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The Death-Transcendent Cooperative Inquiry Initiative
ABOUT
JOHN HERON; THE DT-CII PROJECTS;
OFF-SITE RESEARCH; DATA
SUMMARY AND DISCUSSION
[[[R, use the back cover
instead of ... ]]]
Dedication to John Heron
The Death-Transcendent Cooperative Inquiry Initiative is dedicated
to John Heron, a transpersonal psychologist whose perspective, I am confident,
will be instrumental in altering significantly the way we think about the
relationship between science and spirituality. Of particular interest here
is his views about how we may approach our spirituality, individually and
collectively, experientially and yet with impeccable scientific discipline.
Without being card-carrying scientists, but rather, as human beings innately
capable of the kinds of experiences and insight / awareness that naturally
evolve us individually and as a race.
Here are some comments directly from one of his books, Sacred Science:
Person-centred Inquiry into the Spiritual and the Subtle, which introduce
his ideas in relation to the DTCII:
What is so far unknown is a form of sacred science in which human beings
co-operate together to inquire in a rigorous manner into the nature of
their own spiritual and subtle experience, without prior allegiance to
any existing school ... using co-operative inquiry.
... I do not believe that cooperative inquiry all on its own is the best
way to carry out experiential spiritual inquiry. I believe it is a
very useful short-term complement to the long-term process of individual
lived inquiry... An increasing number of spiritual-minded people
are currently busy with their own lived inquiry, and are seeking open
and constructive dialogue about it. I call this social phenomenon
a newly emerging and self-generating spiritual culture. It is a
loose, informal network of individuals and groups who are creating their
own spiritual path from a diversity of ancient and modern sources.
It involves a growing and significant minority of people across the
planet. ... [Heron speaks of this in terms of the
following:]
a.
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Post-WWII
adult continuing education people-centred and peer self-help
movements of all kinds
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b.
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The
democratization and laitization of knowledge-acquisition, of
health care, of psychological and soul growth
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c.
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A
growing deprofessionalization of the skills of taking care of
body, mind and spirit
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d.
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A
vast proliferation of methods of self-care has mushroomed, from
innumerable diets to every kind of spiritual practice
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Sacred Science was published in 1998. Two years later, Paul H. Ray
and Sherry Ruth Anderson gave a name, as well as a more unified identity and
voice to what John Heron describes above, through the publishing of their
carefully researched and provocative book, The Culture Creatives: How
50 Million People Are Changing the World. Although Ray and Anderson
define a broader population, not all of whom identify themselves within a
specifically spiritual or religious context, still, it's unmistakable that all
these authors are speaking of the same individual and collective
"breakthrough" phenomena. The Culture Creatives authors [in
2000] estimated there are as many as 70-90 million people similarly engaged in
the EU, also noting this is clearly in evidence in all countries, East and West.
Heron addresses himself to those who are consciously engaged in spiritual
inquiry as an important part of their lives, what is for many the essential hub
of everything. He goes on to say,
The human race stirs itself to fulfill the legacy of the
Renaissance: the idea of the free and self-determining human
person, active in all spheres of human endeavour. What this means
is a doctrine of universal political rights. ... Then we
have the all-pervasive right of persons to participate in any
decision-making that affects the fulfillment of their needs and
interests, the expression of their preferences, values and above all,
the inner life of their spirit. This right to political
participation in the universal sense is on an unidentified march
throughout the world, claiming attention not only in political
institutions, but in piecemeal fashion, in the family, in education, in
medicine, in industry, in research, and finally, in religion. It
is the emergence of the personhood as the imago dei: each
human a responsible co-creator of their domain within the universal
estate, in relation with others similarly engaged.
Religious authority has for centuries been the linch-pin which has kept
in place the whole wheel of autahoritarianism in society.
Traditional religious institutions, East and West, are still today major
bastions of the restriction of rights, for example, the spiritual rights
of women. ... Yet people on every hand are bursting out of
their ancient containing chrysalis of the free human spirit.
Emerging self-determination in the religious sphere is, in my worldview,
the sign of immanent spiritual life at work at a breakthrough level, not
as in the past when this or that religious innovator started a modified
version of Christianity or Buddhism or some other traditional creed, but
in large numbers of ordinary people generating their own lived inquiry
into religious practice and deep inner transformation. My sense of
it is that there are three interrelated criteria which, applying in
varying degrees to any one individual, identify people in this
self-generating spiritual culture:
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They
affirm their own original relation to the presence of creation, find
spiritual authority with and do not project it outward onto
teachers, traditions or texts.
-
They
are alert to the hazards of defensive and offensive spirituality, in
which unprocessed emotional distress distorts spiritual development,
either by denying parts of one's nature, or by making inflated
claims in order to manipulate others.
-
They
are open to genuine dialogue about spiritual beliefs and to
collaborative decision-making about spiritual practices undertaken
together.
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He also explains the "science" of Sacred Science in the way he models
his disciplined approach to this work:
A sacred science, I believe, is grounded in this immediate present
experience of a world that is sacramental. The world is known as
an epiphany, that is, an embodiment, a manifestation, an integrated
revelation of the divine. [He cites various authors, page 8, whose
views he shares, who suggest there are certain qualitative trends in
research analysis in the social sciences that have been developing for
over a century now. Together they note there is a strong
developmental trend maturing within the ranks of social sciences that is
in the process of evolving qualitatively based research analysis.
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