With what kind of questions does a higher or philosophical psychology
try to deal? The answer is whatever concerns the problems of human life as seen
and experienced from the viewpoint of a person who seeks to understand, to experience
meaning and joy, to live harmoniously and to love.
One might argue that these are more like the questions of philosophy or religion
than of psychology... yet all these matters deeply affect personal development,
the degree of emotional and mental sanity and self-fulfilment we can achieve.
How best to live in relation to oneself and to others, how to overcome mental
burdens, how to understand what happens to us and why, how to deal with one's
doubts, mistrust, anxieties and a whole catalogue of other ills of the soul
- or how to attain trust, self esteem, fulfilment, faith, peace of mind and
live a meaningful life... all these are issues about which any higher psychology
must provide both tried and tested knowledge and guidance. However, though it
can point out and describe the various highways, byways and dead-ends, true
personal answers are only found through self-investigation by the person who
actually makes the journey.
Today there are many psychological theories and therapies, most of which doubtless
have some content that is true and beneficial, yet clearly all are neither equally
and fully true nor good. Much of 20th century psychology has already shown itself
to be inaccurate and inadequate, while much of it is also highly misleading.
Once having become widespread, however, it tends to live on in many shapes and
forms. In order to provide some means to the relative newcomer of dealing with
all this - pointing out the well-tried blind alleys and finding a way onwards
to real self-discovery and self-transformation - I naturally discuss some current
hypotheses and theories of psychology with a view to extracting their useful
truth contents... and discarding the residue or dross.
Different types of psychological theory could be ranged in ascending orders
of truth, practicality or completeness, all according more or less to the phase
of psychological development and human understanding that each represents. Here.
the insights of the 'perennial philosophy' of Indian origin provide an overall
theory of psyche which is capable of integrating the entire truth content of
all degrees of psychological theory and therapy. This can be termed the 'higher'
or philosophical psychology of human development altogether.1
As the treasury of Indian thought becomes more available to the West - not least
through persons who put into practice the insights gained from the higher psychology
- it has also begun to come to expression in some books on psychology.
In referring to 'higher' psychology the intention is to make clear that the
empirical, experimental or concrete psychological information, where most of
what goes under the term 'psychology' today is found, is not the chief subject
matter of this book. Though it is taken into account, referred to and commented
on as required, such information make up the 'lower' parts of psychology. This
is because the scope of these studies is limited and excludes most forms of
higher psychic life - such as knowledge of perennial moral values and the mental
or psychic disciplines that are keys to the good life. Scientific psychological
information works at a lower level of generality than does higher psychology,
and is very seldom applicable to all people and times.
The issues raised here, then, are practical, spiritual and holistic. Thus the
human psyche seen from a broader viewpoint than either that of scientific humanism
or psycho-physical theories It includes recognition of the unavoidability of
values for human development and happiness, and their key role in many aspects
of the theory and practice of psychology itself. It recognises the nature of
both conscience and ethical reasoning and their vast importance in nurturing
a healthy psyche. It fully accepts the religious urge to discover meaning in
the cosmos and the dire need of society for a living and practical philosophy
of life.
I do not deny the value of more limited, specific approaches in clinical psychological
investigation (developmental, perceptional, experimental etc.), but ask from
the 'higher' perspective 'what is their place in the whole?', 'how are they
to be related to one another, what are their values and what is their value?'.
By this I ask both what practical, personal use may they have and whether they
are likely to be effective or valueless and work for good or ill in the main
scheme of human life. All this amounts to a meta-psychological investigation
of human consciousness in theory and practice.
SCIENTIFIC METHOD IN PSYCHOLOGY
In this century an increasing need for a science of mankind has been felt
and various attempts at laying foundations for it have been made in psychology.
This work has increased gradually, expanding rapidly mainly after the Second
World War.
Natural science made possible the demonstration of its best hypotheses in
repeated experiments. Its prestige arose from this combined with the control
of nature that was gradually developed to provide technology and material advancements.
Such science studies nature; that is, the physical environment of man, including
the human body.
Though the new natural sciences led to the improvement of material conditions
generally including working conditions, health and productivity on all material
fronts, they were incapable of altering the problems that arose from 'human
nature'. This naturally led to the ambition of developing 'sciences of the human
being', such as psychology, sociology, economics and so forth2.
The human being is a part of nature, one thought, naturally enough. Therefore
the belief was cherished that the methods of natural science would, if only
applied on a large enough scale, enable us to understand human nature in much
the same way one understands physical nature. The underlying 'philosophy' of
this assumption is called 'materialism' or 'physicalism'. Eventually one hoped
that a psychology based on such physicalistic theorising would explain the causes
of all human behaviour so as to be able to eliminate the problems of mankind.
