Waves, Streams, States and Self

Part of a larger piece located here. 


Waves, Streams, States, and Self–A Summary of My Psychological Model
(Or, Outline of An Integral Psychology)

Ken Wilber

A Grid of Religious Experiences
If we combine the idea of levels of development with states of consciousness, and we realize that a person at virtually any level or stage of development can have a peak experience or an altered state, we get a rather remarkable grid of many of the various types of spiritual and nonordinary experiences.

For example, let us use Jean Gebser's (1985) terms for some of the lower-to-intermediate levels of consciousness: archaic, magic, mythic, rational, and aperspectival (there are higher, transpersonal structures, as we have seen, but these will do for now).^[15] To those five levels, let us add the four states of psychic, subtle, causal, and nondual. The point is that a person at any of those five structures can peak experience any of those four states, and that gives us a grid of twenty types of spiritual, transpersonal, or nonordinary experiences (Wilber, 1983, 2000b).

As suggested earlier, the reason this grid occurs is that the way in which individuals interpret an altered state depends in part upon their general level of development. For example, individuals at the mythic level might peak experience a psychic state, but they generally interpret that psychic peak experience in the terms of their mythic structure. Likewise, there is a magic experience of a subtle state, a mythic experience of a subtle state, a rational experience of a subtle state; and so on with causal and nondual.^[16] Putting these altogether gives us a phenomenological grid of the many types of altered, nonordinary, and religious experiences available to men and women. For more details on this grid, see A Sociable God and Integral Psychology.^[17]

The Self
So far we have explored states, waves, and streams. We might look now at the “self” (or self-system or self-sense), and although there are many ways to depict it, one of the most useful is to view the self as that which attempts to integrate or balance all of the components of the psyche (i.e., the self attempts to integrate the various states, waves, and streams that are present in the individual) (Wilber 1986, 1996c, 1997a, 2000b).

A striking item about the levels, lines, and states is that in themselves they appear to be devoid of an inherent self-sense, and therefore the self can identify with any of them (as suggested by ancient theorists from Plotinus to Buddha). That is, one of the primary characteristics of the self seems to be its capacity to identify with the basic structures or levels of consciousness, and every time it does so, according to this view, it generates a specific type of self-identity, with specific needs and drives. The self thus appears to be a functional system (which includes such capacities as identification, will, defense, and tension regulation [Wilber et al, 1986]), and it also undergoes its own type of development through a series of stages or waves (as investigated by, e.g., Jane Loevinger, 1976; Robert Kegan, 1983; Susanne Cook-Greuter, 1990). The main difference between the self-stages and the other stages is that the self has the job of balancing and coordinating all of them.

This balancing act, this drive to integrate the various components of the psyche, appears to be a crucial feature of the self. Psychopathology, for example, cannot easily be understood without it (Blanck and Blanck, 1974, 1979; Kohut, 1971, 1977). The basic structures of consciousness do not themselves get sick or “broken.” They either emerge or they don't, and when they do, they are generally well functioning (barring organic brain damage). For example, when concrete operational thinking (“conop”) emerges in a child, it emerges more-or-less intact–but what the child does with those structures is something else indeed, and that specifically involves the child's self-sense. For the child can take any of the contents of the conop mind and repress them, alienate them, project them, retroflect them, or deploy any number of other defensive mechanisms (Vaillant, 1993). This a disease, not of conop, but of the self.

(Here is a more extreme example: a psychotic might be, among other things, temporarily plugging into a subtle realm and hence begin dream-like hallucinations. The subtle realm is not malfunctioning, it is working just fine; but the self cannot integrate these realms with the gross/frontal structures, and therefore it suffers a severe pathology. The pathology is not in the subtle, it is in the self-system and its failed capacity to integrate.)

Most psychopathology (on the interior domains) seems to involve some sort of failure in the self's capacity of differentiation and integration–a failure that occurs during what can be called a fulcrum of self-development (Blanck and Blanck, 1974, 1979; Kegan, 1983; Wilber, 1986, 2000b).^[18] A fulcrum occurs each time the self encounters a new level of consciousness. The self must first identify with that new level (embed at that level, be in fusion with that level); it eventually disidentifies with (or transcends) that level so as to move to a yet higher wave; then it ideally integrates the previous wave with the higher wave.

