October/November 2005
FOUR TELEOLOGICAL MODES OF CONSCIOUSNESS
— Paul Von Ward
Although it may be the most powerful force in the universe,
consciousness is the most amorphous and intangible aspect of human
existence. We have a vivid dream that awakens us, thrilling or
threatening, but we change position and it eludes us like a puff of
cloud. An image or concept grabs our attention, but a friend telephones
and we can’t recall it. Sometimes we just “know” something, but a
few rational thoughts reveal it has no substance or practicality.
How do humans corral and harness such a wild and tempestuous force as
consciousness, making it respond to their daily need for interaction
with nature and one another? We do so by learning basic assumptions that
help us make sense of our reality. We commit them to deep memory banks
and act on them without thinking. They move from our active yang mood of
consciousness (thinking) to our passive yin mood of consciousness
(knowing). They become the “truths” that impose personal order on
the data coming through our physical and subtle senses. Such a mechanism
is essential to human functioning. Without this core set of
assumptions, the psyche would break up from the centrifugal force of
internally inconsistent beliefs.
These beliefs, considered “truths,” comprise our “worldviews”
and cover most questions in life. They serve as the individual’s
“lens” for interpreting self, other, and external events. The more
basic ones deal with the most fundamental of questions: What is the
design and purpose of nature? This teleological question requires our
assumptions of fi nal causes: Why we think things work as they do. For
example:
Yahweh created me. Mind rules.
God/Allah decides all. Nature is neutral.
Allah/God is just.
In this yin mood of consciousness, human behavior is guided by
instinctual survival impulses and by our culturally conditioned
assumptions about the nature of nature. These assumptions are largely
implicit, outside of routine awareness. It requires great effort for
people to even give expression to them. For the vast majority, these
assumptions are simply considered to be “the truth.” Most
individuals and their cultural cohorts feel no need to question them.
CHANGING OUR TRUTHS
Because these assumptions derive from cultural practices and beliefs,
they are mutable through experience or new learning. We can change these
worldviews through a rethinking of specifi c beliefs. Sometimes this
rethinking is stimulated by a powerful subjective experience. The active
mood of consciousness tests and considers alternatives (based on new
inner or external evidence) to the ingrained worldview. However, such
change is not easy and requires several stages of conscious
transformation. The fi rst is the most simple, yet the most diffi cult:
Recognition that my perception of reality is based on assumptions that
may be true or may not be true. If this fi rst step does not stir up
strong emotional reactions in the individual, it is likely that one is
not yet dealing with worldviews as defi ned in this article.
The second step requires my identifi cation of the central
assumptions I hold. This can be done by refl ecting on any event or
aspect of life and asking, “What causes, principles, or forces can I
imagine that could result in this outcome?” And then I ask, “Which
of these do I believe is the most likely to be correct?” (The
self-assessment questionnaire introduced at the end of this article
illustrates for the reader how this may be done.) The next step requires
that I look for evidence that supports my chosen assumption over
alternatives.
When I cannot find evidence that a “nonbeliever” will agree tends
to support my assumption, I must conclude that I am taking it on faith.
It is this “taking on faith of one’s own or one’s group’s
assumptions” as the absolute truth that leads to fragmentation of
societal consciousness. In the context of religious and spiritual
worldviews, the United States is in effect a “polytheistic” society.
Let me explain. An individual is not usually polytheistic, i.e.
“worshipping more than one god.” A social unit, however, can call
itself polytheistic and provide for the worship of different gods,
although not many do. However, this article deals with a situation where
a group (a nation or some other collective) assumes everyone worships
the same god, although under different names. But an analysis of
worldviews may reveal that a nation is actually “polytheistic.” That
is because people do not directly worship the ineffable source of all
that exists. They worship their own worldview’s assumptions about it.
Thus, when fundamental divergences in worldviews exist, where the
defi nitions of their god are mutually incompatible, groups actually
believe and behave in a “polytheistic” way. Although they may use
the same word—God, their defi nitions are so widely different that
they, for all practical purposes, live under different gods. To the
extent that groups believe that their concept of “god,” by whatever
name, and their “god’s word” (as interpreted by them) is the
Truth, they set themselves apart from all others with no less certainty
than the Babylonians who worshipped Ba’al and the Hebrews who
worshipped Yahweh 2,500 years ago. It is no wonder then that the Quran,
from the newest of the three great supernatural religions, describes
polytheism as “the path to Hell.”
Because their assumptions are taken on faith, based on a priest/
rabbi/imam’s inspirations (which are infi nite in number) and on
varying levels of knowledge, over time the diverging worldviews result
in deeper and deeper fragmentation of the species’ consciousness. Such
diverging realities (caused by worldviews that shape the way people
actually experience life) have always increased the potential for
political and physical confl icts.
But to understand the depth and complexity, and the threat to human
survival, of the current maelstrom of worldviews that socially and
politically rend today’s world, we must look deeper than labels (the
names groups use for their divine beings and give to their religions).
