Lila

By Flore Singer Aaslid

Flore Singer Aaslid (flore.aaslid@svt.ntnu.no)
Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)

Abstract

The manner in which reality is perceived and conceptualized has profound implications for many levels of human existence. From the methods by which scientific research is conducted, interpreted and applied to the choices we make in everyday life not to mention the circumstances surrounding our death. The widespread mechanistic view of reality, based on a sharp division between subjective experience and objective reality, has had an enormous impact on contemporary civilization on both an individual and collective scale. Although there have been many positive developments, especially in the field of science and technology, the ultimate effect of perpetuating this dualistic ontology is fragmentation on both an individual and collective scale. In many respects, fragmentation can be seen as the root cause of many of the ills afflicting the world today. By drawing on recent scientific developments that seriously challenge the myths of atomic physics combined with empirical examples from different treatment methods for a wide range of pathologies, this paper emphasizes the urgent need for a holistic, integrative approach based on the unity of different levels of mind.

Background

Historically, contemporary western civilization and culture has been powerfully influenced by the dualistic philosophy of Rene´ Descartes. Although this dualism can be traced all the way back to the Greek atomists, it was Descartes who had the greatest impact on the development of classical physics and in many respects Western thought up to this day. His philosophy was developed in the seventeenth century and consisted of a fundamental division of reality into two separate, independent parts - the Cartesian split between mind and matter. An important consequence of this dualism was that science and theology became separated as the realm of the physical, seen as lifeless substance, became a subject of study in itself, segregated from other disciplines (Stumpf 1988). This in turn inspired the Newtonian mechanistic view of reality where the material world was perceived as a Giant Machine made up of an assembly of objects hinged together and operated by rational laws, which the human mind could discover. The foundation for classical physics was thereby established and the result was an unusually swift development of the experimental sciences predominantly in physics where significant scientific and technological discoveries appeared, especially during the industrial revolution.

The subsequent impact of the Cartesian split, however, cannot be isolated to the material world alone. As Fritjoff Capra has pointed out (Capra 1975) it has also had an enormous impact on the Western way of thinking and living in the world. Descartes’ legendary proclamation “cogito ergo sum” - “I think therefore I am”, has affected the very core of our being in equating our identity with our minds, as opposed to the organism as a whole. By separating mind from matter, self-awareness has become reduced to a vague conception of an isolated ego floating within a somewhat uncooperative physical body whose instincts and desires it is presumed to control. This “inner fragmentation” encompasses every facet of our being, as individuals are further compartmentalized into separate categories like feelings, beliefs, drives and motivations. Unfortunately, these many aspects of the self often produce conflict in the secluded thinker, leading to many varieties of “metaphysical confusion”. Furthermore, this inner fragmentation is also reflected in the outside world, as different parts of nature become exploited without taking the welfare of the total environment into account. A similar trend can be observed in society as humanity is divided into separate and frequently conflicting factions between nations and races as well as ethnic, religious and political groups. The consequences are tragic in more ways than one, to cite Capra,

The belief that all these fragments - in ourselves, in our environment and in our society - are really separate can be seen as the essential reason for the present series of social, ecological and cultural crises. It has alienated us from nature and from our fellow human beings. It has brought a grossly unjust distribution of natural resources creating economic and political disorder; an ever rising wave of violence, both spontaneous and institutionalized, and an ugly, polluted environment in which life has often become physically and mentally unhealthy (Capra 1975: 28).

Several authors have also remarked on the link between pathology and feelings of disconnectedness and isolation from the world at large. Bateson (1972), for example, notes that adaptation in both biological worlds and human societies leads to increasing pathology. Since adaptation to our environments in itself demands increasing specialization, this leads to a narrowing of perception, and a restriction on our awareness in terms of seeing the patterns that connect and unify all phenomena. The Cartesian division between science and religion, although necessary and in many ways beneficial at the time, has resulted in a split society and an upsurge of fragmented minds. This is perhaps what Bateson had in mind when he wrote “It is the attempt to separate intellect from emotion that is monstrous, and I suggest that it is equally monstrous - and dangerous - to attempt to separate the external mind from the internal. Or to separate mind from body.” (Ibid: 464).

Curiously, this fragmentation can be observed all the way down to the cellular level in the realm of neurobiology, which in itself has enormous implications for psychodynamic psychology. Fredric Schiffer, a leading Harvard psychiatrist and researcher, suggests in his book Of Two Minds (1998) that major psychiatric illnesses can result from problems with brain laterality. His theory is based on both clinical observations and a review of split-brain literature as well as experimentation with lateral visual field stimulation which has indicated that psychological traumas are associated more with one cerebral hemisphere than the other. The result is a one-sided hemispheric dominance, resulting in “two minds” where each one possesses a different a personality and different level of maturity. For example, the emotional mind, mainly associated with the right hemisphere, might be harmed by previous trauma and abuse leading to sabotage of the critical mind, or left hemisphere. In other words, the interaction between these two minds, whether there is hemispheric harmonization or conflict, ultimately shapes our whole psychological nature in terms of the emotional stagnation or growth we encounter in life. One primary goal of therapy then is to access, isolate and work with encoded memories in the underdeveloped hemisphere thereby facilitating reintegration and allowing for a more harmonious and balanced relationship between our two selves. His approach has produced notable results for a large range of emotional disorders like anxiety, depression, addiction and even stress-induced heart disease (Ibid).

