|
Although,
amazing as it may sound, I had not thought about Rhea A. White's important work in
this context previously, she may have a most significant part to
play here ["New Story"] after all! This whole idea kind of sneaked up on me,
thanks to Cultural Creatives authors Paul H. Ray and Sherry Ruth
Anderson, who first made me aware of the fact we in the USA and in many parts of the world no longer
enjoy the benefits of a guiding story.
Rhea
White herself suggested we need a new guiding story. It is a theme
that flits butterfly-fleetingly but flagrantly through a number of her
writings. I noticed it in passing, but this of itself just did not
connect until after I read Ray and Anderson's book. And even then,
imagining suddenly to spy The Story went totally against the grain of
the idea that this requires the essential Many across the globe who will
finally bring this understanding, however it may evolve, out into the
open. I just was not prepared to let myself SEE, and it's still
early enough that the wholesale 'discovery' may not be immanent.
But I have no doubt this is the BIG story that we are evolving into
common Experience. Many years ago, White acknowledged,
|
... What we need is a story that will unite science and
spirituality, self and world. But first it must occur at the
individual level. ... Each of us needs a story that charges our
daily lives with meaning and puts us personally in touch with
the sacred. There are many books about writing or better yet,
living one's own story, one's own myth. But the myths of old
contained an element that is missing from most stories told
today, and that is a link with the sacred. Exceptional human
experiences [and specifically, recording one's EHE-based story]
can serve as those links; they are those happenings in our lives
that can pull us out of boredom and disconnection into a world
of meaning and connection. We have to learn how to honor these
experiences and let them into our lives.
|
Here
is a favorite quote from this same source about what I feel is,
like the petals of an exquisite mew flower, silently unfolding from
within each of us, one by one, to reveal the new global
myth. [Who was it who said myth is a truer-than-true story,
instantly recognized by all?]
|
The new paradigm, or taken-for-granted worldview that is
issuing forth from our very being, is not many but One.
This new view is revealed by all exceptional human
experiences (EHEs), or anomalous experiences that have been
personalized, and that lead to personal and transpersonal growth
and the experience of being inside a new worldview, the
Experiential Paradigm. ...
It is a world we are meant to inhabit.
It is a world in which one nurtures oneself by nurturing
others and by not turning away from nurturing oneself as well,
as each of us, too, is a person, and ultimately we are one. ...
a world in which one knows that to lie to or willfully
harm another being is to be untrue to and injure oneself. ...
In a word, this new world is the Self we all are, and it
will not be at an end until the whole creation travails no
longer. And even
that endpoint is likely to be but a new beginning. ...
We are called not to do but to be.
Not to be practical but to be who we are.
And who we are shouts to us from any and all exceptional
experiences. Far
from being chimeras, EHEs are the bedrock of the new
dispensation. If we
wish to take practical steps to save ourselves and this globe,
let us gravitate to the More that we are. ...
If enough of us do it, we can bring the new to pass. ...
|
--
The EHE Autobiography and Beyond
The
EHE Autobiography
Aside from the
personal, positive, transformative benefits we gain from having such
experiences and taking them to heart, we can expand their effects by
sharing them with others. Kenneth Ring, renowned near-death
experience researcher, along with numerous others who have studied such
events, has observed that simply by hearing or seeing someone share hir
own momentous experiences, or even by reading about them, people who
have not had such experiences themselves are also often transformed by
them in much the same way as the experiencers themselves. Their
worldviews and values and behavior are similarly altered to reflect the
classic aftereffects.
One powerful technique particularly encouraged by White is what she
calls an "EHE autobiography." Rather than a life story based
on ordinary, if meaningful, events, the EHE autobiography is a life
chronicle sourced specifically in our exceptional encounters with the
nonordinary, the ineffable, things spiritual, what is frequently
referred to on this site as the larger-life reality.
According to
White, again from her EHE Background I Papers, she explains,
|
I also feel that the act [of writing an EHE autobiography] has
value for society, and even for the planet as a whole. This is
because we need a new story to make sense of who we are as human
beings and why we are here. The story of mechanistic,
behavioristic science has resulted in anomie, loss of meaning
and connection, boredom, and the need for ever more violent
"kicks" and dangerous "highs," as in drug
abuse. In our society today there is a dangerous lack of
reverence towards other humans, other life forms, and life
itself. Perhaps the most practical thing we can do is write a
better story. What better place is there to begin than with
ourselves? .... The big surprise in all of this is that in
writing about our most secret, intimate, personal EHEs – those
that are uniquely our own – we come to experience ourselves as
rooted in our common humanity and as connected to all life. ...