A miscarriage at any of those points in the particular fulcrum (failed identification, failed differentiation, failed integration) will generate a pathology; and the type of the pathology depends upon both the level of consciousness that the fulcrum occurs and the phase within the fulcrum that the miscarriage occurs (Wilber et al, 1986). If we have nine general levels or waves of consciousness (each of which has a corresponding fulcrum that occurs when the self identifies with that level), and each fulcrum has these three basic subphases (fusion, transcendence, integration), then that gives us a typology of around twenty-seven major self pathologies (which range from psychotic to borderline to neurotic to existential to transpersonal). Far from being a mere abstract typology, there are abundant examples of each of these types (Rowan, 1998; Walsh and Vaughan, 1993; Wilber, 1986, 2000b).^[19]

Again, none of this is a rigid, linear type of classification. The various waves and fulcrums overlap to a great extent; different pathologies and treatment modalities also overlap considerably; and the scheme itself is a simple generalization. But it does go a long way toward developing a more comprehensive overview of both pathology and treatment, and as such it seems to constitute an important part of any genuinely integral psychology.

The fluid nature of all of these events highlights the fact that the self-system is perhaps best thought of, not as a monolithic entity, but as the center of gravity of the various levels, lines, and states, all orbiting around the integrating tendency of the self-system (Wilber, 1997a, 2000b). When any aspects of the psyche become cut off from this self-organizing activity, they (as it were) reach escape velocity and spin out of orbit, becoming dissociated, fragmented, alienated pockets of the psyche. Therapy, on the interior domains, thus generally involves a recontacting, befriending, reintegrating, and “re-entry” of the dissociated elements back into the orbit of conscious inclusion and embrace.

Four Meanings of “Spiritual”
If we focus for a moment on states, levels, lines, and self, we will find that they appear to underlie four of the most common definitions of “spirituality.”

In Integral Psychology, I suggest that there are at least four widely used definitions of spirituality, each of which contains an important but partial truth, and all of which need to be included in any balanced account: (1) spirituality involves peak experiences or altered states, which can occur at almost any stage and any age; (2) spirituality involves the highest levels in any of the lines; (3) spirituality is a separate developmental line itself; (4) spirituality is an attitude (such as openness, trust, or love) that the self may or may not have at any stage.^[20]

We have already discussed some of the important ingredients of those usages. We have particularly examined the idea of spirituality as involving peak experiences or altered states (#1). Here is a quick review of the other three.

Often, when people refer to something as “spiritual,” they explicitly or implicitly mean the highest levels in any of the developmental lines. For example, in the cognitive line, we usually think of transrational awareness as spiritual, but we don't often think of mere rationality or logic as spiritual. In other words, the highest levels of cognition are often viewed as spiritual, but the low and medium levels less so. Likewise with affects or emotions: the higher or transpersonal affects, such as love and compassion, are usually deemed spiritual, but the lower affects, such as hate and anger, are not. Likewise with Maslow's needs hierarchy: the lower needs, such as self-protection, are not often thought of as spiritual, but the highest needs, such as self-transcendence, are.

This is a legitimate usage, in my opinion, because it reflects some of the significant developmental aspects of spirituality (namely, the more evolved a person is in any given line, the more that line seems to take on spiritual qualities). This is not the only aspect of spirituality–we have already seen that states are very important, and we will see two other aspects below–but it is a factor that needs to be considered in any comprehensive or integral account of spirituality.

The third common usage sees spirituality as a separate developmental line itself. James Fowler's stages of faith is a well-known and well-respected example (Fowler, 1981). The world's contemplative literature is full of meticulously described stages of contemplative development (again, not as a series of rigid rungs in a ladder but as flowing waves of subtler and subtler meditative experiences, often culminating in causal formlessness, and then the breakthrough into permanent nondual consciousness [Brown, 1986; Goleman, 1988]). In this very common usage, the spiritual line begins in infancy (or even before, in the bardo and prenatal states), and eventually unfolds into wider and deeper spheres of consciousness until the great liberation of enlightenment. This is yet another important view of spirituality that any comprehensive or integral theory might want to take into account.