Furthermore, a recent article in Scientific American called “Scars that won’t heal: the neurobiology of child abuse” (Teichner 2002) suggests that these hemispheric imbalances can even be observed anatomically in the brain. According to these studies, people who suffer from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) caused by childhood sexual or physical abuse display a number of significant structural differences when compared to “normal” subjects asked to recall painful memories. In those who suffered from PTSD, the right hemisphere dominated and evidence showed that the left hemisphere was actually smaller. Additionally, the corpus callosum, a communicative pathway between both halves of the brain, was also smaller, making it extremely difficult for painful feelings in the right brain to be integrated by the left brain in terms of acquiring some kind of context and meaning. Areas in the brain associated with emotions, specifically the amygdala and hippocampus were also underdeveloped, and among PTSD sufferers, blood flow deficiency towards one area of the brain (the cerebellar vermis) might even account for symptoms of depression and ADHD since this area helps regulate the production and release of nor-epinephrine and dopamine (Ibid).

A cybernetic approach to reality

In effect, what these findings seem to be indicating is that the brain interacts with the social environment in a much more intricate and complex manner than Descarte’s philosophical speculations might suggest. The mind develops from the entire organism as a whole, a major theme also expressed in Antanio Damasio’s book Descartes”” Error (1994). Here the author, a professor of neurology, argues clearly and persuasively for the idea that reason and emotion are closely linked and that the mind reflects two types of interaction: between the body and the brain, and between them and the environment, based on several years of neuroscientific research. The interdependence of mind and matter is a point that I find Bateson also expresses quite clearly in his cybernetic epistemology. Here the mind is portrayed as a cybernetic system, where the division between the “physical world” and the “mental world” is not categorical but based on a contrast in coding and transmission inside and outside the body. Message pathways can also be seen outside the skin, and these as well as the messages they convey must be integrated as part of the mental system whenever relevant. In other words, even if the territory or environment as a physical entity never enters the mind, the mind is not limited by the skin, it’s not in anybody’s head - there is circuitry at all levels of existence (Bateson 1972: 454). It follows then, that where fragmentation on various levels eventually leads to pathology, a cybernetic approach may provide us with the keys to developing a healthier relationship to our environment and ourselves. The challenge lies in discovering a method by which to assist consciousness in recognizing the systemic nature of mind. With this task as a point of departure, I will now attempt to expand on some of the main ideas presented in Bateson’s essay “Style, Grace and Information in Primitive Art”, focusing specifically on the integrative potential of dreams and ritual.

According to Bateson, psychic unity can be perceived in a number of ways through the medium of art, ritual and mythology, and through dreams. These processes have an essential function with respect to integration because they allow us to see a communicative message as both itself internally patterned and as part of a larger patterned universe. For example, in connecting dreams to feelings, and feelings as arising out of patterns of relationships between self and other, and self and the environment, he shows how patterns can be expressed symbolically, through metaphor. Here conscious and unconscious elements are expressed through metaphoric coding according to primary processes (where one does not distinguish between fantasy and reality) in the form of dreams, art and ritual. The importance of these functions can hardly be underestimated, as Bateson himself writes “mere purposive rationality unaided by such phenomena as art, religion, dream and the like, is necessarily pathogenic and destructive of life… life depends upon interlocking circuits of contingency, while consciousness can see only short arcs of such circuits as human conduct may direct” (Ibid: 146).

The key issue here is that dreams, myths and rituals, as well as art, have an integrative potential because they express deep structures of relationships, through metaphoric coding, between mind and matter. Or put slightly differently, they serve as bridges between the false dualism of inner and outer worlds and act as conceptual mediators between the two. Understood from this perspective, metaphors can express both structural similarity and significant relationships, they function as mediating elements and analogic codes that create a “pattern” by connecting different levels of reality in a given context, from which meaning can then be derived. In this manner, they serve to reveal the interconnections between events, processes, thoughts and actions that make up the realities of our changing world and “present an overall context, a framework, within which the concrete actions of individuals can be placed, understood and judged” (Thaiss 1978: 13). In this regard, metaphors are not only a peculiarity of language but have a concrete role in everyday behavior and experience, as they play an active part through structuring our perceptual and conceptual systems, and in many respects even direct our actions (Lakoff & Johnson 1980). In terms of personal development and growth, it would seem logical that gaining direct access to these metaphoric codification processes could yield exceptionally powerful results. Empirically, this can be substantiated by the ritual use of ibogaine and it’s somewhat controversial role in the treatment of addiction and mental disorders.

Ibogaine as integrative catalyst

The development, application and dynamics of Ibogaine are presented in detail by Goutarel, Gollnhofer and Sillans in a paper entitled “Pharmodynamics and Therapeutic Applications of Iboga and Ibogaine” (1993). The potent and unique properties of ibogaine, an extract from the root of the plant Tabernanthe Iboga, was primarily utilized as an essential component of the Bwiti initiation rituals in Gabon, West Africa. Although there are some ritual variations among various Bwiti cults, some underlying structural similarities can still be observed. The initiation itself is a typical rite of passage, revolving around the principle themes of death, liminality and rebirth where the neophyte arrives at a vast realization of the mysteries of the beyond through the visions induced by the plant itself. Iboga is said to encourage both visual and auditory confirmation of several planes of existence with which the initiate blends. This ritual is closely connected to death, it is said among the Mitsogho Bwiti that the initiate will only see the Bwiti twice in their lives, during this initiation and at the time of their death. It enables one to return to infancy, and to birth - to life in the womb “by returning initiates to the uterine condition, a condition in any case very close to life in the land of the dead” thereby restoring them “to their own integrity - their pristine conditions” (Fernandez 1982 in Goutarel, Gollnhofer and Sillans 1993). There are four main visual phases that can be distinguished during this initiation:

• A period of disorientation and confusion, visual distortions
• The journey to the underworld, seeing animal like entities
• Meeting the ancestors and traveling to “The Village of the Dead”, and
• An onset of “normative ”visions of a highly archetypical nature, meeting primordial entities and gaining access to “ancient memories”.

