader in mind. The book has no constituency; it is not written for others, but primarily for the author's musement. This word, an anonym of amusement, was coined by C. S. Peirce "for a mental state of free, unrestrained speculation, in which the mind engages in pure play with ideas." (Gardner 1978:239:1:18)
If perchance, unusual reader, these words shall strike a resonant chord in your mind, know at once by such presents that you are one of the elect, that you have been led to hallowed ground, and that you have been gifted with "an eye to see and an ear to hear." This opportunity is rare in nature, and unusual even in man, but it is par excellence what dignifies your existence as a numinous rather than a reactive creature. Much is herein demanded of you: for every great opportunity is also a great responsibility.
(page viii)
While the majority of the author's work has been with creativity, he thinks there are several higher levels of cognitive thought, with more order, and consequently more power. Creativity is merely the first in a series of increasing operations of more and more order. Some very spectacular effects occur in these higher and rarer states; indeed mystics of all ages and cultures have told us so for centuries. The laws of physics we hold to be true are merely special cases of more general laws whose operation is obscured because there is usually not enough order in the system for them to be seen on a macroscopic scale. Iron sinks and wood floats, so for centuries we refrained from building iron boats; heavier-than-air aircraft fall, so for decades we used balloons not airplanes. The laws we formerly thought operational were merely special cases, and when we learned new laws we were able to build modern boats and airplanes. It is the same with man. He considers himself to be an animal; actually his consciousness is Divine.
When we read histories of the overweening imperialism of the British, French, Germans, Spanish and others during their nationalist periods, when they felt that they were the elect of nations and possessed the inside track to all knowledge, or when we read of the unbelievable narrow-mindedness of both Catholic and Protestant missionaries to foreign countries, we are shocked and horrified by their unknowing arrogance, their lack of humility, and their unwillingness to learn from others and from a different cultural experience.
But mea culpa: all of us in the West are infected with the same pernicious intellectual arrogance, which is one of the worst concomitants of the scientific method. We also seem unwilling to realize that science is only one means of looking at reality, that there are others, that most of us are profoundly ignorant about the basic and fundamental aspects of life, and worse, are confirmed in our prejudices, so that we are unable or unwilling to discard enough of them to learn from experience.
Accept the sad fact, dear reader, that this is also true of you (as it is of the author). Be willing to suspend your belief system long enough to consider in these pages some startling facts and theories. We do not demand your subscription to any other belief system, for truth asks only for coexistence, but consider the possibility.
(page ix)
The author does not know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the wilder ideas expressed in this book are true; but they may be heuristic. If they are false, you have not wasted much time or money, and you have been diverted by some unusual concepts. But, if by any possibility they are true, then you have been forewarned of a revolution in man's thinking.
Let us consider two observers. The first says, in effect, "I hold a fixed set of beliefs. I will admit to no event which does not conform to those beliefs. I will not look through the telescope lest I should see something in which I do not believe." We would call such a person a religious bigot. Yet many famed men of science have held very similar views. The second observer says in effect, "I will empirically look at any event, no matter how strange, and then try to arrange my belief system to comply with the data." Yet many famous people who espoused such open-ended views have been denounced and persecuted by men of science.
Goddard, the father of space science, was considered a madman and hounded out of Massachusetts in the 1920's. Mesmer, Reichenbach, Zollner, Crookes and Richet, all respected scientists, endured persecution as a result of their advanced beliefs, theories, and experiments. Wilhelm Reich was imprisoned and had his books and papers burned by the U.S. Government in 1957. Let us never forget that the bigot in us all is alive and well today, and is as comfortable with men of science as with men of the cloth.
The author owes the reader a brief account of his interest in this subject, a story unlike most others. The best of the writers in this area, - those to whom this book is dedicated, - have been scientific experimenters, - men of science, who courageously turned to experimentation in the psychic area, thereby risking their reputations in the search for truth. Next come the practitioners, those who have some psychic power themselves, such as Muldoon, Garret, Cayce, and the Hindu yogis who speak from authority and personal experience. Then come the true believers, adherents to some sect, whether Catholic, Christian Science, Spiritualism or Theosophy, who must fit the data to their preconceptions. Then come the skeptics, such as Leuba and Rawcliffe, who differ from the believers only in the aspect that they fit the facts the other way. Since this analysis divides writers into polar types, it must be expected that some authors will have differing components of two or more types and hence be of mixed classification.
