{"id":9,"date":"2006-01-09T18:15:05","date_gmt":"2006-01-09T18:15:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.goodsoul.us\/2006\/01\/09\/the-marriage-of-sense-and-soul\/"},"modified":"2013-09-23T11:13:19","modified_gmt":"2013-09-23T11:13:19","slug":"the-marriage-of-sense-and-soul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goodsoul.us\/?p=9","title":{"rendered":"The Marriage of Sense and Soul"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Just stumbled upon <a href=\"http:\/\/goodsoul.stumbleupon.com\" title=\"Goodsoul's StumbleUpon page\">Goodsoul@StumbleUpon<\/a>  a new web site: <a href=\"http:\/\/integralnaked.org\" title=\"Integral Naked\">Integral Naked<\/a><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve not yet explored the site&#8230; But, I\u2019ll give it a thumbs up, site unseen :c) because I know about Wilber from reading the &#8220;Marriage of Sense and Soul&#8221; &#8211; published in 1998. I have read that book twice and tagged it profusely. He offers a remarkable, readable, historical and clear explanation for the dissociative pathology of I, Us and It, and the healthy differentiation of those same elements, promulgating the integration possible as a result of that differentiation, a differentiation which is the evolution of our consciousness.<\/p>\n<p>To use his example, returning to the innocent past is both a whitewash of the maliciousness of that past, and it is also a dissociative and pathologic naivety to think that the acorn is somehow better then the oak. The oak transcends the acorn \u2013 it is all the acorn could be, and adds to it, its own vitality and growth.<\/p>\n<p>Wilber (quite rightly I think) argues that both scientific and <abbr class='c2c-text-hover' title='Adj. 1) of, relating to, consisting of, or affecting the spirit 2) of or relating to sacred matters b : ecclesiastical rather than lay or temporal 3) concerned with religious values 4) related or joined in spirit 5) [a] of or relating to supernatural beings or phenomena [b] of, relating to, or involving spiritualism'>spiritual<\/abbr> truth might be validated by injunction, apprehension, and falsifiability.<\/p>\n<p>That premise goes something like this: one does not do integral calculus without the injunction of higher education, and then one may produce an equation which, others qualified in that field, may verify or invalidate based on their first-hand findings. Similarly, one does not do <abbr class='c2c-text-hover' title='Adj. 1) of, relating to, consisting of, or affecting the spirit 2) of or relating to sacred matters b : ecclesiastical rather than lay or temporal 3) concerned with religious values 4) related or joined in spirit 5) [a] of or relating to supernatural beings or phenomena [b] of, relating to, or involving spiritualism'>spiritual<\/abbr> experience without a similar injunction of higher training, and that only those equally competent may verify or invalidate the truth of any claim based on first learning how to do, then by taking action, and then by submitting any findings to others with similar knowledge.<\/p>\n<p>It does no good for the religious to deny evolution because it is contrary to the written Word of God, when the motive of preserving power by promoting ignorance is more then historically circumstantial (think Salem or the Spanish Inquest). Likewise, it does no good to deny interior illumination, or transcended states because it is contrary to verifiable evidence in a corporeal sense, when those evaluating the evidence have failed to study the mathematics of the spirit (so to speak).<\/p>\n<p>For science, refusal to take the injunction &#8211; to look through Galileo\u2019s telescope &#8211; and then deny what others claim to have observed is no different then to deny <abbr class='c2c-text-hover' title='Adj. 1) of, relating to, consisting of, or affecting the spirit 2) of or relating to sacred matters b : ecclesiastical rather than lay or temporal 3) concerned with religious values 4) related or joined in spirit 5) [a] of or relating to supernatural beings or phenomena [b] of, relating to, or involving spiritualism'>spiritual<\/abbr> experience when one has refused to look through the lens of a contemplative eye. Indeed, logic is an intangible abstraction that we realize and apply, and so too are the intricate and complex locutions of spirit.<\/p>\n<p>Provided we do not cling too tightly to religious myth, i.e. that the Red Sea parted; or, too tightly to mathematical myths i.e. that such constructs as math and logic, which serve as the super glue of science, are somehow more tangible then more esoteric constructs of the spirit, when all arise from interior perception, then there is already foundation for utilizing deep science to explore the realm of the spirit.<\/p>\n<p>Wilber contains his arguments to substantial constructs and deftly refutes the promotion of Spirit or Science based on belief. He amazes with his command of the historical accounts of religion yielding to what he terms the flatland of science, while also illuminating the post-Kantian attempts to reconcile the pervasiveness of spirit in the archeology of our philosophic species long made extinct by weakly posited lemmas.<\/p>\n<p>I must catch up with Wilber&#8217;s more recent work. But I have found in this one book only, the purest rationale for understanding the dichotomy of religion and science.<\/p>\n<p>On a personal note, I would suggest that we would all do well to avoid the Creative Intelligence yammer, and focus instead, not on politicizing polemics; but yield to the observation of rich emergent patterns in what I would call <abbr class='c2c-text-hover' title='Adj. 1) of, relating to, consisting of, or affecting the spirit 2) of or relating to sacred matters b : ecclesiastical rather than lay or temporal 3) concerned with religious values 4) related or joined in spirit 5) [a] of or relating to supernatural beings or phenomena [b] of, relating to, or involving spiritualism'>spiritual<\/abbr> cognition and their counterparts in all scientific fields.<\/p>\n<p>Further reading:<\/p>\n<p>                                             <strong>Books<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Spectrum of Consciousness<br \/>\nNo Boundary<br \/>\nThe Atman Project<br \/>\n<abbr class='c2c-text-hover' title='Adj. 1) of, relating to, consisting of, or affecting the spirit 2) of or relating to sacred matters b : ecclesiastical rather than lay or temporal 3) concerned with religious values 4) related or joined in spirit 5) [a] of or relating to supernatural beings or phenomena [b] of, relating to, or involving spiritualism'>Spiritual<\/abbr> Choices<br \/>\nGrace and Grit<br \/>\nUp From Eden<br \/>\nThe Holographic Paradigm<br \/>\nEye to Eye<br \/>\nA Sociable God<br \/>\nQuantum Questions<br \/>\nTransforming of Consciousness<br \/>\nSex Ecology and Spirituality<br \/>\nA Brief History of Everything<br \/>\nThe Eye of Spirit<br \/>\nThe Essential Ken Wilber<br \/>\nThe Marriage of Sense and Soul<br \/>\nOne Taste<br \/>\nIntegral Psychology<br \/>\nA Theory of Everything<br \/>\nThe Simple Feeling of Being<\/p>\n<p><a href \"http:\/\/www.kenwilber.com\" title=\"kenwilber.com\">Ken Wilber homepage<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Just stumbled upon Goodsoul@StumbleUpon a new web site: Integral Naked I\u2019ve not yet explored the site&#8230; But, I\u2019ll give it [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ken-wilber","category-spiritual-equilibrium"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2R4NI-9","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodsoul.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodsoul.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodsoul.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodsoul.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodsoul.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodsoul.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1096,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodsoul.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9\/revisions\/1096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodsoul.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodsoul.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodsoul.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}