The second visual phase usually concerns past events and memories, many see their own life pass before their eyes somewhat like a cognitive slide show of their own psyche. The visual phases are followed by a cognitive period of analysis where they are evaluated and interpreted, a job reserved for the elder initiates among the Bwiti. In this manner the initiation ritual is strictly monitored with respect to its progression, ritual significance and import. The final stage is the most crucial, and when attained is celebrated by the whole tribe, the initiate has “seen the Bwiti with his own eyes” and is now considered a Master. Contrary to standard hallucinations, this ordeal in many respects resembles an NDE (near death experience) in terms of the actual content and different stages of visual manifestations as researched and described in detail by psychiatrist Raymond Moody and cardiologist Michael B. Sabom. These visualizations bare a much closer resemblance to a “waking dream” rather than an illusory distortion of reality, since “the subject remains perfectly conscious and can communicate with those around him, being at once an actor and a spectator of his visions”.

The first person in the west to remark on the exceptional psychoactive properties of ibogaine was the Chilean researcher and psychotherapeutic physician Claudio Naranjo, who published a report called “Psychotherapeutic Possibilities of New Fantasy-Enhancing Drugs” in Clinical Toxicology (Naranjo, C. 1969). Here he is concerned with the therapeutic effects of two very similar alkaloids, harmaline (an extract derived from the yage bark) and ibogaine. The term “oneirophrenic” best describes the effects of these drugs and was coined by the yage specialist William Turner to differentiate the states induced by these drugs from other hallucinogenics specifically due to the absence of any psychotic symptom, although they do share “the preeminence of a primary thought process” (in Goutarel, Gollnhofer & Sillans 1993). These involve a dream-like phenomena devoid of the usual visual and/or auditory changes in perception of the environment itself, where the patient can gain access to the underworld, the unconscious, in the form of remarkably consistent archetypical imagery or “ancient memories, generally common to all humans, buried in their collective unconscious. To cite Voltaire: ‘The world, according to Plato, was composed of archetypal ideas that always remained deep in the brain’.” (Ibid.). Since subjects remain conscious throughout the whole ordeal there is obviously an unusual integrative potential here, the type of contact concerned by the unconscious material is symbolic (rather than assuming the form of a free-floating emotion, as with LSD), and may henceforth be assimilated in the form of lasting signs. Such signs generally occur when a fantasy or a hypothesis that had been unconscious becomes conscious with such clarity that the ego of a mature person is compelled to become aware of his or her deep-rooted former error (Ibid).

In other words, ibogaine basically allows patients to gain access to significant memories and emotions, while simultaneously maintaining an extraordinary degree of symbolic objectivity. This objectivity then allows them to integrate important events and feelings during an intensive cognitive process of profound introspection and self-analysis. Although Naranjo did not see Ibogaine and harmaline as a “psychiatric panacea” that could magically cure the mentally ill, he was very impressed with his findings and concluded his report by writing that they may nevertheless act as psychological catalysts making it possible to compress a very lengthy psychotherapeutic process into a shorter time and change its prognosis. Working directly with these processes therefore has a highly beneficial effect, the reason for which many shamanic tribes, including the Mitsogho Bwiti, have been recognized as practicing a form of remarkably advanced therapy, psychosomatic healing and even psychoanalysis (Fromaget 1986 in Goutarel, Gollnhofer & Sillan 1993).

The powerful effects of ibogaine were also noticed by Howard Lotsof in the early 60’s, a 19 year old American heroin addict experimenting with some friends at a drug party with a trial dose of about 500 mg of the extract. Although not intended, the side effect of this initial trial was that five of the seven who had tried ibogaine, in addition to Lotsof himself, simply stopped using drugs. Lotsof, who had permanently recovered, saw the incredible potential and decided to make it available to drug addicts as a method for interrupting narcotic addiction. He has probably invested the most time and effort into making ibogaine known in the west and managed to secure four different U.S. patents, one for opiate addiction in 1985, amphetamine and cocaine addiction in1986, for alleviating alcohol dependence in 1989 and for interrupting nicotine dependence in 1991. An incredible mount of research has also been conducted in both Europe and the United States as to the effectiveness of ibogaine in terms of interrupting dependency in both human and animal subjects. For example, a single treatment with ibogaine hydrochloride taken orally can interrupt severe heroin addiction for up to 6 months. The treatment process is described as follows:

The duration of the treatment is about 30 hours, and ibogaine exerts a stimulant effect during this period. An abreactive process takes place during the treatment but does not become evident until the patient awakens from a natural sleep that occurs after the primary and secondary effects of ibogaine are diminished. The drug addicts no longer desire to take heroin and show no perceptible signs of physical withdrawal. The subjects are relaxed and express themselves coherently. They demonstrate a feeling of self-confidence. Lotsof describes the effects of the oral administration of ibogaine and divides these effects into three stages, comparable to the four stages of the Bwiti of the Mitsogho. (Goutarel, Gollnhofer & Sillans 1993)

Somewhat paradoxically, even though it has been confirmed repeatedly that ibogaine actually suppresses dependency; the 1967-68 resolutions of the World Health Assembly (which still applies today) nevertheless classified ibogaine with hallucinogenics like LSD, guilty of impairing human health and apparently having some other mysterious addictive quality. Although ibogaine can be lethal if the dosage is not carefully regulated, it is still probably the most humane and effective treatment available when administered by professionals. This is because, in addition to enabling addicts to examine and resolve the roots of their addictive behavior during the visionary state, it also has the unique ability to reduce withdrawal and prevent drug-cravings for up to several months while ibogaine metabolites remain in the body. The US government even approved clinical trials all the way into the 90’s to test its treatment potential (in addition to the lesser known successful trials conducted by the CIA way back in the 50’s), but was persuaded by representatives of major pharmaceutical corporations to postpone further development of the drug on the grounds that it was not profit-worthy. Among others, Dr Deborah Mash, professor of pharmacology and State Medical Examiner for Dade County, Florida has successfully treated over 100 people with ibogaine and published a great deal of scientific data confirming the effectiveness of this root.