It should be patently evident to anyone whose own interests, work and prestige
are not too fully invested in one or more of the human sciences to have become
biassed, that a psychological and social understanding of mankind which is sufficient
to remedy the psychic and social ills from which the world suffers has not been
achieved by them. Psychology may be compared to medicine in that, while a certain
degree of expertise has been developed in both fields in treating the sick,
they have had limited success averting illness and so far possess very few means
indeed - theoretical or practical - of positively promoting health in any definitive
or full sense of the word. No entirely clear or adequate idea of what is full
psychic health is even agreed on among psychologists today.
MISTAKEN SCIENTIFIC IDEAS ABOUT PERSONS
What are the reasons for this sad state of affairs? Part of the answer lies
in a fundamental error of the belief that the human being is just an objective
entity like any natural object and nothing more. This mistake brought with it
the wrong standards of knowledge, the wrong methods and techniques for studying
man and society in so far as these are not mere natural physical phenomena and
cannot be studied straightforwardly on a line with nature. Human beings are
not just bodies, not objects reacting to natural causes, but subjects. It so
happens that we can even defy scientific explanations and do the unexpected
and unheard-of, putting the predictions of psychologists and sociologists to
shame, if we so choose. So we can and do make up their own minds, act as subjects
with human motives and purposes, up to and including the desire to understand
life and the cosmos so as to experience selfless bliss.
The sort of regularities and correspondences that social studies have discovered
are also mostly highly specific to the very varied societies and brief eras
of times in which they arose. In most cases, the social sciences make rather
trivial generalisations because these seldom bear much relevance to the actual
problems and concerns of living individuals. Statistics may be useful to politicians
and planners, whose ends they are doubtless made to serve best. Further, it
seems, the less trivial generalisations are, the less likely are they to hold
true. The scientific 'acid test' of all these general hypotheses is whether
they allow of accurate and reliable predictions of future trends. The fact is
that this has not been achieved with any reliability in any human sphere, from
psychology to economics, from social anthropology to sociology.
Therefore we must admit that there are no 'sciences' of society or mankind
at all comparable to natural sciences as regards their power of explanation
or their results in application either to social or individual behaviour. On
the other hand, there are studies which attempt the explanation of human events
and do so on the basis of systematic observation, sometimes supported by comparative
studies of some detail3. However, the vast majority
of data recorded so far is incommensurable with any intelligible general theory
that is capable of accounting for our deepest motivations and aspirations, let
alone human self-transformation.
Apart from its various misunderstood natural scientific pretensions, the chief
failures of modern psychology also stem from its having from the start shown
much greater concern for the sick or pathological mind than the sound and practical
study of health and what leads to the genuinely good life. Such a 'philosophical
psychology' alone can provide the guidelines needed for individuals and for
the lasting cure and prevention of 'mental illnesses'.
The age-old view of the human psyche as a whole that is reinterpreted in modern
terms in this book can help us reformulate our approach to psychic health and
stimulate to more realistic and successful research and practical innovation.
This theory is often radically different in vital respects to what is current
in many professional forms of psychology today and it shows up weaknesses in
several Western psychological theories, while integrating others in a more complete
orientation
THE MEANING OF LIFE - PHILOSOPHY IN PSYCHOLOGY
Because psychology deals with - or should be concerned with - such far-reaching
questions as 'Who am I?', 'Why was I born?', 'What matters in my life?' or 'How
should I live?', it is not fully separable from philosophy. Philosophy in the
original Greek sense was not concerned primarily with cumulating facts and generalisations
so much as penetrating the true nature of the self. The Apollonian oracle at
Delphi whose slogan Socrates embraced held the goal to be "Know thyself".
The human faculty of reason, itself informed by a still higher source which
has been called both intellect (Greek= nous), the voice of conscience and the
power of moral discrimination (Sanskrit = buddhi) - is the basis upon which
human civilisation itself rests. What is taught by such an illumined reasoning,
relating to sound experience and guided by insights from the highest teachings,
is the only basis of a genuine or philosophical psychology.
Much psychology, and especially psychiatry, labour under the 'flat-earth' idea
that all that exists must be material, while a spiritual cosmos surrounds the
human being. Psychology at the higher level is not dictated by physical observation,
though it does also include all such data within its scope. First and foremost,
however, it relies on the person's own understanding. This includes understanding
of the world and other people but eventually hinges on self-understanding through
various kinds of introspection involving memory, reflection on thoughts and
feelings, logical reasoning, creative imagining, the intuitive grasp of meaning,
intentions, motives, purposes and many another connection. All of these functions
are a normal part of the make-up of any mature person.
