Date: Thu, 16 May 1996 08:11:08 +0100

To: transpsych-l@asylum.org

From: Thomas.Jordan@geography.gu.se (Thomas.Jordan)

Subject: Essay: The existential mind

On the existential consciousness structure

The existential structure is the culmination of the personal phase of the spectrum of consciousness evolution, and is the treshold to the transpersonal realms. A key feature of the existential structure is the increasing ability to observe one’s own mind and its processes. The individual starts becoming able to behold the ego, its conceptual world and its life projects, so to speak from the outside. One starts to discern the inherent limitations of the specific forms of conceptual reason in which the mind is embedded. Because of a growing sense of being more than the ego, it is possible to let go of an anxious defence of the idealized self-image of the ego. The existential individual has an inner platform for the I-feeling that makes it possible to give up the need to control and secure the ego’s position, allowing change to occur without threatening the basic sense of existing.

The recognition of the ego’s inherent limitations opens many doors that were kept shut in earlier structures. Feelings and impulses that could not be integrated or understood within the confines of the reason-centered mind can be allowed, e.g. longing for self-transcendence, intuitive images and impulses, intensive peak experiences of merging with nature or other people, etc. However, an increased sensibility for the vast spaces outside the narrow ego world also opens up for an intensive experience of one’s own smallness, vulnerability, and insignificance. It is no longer possible to hold on to narcissistic delusions about personal grandiosity and significance. This emergence from the embeddedness in the ego’s elaborate system of meaning confronts the individual with the question of the meaning of one’s life. A satisfying answer to that question can no longer be derived from conventions (as in the mythic-rational structure), from ideologies or ego-related life projects (as in the mental-egoic structure), but must be anchored in the individual feelings and values. The existential individual has seen through the futility of pursuing ego gratification, and seeks for a larger context of meaning. This search usually leads to a commitment to authenticity and altruistic values. The desires and wishes of the ego becomes subjected to the need to make a contribution to the well-being of others. But even though the existential individual starts identifying with universalistic values and perspectives (human rights, care for the ecological system, global justice, etc.), the I-feeling is still essentially limited to a separate self-sense. This separateness is intensely experienced on a feeling-level, and it is exacerbated by the loss of the relative safety of being embedded in the mythic-rational collective, or in the mental-egoic ideology. In the wider cognitive sphere, the main progress of the existential mind over the mental-egoic is the decentering of discourses. The existential mind can observe and operate with different paradigms, even if they are logically incompatible. Different perspectives can be compared and embraced without a need to give one of them a privileged status. Vision-logic recognizes that all perspectives have inherent limitations due to the reductive nature of concepts. A fully developed vision-logic deconstructs the fundaments of ethnocentrism: no perspective is a priori privileged. There is no avoiding the conclusion that all human beings have the same right to have their needs satisfied and their claims considered, nor that we ought to face our own position in the cosmos with a certain humility. The human being is a part of a vast web, and we ought to care for the state of the social and natural environment. In social interactions, the mental-egoic person is driven to defend the idealized self-image and to pursue egoic desires and wishes. The existential individual can to some extent let go of the need to control the environment, and may therefore find it easier to accept lasting differences in values, opinions, life styles, behaviour, etc. in social relationships. Other people can be allowed to be different, without a need to place them into a neat category.

Thomas Jordan