Such analysis is necessary to understand the players in the current push
for a more theocratic U.S. government.
Given their Deist perspective (belief in a creator or supreme power,
but not in the anthropomorphic god of 18th-century religions), it
appears likely that America’s Founding Fathers had an intuitive
understanding of the competition for power that could arise among
competing religious worldviews. They recognized that some groups in a
“polytheistic society” (my term) with fundamentally different
concepts of reality would want to impose their assumptions on others
through the political process. They foresaw a struggle to impose laws
that would regulate what had been private matters from one religion’s
perspective. For this reason, they established secular U.S. institutions
with constitutional barriers to prevent the followers of one “god”
from dominating the rest of society.
This problem is not limited to religious worldviews. Scientific
theories and philosophical schools are also based on assumptions and
beliefs founded on partial evidence, always subject to revision based on
experience. When groups holding them consider their worldviews as the
Truth, and dismiss other ways of knowing, they are in effect worshipping
their own divergent “realities.” Until we fi nd a way to transcend
the hardened worldviews that now divide the species, we will not be able
to “put the Humpty Dumpty (of human consciousness) back together
again.” To help pierce this defensive shield of superfi cial labels
and symbols, I have constructed a self-assessment tool to differentiate
among groups at a teleological level regardless of their nominal
religious or spiritual orientation. Its purpose is to provide a basis
for dialogue across the barriers of deeply ingrained worldviews.
MOODS AND MODES OF HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS
Above I described the natural yin (knowing) and yang (thinking) moods of
human consciousness. They may be called the passive form “assuming”
and the active form “thinking,” or, respectively, “perceiving”
and “projecting.” It is through the explicit yang aspect that we can
both identify the elements that make up a person’s worldview, and
observe how it changes. We can participate in the change process with
others.
Worldviews may be assigned to various modes in this schema depending
on which type and level of assumptions are included. I have chosen in
this article to deal with what I believe are teleological worldviews, or
human assumptions that deal with the character and functions of human
nature and the universe. In four decades of cross-cultural work on
personal, scientific, political, and religious issues as a diplomat,
educator, and psychologist, I have dealt with different worldviews in
100 countries. Identifying and understanding their various assumptions
about the nature of reality has been essential to cross-cultural
communication and cooperation.
|
Go to americanprofessional.com
|
|
American Professional Agency, Inc.
AMERICAN PROFESSIONAL AGENCY’S
PROFESSIONAL LIABILITY INSURANCE PLAN
 Mental
Health work demands personal involvement - with people, their
situations, and environment. Unfortunately, such involvement in the
course of your work may sometimes place you in a situation where you are
vulnerable to legal action. There is always the possibility that you
may be held personally responsible for some alleged malpractice, error
or mistake, arising out of the performance of your professional services
regardless of your training and experience.
Lawsuits are very unpleasant.They are also expensive.Any claim by
one of your clients for alleged negligence, even though it may be
invalid, must be defended. The cost of defense for these matters can be
excessively high.
MORE INFORMATION
www.americanprofessional.com
|
My work involved 15 years as a U.S. diplomat, 15 years as CEO of
Delphi International, and 10 years as a cross-cultural independent
scholar. From this experience, I have developed a tool that I believe
can transcend language and cultural barriers. It can place people into
various groups on the basis of fundamental beliefs that cut across
current religious, educational, and social divides. I have chosen to use
four descriptive terms for different modes of thinking that are
somewhat self-evident: Material, Supernatural, Mystical, and Integral.
(The modes of consciousness they suggest can be understood as actually
“living in different worlds” or “different states of reality.”
As worldviews, they are just that important for understanding one’s
perceptions and behavior.)
The simple instrument comprises 32 questions with four possible
answers to each. (Based on a forcedchoice principle, the response
closest to the person’s own belief must be marked by an X even if it
doesn’t exactly represent that person’s view. During the pilot
phase, one may note that no answer represents his or her view. One can
also suggest language that would.) Each of the responses falls into one
of the four modes labeled above and described below. The scoring system
clusters responses into the four modes.
The sample question/answer sets at the end illustrate the concept.
Most of us have some of all four modes of consciousness or worldviews in
our makeup. The scoring system is designed to profi le the relative
strengths of the respective modes (basic paradigms that infl uence a
person’s thoughts and actions) in terms of their importance to a
person. Each mode refl ects a different approach.
I: PHYSICAL: Focuses on a material reality and depends on the fi ve
senses and human technology to validate one’s beliefs. Subordinates
inner experience.
II: SUPERNATURAL: Assumes a separate, divine realm from which a god
rules daily events. Favors revelations from accepted translators of the
truth.
III: MYSTICAL: Believes unseen and spiritual energies control events.
Sees humans as spirits with the ability to directly control their
reality through belief.