Dynamics of the waking dream

There is a great deal of speculation as to the mechanisms underlying the powerful effects of ibogaine, especially related to addiction and other pathological disorders. Although it appears that the main reasons for it not being more widely available are political, ibogaine is a highly complex drug and still only partially understood, making it especially unattractive to the pharmaceutical industry. Without delving too deeply into the field of neuroscience, which is beyond the scope of this paper anyhow, there is one area in particular I feel merits further attention since it relates directly to the integrative role of metaphoric coding in dreams as postulated be Bateson. According to Goutarel and Co.(1993) the long waking dream sequence seems to lie at the root of a temporary destructuring of the ego, followed by its restructuring. This hypothesis is connected with both ethnological studies of the Mitsogho Bwiti as well as the neurophysiological findings of Michel Jouvet and Sir Francis Crick, concerning the specific role of dreams in programming and deprogramming basic behavior patterns ensuing in a new individuation of the human brain.

The different stages of sleep can be characterized by different wave frequencies; NREM (slow wave or deep) sleep, PGO (pontogeniculo-occipital) waves, and REM (rapid eye movement or paradoxical) sleep when dreaming takes place. According to Jouvet and Crick, PGO waves are considered to be the principal coding tool by acting on the cortical level in recording the genetic and epigenetic acquisitions necessary for the brains individuation. Furthermore, PGO waves have the ability to “clean out the neuronal circuitry” through random activation mechanisms where an informational overload linked to pathological behavior is eliminated from certain types of neuronal networks. The role of REM sleep is then to sort out and dispose of the “residues” arising out of the PGO wave sleep pattern and thereby contribute substantially to our mental health. Although Jouvet negates the fact that a direct link can be established to the dream mechanism directly due to the oneiric effects of hallucinogens, it has been established that the primary difference between dreams and hallucinations resides specifically in the organization of the stages of wakefulness. In other words, there is a suppression of REM sleep and an intrusion of PGO waves in both waking stages and NREM or slow sleep, therefore it seems highly likely that the visionary manifestations, or waking dream may “eliminate ‘residues’ stirred up by the PGO wave pattern in the absence of REM sleep” (Goutarel, Gollnhofer & Sillans 1993). Thus, there is definitely a link between the waking dream mechanisms activated by ibogaine and the positive behavioral outcome among previously addicted and pathological subjects, however indirect.

This theory is further elaborated upon by Harvard biopsychiatrist C.M. Anderson in a paper entitled “Ibogaine Therapy in Chemical Dependency and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: A Hypothesis Involving the Fractal Nature of Fetal REM Sleep and Interhemispheric Reintegration” (1998). In short, Anderson maintains that ibogaine basically interacts with multiple neurotransmitter systems and drives amygdaloid-brainstem dynamics into a self-organized critical oneiric state, a state of plasticity similar to that existing during fetal development. This psychotherapeutic condition bears a strong resemblance to complex behavioral states like REM sleep and attentional orienting in that they all “share the signature” of the self-organized critical state, that is to say “1/f patterns of activity” involving many levels of the nervous system from the subcellular to the behavioral. Anderson refers to recent findings showing that drug abuse and traumatic experiences often have a disruptive effect on REM sleep, which is essential for emotion regulation, learning and memory consolidation. Furthermore, abnormal hemispheric functional asymmetries, caused by stress or abuse earlier in life, also disrupt REM sleep and may lead to a predisposition towards addictive and self-defeating behaviors as a direct result of impaired interhemispheric integration (Anderson 1998). Comparing these findings with the ritual function of ibogaine among the Bwiti in Gabon, Anderson writes.

I believe that ibogaine, when used in a proper long-term supportive social and psychotherapeutic context, can end drug addictions and possibly the underlying PTSD, by promoting, especially during the cognitive evaluation phase, balanced hemispheric interactions. Just as The Fang adopted the use of eboga to promote social and religious harmony during colonialism-induced social and cultural fragmentation, our world society which is experiencing a similar deep social fragmentation, accelerated by the soulless march of materialism and concurrent environmental degradation, and marked by escalating drug addiction and suicidal behavior among our youth, may benefit from judicious use of ibogaine or related agents. Ibogaine, possibly in combination with hemispheric reintegration techniques, may potentially free the minds of many individuals (addicts, rape victims, violent criminals, victims of child abuse, war or natural disasters) suffering from the debilitating emotional disregulation resulting form hemispheric disharmony (Ibid).

