Childhood Transpersonal Childhood Experiences of Higher States of Consciousness: Literature Review and Theoretical Integration
IV. Models of Transpersonal Development
First I will summarize some recent transpersonal models of development. Most developmental theorists agree that although there is adult development it is "horizontal" and is quite different than infancy and youth where momentous changes in psychology are accompanied by parallel changes in biology. That is, although we may become more wise as we age it has generally been thought that there is no fundamental biological changes which accompany this psychological breadth.
A. Alexander's Postrepresentational Model
Alexander et al. (1990) postulated a model of development which accounts for transpersonal experiences throughout the life span and as indicators of the natural direction of development. The adult development Alexander et al. talk about is not only in terms of post formal operational development of emotionals/intuitions and ego but changes that are "postrepresentational". This concept of postrepresentation is key to Alexander's theorizing as traditional developmental psychologists believe that there is really only one big developmental leap, from the sensorimotor to the representational teer. In the latter the child simply goes through three stages of increasingly sophisticated abilities to represent his/her lived world experience; preoperational, concrete operations, and formal operations.
Alexander and colleagues, as well as other transpersonal theorists, go further in their model than the development of feelings/intuition and ego. These they hold are still representational because there is still an the "object" of feelings or an ego to represent. They describe three postrepresentational levels of development (otherwise known as higher states of consciousness) which have several characteristics:
1. They are as far beyond representational thought as representational thought is beyond the sensorimotor domain. Whereas sensorimotor period was dominated by action sequences in the world and the representational teer is dominated by symbolic activities, the use of the symbol is no longer necessary in postrepresentational thought. It is not simply more complex levels of symbolic use.
2. They note that "such a fundamental qualitative advance in cognition ... should presumably require major neurophysiological maturation." Research has shown over 20 physiological changes associated with the postrepresentational level.
3. "Postrepresentational development should resolve the fundamental epistemological and ontological constraint of the abstract reasoning level that the reflective knower cannot directly know himself ... "
4. Postrepresentational levels embrace lower levels just as the representational teer embraced sensorimotor. The entire ability to think about thinking would "take on the status of a subsystem, rather than the executor of, mental life," says Alexander et al. Thus the use of the symbol would be subordinated to an entire new way of knowing.
5. Finally, this group points out that "postrepresentational stages should be 'higher' not only in a purely structural sense but also in a functional sense."
Why do so few people ever get there if this is the "natural" direction of development? Alexander et al. argue that it is because we lack the "cultural amplifiers" for such development. In other words, such higher states of being do not develop in a stable fashion out of a context of what is available in the environment. For instance, we put a big emphasis on an enriched environment for infants which exposes them to the appropriate cultural amplifiers (i.e., mobiles, bright wallpaper) thus moving them to the representational teer where the emphasis changes to the use of symbols (i.e., language, drawing). But we have very few postlanguage developmental technologies.
Alexander et al. point out that meditation is just such a technology and notes that, "a purely postconceptual mechanism may be required to free attention from the habitual domination of symbolic thought." Meditation, as well as other postrepresentational technologies, "frees attention from the control of language and the semantically conditioned thinking process." But in the absence of such technologies physiological development appears to "freeze" during adolescence or early adulthood.
Alexander's group argue that "to label such higher stages as 'mystical' is a misnomer, for they 'transcend' the representational domain in no more mystical a way than abstract thinking transcends the sensorimotor activities of early childhood." The just reviewed body of research has demonstrated positive relationships between subjective reports of higher states of consciousness and psychological and physiological well-being.
B. Wilber's Spectrum Model
Similar to the Alexander model is Wilber's Sprectrum model (Wilber, 1987). Although Wilber talks of about 20 stages in the development of the human, he characterizes these in terms of three phases which can be summarized in seven stages. The lower half of his stages are based on the work of classical developmental psychologists such as Piaget and Erikson while for the upper half he draws on his reading of the "world's esoteric spiritual texts" from east and west.
The components of Wilber's model are basic structures, transition stages and self-system. He uses a simple metaphor to explain the difference between these three components:
The basic structures themselves are like a ladder, each rung of which is a level in the Great Chain of Being. The self is the climber of the ladder. At each rung of that climb, the self has a different view or perspective on reality, a different sense of identity, a different sense of moral obligation, a different set of self-needs, and so on. The changes in the sense of self and its reality which shift from level-to-level, are referred to collectively as the self-stages.
Thus, as the self climbs from say, rung 4 to rung 5, its limited perspective at rung 4 is replaced by a new perspective at rung 5. Rung 4 itself remains in existence, but the limitations of its perspective do not. That is why the basic structures of consciousness are enduring structures, but the self-stages are transitional or temporary phases.
Wilber further condenses these seven general structures/stages into three realms. The first three stages are included in the "Pre-rational" realm which is subconscious and pre-personal. He calls these stages Archaic (corresponding to Piaget's sensorimotor), Magic (corresponding to Piaget's preoperational) and Mythic (corresponding to Piaget's concrete operations). The second realm is "Rational" and is self-conscious and personal. Only one stage is in this realm, the Rational stage (corresponding to Piaget's formal operations). The last three stages are in the "Trans-rational" realm which is superconscious and transpersonal. The first is Psychic, which is also called "vision logic" or "integrative logic". Then comes Subtle, where intuition is at its highest but is not reducible to "emotionalism or merely bodily felt meaning". The highest stage in Wilber's model is Causal: "unmanifest source or transcendental ground of all the lesser structures; the Abyss, the Void, the Formless."
