FEST Writing Group

“In one sacred moment, my questions were hushed”  

-from the popular song The Spirit of Fatima, by Don Maclean* (see lyrics and link below)

“UNUSUAL LIFE EXPERIENCES” CAN GROW DOS

• In his December webcast, Mike Kerr stated: “Bowen said there were two ways to grow DOS. Work on the family of origin and unusual life experiences”.
• He later used a similar term “Unusual unexplained experiences.”
• 25 years in the Bowen theory network and I have never heard that before.
• Have you?
• I’m asking Mike for references.

KERR’S RECENT CASE MATERIAL

• In October 2021 Mike Kerr presented a case from the book “Cured” by Dr. Jeffrey Rediger of the patient “Myra”. Her spontaneous remission from cancer was associated with healing dreams, among other factors. Myra reported these dreams had an “unusually vivid quality; unlike any she could recall.” A pair of hands appeared before her “radiating a sense of home”.  In a later dream the presence spoke “Your life is like sheets of music. It plays a beautiful song that you cannot hear.”
• Kerr seemed impressed by this case, including the dreams, and did not appear to view them as mere togetherness-based fantasy.
• Next, in Kerr’s January 2022 presentation he interviewed a spontaneous remission case from his practice. She had a lifelong relationship with both Bowen theory and Christianity.
• She reported that a cancer helped her realize she had lost herself.  She found herself via “more authentic communication with God.”
• She attributed this to a breakthrough in her religious life, including spiritual experiences of a direct dialogue with God. This included visions of divine imagery and guidance to read specific scriptures.
• She transitioned to a spirituality based on “What I do” to one based on “Who I am.”  From “Working for God” to “Being with God, regardless of what I do.”
• This fostered a positive “slow loss of me” wherein there was “no me to wade through.” I don’t think she is referring to a loss of basic self.
• She associated this with a reduction in pseudo self, increased basic self, and remission of her cancer.
• She reported “throughout my life I wanted to blame traumas for my unhappiness.  I discovered this was incorrect thinking.”
• These experiences helped her understand that many in her church community had “no direct experience of God.”
• Her experiences opened a “new dimension of faith” beyond the previous that “stayed on the page.”
• Mike wondered aloud if she has found a more “Open relationship with God.
• Later Mike seemed to be leading the witness when he said “Well, God didn’t figure it out, you did it on your own.”
• This was fascinating to me.
• She corrected him “No, God had something to do with it.”
• Mike’s question, if it was a question, may be illuminated by the variety of definitions people have for God and self.  I suspect Mike and this woman may define these things differently.
• Perhaps she doesn’t view them as separate, and Mike does?  Or vice versa

REFLECTIONS ON UNUSUAL or UNEXPLAINED LIFE EXPERIENCES THAT FOSTER GROWTH IN BASIC SELF

• I don’t think “unusual” or “unexplained” are the best descriptors for a category of experiences that can grow basic self.  For many who may have them, such experiences are neither unusual nor unexplained.
• For many who have repeated experiences like this, they likely lead to a fundamentally different level of DOS.
• This is an important area for Bowen theory for many reasons, including the imperative to evolve.  We must find new ways to grow basic self that compliment or circumvent psychotherapy, which is expensive and relatively cumbersome.
• The word “experiences” in Kerr’s formula also needs clarification.
• Not all experiences will be found to grow basic self.  Some will be experiences of pseudo self vs. experiences of expanded basic self.
• Careful definition is needed so as not to confuse those seeking sustainable growth.
• Kerr’s term “unexplained” may have some value as it points to an experience that transcends current mental frameworks of what the self is.
• I don’t tend to use the term God to describe such experiences, but I don’t oppose it. The term has a lot of positive and negative bias attached to it. I think the woman in the case changed her understanding of what she calls God during her crisis.
• Perhaps many who talk about growing close to God are growing basic self, and many are not.
• It is assumed that all human experiences have a corresponding state of physiology.  Experiences associated with growth in basic self will be either the expression of a fundamentally evolved nervous system or those that significantly spur sustainable evolution of that nature.  Flashes of new levels of self may be associated with sustainable changes to basic self.  Repeated experiences of new levels of basic self will be more commonly associated with sustainable change.
• It will be helpful to have neuroscientific signatures that distinguish among these.  Travis’ neuroscience is heading in this direction.
• The opening lyric, detailed below*, may be a good example of the poetic literature that records such experiences. The poet sings “In one sacred moment, my questions were hushed”.
• Note the difference between “my questions were answered” and “hushed”.  This seems parallel to the difference between understanding my reactivity, managing my reactivity, and experiencing the absence of chronic reactivity where it had always been present before.
• Experiences of transcendence have been observed to produce changes that go beyond tension reduction, stress relief or “managing reactivity”.
• These experiences can occur without a precipitating crisis.
• They can be proactively developed through a positive effort to grow basic self.
• Along with fostering spontaneous remission from a disease, they can spur spontaneous progression of health and self.
• This can be true, whether they are a compliment to, or independent of the traditional techniques of BT.
• Transcendental Meditation is one tool that can reliably foster these experiences. It is easy to learn, easy to practice, safe, simple, and sophisticated.
• It allows the mind to become unusually quiet, and experience the self that lies beyond thinking, known as pure consciousness or pure being.
• Contrary to what is sometimes assumed, it does not require one to adopt any belief or faith system, or to join a community.
• There are lots of other ways.
• I propose the term “transcendental experiences”, referring to experiences that transcend or go beyond one’s previous level of self.  A more precise, though more cumbersome term is “experiences of the transcendental self.”
• These general terms could refer to a wide range of experiences that foster growth in basic self, from breakthroughs in family of origin work, to experiences such as Mike presented.
• These terms encompass a further level of potential experience, as I attempt to clarify below.  These are direct, stabilized experiences of a proposed universal transcendental self.
• Experiences of a transcendental self are not perceived primarily by the intellect, yet the intellect can reflect on them later.
• They are perceived via a refined aspect of the higher brain that is different from analytical thinking.
• The concept of a transcendental self is part of a satisfying Bowen family systems theory of human behavior.

