We need to start with some history. In 1930 Sigmund Freud termed the religious experience of oneness the “the oceanic experience” and dismissed it as a regression to an immature state of consciousness. Fifty years later Ken Wilber criticized this as the “pre equals trans fallacy.”

In Michael Washburn the dialogue moves on. Washburn’s view is that the early experience of oneness and the later experience of oneness do have something in common, even though they are not the same. He advocates a spiral model: after progressing along the path of life, we arrive at the same place but in a more developed and structured way. Embodied Spirituality in a Sacred World describes six aspects of this spiral path, some of which are intrapsychic (basic energy, the ego), and some of which are relational (the other, the world). Each of these aspects he tracks over the human lifecycle.

About five months, the infant begins to understand that its sensory world is not an undifferentiated whole but is comprised of discrete objects. At the same time, rather than having to passively consume whatever experiences come along, the child gains the ability to select its experiences. It begins to identify with the body as “me.”

By eighteen months, the process of identifying the caregiver as a separate object is complete, and the child can conceive of the possibility of losing the caregiver as a result of its own behavior. From then on, the child must split off unaccepted aspects of itself and promote approved-of parts by forming ideals.

Some time in middle life, a crossroads occurs. The individual feels alienated and becomes disillusioned with life. We turn within. This introverted attention then causes a build-up of energy in what Washburn calls the “Dynamic Ground” of consciousnessness, to the point that it erupts in what he calls “awakening.” This awakening though is only the first step of the next phase of life, and it is followed by a journey of “derepression.” In order to successfully complete this journey, no part of the psyche can be rejected. If the process is completed, the ego is left not separate from Spirit but “the ego of Spirit,” part of a “self-Self system” (p. 122). The ego and the Dynamic Ground from which it emerged are one again, but this time a structured “one” rather than the original undifferentiated one. The world appears beautiful again.

Embodied Spirituality in a Sacred World is interesting as a theory, but what it needed, I felt, was some support from real evidence. The early parts have certainly been verified by experimental observation of young children, but my sense is that the later parts of life are far more variable than the author’s single model suggests.

Michael Washburn. Embodied Spirituality in a Sacred World. State University of New York Press, 2003. Paperback. 247 pages. ISBN 9780791458488. $22.95.

From my blog at http://true-small-caps.blogspot.com

Thanks, Derek. I enjoyed reading Michael Washburn's book, The Ego and the Dynamic Ground back in the early 90s and it sounds like he's continued to develop his approach, which is somewhat Jungian. He and I had some interested exchanges during the months when I was writing my book on kundalini. For him, kundalini and the "dynamic ground" are similar concepts, and so it was helpful to me to understand this apart from the usual Hindu perspectives.

Yes, the part about how the ego emerges from the Dynamic Ground made a lot of sense to me. Not so his schema for the second part of life, which seemed to be force-fitting everyone into a Jungian mold.