This approach in psychology is well called 'holistic', meaning that it accounts
for the whole person - objective and subjective, body and soul - not merely
limited aspects taken in isolation. Persons are assumed to be unitary living
beings acting in self-awareness and who interact in society and who aspire to
mutual development. Holistic thought involves self-reflection by the thinker
so as to draw its consequences both in theory and practice.
THE REINSTITUTION OF PERENNIAL INSIGHTS
A very widespread modern reaction against dogmatic morals and theology in the
era of the Christian churches' domination of Western intellectual life led to
empirical scientific psychology. The followers of this approach abolished most
prior ideas of psychological nature by shifting all interest to the analysis
of more and more specific and limited question to which some sort of empirical
observation was feasible. In so far as knowledge had been accumulated throughout
the world's cultures and religions in previous ages, most of this was discarded
along with the teachings of Christian revelation and the more speculative metaphysical
theories of Renaissance thinkers.
Though the trend towards naturalistic and empirical ideas was inevitable in
the climate of wild and unrealistic dogmas that held sway in the European middle
ages, the pendulum swung over to an opposite extreme, that of materialistic
scientism. This occurred first in the natural sciences and later in humanistic
studies, including psychology. This swing towards what we can observe with the
senses reinstated much 'common sense' to dispel many a superstitious belief
about many matters to do with the human organism and what affects human behaviour.
Indeed, the figurative bath water was thrown out, but what about the baby? My
contention is that the baby was thrown out at the same time in that common sense
was eventually ousted again by too much detailed analysis and involved theorising
based on shaky science. 'The baby' represents the personal self with its inner
core of consciousness, whose seat is the psyche (soul), and which idea expresses
the cumulative wisdom of much of the human tradition about our true nature.
The world treasury of human wisdom is so varied and extensive that a full account
can hardly be expected, yet certain important features of human experience that
recur again and again are either neglected or discounted by many psychologists.
Such features regarded as outside the currently-accepted scientific pale include
spiritual or mystical insights. The experiences related to these traditions
can undoubtedly be a source of deep understanding of the human psyche and the
purposes inherent in it. Many such experiences have been mis-diagnosed by psychologists
as symptoms of mental illness. That they occur and that their causes are not
properly know, but are very varied as to external circumstance and 'triggering'
etc., is a much neglected aspect of psychology. At the turn of the millennium,
this appears gradually to be changing .
Of course, we must at the same time exclude sectarian excesses and the many
and various historical and social distortions that have plagued all influential
religions and ideologies. The discovery of what is essential and true among
the many garbled and distorted versions of scripture and esoteric religions
that abound in this day and age is no easy matter. There are many reasons to
regard this as due to the fact that a widespread failure sufficiently to practice
the values these require has led to a decline in insight. Another reason is
the relative inability of religions based on strong traditions (and too often
with a heavy ballast of assumptions and beliefs) to absorb and interpret new
discoveries about human psychology which require modiification of their doctrines.
Any psychology seeking universal validity must benefit from the wide spectrum
of world literature including historical humanistic studies, biography, scripture
and philosophical ethics. Instead of narrowing down the approach to no more
than a secular or materialist view, it must study and evaluate teachings in
various cultures that have been with the human race in various forms of expression
since the dawn of history.
Modern psychology's dilemma has long been that it has largely abdicated from
the role of having any teaching. Psychologists who identify themselves as being
scientific in approach have not - in the past half-century - often wished to
be professionally responsible for any explicit norms or seeking actively to
forward practical moral principles and teachings. Science aims only to investigate,
observe and demonstrate, not to advise or deliver morally-relevant advice. Despite
this, practitioners of the psychological sciences unavoidably do fulfil many
norm-setting and (often occluded) legitimising functions in their various professional
involvments and contacts with society. Psychiatry and psychology are in vast
demand due to the continuing escalation of psycho-social problems and mental
disturbances related to crime, violence, terror, drugs and widespread sexual
abuses... to which they still lack reliable and far-reaching solutions even
in theory.
In their caution as would-be 'objective scientists' who must appear as non-interfering
neutral observers (and hence somehow elevated beyond normal criticism), Western
psychologists have steered clear of anything like practically-intelligible teachings
in the interests of self-knowledge and of personal and social harmony. There
are sound reasons for saying that recognising the inevitable norm-setting functions
in society of all psychological thought - is a first step towards coming of
age. Grasping the horns and becoming involved in values is another step towards
becoming effective in understanding the consequences of modern normlessness
so as to learn and provide useful solutions to the basic dilemmas of right living
and development.
