-
Body as spirit - comprehensive outline and bibliography
- Body as spirit I. Introduction to 'spirituality' in
embodiment
- A. Intentions for the minicourse
- 1. go to the heart of objections to embodiment
- 2. demonstrate a method for restructuring a previously
dualistic field as embodied
- 3. demonstrate a method of preserving value without
credulity
-
- B. Methodologies and assumptions for clarity about
the ineffable
- 1. Methodologies:
- a. methodological commitment to conceptual clarification
- i. define?
- ii. ground the term contact the feel of a term
and its images
- iii. look for contrasts secularity, mundanity,
physicality, materiality, rationality
- iv. look for paradigm instances
- v. fan out into aspects
- social aspects: affiliation and social control: politics,
economics, group identity, ethical rules
- psychological aspect: valued and privileged experiences,
feelings
- practices to evoke these
- ideology explanation, framework, interpretation
- b. other methodological commitments
- i. Occam's razor
- ii. cognitive coherence
- iii. distinction between experience and explanation
- iv. exact phenomenology describe experience
closely rather than vaguely
- v. take care with language - revise dualistic formulations
- vi. give honest attention to motive
- vii. look at metaphor, displaced structures of intuition
- viii. account for rejected beliefs, don't simply reject
them try to discover why such a belief has been plausible or desirable
to some
- 2. Embodiment assumptions
- a. one world assumption EVERYTHING is part of
our one, physical world there is nothing aside from or apart from
or of a different nature than the world
- b. the universe is self-creating, and humans, like
other organisms, have evolved as self-creating beings within that self-creating
cosmos
- c. everything psychological feeling, 'mind',
'soul', 'spirit' - is physical structure of some kind
- d. science is far from finished, but further discoveries
will need to be compatible with most of the science we already have
- e. knowledge is liberating not destructive
-
- C. The S word naturalized: bodily resources for ultimate
value
- 1. the nonconscious body
- 2. subtle aspects of body including the subtle senses
- 3. early love as devotional being
- 4. the Work ethical/therapeutic/structural processing
toward integral function an ethics of good being
- 5. the cosmos as a realm for love and comprehension
- 6. art
- Body as spirit II. Somatic processing: a case study
in soul welcome
- 1. the central hypothesis:
that soul is an aspect of body
- 2. what can we mean by
'soul'?
- 3. soul welcome: the how-to
of somatic processing
- i. body as structure
- ii. "it's such a
battleground:" trauma and structural dissociation
- iii. abreaction, reactivation
of dissociated structure
- iv. fears of and defenses
against reconnection
- v. processing as allowing
reactivation to complete itself, Gendlin's felt sense
- vi. role of art in processing
- vii. role of the witness
- 4. demonstrating the process
- 5. results
- 6. what is 'spiritual'
about all of this?
Body as spirit III. Subtle body experience
- 1. Entranced by transparency
- 2. Assumptions
- a. Invisible realities: the physical is not limited
to the visible.
- b. The visible body (like every other physical body)
is an electromagnetic or energy body. It is interpenetrated and surrounded
by normally nonvisible fields which may extend to various distances, and
which act both to protect and to communicate: perceive and broadcast.
- c. Perception of invisibles: we perceive both conciously
and nonconsciously.
- d. Aspects of such perception have been defended against/
suppressed/dissociated.
- e. And nonvisible aspects of physicality can be correctly
felt but falsely explained.
- 3. Body resources -
- a. Attending to subtle senses
- b. communication and cooperation with aspects or parts
of body that aren't part of conscious net
- c. mending circuits
- d. bending circuits what's known about hyperactivation
means of inducing trance, including drugs, breathwork, visualizations,
rhythm in music or dance, ritual
- 4. Subtle body exercise
Suggested reading
Minicourse supplementary notes
Celtic
birth Customs Tara
MacAnTSior & Branfionn MacGregor from: By Sundown Shores - Studies
in Spiritual History, Fiona MacLeod
Spirituality
Without Faith and Towards a Naturalistic
Spirituality Thomas W Clark
Fundamentalism,
Father and Son, and Vertical Desire Ruth Stein
Non-dualist cosmology and epistemology:
Goldstein K 1930 The Organism. Classic of wholistic
neuroscience.
Antonio Damasio Descartes' error. Neuroscientist's
introduction to the physiology and cognitive importance of emotion.
Ellie Epp 2002 Being about: perceiving, imagining,
representing, thinking www.sfu.ca/~elfreda/theory/beingabout/being.html.
Artist's introduction to an embodied understanding of
intelligence. Has extensive chapter bibliographies.
Heinz Pagels 1982 The cosmic code: quantum physics
as the language of nature Simon and Schuster
Theodor Schwenk 1965 Sensitive chaos: the creation
of flowing forms in water and air Steiner
Tarthang Tulku Space, time and knowledge.
Tantric Buddhist philosophy written in language exemplary
in its cleanness and contemporaneity.
G Murchie 1967 Music of the spheres, Vol II The microcosm
Dover.
Quite an old book but it is the best introduction I have
found to wave phenomena at all levels. It is exact, well visualized and
easy to read.
Naturalizing religion
Blackmore Susan (2001) Why I have given up. In P. Kurtz
(Ed) Skeptical Odysseys: Personal Accounts by the World's Leading Paranormal
Inquirers, Amherst, New York, Prometheus Books, 85-94
Susan Blackmore is a Zen practitioner, psychologist, and
parapsychology debunker who teaches at Oxford
Austin James 1999 Zen and the brain: Toward an understanding
of meditation and consciousness MIT Press
Neurologist and Zen Buddhist practitioner James Austin
investigates what happens in the brain during the practice of meditation
and certain altered states. He hypothesizes that meditation can structurally
re-wire brain activity and function. [KS]
Sharon Begley, Your Brain on Religion: Mystic visions
or brain circuits at work? Newsweek May 7 2001.
