You wrote: “So I’m not against this definition categorically - but I find it problematic to use definitions that are not shared by governments and other religions.”
How could intellectual progress be achieved if no one challenges conventional definitions?
I’m not sure the definition of religion used here is comprehensive enough to encompass what religions provide people today and throughout history. .
From my perspective Integral is primarily an intellectual description/discussion about the world and about potential spiritual practices.
How were Integralists participating in Integral in a way pre-COVID that might be considered religious if viewed by an observer?
I wouldn’t want the communal and physical components of religion to get lost in the academic discussions. Coordinated physical world time/location meetings at defined spiritual/religious structures takes the “ideas of” into intersection with the real world we breath in. These “intersections with reality” are extremely powerful when done well providing an almost automatic heightened spiritual experience both individually as well as in community.
Indeed - we then get into a place where organizations that currently call themselves Religions are not actually Religions unless they work towards the ultimate transformation of all its members. Religions that are based more on a God who acts Unilaterally are not actually Religions, which would be an interesting turn of events. I’m not sure, but Islam might fall into this category if they do not practice Jihad. I believe also Catholicism has an aspect of “you are bad and nothing you can do about it so just beg for forgiveness for your sins”.
I believe transformational spirituality and the idea that you will be saved through your actions while you are still on this earth are fairly a new concept and will encounter a lot of pushback by religions as they currently exists, which wouldn’t be a bad thing. For millennia religions have operated under the myth that they were the only door to salvation - and killed anyone with competing beliefs.
It may happen that if we equate religion = spirituality, then Religions that do not offer a reliable path to personal transformation will fall by the wayside. Up to now all they have had is “we are a religion and thus all our crazy whacko beliefs are valid and protected by law while yours not officially condoned by a religion are not”.
Then also, a while back I discussed with @FermentedAgave that Christianity (as well as Islam and most major world religions) have a virtually nonexistent methodology to transformation, while Buddhism, Yoga and several others have clearly defined methodology, pedagogy and evaluative rubrics with clear pathways to transformation. You can pick ways or the long steady ways, and dozens of ways besides. You can clearly see your progress in measurable ways.
It’s a very interesting situation when we observe that Religions increasingly have to transform themselves to compete in the open marketplace of transformative spirituality.
@Charles_Marxer said it well at beginning of this thread with “even followers of Integral Philosophy have a deeply grooved tendency to think of religion as living solely at the levels below orange-rational, all of them based on magic and mythic worldviews which ‘we’ consider childish and inappropriate for an adult” . From my perspective, I see much “Integral Altitude” in at least my little branch of Christianity and have no reason to doubt that other branches/religions would not also have “conveyor belts” to ultimate transformation.
You raise a very interesting point. Is Christianity transforming? How about Judaism, Islam, Native American Shamanism? And if they are, are they not transforming beyond the oft beat drum of “Literal Mythic” that seems to be the overwhelming evaluation by many in the Integral community?
Christianity and Islam - to many sects to generalize. Some are some are not, and this varies geographically as well, or even varies vastly with just a border crossing.
Judaism - I don’t think so? But maybe someone more informed will know. I do know Kaballah was released to the masses and even to women, but Judiaism =/= Kaballah
Native American Shamanism - ok … let’s set this straight here because it keeps coming up. Shamanism is a specific North Asian indigenous practice. Shamanism as practiced by westernizers in modern times is an appropriation of that name and applied generally willy-nilly to anything and everything that they imagine might have existed before 1492. Europeans have taken the name “Pagan” or other names to identify reconstruction of European pre-Christian religions. The summary is that “Shamanism”, “Paganism”, “Wicca” and the rest that are similar are exactly what we are talking about - a reformation of what we imagine an older belief might have been and re-building it for a modern world view.
Also, again - it’s not possible to generalize. Some “New Age Shamans” embrace a literal mythic and others don’t. The one’s who do fully embrace the literal mythic tend to be “off their rocker”. Not always, but generally so.
Not quite @raybennett . Shamanism was/is practiced globally in a multitude of forms with differences and many similarities, from Tierra del Fuego to Alaska, Finland to Capetown, New Zealand to Siberia.
You might want to check it out as with or without Entheogens there are amazing, perhaps transcendental, experiences and benefits to be had. And of course you can also find yourself in a group of pot smoking hippies worshiping the next bong hit trying to figure out who’s going to make the beer run.
You are hilarious.
These groups are a part of my social community. Both with and without entheogens.
