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KW: No. It's actually much simpler, but that's another story!...
(later in the article...)We can, however, continue our own growth and development beyond the mythic waves and into the rational waves. At the rational stages, spirituality (or one's ultimate concern and one's ultimate faith) involves a type of rational-scientific approach to the universe (where "science" means level-one and level-two science). At these intermediate levels of consciousness, one believes in rationality and empirical phenomena with a type of blind religious faith, even though there is no rational-empirical proof for it: there is no scientific proof that scientific proof alone is real, and yet the egoic-rational level believes with all its heart and soul that rationality alone offers the secrets of the universe. Just as at the previous stages, where one identified with mythology and therefore found religion in mythic dogma, at these rational stages one identifies with reason and therefore finds religion in rational proclamations of scientific faith. Habermas's religion or ultimate concern, for example, is communicative reason, which is entirely appropriate at these waves.
A rational-stage believer puts his faith in reason, just as at the previous stage a person puts his or her faith in myths. "Faith" in all these senses is not meant in a derogatory fashion, but in a positive way: one has faith in that which one "knows" to be real, and at each wave of consciousness development, a person is directly introduced to various phenomena of consciousness: at the magic waves, one sees magic phenomena (which are real as phenomena); at the mythic waves, one sees mythic phenomena (which are real as phenomena); at the rational waves, one sees rational phenomena (which are real as phenomena); and at the spiritual waves, one sees spiritual phenomena (which, it is further claimed, directly shade into noumenon itself, not in a metaphysical but experiential sense, demonstrated by a good, deep science in the direct experience of satori, for example).
When development continues from the mind and into the supramental or transpersonal or postrational realms (a development that can be rationally reconstructed but not rationally attained), one's spirituality shifts from an ultimate concern with the contents of the mind to an ultimate concern with the contents of transcendental consciousness as such (which, because it transcends and includes the previous levels, results ideally in an integral approach to spirituality, science, and the universe at large)--shifts, that is, from a faith in mind to a faith in spirit itself. As with the previous stages, this "faith" is not misplaced; it results from a direct realization of the spiritual reality disclosed at the postrational waves of consciousness development. Of course, some individuals see spiritual realities more clearly than others, just as some use reason more brilliantly than others. But for all who continue their development into the transpersonal waves, a reconstructive science of that development shows unmistakably its supramental and spiritual character--but this is now a spirituality that is based on direct experiential evidence (satori) that can be communicated in a peer group of those who have demonstrated competence in this development (sangha).
This is therefore a thoroughly post-metaphysical, post-Kantian spirituality. It shuns ontological levels of reality for postmodern levels of consciousness (which are real as phenomenological occasions ultimately revealed as Spirit's potential for transcendence and known directly by a good broad science).
This type of post-metaphysical spirituality was most clearly announced in the East by the Buddhist genius Nagarjuna, who used a transcendental dialectic similar to Kant's (although Nagarjuna discovered it fifteen hundred years before Kant) to demolish belief structures and radically deconstruct myths in order to make way for direct experiential evidence (or science in the broad sense).
Thus, where myth and dogma are the material of metaphysical, pre-Kantian spirituality, direct experience and deep science are the material of post-metaphysical spirituality. As I stated in the introduction to SES: "If metaphysics means thought without evidence, there is not a metaphysical sentence in this entire book."
Hence, Habermas states that "there is no alternative to postmetaphysical thinking," I agree entirely. But what Habermas does not yet appear to realize is that this is exactly the foundationless foundation for a postmetaphysical spirituality of direct spiritual experience disclosed in postrational waves of consciousness development investigated by a good, deep science of those who have demonstrated developmental competence in those dimensions and confirmed by a reconstructive science of the entire range of human lifespan development.
Habermas writes of the New Age movements: "These more serious thinking movements
oscillate within a surreal garland of closed worldviews that are composed of
badly-speculated pieces of scientific theory. New Age satisfies in an ironic
way the longing for the lost One and Whole with the abstract authority of a
system of science that becomes more and more impenetrable. But closed
worldviews can stabilize themselves in the sea of a decentralized comprehension
of the world only on subcultural islands." What is your position towards
this statement?
Oh, I agree with virtually all of it. But I believe we can be more precise in the
analysis than Habermas. First of all, it is true that much New-Age thinking
satisfies the longing for the lost One and Whole, but not merely in an ironic
fashion, but by actual regression to earlier stages of "oneness" and
"wholeness," which are not actually whole in any developed sense, but
merely stages of infantile fusion and indissociation, magically and mythically
charged (e.g., the purple and red waves). Second, the more sophisticated
New-Age approaches do indeed use a type of recourse to science, but the science
is almost always distorted (especially the "new physics" and the
"web of life")--but Habermas is right, this pseudo-science is
indeed impenetrable (which means, it hides from evidence and thus is not really
science--it is simply a new mythology, hence its often regressive nature).
Those New-Age worldviews are indeed closed, both in terms of development and in
terms of falsifiability (and thus, once again, they are not real science, since
they are immune to the three strands of good science). And finally, Habermas
is quite right that these movements can survive only in subcultural islands.
In America one of these subcultural islands is found in San Francisco, which is
why I call the most prevalent version of the sophisticated New-Age approach the
"415 Paradigm" (415 is the area code phone number of San Francisco).
Another island of such beliefs is Boulder, Colorado, the town in which I live.
Yikes.
postmetaphysical movements to detach themselves wherever possible from such
New-Age movements (which is why I myself no longer am a member of the
transpersonal movement in America, which has all the earmarks of the New-Age
movement as described by Habermas, alas).
This is why it is also important to sharply differentiate a postmetaphysical
spirituality from the perennial philosophy, which is why I have not identified
myself with the perennial philosophy in over fifteen years. Some of its
conclusions are of course important and demand the utmost respect--but only
if they can be reconstructed using good, broad science and reconstructive
science.[11] I have repeated the necessity for this postmetaphysical and critical approach
in several recent books, including SES and Integral Psychology
.
For those who have not read some of this material, I have included several
endnotes from Integral Psychology in Appendix 1 following this article.
Finally, with reference to the Habermas quote, I would like to point out that a
generalized type of New-Age belief is very appealing, not only to the
prerational purple and red waves (magic and mythic), but also to the green meme
(or the pluralistic stage of development), simply because this pluralistic
stage is marked by its strongly subjectivistic stance. The green meme is
around 25% of the adult population in America and Europe, so this part of the
subcultural island is actually more like a huge continent, which both Habermas
and I are doing our best to transcend.
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