Miller and Swinney have written an article which is also highly relevant in this context, based largely on Anderson’s hypothesis, entitled “The Fractal Nature of Active Sleep and Waking Dreams: Restructuring Consciousness through Metaphor, Fetal REM, and Neural Plasticity” (2001). Spontaneous fractal patterning can be observed at many levels and often reveal an underlying structure in both living and nonliving matter. Fractals emerge from attractors, which are basically the characteristic behavior of a dynamical system changing over time. Self-organized fractal patterns can be observed in many complex biological systems, in the human brain for example this burst-within-burst pattern can be observed in ion channel current fluctuations. When the system is driven to a critical state, bifurcations or catastrophic state-changes may occur (Ibid). Ibogaine has precisely this effect on the brain when PGO waves are activated and overlap with the usual low alphoid brain state, enabling crucial shifts in instinctual learning patterns. This can be compared to similar mechanisms occurring at the near death state, a state where the “body-mind” takes over. In a chapter on brain/mind dynamics, professor of philosophy Arnold Keyserling mentions the Sufi tradition, where it is quite common to create a situation of mortal danger, or force a man into crisis so as to bring about a shift from the left brain into body awareness (Keyserling 1995). Here also the importance of dreaming is discussed in achieving interhemispheric integration, “The separation of the brains must be overcome: the dreamer and doer must become one” (Ibid).

The essential role of metaphors

As I have previously pointed out, metaphors have a crucial function in terms of connecting inner and outer worlds or the physical and mental realms, in addition to serving as bridges between the conscious and the unconscious in dreams. This can be exemplified in the “waking dream”, which essentially allows for a gating-mechanism to occur, where right brain material is absorbed and integrated by the left brain through the ibogaine induced self-organized critical state. For example, during the oneirophrenic phase, traumatic memories with a high emotional import can be assimilated in the form of metaphor by the right hemisphere and then further absorbed, analyzed and given meaning during the subsequent cognitive or intellectual phase. Also, by stimulating otherwise neglected neural circuitry, new pathways are created thereby improving equilibrium and initiating long-term change. The self-organised critical state leads directly to a cascading restructuring of the pattern, system or structure, it is closely related to primary processes because during this state “we virtually cannot distinguish our inside from outside; in a sense it turns ourselves ‘inside out.’ The imaginal experiences are ‘real’ in that they carry real consequences in the ordinary world” ((Miller & Swinney 2001: 18).

Metaphoric coding is in many respects the tool employed during this critical state to restructure consciousness and achieve integration, because of the mediating role metaphors have in linking inner and outer realites, body and mind and the conscious with the unconscious. As Keyserling has pointed out “The basic patterns of our mind emerge from the structure of our speech” (Keyserling 1995). Metaphors express these patterns because they are in many respects a cognitive schema, “a unifying framework that links a conceptual representation to its sensory and experiential ground” (Lakoff 1988 in Miller & Swinney 2001). They form cognitive maps, “a web of concepts rooted directly in physical experiences, and our relation to the external world” thereby serving as experiential frameworks so that new information may be absorbed. Therefore metaphoric coding can be seen as a complex dynamic which both structures our language, shapes our thoughts and judgments and serves as a means by which we experience ourselves and our reality (Ibid). As Miller and Swinney have indicated (referring to Lakoff 1988), the connection between mind and body can be observed on many levels,

• Thought is embodied: it arises through bodily experiences and makes sense in terms of it “we are grounded in perception, body movement, and our physical and social character”.
  Thought is imaginative: it unfolds spontaneously through metaphor and images based largely on bodily experience.
  Thought has gestalt properties: a perspective of “radical non-dualism” closely related to self-organization and dynamic processes.
  Thought has an ecological structure: it is a webwork of synergetic interaction

Therefore, in order for the consciousness restructuring process to take place, it makes sense that this must necessarily occur through what Keyserling has termed “body awareness”, or in neurological terms through the sensory motor system. Since thought can be closely connected to orientation-sensitive cells, the sensory motor system is fundamental, as is metaphor which builds our neuronal maps, enabling sensory-motor structures to play a vital role even in abstract reasoning. Miller has in fact developed a form of therapy which shares many similarities with the Ibogaine experience only that this is based on a drug-free shamanic journey where psychophysical restructuring takes place in the context of “dream healing”. Metaphorical perception emerges in sleep, “and demonstrates that imaginal life is fundamental to our existential perspective…the root of our existential self-image lies in the sensorimotor root” (Ibid). In other words, the underlying structure of the mind is both rooted in and ultimately dependent on the structure and facility of the body.

Obviously there are many ways to achieve body-awareness and interhemispheric integration. Some gradual, not so drastic methods that have been employed in the East for centuries are meditation, yoga, tai chi and several forms of martial arts. Fortunately, these techniques are also becoming more and more widespread in the West as individuals search for healthier ways of being in the world. Most Eastern healing traditions are based on an underlying holistic approach to disease and pathology, where the ultimate goal is to create harmony in an unbalanced system, as in acupuncture for example, by stimulating different pathways which somehow block the flow of vital energies. This view is remarkably consistent with recent findings in physics where concrete “objective reality” is in fact now understood as consisting mainly of energy at different vibrations which is filtered through the mind-brain mechanism and, only then, experienced as those sensory objects we call the physical world. Gradually, the computer metaphor of cognition, seen as a series of input and output processes resulting in a “mirror” representation of the world, is being replaced by the model of a complex dynamic system, where internal and external reality is interdependently organized to form an emergent whole.