Sandra Blakeslee 2006 Out-of-Body Experience? Your Brain
Is to Blame New York Times 3 Oct 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/03/health/psychology/03shad.html?em&ex=1160107200&en=9c59d730d2bab312&ei=5087%0A
Newberg A, D'Aquili E, Rause V 2002 Why God Won't Go
Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief Random House
Horgan John 2003 Rational mysticism: dispatches from
the border between science and spirituality Houghton Mifflin
Thomas Clark Spirituality without faith http://www.naturalism.org/spiritual.htm
Lucid discussion of why naturalizing spirituality is not
reductive. Clark is the founding director of the Center for Naturalism
in Boston.
Ecstatic experience and state change:
Underhill Evelyn 1911 Mysticism: A study in the nature
and development of man's spiritual consciousness Methuen
Idries Shah The Sufis
Rothenberg Jerome ed Technologies of the Sacred
Harvey Andrew 1991 Hidden journey: a spiritual awakening
Henry Holt
Henderson Julie
Bubba Free John 1978 Love of the two-armed form
Dawn Horse Press
Herbert Guenther 1977 Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective
Dharma Publishing
Specifically about consciousness and the unconscious
Dennett D 1991 Consciousness explained Little Brown
Hilgard E 1977 Divided consciousness: multiple controls
in human thought and action John Wiley & Sons
Kihlstrom J 1987 The cognitive unconscious, Science
237:1445-1452
Kinsbourne M 1988 Integrated field theory of consciousness,
in Consciousness in contemporary science, A Marcel and E Bisiach
eds, 239 MIT
Schachter D 1992 Implicit knowledge: New perspectives
on unconscious processes, Poceedings of the National Academy of Science
USA 89:11113-11117
Tallis F 2002 Hidden minds: a history of the unconscious
Profile Books
Tononi G, G Edelman 1998 Consciousness and complexity,
Science 282:1846-1851
Unusual senses, non-cortical plexes
Website on belly brain http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_105441.html
Redgrove Peter 1988 The black goddess and the unseen
real Grove/Atlantic
A British surrealist poet wrote this book about the unconscious
as subliminal forms of perception rather than fantasy.
Sewall L 1999 Sight and sensibility: the ecopsychology
of perception Tarcher/Putnam
Watson Lyall 2001 Jacobson's organ: and the remarkable
nature of smell Plume
Paranormal experience
Cummings Geraldine 1970 Swan on a black sea: a study
in automatic writing Routledge & K.Paul
Heywood Rosalind 1971 The sixth sense Macmillan
Garrett Eileen 1968 Many voices: the autobiography
of a medium Putnam Sons
Specifically about the cognitive science of imagining
and dreaming
Epp E Brain and imagining, www.sfu.ca/~elfreda/theory/brainandimagining.html
Epp E Brain and metaphor, www.sfu.ca/~elfreda/theory/metaphor/metaphor.html
Epp E Being about, Chapter 5, Imagining, www.sfu.ca/~elfreda/theory/beingabout/ch5.html.
Farah M 2000 The neural bases of mental imagery, in The
new cognitive neurosciences, M Gazzaniga ed, 965-974 Bradford/MIT
Hobson J 1988 The dreaming brain Basic Books
Penfield W, P Perot 1963 The brain's record of auditory
and visual experience: a final summary and discussion, Brain 86(4):596-683
Solms M 1997 The neuropsychology of dreams Lawrence
Erlbaum
Politics of spiritual belief:
Lakoff George Moral Politics Lakoff on authoritarian
father politics
II. Somatic processing: soul welcome
Eugene Gendlin 1978 Focusing Everest House
An unusually intelligent approach to somatic therapy.
Eva Pierrakos 1990 The Pathwork of Self-Transformation
Bantam Books
The best book I know on personal transformation. It is
not somatically based, but it can be used on what comes up through somatically-oriented
processes.
Hillman James The dream and the underworld
Clarissa Pinkola Estes1992 Women who run with the wolves:
myths and stories of the wild woman archetype Ballantine Books
Tony Packer (various things on the web)
Strong, clear female Buddhist leader.
Carol Gilligan 2002 The birth of pleasure: a new map
of love Vintage/Random
Goldstein K 1963 The organism, 2nd ed Beacon Press
Hilgard E 1977 Divided consciousness: multiple controls
in human thought and action John Wiley & Sons
Fritz Perls, R Hefferline, P Goodman 1965 Gestalt psychology:
excitement and growth in the human personality Dell
III. Subtle body belief and experience
Mead, G.R.S. Doctrine of the Subtle Body in Western
Tradition: An Outline of What the Philosophers Thought and the Christians
Taught on the Subject. Kessinger, ISBN1-56459-312-6.
Stavish Mark 1997 The Body of Light in the Western
Esoteric Tradition online
Julie Henderson 1999 The lover within: opening to energy
in sexual practice (2nd ed) Station Hill
Gerda Alexander 1986 Eutony: the holistic discovery
of the total person Felix Morrow
Therese Bertherat 1979 The body has its reasons
Avon
Alexander Lowen 1975 Bioenergetics Coward, McCann
and Geoghagan
Tarthang Tulku 1978 Kum nye relaxation, 2 vols,
Dharma Publishing
-
|