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Integral Psychology:
Consciousness, Spirit, Psychology, Therapy
(A Synthesis of Premodern, Modern, and Postmodern Approaches)
CONTENTS
Note to the Reader: A Daylight View
PART I. GROUND: THE FOUNDATION
Introduction
Chapter 1. The Basic Levels or Waves
Chapter 2. The Developmental Lines or Streams
Chapter 3. The Self
Chapter 4. The Self-Related Streams
PART II. PATH: FROM PREMODERN TO MODERN
Chapter 5. What Is Modernity?
Chapter 6. To Integrate Premodern and Modern
Chapter 7. Some Important Modern Pioneers
PART III. FRUITION: AN INTEGRAL MODEL
Chapter 8. The Archeology of Spirit
Chapter 9. Some Important Developmental Streams
Chapter 10. Spirituality: Stages or Not?
Chapter 11. Is There a Childhood Spirituality?
Chapter 12. Sociocultural Evolution
Chapter 13. The 1-2-3 of Consciousness Studies
Chapter 14. From Modernity to Postmodernity
Chapter 15. The Integral Embrace
NOTE THE READER: A DAYLIGHT VIEW
T
he word "psychology" means the study of the psyche, and the word
"psyche" means mind or soul. In the Microsoft Thesaurus, for
psyche we find: "self: atman, soul, spirit; subjectivity: higher self,
spiritual self, spirit." One is reminded, yet again, that the roots of
psychology lie deep within the human soul and spirit.
The word "psyche" or its equivalent has ancient sources, going back at
least several millennia BCE, where it almost always meant the animating force
or spirit in the body or material vehicle. Sometime in sixteen century
Germany, "psyche" was coupled with "logos"--word
or study--to form "psychology," the study of the soul or
spirit as it appears in humans. Who actually first used the world
"psychology" is still debated; some say Melanchthon, some say
Freigius, some say Goclenius of Marburg. By 1730 it was being used in a more
modern sense by Wolff in Germany, Hartley in England, Bonnet in
France--and yet even then it still means, as the New Princeton Review
of 1888 defined it, "Psychology is the science of the psyche or soul."
I once started taking notes for a history of psychology and philosophy that I was
planning on writing. I had decided to do so because, in looking at most of the
available history of psychology textbooks, I was struck by a strange and
curious fact, that they all told the story of psychology--and the
psyche--as if it abruptly came into being around 1879 in a laboratory in
the University of Leipzig, headed by Wilhelm Wundt, who indeed was the father
of a certain type of psychology anchored in introspection and structuralism.
Still, did the psyche itself just jump into existence in 1879?
A few textbooks pushed back a little further, to the forerunners of Wundt's
scientific psychology, including Sir Francis Galton, Hermann von Helmholtz, and
particularly the commanding figure of Gustav Fechner. As one textbook
breathlessly put it, "On the morning of October 22, 1850--an
important date in the history of psychology--Fechner had an insight that
the law of the connection between mind and body can be found in a statement of
quantitative relation between mental sensation and material stimulus."
Fechner's law, as it was soon known, is stated as S = K log I (the mental
sensation varies as the logarithm of the material stimulus). Another text
explained its importance: "In the early part of the century, Immanuel
Kant had predicted that psychology could never become a science, because it
would be impossible to experimentally measure psychological processes. Because
of Fechner's work, for the first time scientists could measure the mind;
by the mid-nineteenth century the methods of science were being applied to
mental phenomena. Wilhelm Wundt would take these original and creative
achievements and organize and integrate them into a 'founding' of
psychology."
Every textbook seemed to agree that Gustav Fechner was one of the major, perhaps the
major, breakthrough figures in the founding of modern psychology, and text
after text sang the praises of the man who figured out a way to apply
quantitative measurement to the mind, thus finally rendering psychology
"scientific." Even Wilhelm Wundt was emphatic: "It will
never be forgotten," he announced, "that Fechner was the first to
introduce exact methods, exact principles of measurement and experimental
observation for the investigation of psychic phenomena, and thereby to open the
prospect of a psychological science, in the strict sense of the word. The
chief merit of Fechner's method is this: that it has nothing to apprehend
from the vicissitudes of philosophical systems. Modern psychology has indeed
assumed a really scientific character, and may keep aloof from all metaphysical
controversy." [1] This Dr. Fechner, I presumed, had saved
psychology from contamination by soul or spirit, and had happily reduced the mind
to measurable empirical doo-dads, thus ushering in the era of truly scientific psychology.
That is all I heard of Gustav Fechner, until several years later, when I was
rummaging through a store filled with wonderfully old philosophy books, and
there, rather shockingly, was a book with a striking title-- On Life after Death
--written in 1835, and by none other than Gustav Fechner. It had the most arresting
opening lines: "Man lives on earth not once, but three times: the first
stage of his life is continual sleep; the second, sleeping and waking by turns;
the third, waking forever."