People who are centered in this experience are bound to live
vastly different lives than those who
are bent and twisted by
anger, doubt, fear, and pain, such that their best hope is ...
at worst, to seek kicks in killing or maiming other humans or
animals or to get lost in drugs or pornography or crime.
The seeds of transcendental and connective experiences, that is,
EHEs, are scattered throughout our lives. What we need to do is
find them and then cultivate them. A good way to begin is to
start your EHE autobiography.
|
Beyond the EHE Autobiography
White
points out, what we need is a story for each of us, [and ultimately and
to the point,] for all of us. . .
Again, from "The Aftereffects of My NDE," White continues to
broaden our perspective of what is sublimely possible within a continuum
ranging from individual single experiences to the recollection and
revaluing of a lifetime of such events from which we derive new,
transcendent meaning within the wholeness of a tapestried life.
And further still, she expands our sense of possible benefits of this
process within the context of society. She invites us to contemplate the
value of a collective sense of story garnered from the amassing in our
social awareness of many EHE autobiographies and the fresh new washes of
meaning and empowerment as a culture, perhaps as a world culture, we may
experience. It is very conceivable to envision this process evolving
into the realization of a whole new collective or unified understanding,
a world-sized new paradigm coming in play:
|
When a sufficient number of people [undertake the writing of
their EHE autobiography], the larger story [our cultural or
world story, at least the human part of it] will emerge.
Exceptional human experiences catapult us into the new paradigm
[beyond our present disenchantment and lack of meaningful
connection with each other, with the world, and with the sacred,
i.e., the new paradigm]. We become a part of it and we discover
it is a part of us. We are no longer apart from it. The
scientific method cannot take us there. But once we ourselves
are there, and when we are willing to take the further leap of
sharing our experiences with others, we will not only be inside
the new view that is needed to join physical and spiritual, mind
and matter, body and mind, but we will be playing a significant
part in bringing it to birth. Once more, as in ages past, the
story of each human will be the story of humankind, and vice
versa. We and our times will be in step and will move forward as
one. Science can do nothing but follow, as it is right that it
should.
... Creating one's story is not simply something one can do
alone. Part of the act of creating one's story and working out
the meaning of one's life involves living it out in some way
(i.e., acting on it). So only does it really become real to
oneself. One of the first ways to do this is to tell others
about it, in a context where it seems relevant, even though it
may be embarrassing or difficult. By sharing our EHEs, the other
person validates the experience, even if he or she reacts
negatively. But often the response is positive, and when it is,
the other person may be moved by the first person's story to
share his or her EHEs as well. This heightens the sense of
meaning and reality for both in ways that go beyond simply
describing one's EHEs. A process seems to be initiated by such
interchanges that operates independently of both persons and
that leads to connectedness and interconnections. One has
entered into the process of spinning the web of the new
paradigm. We don't think it out; we live out of it and into a
new way of being in the world.
|
=-=
this
from the article, EHE and the More We Are by Rhea:
...
[P]eople today must be shown how they can
contact the sacred right where they are, in their daily lives, without
resorting to any particular religious imagery. ... Instead of referring to a
"higher part," which implies judgment, I would like to use the
phrase "more connected part."
When we are in James's first
stage of the mystical life, we feel incomplete because we feel
unconnected to the depths and heights of ourselves, others, other forms
of life, the universe at large, and both informing and beyond all that
is created, the sacred. From my study of exceptional human experiences I
would say that in such moments, in one way or another, we experience a
sense of connection that is accompanied by awe, wonder, surprise, and
delight. This is what makes such experiences "exceptional."
Perhaps the biggest surprise of all is that there is a quality about
these moments with which we cannot help but identify. It is as if a self
we experienced as disconnected, small, and unimportant looked in the
mirror and saw a radiant being looking back--one who is spontaneously
connected to everyone and everything else, which means that
automatically the bonds of selfishness, fear, anxiety, greed, envy, and
a host of other negative emotions effortlessly fall away.