Towards a science of consciousness and a conscientious science

Paradoxically, despite these findings contemporary science still has no place for the investigation of consciousness. To cite Fenwick & Lorimer in an article written for New Scientist entitled “Can brains be conscious”, “Modern science has no place for the study of our subjective experience, yet science relies on our perceptions of the world” (Fenwick & Lorimer 1989: 54). In actual fact, the “external world” is primarily a subjective mental model formed by our brains, and therefore in itself lacks objective validity. It is a “trick of the brain” that leads us to completely misunderstand the true nature of reality. As physicist Arthur Eddington has commented “Mind is the first and most direct thing in our experience, and all else is remote inference - inference either intuitive or deliberate” (in Fenwick & Lorimer 1989:55). The effect of disregarding this vital insight becomes almost comically absurd, if it wasn’t for all the tragic consequences arising as a result. What it boils down to is that “reductionist science posits an external world that is independent of ourselves, but uses a subjectively contaminated mental model to assess it” (Ibid: 56). Furthermore, in the cognitive sciences, incredibly advanced theories are developed to explain the many transactions occurring between different components of an organism as part of a mechanical process, while the organism itself, as a conscious entity, is completely left out of the picture. In this manner, highly subjective and meaningful emotions like anger or love, somehow become reduced to an endless variety of impulses in the neurological system. Apparently, our “Cartesian anxiety” has evolved to the point where, although “we live in a world where love, beauty, meaning and value are part of our daily lives, indeed are the most important aspects of our world” (Fenwick & Lorimer 1989: 55) science, in the name of objectivity, has banished these fundamental qualities to the realm of irrelevant, inferior and almost embarrassing side effects of human existence.

Fortunately, this state of affairs is gradually beginning to change as an ever-increasing number of enlightened souls from a variety of academic circles slowly begin to venture into this forsaken territory and explore these remote yet omnipresent regions of the mind. This is not yet another new and improved form of idealism, evolving out of an exaggerated reverence to the powers of the psyche and it’s manifold creations. The emphasis here is on an all-encompassing unity between body and mind, concretely and actively involved in the world as opposed to passive receptacles of experience. It is an approach that first and foremost aims at taking seriously both embodiment and subjective experience. In this manner, the mind and body problem becomes irrelevant since, contrary to the Cartesian perspective, they are not seen as two mutually exclusive elements which must be combined, but as aspects of a single unity. “The unity (not union) of body and mind implies the presence of the mental in the bodily and that of the bodily in the mental. The mind is not an entity somewhere in the body, but it is the body”.

This approach is eloquently conveyed in The Embodied Mind (Varela, Thompson & Rosch 1991), where the authors argue persuasively for a comprehension of cognition evolving out of a common ground between mind in science and mind in experience, based on a dialogue between cognitive science and Buddhist meditative psychology. Specifically, there is a strong focus on the method of mindfulness/awareness meditation which in many respects has much to offer in terms of dealing with many of the unpleasant consequences arising out of our “Cartesian anxiety”. As the name itself implies, the aim is to become mindful, to experience what the mind does, when it does it, embodied in everyday life. The techniques here are specifically designed to lead the mind back from the abstract, from its theories and intellectual preoccupations, to the actual lived-in situation itself. In this manner one can directly know and explore what human experience is, thereby it also offers vital insights in terms of how to deal with the mind in personal and interpersonal situations (pp.21-22). This method basically provides a “middle way” approach to the Cartesian dilemma of objectivism versus subjectivism which, according to the Buddhist tradition, is simply the inevitable result of our minds habitual tendency to “grasp” at a firm ground either in external reality or within ourselves.

Within the tradition of mindfulness/awareness meditation the motivation has been to develop a direct and stable insight into absolutism and nihilism as forms of grasping that result from the attempt to find a stable ego-self and so limit our lived world to the experience of suffering and frustration. By progressively learning to let go of these tendencies to grasp, one can begin to appreciate that all phenomena are free of any absolute ground and that such “groundlessness” (sunyata) is the very fabric of dependent coorgination…groundlessness is the very condition for the richly textured and interdependent world of human experience (Ibid: 144).

In many ways, these methods closely resemble what Fenwick & Lorimer (1989) have termed a “science of qualities” (referring to Goodwin in an essay on David Bohm) or a “science of subjective experience” which according to the authors is desperately needed to serve as a complement to our current quantitative approaches. They suggest that an important objective of this new science would be to explain the relationship between different subjective phenomena in much the same way that reductionist science does for the objective world. In this manner, the inquiry also begins with a hypothesis, which is then tested in order to arrive at a possible falsification and reformulation. Only here it is not the external world that is under scrutiny, but consciousness and its contents. This procedure then assures that it meets the standards of a “true science” as defined by Karl Popper. Those more familiar with the Buddhist tradition have already noted the scientific rigor of many of its practices. Professor Marsha Lhineman for example, who has incorporated many aspects of Buddhism into a highly successful psychosocial treatment approach known as Dialectical Behavior Therapy, cites Wilber (1977) on precisely this point. Here it is written that “these Eastern disciplines … are not theories, philosophies, psychologies or religions - rather, they are primarily a set of experiments in the strictly scientific term…which, if carried out properly, will result in the discovery of [awareness]” (in Lhineman & Schmidt 1995: 575). These are traditions that have continued for thousands of years, and are still training initiates in time-tested and verified techniques of enhancing awareness. Therefore “ to refuse to examine the results of such scientific experiments because one dislikes the data so obtained is in itself a most unscientific gesture” (Ibid).