CONCEPT OF TRANSCENDENTAL SELF

• No science of human behavior will be complete without a satisfying theory of consciousness itself, the fundamental lens we use to perceive the family system.
• The scale of DOS is a scale of consciousness, and a satisfying theory of consciousness will be a systems theory.
• Such a theory does not currently exist, but progress is occurring.
• The neuroscientist Guilio Tononi has developed a testable “Integrated Information Theory” of consciousness that offers a scale of consciousness.
• Philosopher of science Daniel Dennett has a fascinating physicalist model the says consciousness emerges from the physical, including evolved neurons.
• Evolutionary theorist Dr. Donald Hoffman and others offer the opinion that the physicalist model has failed and may contain flawed assumptions.
• Hoffman’s Multi-modal Interface Theory (MUI) significantly expands the vision of what subjectivity might be.
• From Wikipedia: “MUI theory states that “perceptual experiences do not match or approximate properties of the objective world, but instead provide a simplified, species-specific, user interface to that world.” Hoffman argues that conscious beings have not evolved to perceive the world as it actually is but have evolved to perceive the world in a way that maximizes “fitness payoffs”. Hoffman uses the metaphor of a computer desktop and icons – the icons of a computer desktop provide a functional interface so that the user does not have to deal with the underlying programming and electronics in order to use the computer efficiently. Similarly, objects that we perceive in time and space are metaphorical icons that act as our interface to the world and enable us to function as efficiently as possible without having to deal with the overwhelming amount of data underlying reality. This theory implies Epiphysicalism, i.e., physical objects, such as quarks and brains and stars are constructed by conscious agents but such physical objects have no causal power. While Panpsychism, for some proponents, claims that flowers, mountains, the moon, may have some form of conscious, “Conscious Realism” in this theory (Multimodal user interface theory) does not. Instead, what it claims is all such objects are icons within the user interface of a conscious agent, but that does not entail the claim that the objects themselves are conscious”. (From Wikipedia)
• Hoffman notes that modern physics has suggested that space/time is not the fundamental reality of the physical world.  A view of self as an essentially space/time entity may be fundamentally wrong, fundamentally subjective.
• This model posits “conscious agents” (individuals) who can combine to form composite conscious systems.
• The math used in Hoffman’s model allows for the possibility of an infinite mind, or a variety of infinite minds.
• Our mind may be part of such a mind.
• Such models may help clarify the concept of the transcendental self, which proposes that a universal self is part of nature, and yet beyond it.
• Our individual self may be part of an infinite, knowable self.
• Experiences of a universal transcendental self can be “unusual unexplained experiences” that spur expanded basic self.
• This may be an extension of Bowen’s idea of man being part of all life.
• The universal transcendental self can be experienced directly.
• Many may have such experiences.
• Perhaps Don Maclean had one.

LYRICS

*The Spirit of Fatima by Don Maclean (available on YouTube)

• The spirit of Fatima still rules the earth.
• And she knows your future, she knows what it’s worth
• Sister Fatima has God-given powers
• And on 42nd street, a shop that sells flowers
• It’s her palace
• Come and be healed
• And she knows all your business, your health, and your ills
  She’ll counsel your weddings, divorces, and wills
• For full restoration, five dollars an hour
• And with each consultation, a free holy flower
• And if she likes you, Why, you can have two
• And I came from nowhere, like you and your friend
• My searching and wandering went on without end
• My future was dim, my spirit was crushed
• In one sacred moment, my questions were hushed
• I’m a servant of fate in this garden of truth
• A humble recruit of the taffeta booth
• Where all things are known, but few are revealed
• Where sins are forgotten, and sickness is healed
• For five dollars
• The flower is free