IV: INTEGRAL: Accepts various ways of gaining knowledge, but subjects
them to consensual validation by nonbelievers. Seeks testable
connections among all events.
|
Go To Saybrook.edu
|
 |
For you to intervene effectively to alleviate suffering and build a
sustainable society, you’ll need not only a passion for positive
change but high-level skills, knowledge and leading-edge tools.
At Saybrook Graduate School you can acquire the advanced degree you
need in Psychology, Human Sciences or Organizational Systems. Our
humanistic approach uniquely deepens your learning in such
concentrations as Social Transformation, Humanistic and Transpersonal
Psychology, Consciousness and Spirituality, and Integrative Health
Studies. We offer more than 200 courses.
More Information
|
The questionnaire rests on the hypothesis that it covers the central
basic areas of beliefs that shape an individual’s emotions and
physical reactions to most categories of life experiences. With its
comprehensive focus on the thinking (yang) level of consciousness, the
instrument allows one to infer the underlying (yin) worldviews. These
worldviews can be correlated with individual lifestyle categories and
group norms. Consequently, data about worldviews can be used to predict
choices that may lead to family, community, political, and economic
comity or discord.
This concept and instrument is now in the pilot-study phase of
development. Interested parties can participate in the pilot phase, and
help shape its outcome by contacting the author at the e-mail address
shown below. Feedback on the article, concept, and the instrument/
scoring package is welcome.
SOME OF THE QUESTIONS FROM THE QUESTIONNAIRE TESTING THE FOUR MODES OF CONSCIOUSNESS AND WORLDVIEW
6. Soulmates or life partners are probably: A. Joined fi rst in
heaven. B. Through mutual self-defi nition. C. Created by hormones and
chemistry. D. Made by prebirth agreement. E. No answer closely
represents my view. I would say ___________.
7. The state of my health results from: A. A combination of several
factors. B. My attitudes and belief in myself. C. Mine and my family’s
divine destiny. D. Genes interacting with the environment. E. No answer
closely represents my view. I would say ___________.
8. I see life on Earth as: A. A product of physical evolution. B.
Learning lessons on the soul’s journey. C. Doing the Lord God’s
work. D. Consciousness incarnate in matter. E. No answer closely
represents my view. I would say ___________.
9. As a human, my role on the Earth is: A. To learn how nature works.
B. To prove my faithfulness to God/Allah. C. To test my soul’s
progress. D. To participate in Earth’s development. E. No answer
closely represents my view. I would say ___________.
10. Government policies should: A. Serve the highest purpose. B. Refl
ect God’s plan for humanity. C. Represent agreed-upon goals. D. Be
the will of the majority. E. No answer closely represents my view. I
would say ___________.
15. Tragedies occur in life: A. By accident or confusion of
intentions. B. To remind people of God’s power. C. As a result of the
physical laws of nature. D. Due to our inner need for course
corrections. E. No answer closely represents my view. I would say
___________.
17. What is the relationship between God/Allah and Nature? A. God
personally rules nature. B. God exists in nature. C. Nature and God are
one. D. Nature has no God. E. No answer even closely represents my view.
I would say ____.
21. I engage in prayer to: A. Link with the Universal Mind. B. Help
me feel better psychologically. C. Communicate to God or the Trinity. D.
Energize or direct my intentions. E. No answer closely represents my
view. I would say ___________.
22. Emotional suffering comes from: A. Natural causes. B. Perceptions
of events. C. Human sins. D. Human attachments. E. No answer closely
represents my view. I would say ___________.
23. The divine or eternal realm is: A. Within natural human reach. B.
Potentially knowable by humans. C. A projection of human hopes. D.
Beyond human understanding. E. No answer closely represents my view. I
would say ___________.
24. Humans are born: A. Potentially good or bad. B. Morally good. C.
Ethically neutral. D. Sinners or fallen beings. E. No answer closely
represents my view. I would say ___________.
26. Before conception humans are: A Transcendent beings of energy. B.
Divine souls in waiting. C. Nonexistent. D. Potential life forms. E. No
answer closely represents my view. I would say ___________.
27. The timing of my physical death: A. Is the choice of my soul. B.
Is in God’s plan for my life. C. May involve various dimensions. D.
Comes from natural or human causes. E. No answer closely represents my
view. I would say ___________.
29. Truth is best learned through: A. Scientifi c experimentation. B.
Meditation and inner channels. C. Comparing different ways of knowing.
D. Revelations from God or his angels. E. No answer closely represents
my view. I would say ___________.
31. The implicit goal of most human actions is to: A. Resolve inner
and conflicting impulses. B. Achieve an immediate positive impact in the
world. C. Achieve personal unifi cation with God. D. Contribute to
long-term peace and health. E. No answer closely represents my view. I
would say ___________.
PAUL VON WARD, an interdisciplinary
cosmologist, is the author of GODS, GENES, & CONSCIOUSNESS and OUR
SOLARIAN LEGACY among other books and articles. www.vonward. com,
paul@vonward.com
Association for Humanistic Psychology