I don’t know anyone from this group personally. I suspect it’s another one of your straw men. I do know many people who believe Marijuana is sacred - but that contraindicates using it casually or in combination with beer. So I guess these people exist as you imagine them - but I don’t know any.
But again - off topic. The question @Charles_Marxer seems to be asking - would it be religion and would it be Integral if such people do actually practice their religion this way?
[quote=“FermentedAgave, post:8, topic:24461”]
You wrote: “I’m not sure the definition of religion used here is comprehensive enough to encompass what religions provide people today and throughout history.”
Can you be specific? What in the deep structures of traditional faiths do you think the definition does not cover? Being a second-order definition (one which aims at transcending and including all others), it necessarily leaves out many translative benefits (comfort, sociality, pleasures of various kinds, money) that people might derive from traditional religious practice. My claim is that, beneath the surface features, religion is a means toward an ultimate transformation captures the essence, the sine qua non, of any commitment that is entitled to be called religious or spiritual. If a system of thought and practice does not offer what adherents/participants understand to be a possible ultimate transformation for them, that system would not be a religion. Examples are easy to come by: a poker club, a bingo group, a business practicing management Theory X. It would be quite odd for anyone to claim that experiences in those settings are ultimate transformations for them. All the great traditions, as well as many secular systems, exhibit this core element. So if my definition captures the essential characteristic of all past traditions, contemporary secular faiths, and any new faith systems that might appear in the future, wouldn’t you have to concede that it’s “comprehensive enough?”
You also wrote: “From my perspective Integral is primarily an intellectual description/discussion about the world and about potential spiritual practices.”
It seems you haven’t read my essay. Part 4 quotes Ken Wilber’s characterization of AQAL as a transformational model and points out the obvious transformational aim of Integral Life Practice. Of course, one can investigate Integral entirely from a 3rd person perspective as merely an interesting philosophical theory and ILP as a cool manual of self-development but without seeing in it any relevance to one’s own life. But the Integral message to inquirers is unmistakable: “Try this; it can profoundly change your life.” Integral is a complete religion.
I don’t think you can leave out the communal, community benefits that all major religions provide when defining “what is religion”. Creation of community with the aim of “ultimate transformation” is one of the primary characteristics of all religions.
Consider the deconstruction that Integral Theorists apply to religions. One of the key “issues” is that these religions do have communities that are like/similar minded.
Internal development is crucial to “climb the ladder” for any spiritual path.
Agree here. Without the intention for Ultimate Transcendence, it might be great fun or socially rewarding in different ways but of course do not constitute a “religion”.
Let me tease on a Religion/Spiritual thread which you might be using as a therapeutic for the IT community. Let me know if this resonates, or not.
Perhaps we could look at using spiritual and religious interchangeably. You very clearly detail some of the Integral Community’s traps but I think discriminating between “Religion” and “Spirituality” is valid and separate. Fixing IT’s “we’re much more enlightened, those people aren’t” problem is a different problem likely more directly addressed separately.
While I agree that the IT community oft falls into the trap of “religions peter out somewhere Orange’ish at best” (after getting past the stuck in Archaic/Literal Mythic arguments) does as you describe very conveniently create a space “on top of traditional religions”.
By defining Ultimate Truth/Ultimate Transcendence as Interior only and relegating exterior/Community as background does this not salve over Integral’s biggest downfall? Wouldn’t it be “lack of community”?
Apologies that I wasn’t more articulate. Integral Theory is seemingly, yes from my academic and observational viewpoint, very much an “intellectual” endeavor trying to gain traction as a “practice”. My academic/intellectual comment was very much based on lack of community.
Perhaps my assessment is incorrect, but as a practicing traditional religious person even Integral Life is far from having the ability to provide. I life in a top 10 US city by population. Can I meet regularly with an Integral community to jointly develop towards ultimate transformation?
But then again we are back to a community being a requirement for a “religion” in the classical sense, at least in my experience. I would highly recommend emphasizing this importance in the essay as I think community is very much more than a background characteristic.
As I see it, I would not ascribe the word religion to Integral because the word religion has been used and abused in countless ways. In this respect, this is what Alan Watts had to say about religion.