And so proceeded this treatise on waking forever. "In the first stage man
lives in the dark, alone; in the second, he lives associated with, yet
separated from, his fellow-men, in a light reflected from the surface of
things; in the third, his life, interwoven with... universal spirit... is a
higher life.
"In the first stage his body develops itself from its germ, working
out organs for the second; in the second stage his mind develops itself
from its germ, working out organs for the third; in the third the
divine germ develops itself, which lies hidden in every human mind.
"The act of leaving the first stage for the second we call Birth; that of leaving
the second for the third, Death. Our way from the second to the third is not
darker than our way from the first to the second: one way leads us forth to see
the world outwardly; the other, to see it inwardly."
From body to mind to spirit, the three stages of the growth of consciousness; and it
is only as men and women die to the separate self, that they awaken to the
expansiveness of universal Spirit. There was Fechner's real philosophy
of life, mind, soul, and consciousness; and why did the textbooks not bother to
tell us that? That's when I decided I wanted to write a history of psychology,
simply because "Somebody has got to tell."
(Tell that the notion of the unconscious was made popular by von Hartmann's
Philosophy of the Unconscious, which was published in 1869--thirty years
before Freud--and went into an unprecedented eight editions in ten years, and
von Hartmann was expressing Schopenhauer's philosophy, which Schopenhauer himself
explicitly stated he derived mostly from Eastern mysticism, Buddhism and the
Upanishads in particular: under the individual consciousness lies a cosmic
consciousness, which for most people is "unconscious," but which can be awakened
and fully realized, and this making conscious of the unconscious was men and
women's greatest good. That Freud directly took the concept of the id from Georg
Groddeck's The Book of the It, which was based on the existence of a cosmic
Tao or organic universal spirit. That... well, it is a long story, all of which
powerfully reminds us that the roots of modern psychology lie in spiritual traditions,
precisely the psyche itself is plugged into spiritual sources. In the deepest recesses
of the psyche, one finds not instincts, but Spirit--and the study of psychology
ought ideally to be the study of all of that, body to mind to soul, subconscious
to self-conscious to superconscious, sleeping to half-awake to fully awake).
Fechner did indeed make extraordinary contributions to empirical and measurable
psychology; his Elements of Psychophysics is justly regarded as the first
great text of psychometrics, and it fully deserves all the accolades psychologists
from Wundt onward gave it. Still, the whole point of Fechner's psychophysics was
that spirit and matter were inseparable, two sides of one great reality, and his
attempts to measure aspects of the mind were meant to point out this inseparability,
not to reduce spirit or soul to material objects, and certainly not to deny spirit
and soul altogether, which seems to have nonetheless been its fate in the hands of
less sensitive researchers.
Fechner maintained, as one scholar summarized it, "that the whole universe is
spiritual in character, the phenomenal world of physics being merely the
external manifestation of this spiritual reality.... Atoms are only the
simplest elements in a spiritual hierarchy leading up to God. Each level of
this hierarchy includes all those levels beneath it, so that God contains the
totality of spirits. Consciousness is an essential feature of all that
exists.... The evidences of soul are the systematic coherence and conformity
to law exhibited in the behavior of organic wholes. Fechner regarded the
earth, 'our mother,' as such an organic besouled whole."
[2]
Fechner himself explained that, "As our bodies
belong to the greater and higher individual body of the earth, so our spirits belong
to the greater and higher individual spirit of the earth, which comprises all the
spirits of earthly creatures, very much as the earth-body comprises their bodies. At
the same time the earth-spirit is not a mere assembly of all the spirits of the earth,
but a higher, individually conscious union of them." And the earth-spirit--Fechner was
giving a precise outline of Gaia--is itself simply part of the divine-spirit, and "the
divine-spirit is one, omniscient and truly all-conscious, i.e., holding all the
consciousness of the universe and thus comprising each individual consciousness...in
a higher and the highest connection." [3]
But this does not mean the obliteration of individuality, only its completion and
inclusion in something even larger. "Our own individuality and
independence, which are naturally but of a relative character, are not impaired
but conditioned by this union." And so it goes up the nested hierarchy
of increasing inclusiveness: "As the earth, far from separating our
bodies from the universe, connects and incorporates us with the universe, so
the spirit of the earth, far from separating our spirits from the divine
spirit, forms a higher individual connection of every earthly spirit with the
spirit of the universe." [4]
Fechner's approach to psychology was thus a type of integral approach:
he wished to use empirical and scientific measurement, not to deny soul and
spirit, but to help elucidate them. "To regard the whole material
universe as inwardly alive and conscious is to take what Fechner called the
daylight view. To regard it as inert matter, lacking in any teleological
significance, is to take what he called the night view.