In mindfulness meditation, the technique of “basic element analysis” is in many respects a scientific inquiry of the mind in interaction with it’s environment as it is developed in the Abhidharma and further expanded on by Nagarjuna . Here the issue of dependent coarising is thoroughly examined with respect to the mind of the inquiring subject and the manner in which codependent factors are mistakenly treated as the ultimate founding blocks of a supposed objective and subjective reality (in Varela, Thompson & Rosch 199: 224). Seen purely from a theoretical, or abstract point of view, this may appear to be nothing but a slightly advanced form of aerobics for the mind, with an Eastern twist. In order to understand how these insights can have any practical application in an actual lived-in world, one must consider the subjective effects of these techniques for the practitioner. The essential point is that as one engages in this practice, and truly becomes mindful of one’s own experience, “one realizes the power of the urge to grasp after foundations - to grasp the sense of foundation of a real, separate self, the sense of foundation of a real, separate world, and the sense of foundation of an actual relation between self and world” (Ibid: 225). It is this “power of the urge to grasp” which lies at the root of much of the pain and anxiety troubling people today.

This insight is clearly reflected in Dialectical Behavior Therapy, originally developed to treat suicidal behaviors (Linehan 1987), and then further developed to treat borderline personality disorders and substance abusers (Linehan 1993). Here the term “dialectics” is especially significant, as it not only refers to a therapeutic method of persuasion, but also to a particular view of reality where wholeness, interrelatedness and change are fundamental (Dimeff, Herman & Linehan 1996). In this context, dialectics refer to a coherent dynamic system for exploring and making sense of the world, as an “alternative to the classificatory logic often found in traditional science” (Linhan & Schmidt 1995: 557). Here the primary focus is not directed towards a taxonomical identification of parts, but on the interaction between them, as they move towards resolution. In this respect, “there is no basement”, or fundamental unit - “what is fundamental is the pattern of relationship” (Ibid). Mindfulness training is integrated into the therapy and considered an essential skill for clients to develop as they learn how to observe, describe, and participate in their environments nonjudgmentally while remaining focused in the moment, the here and now. In this manner it is directly concerned with the side of dialectics that teaches them to both “engage more fully and to observe more clearly…in order to act more harmoniously with their environments” (Ibid). Specifically, the interplay between “emotion mind” and “reasonable mind” is essential here, as aspects of both arguments must be included and synthesized in order to enter a state of “wise mind”. Here also, there is a striking similarity to Bateson’s cybernetic epistemology in that “wise mind” integrates both logic and emotion, yet is more than the sum of it’s parts “it relies on the deep interaction of all ways of knowing and is evidenced through wisdom”(Ibid: 576).
The advantages of actively involving “wise mind” in therapy should by now be obvious, but the implications go far deeper than that. Grasping can be observed on many levels of existence, particularly the manner in which we as a species have adapted to our environments. In many respects, even though modern science and Eastern philosophy are converging more and more in terms of negating the existence of an ultimate ground, we still continue to cling to the belief. As Varela, Thompson & Rosch (1991) have already pointed out, this is not purely a philosophical dilemma, but also has ethical, religious and political ramifications. The habitual tendency to grasp is not only expressed on an individual level as fixation on ego-self, but also has collective manifestations expressed as fixations on racial or tribal self-identity, not to mention the more concrete version of grasping at an actual ground separating groups of people from each other. This is in itself a highly exclusionary form of “idolatry” which not only falsely implies the actual existence of a ground but then continues to split it up into little pieces where those not entitled to a share then become reduced to the negative potentially threatening “other” upon which one may, and often does, wage war. Therefore, for the sake of mental health, but also for the sake of the planet as a whole it is imperative “that we acknowledge the other with whom we dependently cooriginate” based on the “realization of groundlessness as nonegocentric responsiveness”. Seen in this light, it seems logical that “If our task in the years ahead…is to build and dwell in a planetary world, then we must learn to uproot and release the grasping tendency, especially in its collective manifestations” (Ibid: 254). This task could also be called the collective manifestation of “wise mind”.

Just as the highly scientific nature of certain introspective techniques in the East have been acknowledged by acute and perceptive observers in the West, so too has the parallel between Eastern thought and modern physics been recognized by many scholars in the East.

Professor Dr.Murli Manohar Joshi, former head of the physics department at the University of Allalabad, comments on precisely this point in a speech at an inaugural session for world philosophers in Geneva 1998. Referring to physicist David Bohm, he emphasizes the need for a new order, more compatible with the findings of quantum physics, “instead of starting with parts and showing how they work together, we start with the whole”. There are no separate parts in the universe, “parts are seen to be in immediate connection, in which their dynamical relationship depends, in an irreducible way, on the state of the whole system (and indeed, on that of broader systems in which they are contained, extending ultimately to the entire universe)”. Therefore, the classical idea of the world as analyzable and divisible into separate, independent existing parts becomes replaced with one of unbroken wholeness. Specifically in the realm of seemingly random subatomic phenomena Bohm refers to an “implicate order”, so that even though particles may appear in different places they are still connected by this order, “particles may be discontiguous in space but they are contiguous in the implicate order.” Therefore, matter and everything else are forms of this implicate order. The interesting question here then becomes “what is this ‘implicate order’ the implicate order of”?