Viewing spirituality as a relatively independent line also explains the commonly acknowledged fact that somebody might be highly developed in the spiritual line and yet poorly–or even pathologically–developed in other lines, such as interpersonal or psychosexual, often with unfortunate results.^[21]

The fourth usage is that spirituality is essentially an attitude or trait that the self may or may not possess at any stage of growth, and this attitude–perhaps loving kindness, inner peace, charity, or goodness–is what most marks spirituality. In this usage, you could have, for example, a spiritual or unspiritual magic wave, a spiritual or unspiritual mythic wave, a spiritual or unspiritual rational wave, and so on, depending on whether the self had integrated that wave in a healthy or unhealthy fashion. This, too, is a common and important usage, and any integral account of spirituality would surely want to take it into consideration.^[22]

Two general claims: One, those four major definitions are indeed common definitions of “spirituality.” They are not the only uses, but they are some of the most prevalent. And two, those four common uses arise because of the actual existence of states, levels, lines, and self, respectively. People seem to intuitively or natively grasp the existence of states, levels, lines, and self, and thus when it comes to spirituality, they often translate their spiritual intuitions in terms of those available dimensions, which gives rise to those oft-used definitions.

Those definitions of spirituality are not mutually incompatible. They actually fit together in something of seamless whole, as I try to suggest in Integral Psychology. We can already see, for example, that any model that coherently includes states, levels, lines, and self can automatically give a general account of those four aspects of spirituality. But in order to see how this would specifically work, we need one more item: the four quadrants. (The four quadrants are not to be confused with the four uses of spirituality; the number four in this case is coincidental.) But the four quadrants are crucial, I believe, in seeing how the many uses of spirituality can in fact be brought together into a more mutual accord.

Quadrants
Most people find the four quadrants a little difficult to grasp at first, then very simple to use. The quadrants refer to the fact that anything can be looked at from four perspectives, so to speak: we can look at something from the inside or from the outside, and in the singular or the plural. For example, my own consciousness in this moment. I can look at it from the inside, in which case I see all my various feelings, hopes, fears, sensations, and perceptions that I might have in any given moment. This is the first-person or phenomenal view, described in “I” language. But consciousness can also be looked at in an objective, “scientific” fashion, in which case I might conclude that my consciousness is the product of objective brain mechanisms and neurophysiological systems. This is the third-person or objective view, described in “it” language. Those are the inside and the outside views of my own consciousness.

But my consciousness or self does not exist in a vacuum; it exists in a community of other selves. So in addition to a singular view of consciousness, we can look at how consciousness exists in the plural (as part of a group, a community, a collective). And just as we can look at the inside and the outside of the individual, we can look at the inside and the outside of the collective. We can try to understand any group of people from the inside, in a sympathetic resonance of mutual understanding; or we can try to look at them from the outside, in a detached and objective manner (both views can be useful, as long as we honor each).

On the inside of the collective, we see all of the various shared worldviews (archaic, magic, mythic, rational, etc.), ethics, customs, values, and intersubjective structures held in common by those in the collective (whether that be family, peers, corporation, organization, tribe, town, nation, globe). The insides of the collective are described in “we” language and include all of those intersubjective items that you might experience if you were truly a member of that culture. From the outside, we see all of the objective structures and social institutions of the collective, such as the physical buildings, the infrastructures, the techno-economic base (foraging, horticultural, agrarian, industrial, informational), the quantitative aspects of the society (the birth and death rates, the monetary exchanges, the objective data), modes of communication (written words, telegraph, telephone, internet), and so on. Those are all “its” or patterns of interobjective social systems.

So we have four major perspectives (the inside and the outside of the singular and the plural): I, it, we, and its. Since the objective dimensions (the outside of the individual and the outside of the collective) are both described in third-person it-language, we can reduce the four quadrants to just three: I, we, and it. Or first-person, second-person, and third-person accounts.^[23] Or art, morals, and science. Or the beautiful, the good, and the true.