“The problem with our ecclesiastical goings-on is that we run a talking shop. We pray, we tell God what to do or give Him advice, as if He did not know. We read the Scriptures. Jesus said, "You search the Scriptures daily, for in them you think you have life." Saint Paul made some rather funny references to "the spirit which giveth life and the letter which kills.” I think the Bible ought to be ceremoniously and reverently burned every Easter, in faith that we need it no more because the spirit is with us. It is a dangerous book, and to worship it is of course a far more dangerous idolatry than bowing down to images of wood and stone. Nobody can reasonably confuse a wooden image with God, but you can very easily confuse a set of ideas with God, because concepts are more rarefied and abstract. This endless talking and preaching in church does nothing, by and large, but excite a sense of anxiety and guilt. You cannot love out of that. No scolding or rational demonstration of the right way to behave is going to inspire people with love. Something else must happen”
I believe Susan Cook Greuter follows along the same lines as Watts regarding IT when she said in the 2013 Journal of Integral Theory and Practice that
"I wonder whether the Integral movement actually lacks a basic perspectivre on its own flavored assumptions. It seems to privilege a linear, future-oriented, and anthropocentric view despite its claim of being multiperspectival, transdisciplinary, and inclusive. Is it possible that we are letting ourselves be hi-jacked by the integral evangelical promise? A positive bias seems to me just as potentially blinding as a negative one. Because most everyone in the current integral movement celebrates the benefits of an evolutionary view of realty, I feel I need to raise the issue of the possible costs and limitations of this view to invite more balance and reflection"
Elsewhere she said
"I invite all of us in the integral movement to remain open and to inquire into our own motivations, needs, and preferences. Let’s be alert when we are attracted to an interpretation of reality because it makes us feel more secure, special, and important. Let’s be vigilant about not confusing the map with the territory, or our favored interpretations with the seamless underlying and felt sense of experiencing life as it unfolds. We better be skeptical when someone asserts a specific view of reality as the discovery of all discoveries rather than as a useful hypothesis, a tentative new map, and a basis from which to continue to explore the mystery of being".
So as Alan Watts said about religion, let’s burn the Integral Bible (if you can call it that) and stop talking ad nauseum about it (sorry Corey) and focus more on the direct means on how to free ourselves from our limited awareness. But where is the urgency on this?
We need to get it through our thick skull that we, as humans, are so fucking irrational and you don’t need to be a psychologist to figure that out. We have so many problems facing us right now. Whether it’s Covid deniers, climate change deniers, political corruption, televangelists who reap millions from their congregation, crimes of passion, and all manner of violence that we perpetrate towards each other. All because we vastly underestimate the danger of human irrational emotions that I fear will end humanity as we know it as Dr. Solomon pointed out here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuJhD5TkX-0&ab_channel=TEDxTalks
In our universities we go about with endless scientific research as well as in the humanities that has become an end in itself and all the while those in power are corrupting reality with all kinds of lies and conspiracy theories that infects the minds of the masses making them, in effect, dumb and stupid.
The masses of people have no idea they are being duped then we wonder why the emotional and psychological evolution of humanity crawls at a snail’s pace.
As Watts said, something else must happen and what must happen is to inform the masses that the way we go about living our lives is fucking madness; that the enemy is not outside us but inside us: our irrational passions that even our most astute psychologists are losing their own minds trying to make sense of it. Like covid-19, our mind is vulnerable to credulity and the society we live in is much sicker than we realize. I believe we must face this head on. As Dr. Sheldon said in his TED talk quoting the poet Thomas Hardy “if a way the the better there be, it lies in taking a full look at the worst”
As long as we are deluded by believing that America is great or our God is the only true God or our political ideology is better than others, such stance is the height of stupidly. We need to get passed this as if we had a gun to our head because that’s how dangerous such thinking is.
We can read and study IT until we are blue in the face, but no amount of it will make a difference until we get past the theories and discover experientially a greater awareness of being human.
Ray Bennett wrote:
“Then also, a while back I discussed with @FermentedAgave that Christianity (as well as Islam and most major world religions) have a virtually nonexistent methodology to transformation, while Buddhism, Yoga and several others have clearly defined methodology, pedagogy and evaluative rubrics with clear pathways to transformation.”
It is not true that “Christianity (as well as Islam. and most major religions) have a virtually nonexistent methodology to transformation.” See the chart on p. 9 of my essay for a summary of some of the methods offered by Creation of Community Through Myth and Ritual, (e.g. Christianity) and Daily Living That Expresses Cosmic Law (e.g. Islam). All major religions have clear teachings on the ultimate problems of life, what the solution is, and what the means are by which to achieve ultimate transformation. Those are well known and set out in a multitude of introductory texts on religions of the world.
As my essay explains, there is no one valid means of ultimate transformation in the spectrum of religious expressions, as you seem to assume. You seem to be defining ultimate transformation exclusively in terms of Enlightenment (Nondual?) and “methodologies” in terms of Buddha dharma or yogic disciplines. That’s philosophical absolutism, setting up a negative hierarchy between 3rd and 1st tier spirituality - very far from integral thinking.
