4) Moving Beyond the Limits of EuroAmerican Science

Helen: I do not have an issue with what you’re saying. What is bothering me is if someone were to say, I had this dream and explained it very vividly, how would you determine whether or not this was someone that is psychotic and/or having a hallucination? Or whether indeed it was real, because to the psychotic this is very real?

Schroll: Right.

Helen: And he is sure that this is the way it is.

Schroll: Right.

Helen: And indeed for him it is.

Schroll: Yes, you’re right.

Helen: But is it or isn’t it a valid experience?

Schroll: This methodological question of how experiences like this can be ontologically and epistemologically validated goes right to the heart of the kinds of problems that transpersonal psychology, the anthropology of consciousness, and similar movements have chosen as their focus.[2} This concern with the problem of scientific validation and clinical diagnosis also directly relates to my previous discussion of structural adaptation and is precisely why transpersonal psychologist’s like Wilber are seeking to extend the limits of Piaget’s stage theory of development. But it is not simply dreams like the one I described that concern transpersonal psychologists and anthropologist’s of consciousness. They are also interested in understanding experiences like the one where Jung is sitting in Freud’s office in 1909, which Jung describes in his autobiography Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1963):

"It is interesting for me to hear Freud’s views on precognition and on parapsychology in general. When I visited him in Vienna in 1909 I asked him what he thought of these matters. Because of his materialistic prejudice, he rejected this entire complex of questions as nonsensical, and did so in terms of so shallow a positivism that I had difficulty in checking the sharp retort on the tip of my tongue. It was some years before he recognized the seriousness of parapsychology and acknowledged the factuality of “occult” phenomena.
While Freud was going on this way, I had a curious sensation. It was as if my diaphragm were made of iron and were becoming red-hot—a glowing vault. And at that moment there was such a loud report in the bookcase, which stood right next to us, that we both started up in alarm, fearing the thing was going to topple over on us. I said to Freud: “There, that is an example of a so-called catalytic exteriorization phenomena.”
“Oh come,” he exclaimed. “That is sheer bosh.”
“It is not,” I replied. “You are mistaken, Herr Professor. And to prove my point I now predict that in a moment there will be another such loud report!” Sure enough, no sooner had I said the words than the same detonation went off in the bookcase.
To this day I do not know what gave me this certainty. But I knew beyond all doubt that the report would come again. Freud only stared aghast at me. I do not know what was in his mind, or what his look meant. In any case, this incident aroused his mistrust of me, and I had the feeling that I had done something against him. I never afterward discussed the incident with him" (Jung: 155-156, 1963, italics added).

This kind of anomalous experience, this kind of energy (if we can assume that it is a kind of energy we are talking about here that describes the kind of phenomena Jung demonstrated for Freud), cannot currently be accepted within the framework of EuroAmerican science. It violates the concept of action-at-a-distance: How can there be a physical manifestation of “energy” beyond what is referred to as “localized” events in physics? What is the medium, the means of transmitting this kind of energy? This is the real scientific problem of accepting these kinds of phenomena. Either you have to say that the type of energy Jung demonstrated for Freud has no connection with the material world, or you have to postulate some kind of energy, some means of signal transmission that is not now known.{3}

Brad: But it sounds like for you there is a real question of authenticity involved. Whether you were going to trust your own experience and stay with it in the face of all this social pressure telling you that this was something you needed to forget about. The cultural value of discounting all that you experienced had a strong personal affect on you, when you were saying, “Look, I really had this experience,” and all your peers, teachers, etc., are saying, “We don’t want to hear about that—that is too threatening.”

Schroll: That’s right. In fact, if what exists now as David Lukoff’s and Frances Lu’s DSM-IV diagnostic category “Religious or Spiritual Problem” (V62.61) (Schroll, 2005b). And/or the “spiritual emergence network” or “spiritual emergency network” had existed at the time of my childhood, my parents could have contacted them to help me work through this anomalous experience. Judy Tart points out that the spiritual emergency network was established by Stan and Christina Grof and Rita Rohan in the spring of 1980 to “. . . help those who are trying to figure out if they’re becoming enlightened or going crazy” (Tart: 11, 1986). Grof and Grof have since gone on to define spiritual emergency as:

". . . critical and experientially difficult stages of a profound psychological transformation that involves one’s entire being. They take the form of nonordinary states of consciousness and involve intense emotions, visions and other sensory changes, and unusual thoughts, as well as various physical manifestations" (Grof & Grof: 31, 1992).

Indeed, besides assuring me that my 1964 dream was perfectly normal, Lukoff and Lu and the spiritual emergency network could have guided my intellectual inquiry into parapsychology and shamanism, possibly giving advice about methods and techniques that would have provided me with the opportunity to continue exploring similar anomalous or transpersonal states of consciousness.

References
(references will be on the last page of the last blog in this series)

Notes

2. One of the many questions that the dream discussed in this chapter raises is this. If someone were to say, I had this dream and explained it very vividly, how would you determine whether or not this was someone that is psychotic and/or having a hallucination? Are we talking about a mental illness? One of the best books I can recommend that examines this question is Varieties of Anomalous Experience, Cardena, Lynn, & Krippner, 2000.

3. Are we talking about a different way of receiving information or responding to our world? The question that Jung’s example of a catalytic exteriorization phenomena raises is this. This kind of anomalous experience, this kind of energy (if we can assume that it is a kind of energy we are talking about here that describes the kind of phenomena Jung demonstrated for Freud), cannot currently be accepted within the framework of EuroAmerican science. It violates the concept of action-at-a-distance: How can there be a physical manifestation of “energy” beyond what is referred to as “localized” events in physics? What is the medium, the means of transmitting this kind of energy? This is the real scientific problem of accepting these kinds of phenomena. Either you have to say that the type of energy Jung demonstrated for Freud has no connection with the material world, or you have to postulate some kind of energy, some means of signal transmission that is not now known. Some of the many sources that you can explore to try and answer these questions are (Bohm, 1985; Peat, 1987; Schroll, forthcoming, Schroll, 1997; Sheldrake, 1988; and Krippner, 1975).