The Spiraling Jesus

So, lets say that you were contemplating your favorite spiritual text, and you decide to close your eyes. You experience a phenomenon of inner light and a feeling of universal love. (This is a state of consciousness as opposed to a stage.) Or, lets say you were hiking through the mountains and at the edge of the highest cliff you see a majestic snow capped mountain with green fields below and you feel "oneness and peace" with the awesome beauty before you.You have experienced a state of reality that is not part of your normal waking life. What do you do with it? How do you interpret this experience? What influences your interpretation? All of the major religions deal with this phenomenon and each may interpret this experience differently. Additionally, you will interpret your experience according the STAGE of development you gravitate towards. (Here is a link for the Stages of Awareness.)

So, lets also say that the person has a "we" that is Western Christianity that provides the context for interpretation. The chances are this person will describe this phenomenon as an experience with the Jesus and/or the Holy Spirit. This experience can occur at any stage, but will be interpreted within the "limiting principles" of that stage.

Here is an example from Ken Wilber's "Integral Spirituality":

Magic Stage - Jesus is experienced as a personal savior who can miraculously alter the world in order to satisy my desire and whim: Jesus as Magician, turning water into wine, multiplying loaves and fishes, walking on water (Jesus may or may not have actually walked on water, but at this stage, this is the thing that would matter most to me). This stage is preconventional and egocentric, so Jesus only cares about me.

Mythic Stage - The same kind of subtle-state experience might be interpreted as communion with Jesus the Eternal Truth bringer. This stage is absolutistic in its beliefs, so you will either believe the Word exactly as written, or you will burn in hell forever. This stage is also ethnocentric, so only those who believe in Jesus Christ as their personal savior can be saved.

Mental/Rational Stage - Jesus Christ becomes a humanized figure, still fully divine and fully human, but now fully human in a more believable way, as teacher of the universal love of a Deistic God (who has read Principia Mathmatica and knows where to draw the line). Because this stage is the beginning of the postconventional and worldcentric stages, this is also the first stage of development that can find salvation through Christ Jesus but also allow that others might find equal salvation through a different path. You will moving in Vatican II fashion.

Pluralistic Stage - You will likely find yourself one of the authors of the Postmodern Bible, an example of interpreting Jesus Christ and the Christ-experience through the lens of "green stage" development.

Integral Stage - For Gebser this was one stage, but Integral Theory sees this as the opening to at least four higher structure-stages of development, any of which will insist on integrating its experience of Christ-consciousness with other expressions of the Holy Spirit around the world, and if so in your case you might also be interested in Integral Theory. (Frankly, any earlier/lower stages of development would simply not find this topic interesting. But if we do pat ourselves on the back, let it still be with humility: whatever stage we might be at, there are always higher stages; and somewhere, someplace, in some universe or dimension, somebody is writing a text that is over our heads. . . )

So, the same state, experienced the same way, can be interpreted in a variety of different ways in the same religion. Heck, often in the same church! Add to this the fact that the inner "I", the part of us that experiences the phenomenon, is unaware of these structure/levels (which leads to all sorts of problems), coupled with the fact that we are inconsistent in how we define terms, and we get all kinds of mis-communication and grief.

Wilber also claims that people functioning in earlier/lower stages can not see the higher/later stages, so the more complex stages are dismissed as inaccurate etc. What Wilber means is that someone can conceptually understand the higher levels, but they cannot tell you what is like to have a first-person experience in those levels. So, a person at a lower level and a person at a higher level may share the exact same experience and interpret them completely differently.

For example, someone who is interpreting life and experience in Mythic/Blue will always view the world in "black and white". There is only one "right way" to think about anything. They will see life as rule based and will function bound by laws and regulations. Violating these rules gets you booted out of the "club". So for instance, when a person functioning in a Mythic awareness dialogues with a person in Pluralistic/Green (who sees many points of view), the Mythic Blue person will judge and ostracize the Pluralistic/Green because he/she simply cannot see that worldview and therefore completely discounts it as rubbish. Sound familiar to anyone?

In conclusion, I think these Stages of Awareness matter when it comes to spirituality. We can only act on what we are aware of. If being conscious of these Stages helps me to interpret my personal experience and life more accurately, and communicate with people better (at least understand where they are coming from, sometimes real communication just won't happen), then I consider it helpful. In addition, I think there a lot of other questions that may be answered:

What are the implications for church?

Do you think people at a particular stage tend to gravitate towards the same church? Does this explain the concept of "liberal" and "conservative" churches?

Can you think of people you know that gravitate toward a particular stage?

What are the implications in communication? Do particular stages use different vocabulary? Maybe even expanded vocabulary as each stage is open to expanded "I, We and Its"? Does this explain why when we talk about religion and spirituality we often wind up in disagreements and misunderstandings?