(page x)
The author of this book, however, cannot claim membership in any of the above categories. He is not an experimenter, has never engaged in psychic experiment or seance. He is not a practitioner, has never had a psychic experience and has no talents in this area. He is neither a believer nor a skeptic, having no need to fit data to any preconceptions. He falls, therefore, into a fifth and rarest class, a scholar and theorist, one who has read much of other men's efforts and ideas, and who has tended to sift the evidence, and fit things together in a way that made sense. He believes he detects in this vast mass of evidence, "operations of increasing order".1
If it be asked why another book of strange marvels, when the work of Fort and Corliss is extant, the author would note the redeeming differences in this volume as follows:
1 ) The book provides not only a catalogue of unusual events and powers, but a rationale for them, so as to make therm more understandable and, hence, believable.2) The book provides testimony of various independent witnesses, which tends to give a kind of reliability to the phenomenon and so establish a basis for validity.
3) The taxonomy shows an order; and even if this order is in the mind of the beholder, it indicates a commensurability between that mind and the Mind which created the phenomena.
4) The direction of this order is toward growth, development, increasing health and order, in short, towards positive integration.
5) The scope of the vista envisaged for both mankind's genotype and phenotype is magnificent and grand.
6) The various components of powers, abilities, materials, and procedures, herein treated are shown to be interconnected, and to be part of a plenary structure d' ensemble.
7) The nature of this structure is numinous.
The author does not hold that the book is a complete compendium of the subject matter it treats, - instead it is a series of sketches. A thorough investigation would have taken years to write and tomes to publish. We have, therefore, incorporated by reference, those areas where there is a large extant literature (e.g., mediums and healing), and tended to concentrate on more exotic
(page xi)
aspects (e.g., firewalking and levitation), which have received less attention by others, and where the data are harder to come by.
Let us suppose that one receives the reports of absolutely truthful witnesses about an exterior event. Then it will be possible to make sense and order out of what they say: the accounts will fit together to form a unified whole. Let us suppose that one receives the reports of absolutely untruthful witnesses who lie in every particular about an imaginary event. Then it will not be possible to make sense and order out of what they say: the accounts will not fit together to form a unified whole. Now let us suppose that one receives the reports of witnesses whose truthfulness is unknown about an exterior event. The test of whether the reports are truthful will lie in whether the data makes sense and order when assembled, and the accounts fit together to form an organized whole. The author asks only that the reader use the latter reasonable test in evaluating the data.
Let us imagine that there are a number of open-minded scientists who differ only in the critical ratio of truth value they require of a piece of data, and let us also assume that it is possible to assign such a truth value to all raw data or reports. We designate the assembly of such persons as Scr where the critical ratio is now understood to be a variable which goes from a probability (of truth) of .5 to one of .99999999. We can now ask an important question: "What is the most useful critical ratio level?" If too low (as in the p=.5), half the time the data will be in error. If too high (as in p=.99999999), much real data will be ignored. The writer submits that the correct answer is not the 5%, or the 1% level or any other arbitrary level. Instead it is the least level at which the summation of the data will reveal an orderly, meaningful system. The real test of the level of confidence at which we should accept data is whether the sum total of such data makes some kind of sense. Here we have the author's reply to those who say he is too credulous.
Many may argue that the author has shown extreme naivete by taking so many different accounts of psychic phenomena at face value. But being an empiricist, the author would rather believe that most witnesses are honest, not perjured, and that more is to be gained by comparing the consistency of independent testimony to the miraculous and attempting to account for it, than by denying it out of hand because it does not suit prejudiced views
(page xii)
and constructs. After all, it is a first rule of measurement that there can be no validity without reliability.