At this point in the discussion the limits of Western thought become obvious as our colloquial concepts slowly begin to fail us. Here, in the words of David Bohm, “Description is totally incompatible with what we want to say”. Nevertheless, Professor Joshi continues boldly by citing Gary Zukov in stating that “The ‘implicate order’ is the implicate order of that - which - is. However, ‘that which is’ is the implicate order. This world view is entirely different from what we are using in classical physics.” However, the Western mind has great problems fathoming this new paradigm due to the ingrained Greek notions where it is commonly assumed that Being is and Non-Being is not. Conversely, in the new paradigm, even Non-Being is, that is to say, “both Being and Non-being are ‘that-which-is’. Everything even ‘emptiness’ is that which is. In Bohm’s physics, there is nothing which is not ‘that which is’”. In this respect, Eastern thought has a lot more to offer in terms of providing the conceptual tools needed to convey the full implications of modern physics. The Buddhist concept of “groundlessness” or sunyata, could easily be applied here, and Professor Joshi has also found remarkable parallels with ancient Hindu Philosophy. Here in the Upanishadic statements it is the concept of Brahman which connects every ‘being’ with the rest of the universe,

In the Brahad Aranyak Upanishad the sage informs king Janaka about the true nature of Brahman, “Brahman can be apprehended only as knowledge itself - knowledge which is one with reality, inseparable from it. For he is beyond all proof, beyond all instruments of thought. The eternal Brahman is pure, unborn, subtler than the subtlest, greater than the greatest. By the purified mind alone Brahman is perceived. He who knows Brahman to be the life of life, the eye of the eye, the ear of the ear, the mind of the mind, - he indeed comprehends fully the cause of causes. In Brahman there is no diversity. He who sees diversities goes from death to death.” (Ibid)

In Vedantic Philosophy it is our consciousness which creates the world outside, yet according to quantitative scientific approaches, consciousness is not even relevant nor is anything relating to quality like experience, values or ethics. This can be traced back to Galileo who maintained that only quantifiable data, or “primary qualities” pertaining to the external word should be admitted into scientific discourse. “Secondary qualities”, on the other hand, became excluded into the lesser realm of subjective and unscientific phenomena. Psychologist R.D Laing has also strongly criticized this approach, where according to Galileo’s agenda, we are essentially stuck with a “dead world”, “Out go sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell, and along with them have since gone esthetic and ethical sensibility, values, quality, soul, consciousness, spirit. Experience as such is thus cast out of the realm of scientific discourse”(in Capra 1988: 139). Laing continues by adding that hardly anything has had a greater impact on our world the past four hundred years than “Galileo’s audacious program”, “We had to destroy the world in theory before we could destroy it in practice” (Ibid).

Conclusion

With the introduction of the Cartesian split between mind and matter and the universal mechanical laws of Newtonian physics, consciousness gradually became squeezed out of the picture and science busied itself exclusively with the task of objectively observing phenomena in an independent external world. Although a necessary and in many ways beneficial evolutionary step, it seems that the time has come to progress even further and take our own scientific findings seriously. Paradoxically, where physics has in many respects contributed to the propagation of this dualistic ontology, it seems as if physics will also be the discipline to converge our split view of reality into an integrated whole where mind and matter can once again meet and merge. I have tried to show throughout this paper that our perceptions and conceptualizations of reality shape the existential foundation upon which our whole lives revolve. Fragmentation ultimately leads to pathology both individually and collectively, whereas integration promotes health. Fortunately, there is integrative potential in many fields of experience; art, myth, dreams and ritual all have this effect, as do many Eastern introspective techniques. The underlying similarity between them lies in the ability to combine “many levels of mind - the unconscious, conscious, and external - to make a statement of their combination. It is not a matter of expressing a single level… The individual mind is immanent but not only in the body. It is immanent also in pathways and messages outside the body; and there is a larger Mind of which the individual mind is only a subsystem.” (Bateson 1972: 464, 461). Thus, it is possible to “recognize and experience a unity and pattern inherent in the organization of the universe” (Linehan & Schmidt 1995: 558).
This is beautifully expressed in a passage by Woodward & McCoy from an article exploring the phenomenology of shamanic practices as they pertain to pathologies in the contemporary world. Here the power of these ceremonies and rituals is directly linked to the potential they have “…to reconnect us to what has become ‘unconscious’ - the natural world and the natural mind” ;

Thus, the experience of wholeness brings about a paradigm in health and living that is fundamentally ecological because we no longer regard nature as ””other””. We feel, to use chaos physicist and evolutionary biologist Stuart Kauffmans phrase, ””At Home in the Universe””. We come to feel ””in”” the world rather than on it. We are brought down to our humblest bacterial roots and understand ourselves as channels of the elements in this strange, metacellular, metabolic planetary process. We understand ourselves to be less than we may have thought, yet simultaneously more, through virtue of our fundamental interconnection with everything else. We slowly can come to understand ourselves as focal points or holographic microcosms of the Whole. In the course of gnosis, we may learn more and more to broaden our conception of ”’’self”” to include communities, ecosystems, the planet and galaxy, and beyond. For all these compose the older, more stable and primordial definitions of our body and, on the interior level, our mind.

Although specialization is clearly inevitable, and has many advantages in contemporary society, it does not exclude the possibility of taking “a crude look at the whole” in addition to studying the behaviour of parts of a system in the traditional sense (Gell-Mann 1994: 346). Taking one look at our planet today, it seems as if we are gradually approximating what in complexity theory is aptly called a “critical state”, “We are all in a situation that resembles driving a vehicle at night over unknown terrain that is rough, full of gullies, with precipices not far off. Some kind of headlight, even a feeble and flickering one, may help to avoid some of the worst disasters ”(Ibid: 366). Given that science plays an essential role in our culture, by both shaping and being deeply embedded in culture, it must also take an active part in providing these “headlights”. As Gell-Mann has already suggested, this means supplementing specialization with integrative thinking and incorporating a holistic perspective in a series of “interlinked transitions” which would include both political, military and diplomatic considerations in addition to the social, economic and environmental ones (Ibid: 349). However, in order to arrive at something even remotely resembling this type of conscientious science, somewhere along the line, our brains must become conscious, which means bridging the gap between subjective experience and objective reality or else, “in our enlightenment, proceed to dismember the earth”.

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