Perhaps most
surprising is that, as James points out, with this new self one can
identify with what formerly was perceived as being outside. The sense of
self is no longer centered on the "me" and is perceived more
as a process than as a separate entity. One becomes centered in an
interchange between inner and outer that involves one's fullest self and
yet seems to be composed of everyone and everything else.
... In my view, identity has
two aspects: the general and the particular. The general aspect is our
story or understanding of the nature of generic human being, or at least
of human being in general in one's own particular culture. The
specific aspect is our story or understanding of who we are as an
individual human being. I think a major problem with Western
civilization in the last half of the 20th century is that we have an
impoverished view of human being in general, which in turn diminishes
our sense of the worth of individuals, including ourselves. This problem
may well grow worse. I heard on a recent radio broadcast that
significantly more minors are committing violent crimes in New York City
than ever before and that these young people have no conception of the
value of, or reverence for, human life--not even their own.
... There are many books today on how to develop one's
personality and even write an autobiography, but few of them include
instructions on how to incorporate one's EHEs into one's self-concept
and integrate it with one's life story. I propose that EHEs are the most
important ingredient of our life stories and that what Western culture's
story of identity requires is due attention to such experiences.
... "A self is made, not given. It is
a creative and active
process [italics added] of attending a life that must be heard,
shaped, seen, said aloud into the world, finally enacted and woven into
the lives of others." Myerhoff [quoted anthropologist] points out that what we
must do is search through the "treasures and debris of ordinary
existence for the clear points of intensity that do not erode, do not
separate us, that are most intensely our own, yet other people's
too" [re: Metzger, anthropologist]. I think that is the best
definition of the nature and value of exceptional human experience I
have yet come across: "clear points of intensity" in the midst
of our otherwise unexceptional lives that connect us not only to our own
depths but to that of others.
... many, if not all
EHEs, are transitional experiences. They serve as a bridge between an
old identity and a potentially new one, or in James's view, between
Stage 1 and Stage 2. They also serve as a bridge between an isolated
sense of identity and a new story in which, as priest / environmentalist
Tom Berry (1988/1990) puts it, we actually experience what it means to
be not simply an individual on the surface of this earth and in this
universe but as an aspect of the earth and the universe, a unique aspect
that has never been before and never will be again, for no other being
could possibly have the same genetic composition and be placed in
exactly the same social and cultural context with the same family
members, friends, peers, and associates. Each one of us is the universe
living the experiment of life, doing their best with whatever comes from
within and without, that is, with one's unique genetic make-up and life
circumstances. Just as the sperm seeks the egg, so each human seeks
personal knowledge of his or her unity with all things, and once that
unity is glimpsed, all of life is made new. That is the source of the
reverence for all life, human and nonhuman, animate and inanimate: the
undeniable sense of connection to the More that an EHE provides.
Possible
tie-ins to be developed:
|
A.
|
our individuating
experiences; hence, the Knowing/knowledge must come from within
[intellect and spirit / heart forged into ONE] |
|
B.
|
Moral consciousness and reverence for all life |
|
C.
|
The Feminine: re-establishing balance; feminine qualities
and the aftereffects |
|
|
[[[be sure
to include R. Steiner [Isis-Mary-Sophia] ]]]
[[[and
the trend in nearly all sciences today: feminist science ..., see
Rhea's ideas and how this influenced her work. ]]] |
|
D.
|
Corroborative Experience: Discovering the universality of our individual
spiritual experiences / Aftereffects |
|
E.
|
Many
are ONE and
the ONE in the Many: The simultaneity of individuation and universality
/ unity / experienced oneness |
|
F. |
The
merging of Science and Religion /
Spirituality |
individual
experiences that is our waking up together
“We are called
not to do but to be. Not to be practical but to be who we are. And who we
are shouts to us from any and all exceptional experiences. Far
from being chimeras, EHEs are the bedrock of the new dispensation*.
If we wish to take practical steps to save ourselves and this globe, let
us gravitate to the More that we are. ... If enough of us do it,
we can bring the new to pass. ...”
["The
Collective Message Inherent in Exceptional Human Experience,"]
===-
|