Indeed, but the term will not go away any time soon. My essay attempts to define ‘religion’ in a way that any thoughtful follower of any faith system could agree with, including Integral. Integral clearly offers us a transformational world view and a program of means for working toward an ultimate transformation. Check out the essay for my argument.
I don’t think you understand what I mean by methodology, or how it is used in education.
I think with Judeo-Christian-Islam, we have to divide it at least into two groups.
In the first group - it is not possible for you to gain salvation from your acts. God will save you or not according to his will, not yours. So I think that’s my most obvious point. There are branches of Christianity and Islam where this is exactly what is believed. You may say that their actions of living a life according to the rules of their religion is “ultimate transformation” - but some traditions might disagree with you and see it even as heresy. I even saw funny video along these lines last week:
So I’m not getting where you think I’m only seeing this from one view. That’s probably what you want to believe about me, and a story you invent.
How can there be a methodology for a person to attain ultimate transformation when it isn’t up to them or their actions. God made that man slip and fall and 3 liters of water fell into his mouth along with tahini and some … bread? Should he continue to fast or see it as a sign from God that he was supposed to eat?
Then with regard to some other religions where you actually do have to do something to be “saved”, they have to accomplish something, but are often not told how in a step by step manner, nor any ways to determine if it has actually occurred. This is what pedagogy and methodology means to me and in common usage. Taking a goal and breaking it down into steps that can be taught and measured to see how students are doing at each level. I stand by that many traditions in the Judeo - Christian - Islamic tradition do not have this. I am not saying that this is a requirement for religion, but it does tend to make attaining a goal more difficult. Imagine if you were just told “learn nuclear physics” but there were no actual clearly laid out way to do that, and no way to evaluate if you had learned it?
I gave the examples of Buddhism and Yoga, but there is also the tradition of Judaism as well. For thousands of years Kaballah was limited to only the few and it has very clear step by step ways for the “creature” to experience the “creator”, and ways to measure if this is happening or if you are engaging in a forbidden practice (to them) like witchcraft or Mysticism. It’s just a fact that the vast majority of those practicing Judaism had no access to this methodology, and only some men over 40 were allowed to learn it. As a result, the actual original themes within the Torah taught through the language of branches were not taught through Christianity.
I agree there is not one valid means of ultimate transformation. I am actually going a step further and saying ultimate transformation in some religions isn’t even up to you (which is fine if they believe that), and then as a separate issue also many religions don’t actually explain how to get from point A to point B. Some religions have detailed maps with a bunch of markers while others have vast empty areas with “Here be Dragons”, the “edge of the Earth”, and so forth meaning their maps leave a lot to be desired.
Discussing how effective or efficient a belief system is in getting people from 3rd to 2nd or 1st tier isn’t philosophical absolutism. I think you’re repeating that phrase without actually considering what “absolutism” means. If it was absolutism I’d say something like “everything is religion”, or “all beliefs are equal and if you disagree with me, I will call YOU an absolutist”. This is a shadow of green tier where we are forced to say every belief is not just equally valid, but equally efficient and equal in every way - which is nonsense. If you want to see all forms of rankings for efficiency effectiveness as a “negative hierarchy”, the negative judgement is only coming from you. If people only see judgement in a discussion of the pros, cons, effectiveness or efficiency of Buddhism vs Mysticism vs Shamanism vs Christianity vs Philosophy then that itself is the problem.
Regardless of all these things and how you or I stand on this or that - I think what I am seeing is that the paper tries to force a kind of universal usage of the word “religion” with a universal and simple definition when it doesn’t actually work and systems of belief are much more complex. But the paper doesn’t actually come out and say this and so there’s a kind of “saying but not saying”.
For someone whose center of gravity is amber-traditional, belonging is a basic need (Maslow). For such a person, if he/she is religious, membership in and participation with a mythic-ritual community is a means of ultimate transformation - definitely, as you stated, not a background characteristic when they are participating in communal worship. For them, the LL quadrant is foreground and the others (always manifesting, of course) are background.