BROADENING OF PSYCHOLOGICAL VISION
Mainstream developments in psychological studies in the West have largely failed
to integrate that wider moral and intellectual framework to be found in world
literature, spiritual writings and scriptures. The modern tradition in Western
psychology which has best forwarded this is that of
humanistic psychology.
Due to the inexhaustible variety of life and the necessity of practising in
our own ways in order to learn properly, many types of experience and insight
doubtless lie behind each person's way of understanding and living in the world.
Each of us inevitably tries by ourselves to reach towards a greater experience
or vision, developing selfhood through its many phases within the rich perspectives
life offers. It would therefore probably be impossible for anyone to state logically
in step-by-step fashion any single master method of understanding for and of
everyone. Yet there surely are crucial differences in the progress of human
understanding - whatever its particular subject and aim - depending on which
guiding principles or doctrine one may (or may not) follow.
The aim here must still be to provide in Western terms the frame of reference
of sufficient scope to give room to numerous approaches understanding and realisation
of the self, not excluding fruitful researches and insights in Western spheres
of thought.4 It can only be a plus that this
framework (or 'paradigm') derives its outlook from traditions obscured by misinterpretations
and malpractices, yet which have long since been well-tried and not found at
all wanting by their genuine practitioners. Yet what has been known in the West
of the Vedantic heritage has invariably been misunderstood or overlooked, when
not confused by its wild and wonderful aberrations, not least because of the
rapid degeneration in knowledge and practice of its precepts this century in
the East. There are still too few notable exceptions in the West counteracting
the tendency to make too much of individual psychic experience and to try misguidedly
to objectify, describe and categorise subjective experiences as 'progressive
states of expanded consciousness'. Many of the varieties of Eastern-inspired
psychology and yoga-oriented activities lay far too much weight on self-indulgent
psychic experiencing and ego-development, while exhibiting a limited understanding
of the overriding importance of the moral and lifestyle prerequisites of all
unproblematical psycho-spiritual growth.
However broad any one person's experience, it will always be limited when compared
to that of billions of different individuals. It is crucial to remember that
no theory whatever can eliminate subjective and specific cultural factors. The
perennial insights into the inner nature of human identity can usually only
be tested fully by use of indirect or modified means, and only partially at
best by scientific methods of observation and experiment. The broad spiritual
traditions of the East and Europe stand out as often having a more comprehensive
and unitary approach to the human condition than do the systematic and generalising
sciences. Insights derived from them are the nux of the higher psychology and
provide the vision within which to order and interpret what can be discovered
through personal experience and practice as well as by observation and the testing
of scientific hypotheses.
Philosophical psychology is experimental in the genuine sense, not within the
confines of artificially-contrived circumstances (eg. under laboratory conditions)
but in its 'interface' with life and society. Since a theory can have important
influence on values and thus on people, psychology is unavoidably actively engaged
in influencing the very order of facts it studies. Recognition of this fact
makes the in-depth study of human values a crucial part of psychology here.
KEY PHILOSOPHICAL ASSUMPTIONS IN PSYCHOLOGY
Every system of thought makes its start from certain assumptions. An assumption
is an hypothesis which is untested. As such one cannot demonstrate either its
truth or falsity. Philosophy teaches us that every system of thought makes at
least some very basic assumptions that are not proven to be either true or false.
In other words, an assumption is a sort of belief. Though one may be convinced
that some system of thought is based on true axioms, until the axioms are proven
without any possibility of doubt to be true, the axioms will still only be assumptions...
that is, they represent belief or arbitrary thought conditions, and not certain
knowledge. This cautionary teaching helps protect us against the dangers of
rigid dogmatism and fanatical belief.
In the long run, a belief may prove useful or useless and further, it may eventually
be proven true or false. In the meantime it can be only an implicit and unquestioned
acceptance of what seem to be 'obvious facts', or it may be a deep-rooted conviction
arrived at after much experience and far-reaching reflection. Even then it may
happen not to be adequate or fully true and good.
However, the assumptions of any system of ideas, must ultimately be either
true or false (provided, of course, that they involve clear and definitive assertions).
The danger of rigid faith in one's assumptions is that, if they should actually
be false, this will bend much of what is built on them and lead to false conclusions.
Wrong or fruitless assumptions will direct and distort some perceptions, even
at a very basic level. The methods of selecting facts and ordering them determines
the scope of our interpretation, thus affecting how we evaluate theories and
also how we feel and act. So, one may ask, what is the best solution to the
dilemma of having to make assumptions?