"Very well," says the critic, "where is the replicability of the alleged phenomena under tightly controlled conditions?" Let us take, as a reducio ad absurdum example, the case of a scientific investigator who does not believe sexual intercourse is responsible for human procreation. He wants a tightly controlled laboratory demonstration with full lighting, and witnesses taking notes and photographs of all that goes on. Are there not some couples who would fail under such demands? Even if they are successful, in what percentage of the instances will the woman thereby become pregnant? Though replicability has been shot to smithereens, who among us can call his own being into question by denying the validity of the process that produced him?
It is the author's thesis, enunciated elsewhere (1975) that our experience
here is the result of consciousness being locked up in time, space, and
personality - that these alleged dramatic unities are actually illusory,
that the anterior action to account for all which goes on in the physical
realm is another vivency, outside of time and space, and finally that the
whole meaning of life is for consciousness to free itself of these prison
restrictions - to transcend from the larvae to the butterfly. But, as usual,
Einstein said it so much better:
A human being is part of the whole, called by us 'Universe'; a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is, in itself, a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security.
- New York Times (March 29, 1972, p. 24, col. 6)
Three orders of reality can be envisaged: primary reality (the void),
secondary reality (the numinous), and tertiary reality (the physical world).
(Further discussion of these three realities is reserved for Chapter 7.)
Our thought is constrained and impaired
(page xiii)
because we think in terms of partial derivatives (time and space-bound effects), instead of the full function. For example, the great Jung grappled somewhat ineptly with synchronicity. Let us see how easy the subject becomes with the new viewpoint (see Section 6C of the Introduction).
One will find in these essays a constant pressure towards taxonomic and metric interpretation. While this effort represents the author's mathematical background, it is a way of restoring some order to a system which is found in disarray and disorganization. For example, a look at the taxonomy in Chapters 3 and 4 on cosmogenic powers and abilities shows that the powers from 3.0 to 3.3 are connected with the transcendence of time and space, those from 3.4 to 3.7 are connected with the transcendence of the physical person, those from 3.8 to 4.7 are connected with the siddhis (miraculous powers), and 4.8 and 4.9 are related to cosmic contact and union. We have thereby reduced a bewildering host of miscellaneous anomalies to four "operations of increasing order".
This preface concludes with two postscripts from much wiser heads than
the author's. First, let us return to C. S. Peirce's "musement." In a little
known paper titled, "A Neglected Argument for the Reality of God," Peirce
argues that "musement" is not only a road toward theism, but it is actually
the only road. Next, let us consider Jung's "inflation." Jung defined "inflation"
(Starcke 1970:74) as "the distance between one's knowledge or concept of
himself and one's personal development." Starcke continues, "Often a seeker
can discern truths intellectually way in advance of his capacity to demonstrate
them." But this is as dangerous spiritually as it is fiscally. He concludes
(ibid:85):
Now the world - this world - is the stage set. When we look at it at face value we are seeing a facsimile, an imitation of reality made up of canvas, paint, and optical illusion. Our problem is that we confuse the set and the parts the actors are playing with reality.
Let this monition humble pride of authorship and counteract any
tendency in the reader toward any false admiration in that direction: there
is a great difference between chimpanzees and a scholar interested in chimpanzees.
A quotation from Prof. Price's introduction to Whitman (1961:xix) is appropriate here. Speaking of the mystic author, he says:
(page xiv)
"He holds, moreover that the capacity for 'objective inner experience' is something which all of us possess. The mystical life, in his view, is possible for every one of us, not just for a favored few. In the Prologue he says that there are two ways of writing about mysticism, as a spectator, or as a participant, and that he himself writes as a participant. But then he adds that 'all of us are to some degree participants, here and now in part, and after death more fully.' The point is that though all of us do have the capacity for living the mystical life, we cannot exercise this capacity until we are ready. The capacity for objective inner experience remains latent and unactualized until we reach a suitable stage of moral and spiritual development."This beautiful quotation could well serve as the theme of this book. There is an El Dorado; the map is outlined in these pages; the way to it is through the inner reaches of the latent powers of man's mind; and, knowing that it exists, having the map and the road, it behooves us all to start on the immense journey.