Fechner ardently advocated the daylight view and hoped that it could be
supported inductively by means of his psychophysical experiments."
[5]
Well, it appears that the night view has since prevailed, yes? But there was a
period, roughly during the time of Fechner (1801-1887) to William James
(1842-1910) to James Mark Baldwin (1861-1934), where the newly emerging science
of psychology was still on speaking terms with the ancient wisdom of the
ages--with the perennial philosophy, with the Great Nest of Being, with
the Idealist systems, and with the simple facts of consciousness as almost
every person knows them: consciousness is real, the inward observing self is
real, the soul is real, however much we might debate the details; and thus
these truly great founding psychologists--when their real stories are
told--have much to teach us about an integral view, a view that attempts
to include the truths of body, mind, soul, and spirit, and not reduce them to
material displays, digital bits, empirical processes, or objective systems (as
important as all of those most certainly are). These pioneering modern
psychologists managed to be both fully scientific and fully spiritual, and they
found not the slightest contradiction or difficulty in that generous embrace.
This is a book about just such an integral psychology. While attempting to include
the best of modern scientific research on psychology, consciousness, and
therapy, it also takes its inspiration from that integral period of
psychology's own genesis (marked by such as Fechner, James, and Baldwin,
along with many others we will soon meet). This volume began that day in the
wonderful old book store, and the shocked recognition that Fechner's true
story had rarely been told, and my subsequent historical research. The result
was a very long textbook in two volumes, which includes a discussion of around
two hundred theorists, East and West, ancient and modern, all working, in their
own way, toward a more integral view; and it contains around one hundred charts
summarizing many of these systems. [6]
For various reasons I have decided to publish it first in a very condensed and
edited form--this present book--along with most of the charts (see
figures 1 through 11).
As such, what follows is merely the briefest outline of what one type of integral
psychology might look like. It attempts to include and integrate some of the
more enduring insights from premodern, modern, and postmodern sources, under
the assumption that all of them have something incredibly important to teach
us. And it attempts to do so, not as a mere eclecticism, but in a systematic
embrace, with method to the madness.
But the major aim of this book is to help start a discussion, not finish it; to act
as a beginning, not an end. The reason I decided to publish this book in
outline form first was to share an overview without crowding it with too many
of my own particular details, and thus spur others to jump into the adventure:
agreeing with me, disagreeing with me; correcting any mistakes that I might
make, filling in the many gaps, straightening out any inadequacies, and
otherwise carrying the enterprise forward by their own good lights.
For teachers using this is a text, and for the serious student, I have included
extensive endnotes. As usual, I recommend skipping these until a second
reading (or reading them by themselves afterward). The notes do two things in
particular: flesh out the outline with some of my own details (especially for
students of my work); and make a series of specific recommendations for further
readings, by other scholars, on each of the major topics. Thus teachers, for
example, might consult some of these other texts (as well as their own
favorites), make xeroxes and hand-outs for the class, and thus supplement the
main outline with any number of more specific readings. Interested laypersons
can follow the notes to further readings in any of the areas. These
recommendations are not exhaustive, only representative. For the recommended
books on transpersonal psychology and therapy, I took a poll of many colleagues
and reported the results.
I have not included a separate bibliography; the references on the charts alone
are over a hundred pages. But in today's world of the Internet, it is
easy enough to get online and search any of the large booksellers for the
various publications (which is why I have not included publisher's
information, either). Likewise, I have often simply listed the names of some
of the important authors, and readers can do a book search to see which of
their books are available.
I personally believe that integral psychology (and integral studies in general)
will become increasingly prevalent in the coming decades, as the academic world
gropes its way out of its doggedly night view of the Kosmos.
What follows, then, is one version of a daylight view. And, dear Gustav, this one
is for you.
K. W.
Boulder, Colorado
Spring 1999
[1]
Quoted in translator's Preface, On Life After Death, by G. Fechner,
trans. H. Wernekke, written 1835, Chicago: Open Court Publishing, 1945.
[2]
A. Zweig, "Gustav Theodor Fechner," in P. Edwards (ed.), The Encyclopedia
of Philosophy, vol. 3.
[3]
Fechner, On Life After Death, pp. 16-7.
[4]
Fechner, On Life After Death, pp. 18.
[5]
A. Zweig, "Gustav Theodor Fechner," in P. Edwards (ed.), The
Encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. 3.
[6]
This textbook has variously been called System, Self, and Structure;
Patterns and Process in Consciousness; and The 1-2-3 of Consciousness
Studies. The present book, Integral Psychology, is a highly condensed
and edited version of the as yet unpublished two-volume work.
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