Here’s a way of thinking about the foreground/background distinction. Let’s recall that a person is a 4-quadrant holon; we say that moment-to-moment, each of us is tetra-arising. But the quadrants are not equally involved in every experience. Consider a mathematician alone in his study working with equations. He is performing behaviors that can be objectively observed (UR quadrant, zone 6), but those behaviors - scribbling on paper, scratching his head, etc. - are obviously not the most important thing going on. Our mathematician is also functioning harmoniously as a member of various systems - physical, environmental, legal, etc., but that dimension (LR quadrant) is obviously - for him - not the most significant thing going on. The same must be said for his membership in various cultures and subcultures (LL), e.g. the community of mathematicians. M is not interacting with any other mathematicians so that quadrant is in the background. What is foreground for M, what is front and center in his consciousness, what he is paying 100% attention to, is working out a mathematical problem. That activity belongs to the UL quadrant principally, so a quadrant map of M’s consciousness would show the UL standing out from the rest as if outlined with neon lights.
And so it is with religion. My analysis does not “lack community.” It simply and appropriately characterizes the function of community in certain spiritual acts (e.g. solitary prayer or meditation) by a religious holon as background reality to a process of consciousness which is foreground to that religious holon.**
The foregoing is an elaboration of a claim I make in the essay, namely that religious communities and religious organizations do not achieve an ultimate transformation; only individuals do.
A fair argument and an amusing example. You are thinking of methodology as a tool or instrument or set of methods that someone can use to accomplish something. Perfectly legitimate definition. However, my definition of religion does not refer to methodologies (although I do sometimes, rather loosely I admit). It refers to means toward ultimate transformation. A means of ultimate transformation might be a methodology as in the multi-level mystical approach to Godhead written about by Christian mystics or the steps portrayed in Zen’s Ten Oxherding Pictures. I say, ‘might be,’ but a means need not be a methodology. It might be, to use your example, a supernatural gift bestowed by God, not earned or acquired by the individual’s own voluntary efforts. In Streng Theory (see Part 2 of my essay), for example, one of the 4 traditional “ways of being religious” described is “Personal Encounter with the Holy.” This refers to extraordinary, dramatic, unpredictable visual or auditory direct encounters with a supernatural being or force that cause a reaction of awe in the moment and often a complete transformation of the person’s life thereafter in the direction of greater truth, holiness, and beauty. Such encounters are means of ultimate transformation but not by virtue of any methodology.
So in my analysis, ‘means’ is a broader term than ‘methodology.’ It includes the latter but also includes non-methodological means of transformation. Thanks for helping me get clear on this distinction.
Force? Really? And how exactly have you demonstrated that my definition “doesn’t work?” Have you shown that using my definition with the AQAL map leaves out one or more quadrants? No. Does it fail to apply to the stages of consciousness in the integral spectrum? No. Does it leave out states of consciousness? No. If you continue to disagree, do you know of a better definition?
To be clear on my views and perhaps most importantly intention is to see Integral Theory more broadly integrate across the spectrum from secular anti theists to traditional religion adherents.
I can see that if you limit your audience to Integral elite or to the more secular spiritualist your definition would resonate with what we might call the “inner focus” or Gnosticism.
If you want your audience to integrate traditional religious communities, community will also be highly relevant. Or if you want thinking around Integral Religion to also provide the psycho-sociological well being that many find in traditional religions, inclusion of “community” is necessary from my perspective.
Gentlemen -
This is my last post to this thread. Thank you for the conversation. I have enjoyed it and learned from it. I wish you all a very merry Christmas and a safe and fulfilling new year.
C. Marxer
It quite simply works if we say:
1 - SPIRITUALITY is defined as any vehicle towards ultimate transformation
simple
Some Organized Religions achieve this while some do not. Some organizations might also delve into spiritual practices and also not be a Religion (like Integral).
Here is the thing about Religions: they messed up. They acted to perpetuate shadow elements of spirituality. Control, manipulation, abuse, and so on not to mention genocide, rape and molestation. These are well documented and historical facts. The development of the internet coincided with a time when populations were questioning Religion. All this while not actually delivering on ultimate transformation and using it as a kind of “lure”. The result since the 1960’s has been church membership has been in constant decline for decades while nonreligious spiritual practices have been on the rise.
Religions have been forced to change, but do so grudgingly, slowly and only when forced to do so.
Now I see a common trend with people who like religion, where they still try to perpetuate this scam of Religion being the only path toward ultimate transformation. They still want to maintain their control of power and keep religion relevant.
I was trying to see if this was the case with your paper, and now with the discussion over my conclusion based on what is presented is that this is another one of those efforts to put religion back in the center stage and just redefine nonreligions spirituality out of existence.
I ran across this quote today, which connected in my mind to the question:
Is Integral a Religion?
Ven. Sariputta said: "All those who ask questions of another do so from any one of five motivations.