The major point is that each of the levels, lines, and states of consciousness has these four quadrants (or simply the three major dimensions of I, we, and it) (Wilber, 1995, 1996d, 1997a, 2000b).^[24] This model therefore explicitly integrates first-, second-, and third-person accounts of consciousness at each of the levels, lines, and states. This gives what I believe is a more comprehensive and integral model of consciousness. This “all-quadrants, all-levels, all-lines, all-states” model is sometimes referred to simply as “all-quadrant, all-level,” or AQAL for short. I have explored this model at length in several books, such as Sex, Ecology, Spirituality; A Brief History of Everything; and Integral Psychology. If we systematically investigate the implications of this AQAL model, we might also find that it opens up the possibility of a more integral approach to education, politics, business, art, feminism, ecology, and so on (see, e.g., Crittenden, 2001; Wilber, 2000c).

It should be emphasized that this article has dealt almost exclusively with only one quadrant, namely, the interior of the individual (which is called the “Upper-Left quadrant”). But in other works I have dealt extensively with the other quadrants, and my point is certainly that all of the quadrants need to be included in any balanced account of consciousness. We will return to the quadrants below, and suggest how an AQAL formulation can contribute to a solution to the “hard problem.”

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Re: Waves, Streams, States and Self

Well, that was confusing.

I think the point in Wilber's divisions and categories and definitions, are not whether they are real or not (we cannot be objective enough to know), rather, the point is whether they are useful. People claim that they find them useful. They seem to be good for making sure people don't simply think their spiritual experience or state is the ultimate or the only valid one.

However, since Wilber advocates integral hierarchy, by saying that spirituality is at the top, he is saying that spirituality includes everything and therefore spirituality is another word for “whole reality”. This gets confusing. For many people spirituality means God and/or demigods and/or angels and/or fairies, etc. So Wilber using the term spirituality is a mistake. I think he muddies the water because he has always been a spiritual seeker and so he hasn't objectively questioned the meaning of “spirituality” at a fundamental level. He takes spirituality as a given and investigates what it is made up of, rather than investigating the possibility of “spirituality” being an illusory category itself.

Does this make sense? What do you think?

Martin Gifford.

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Re: Waves, Streams, States and Self

Wilber uses “spirituality” in several ways.  He acknowledges that some traditions (and theorists) look as spirituality as the “upper reaches” of any spectrum of development or being.  Or as the “Alpha and Omega” context of all contingent things.  But he also recognizes that spirituality may be considered an independent “line” or stream, a particular human capacity or activity which also exhibits development in its own right.

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Re: Waves, Streams, States and Self

Balder/Bruce, what would you say that the vertical spiritual line of development contains now that Ken has moved all states to the horizontal line of the W-C lattice? Is the vertical spiritual line only about how our horizontal experiences are interpreted… or is there more to it?

Pelle

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Re: Waves, Streams, States and Self

Balder/Bruce and Pelle,

It seems to me that reality is too big for us to comprehend. So we don't find the truth, we only invent tools in order to improve our experience. In Wilber's case the tools are concepts. So we need to decide if the concepts either work to improve our experience or not.

I think Ken's mistake is that he believes in his fundamental concepts regarding spirituality and ego. Like a scientist, he thinks he can understand the cosmos. (BTW, this is the fantasy of enneagram type 5 i.e. that one day they will understand the cosmos and therefore feel safe because s/he is prepared. If he's a 7 he does it because it gives him the feeling of freedom.)

But our experience is inevitably limited because our senses and brains are limited. When we experience more, we tend to interpret that moreness as being spirituality. The problem is in the interpretation.

Why relate expanded perception back to some societal structure like Indian spirituality? Why not just call it expanded perception or altered perception? It satisfies the frightened mind to map the territory, but it only thinks it maps the territory. If you keep going you find things becoming paradoxical and you realise the limitation of the human mind.

There again, as I've said before, perhaps Ken likes to keep Indian spirituality as his hobby.

Essentially, if everything is spiritual, then the term “spirituality” becomes redundant - we may as well use the term “whole reality”. (Then the magic vibe of “spirituality” will be gone, which many people would miss.) However, if spirituality is only a segment of whole reality, then how important can it be?

If everything comes from spirit or God, then everything is spiritual, then we may as well use the term “whole reality” instead of “spirituality”. If everything does not come from spirit or God, then we have spirit and matter co-existent as the two aspects of “whole reality”. Then is there a hierarchy? Ultimately we will never know because we do not possess the required omniscience to know.

Martin Gifford.

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