Some claim that a system will always rest on assumptions that can never be
proven or unproven within that system, because this would involve fallacious
'circular proof'. Against this stands the present view that the assumptions
adopted can themselves be tested by external means... by drawing out the theory
based on them until it shows itself unfruitful through the test of experience
and hence the lack of sufficient explanatory power and scope. The belief that
only material is real and human beings (including mind & consciousness) can
only be explained as such - has now demonstrated just this. It shows such serious
limitations when confronted with what is assumes can be excluded as to make
an alternative thesis crucial to further, fruitful understanding of the human
reality.
From time to time, theories based on unfruitful (i.e. mistaken) assumptions
simply come to the limits of their lifetime, having run out of explanatory power
and feasibility. Such is the physicalistic assumption of science. This has happened
partly because there are phenomena which it ignores or suppresses, either wilfully
or by default, to such an extent that the theory or its proponents lose credibility.
Pushing problems caused by faulty assumptions ahead of oneself then becomes
an endless and futile task which also absorbs increasing research resources
in terms of energy and finance. Physicalistic theories tend to become extremely
complex, over-detailed and abstruse... too far removed from human and practical
concerns. They take recourse in various types of 'reductionism' so as to try
to account for one type of phenomenon by transforming it intellectually into
another type to suit the whole system's preconceptions. For example, a psychological
theory is absolutist if it assumes that the only correct way to explain everything
else is 'physically' or, for that matter even, 'psychologically'. All this,
unfortunately, has too often taken place in several 20th century 'sciences of
man', from biology, economics and history to social and psychological theories.
Which psychological ideas may be fruitful on the personal and social levels
is not a neutral and theoretical one divorced from our concerns in living life.
They also have a bearing on moral issues in life and to questions of spiritual
awareness and human purpose. The relative value of opposing and deep-rooted
assumptions can be judged only with major effort based on wide experience, broad
knowledge, keen analysis and deep self-reflection. In the present outline of
the higher psychology, certain vital assumptions therefore are necessarily examined
and those that promise to be the most fruitful for the further development of
human understanding are adopted and outlined.
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Footnotes 2. So as to legitimise itself as science, social science has introduced new definitions of 'science' so as greatly to slacken or often even abolish the strict requirements of reproducible observations/experiments and of predictability. Thus, for example, in social anthropology or sociology we find science distinguished as "nomothetic" and "ideographic". The former type of scientific system reaches (or aims to reach) valid generalisations (nomon - laws) while the latter simply describes in terms of general ideas on the basis of a well-ordered observational manner. Such 'ideographic research', however admirably done it is and whatever its many potential uses, bears no other resemblance to even the least-developed natural scientific discipline. As to the supposed "nomothetic" theories in sociology, none of them are sufficiently verified either in whole or in part so that general consensus has arisen about their claimed validity throughout even the professional field. Such attempts to re-define 'science' more broadly and inclusively always blur the line between explanation from universally-verifiable laws on the one hand and interpretation or understanding on the other. In the human studies, however, even observation is itself inseparable in many respects from interpretation, because to interpret in terms of one's own learned understanding and culture is second-nature to all of us and without it no sort of human action or social behaviour has meaning whatever. 3. This, I maintain, is a result partly of having limited
oneself for a variety of extra-scientific reasons to following scientistic
assumptions largely irrelevant to the study of the human. This one-sided
objectivism cannot recognise human beings for all of what we are, not
forgetting our inherent ability to rise above situations and change
even ourselves. Partly too, the aims of researches that can command
finance are frequently steered by extra-scientific needs and interests
regardless of the orderly and balanced development of comprehensive
and holistic theory. 4. Professional psychologists may question the need for an overall theoretical paradigm. The very absence of any such unitive and overall working theory in scientistic psychology is indeed one of its main modern academic features. Indeed, this is a severe shortcoming in all branches of modern psychology with its many competing schools and semi-paradigms and its varied mutually-insulated branches of research and administration. What has become known as psychological scientific knowledge in Western academic communities is largely only a vast collection of disparate sets of data that tend to favour now the likelihood of some fairly general hypotheses and now to weaken others. The requirements of strict science, such as in the physical sciences, such as testability and reproducibility of generalisations have never been fulfilled in any notable psychological studies (except occasionally those in the laboratory experimental field, whose interests are much closer to physiology than to psychology in the proper sense). What the practical relevance of most such generalisations are to living life and healing or transforming the personality is another question again, mostly not clearly answerable. |