ALTERED STATE OF CONSCIOUSNESS: (Contrasted with the normal state when the left cerebral hemisphere is dominant.) A state, such as sleep, dreaming, trance, satori, where the left hemisphere is in abeyance, and the right hemisphere may be active.(page xv)ENTROPY: disorder or randomness; in physics, heat.
JHANA (or jnana): a level of knowledge; a grace of the syntaxic mode (cf 1975:351 ff).
NUMINOUS ELEMENT: The impersonal, ineffable Absolute.
ORTHOCOGNITION: Literally "correct-thought"; a valid model of reality; realization that time, space, and personality are illusions (see Section 4.6).PARATAXIC: Experience (such as of the numinous) received as images (such as in art).
PRANA: psychic energy (see Section 3.5).
PROTOTAXIC: Experience (such as of the numinous) received before images, hence somatically.
PRECONSCIOUS: That aspect of the psyche, sometimes, not always, available to the ego. Preconscious insights tend to be expressed through right-hemisphere imagery.
PSYCHEDELIC (literally "mind-expansion"): That state when the powers of the preconscious are opened up for conscious use; a higher syntaxic level of jhanas (cf 1975:351 ff).
RIGHT HEMISPHERE: (as opposed to left hemisphere, generally the dominant one in ordinary life); the intuitive, spatially-oriented, musical and artistic hemisphere which seems to be the source of creative imagery, healing power, and is perhaps a receiver of transpersonal information through tuned resonance.
SIDDHIS: Specific psychic powers (such as ESP, see Section 3.03). SYNTAXIC: Experience (such as of the numinous) received cognitively with full consciousness.
VIVENCY: A theater of action in which consciousness finds itself. (The physical universe is the vivency of the ordinary state of consciousness.)
Readers who have not read Trance, Art and Creativity are
encouraged to read Chapter V I first, as it contains a brief review.
1. Candor demands answer to two questions:
1) Is the order in the author's mind rather than in the universe of
data? and
2) Can the author vouch for the unimpeachable origin on writing in
this book which have come directly transcribed from a creative revery?
1) The writer maintains that the perception of order in his mind in arranging the data could not occur unless there was potential order in the data.2) The ultimate origin of creative matter is a sticky wicket. If the right hemisphere gets it through imagery produced by resonance with some transpersonal source, then one may inquire what source. In this respect, the author has been chagrined to find that ideas which came to him in 1974 in writing Trance, Art and Creativity(e.g., Time, space, and personality as the three illusions) have been subsequently identified by him as belonging to Theosophist writings with which he was not familiar. Obviously, therefore, such writing, whatever its source, is not the result of logical analysis. The reader is hence on notice, that the author cannot so vouch for unimpeachable origin.
(page xvi)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First, the author wishes to pay his professional respects to the insight
and courage of the dedicatees of this book: Mesmer, von Reichenbach, Zollner,
Crookes, Richet, Reich, Tromp, and Bentov who were pioneers in the concepts
of psychic science despite popular abuse and disapproval. Next he is indebted
to the thoughts and example of more recent students of the science of individual
development: Bucke, Maslow, Erikson, Piaget, Sullivan, and Troward. He
also owes a special debt of thanks to the physicists such as Einstein,
Bohr, Schroedinger, Heisenberg, Planck, de Broglie, Feynman, Gell-Mann,
Bell, and Bohm who have done such valiant work in removing our concepts
from positivistic materialism to something very near vedic Hinduism. Nearer
at home on the contemporary California scene he singles out Krippner, Wilber,
Ferguson, Pribram, and Zukav whose recent writings in these psychedelic
areas have been so helpful. Penultimately, he wishes to give special thanks
to his manuscript readers, - chiefly to Prof. Kay Bruch, who spent three
whole days in a fine-tooth combing of the entire MS-, also to Karen Agne,
Prof. Stanley Krippner, Edith Garner, Prof. Rie and Dr. Rex Mitchell who
read individual chapters and gave helpful advice. Lastly, and most importantly,
special thanks go to the author's wife, Jane Thompson Gowan, without whose
love, inspiration, encouragement and assistance the book would never have
been attempted.
Dec. 1979