He quotes Aurobindo in describing this highest stage, "When the Overmind descends, the predominance of the centralizing ego-sense is entirely subordinated, lost in largeness of being and finally abolished; a wide cosmic perception and feeling of boundless universal self replaces it ... an unlimited consciousness of unity which pervades everywhere ... a being who is in essence one with the Supreme Self."
Wilber points out that "although the rational, self-conscious realm is almost universally agreed upon, the other two realms are almost universally confused. Because the pre-rational and transrational realms are, in their own ways, non-rational, they appear similar or even identical to the untutored eye." The confusion of these realms gives rise to one of two common mistakes. Either the transrational is reduced numinous experiences are characterized as childlike or schizophrenic or the prerational is elevated "neonatal fusion is elevated to spiritual wholeness or infantile magic is thought to 'really' be psychic paranormality." He calls this the "pre-trans" fallacy.
C. Critic of Major Models
I will take a moment to compare these two models. I consider these the two major models because Alexander et al. have a large body of empirical research supporting it and Wilber because of the degree to which he is cited and acknowledged as the leading light in transpersonal theory.
Alexander et al.'s model is more firmly placed in the current experimental and theoretical work of contemporary developmental psychology even when he gets to the postrepresentational teer he uses the constructs of the best of contemporary developmental psychology to build his theory. On the other hand Wilber's work seems to be his personal sift of these various theories rather than a building on the experimental work of a field of inquiry and when he gets to his higher levels he virtually leaves developmental psychology behind. That would be fine if it was appropriate but Alexander has deftly shown that the concepts of the highest levels can be framed in terms of some of the concepts in developmental psychology. This difference is especially evident in Alexander's emphasis on the biological basis of the development of higher states of consciousness. A biological perspective is almost totally lacking in Wilber's work. For these reasons Alexander et al.'s model leads to specific and testable hypothesis more so than Wilbers.
On the other hand, Wilber's strength and Alexander weakness is that the former considers in considerable detail what can go wrong. How we can become fixated or stuck in our passages through the stages of life. He not only considers the types of pathologies which can emerge but also spends considerable time discussing the appropriate interventions. Alexander glosses over virtually all of the trouble points in development under the rubric "stress". By relating it to both psychological and biological stress he uses simplistic solutions for complex problems. To be fair more recently the introduction of Maharishi Ayurveda the issue of addressing problems has begun but to date, as far as I know, the teachings from Ayurveda are still largely physiological and largely scientifically untested although many of Wilbers higher order interventions have not been tested either.
They agree that the Eastern and esoteric philosophical and religious perspectives offer the best clues to the character of the highest stages of human development. But here too there are differences. While Wilber is very eclectic in his treatment of these higher stages, Alexander is essentially a disciple and stays within the teachings of his guru, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. In defense of his choice Alexander lists five reasons for using the Maharishi's presentation of Vedic psychology:
1) Maharishi is presenting this difficult material in scientifically testable terms,
2) TM is a uniform procedure to elicit these states of being,
3) large numbers have been trained in it,
4) Vedic psychology has a decidedly developmental orientation, and
5) it has enormous breadth.
One can see that the first three points are aimed directly at the scientist and are certainly relevant for any scientific inquiry into the development of higher states of consciousness while the last two are also true of many of the systems that Wilber draws upon.
When one system is emphasized the work is restricted to the confines of that system. Certainly the idea of looking for commonalties across systems appeals to the scholar. After all if there is real "truth" shouldn't it be apparent in a variety of systems? Again to be fair Alexander and other Vedic scientists stress the universality of these experiences with or without meditation of any sort. Meditation simply facilitates, acts as a postrepresentational "technology" for the development of higher states of consciousness (HSC) via access to or transcendence to pure consciousness (PC).
Hunt (in press) points out that however one takes HSC they are challenged in the out-of-body experience (OBE), lucid dream, near-death experience (NDE) and mystical experiences of young children. These seem to embody highly abstract operations. Alexanders model allows that although a particular stage of development has ascendency at any one age, all levels (higher or lower) of development are available at any age. Thus the transcendent experiences of youth can easily be embraced in his model as can the human foibles of those at the higher stages.
Hunt disagrees with Wilber's notion of the pre-trans fallacy (i.e., confusing apparent transpersonal experiences of the lower stages of development with those of the higher stages) preferring to see these as primitive or precocious forms of HSC. So too Hunt rejects the use of reincarnation (Armstrong, 1984) as an explanation because it is not a naturalistic account of spirit.
Hunt also considers, how do these experiences occur in childhood? He argues that the white light/mystical and OBE types of experiences exemplify synthesia or taking role of the other and are based on a cross model translation principle. It ought to be possible for these underlying processes to develop in their own right. There is no reason, in principle, why they couldn't run ahead due to stress or developmental preciousness and thus decouple from the skills they normally serve manifesting as the OBE/white light experiences of childhood. But these free floating capacities may emerge in either positive or negative experiences. On the negative side we see night terrors and the annihilation feelings of childhood autism. Both emerge, according to Hunt, as compensations for each other. Hunt cautions that the 4-year old will not place the same significance on these experiences as an adult.
Go to: V. Paper Summary and References (Next Section)