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These are notes on Robert Sardello's Foreword to Tom Cheetham's Green Man, Earth Angel (SUNY, 2005), the second of Cheetham's quartet of books on the work of the French religious thinker, Henri Corbin.
Robert Sardello is a Transpersonal Psychologist. I learned from Wiki that there are now five commonly agreed upon types of Transpersonal Psych: "Analytical" (Jung), "Archetypal" (Hillman), "Psychosynthesis" (Assagioli), "Zen Transpersonal Psychotherapy" (Anthony), and "Spiritual" (Sardello).
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Blog entries beginning with #101 are not essays but minimally-edited notes and reviews from the files I've collected over the last few decades. I no longer have the time and energy needed to sort out and put together into decent essay-form the many varied ideas in these files, but I would like to share them with all who are interested.
If you have questions and think I might help, you're welcome to send me a note: sam@macspeno.com
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These are notes on Robert Sardello's Foreword to Tom Cheetham's Green Man, Earth Angel (SUNY, 2005), the second of Cheetham's quartet of books on the work of the French religious thinker, Henri Corbin.
Robert Sardello is a Transpersonal Psychologist. I learned from Wiki that there are now five commonly agreed upon types of Transpersonal Psych: "Analytical" (Jung), "Archetypal" (Hillman), "Psychosynthesis" (Assagioli), "Zen Transpersonal Psychotherapy" (Anthony), and "Spiritual" (Sardello).
I'd been very much
looking forward to reading Cheetham's Green Man book, and was quite disappointed with the very few
references to the Khadir and Green Man. But it turns out that when I read the
Foreword, "I was floored."
I don't remember
ever using that phrase in my life! And, alas, I don't have any easy way to
describe such a strong reaction on my part. I'm writing this 'essay' as a kind
of therapeutic exercise.
===
Sardello begins by
saying that there are many stories which account for the matter-spirit split
and that hold to the view that we must return to the past-- or at least its
values. He notes, however, that we can only do that by being apart from the
world's destiny and surrounded by fear. Indeed! That's a good description of Western monasticism,
of RC in general in the ideals it has held to, and of religious fundamentalism.
Sardello says we
need to understand the longing for the past differently; not as a longing for a
historical past but as a longing for wholeness-- by which he seems to mean
healing and "salvation" in the fuller sense than it's usually meant
in conventional religious terms. Already, the inadequacy of our available words
is apparent!
He also says this
is obvious "to those who have an inner life" and who are concerned
with the meaning of out lives/existence. But we now need new ways of telling
that old story of the matter-spirit split (newer, he means, than the Adam &
Eve stories and the doctrine of original sin).
We need, he says,
new ways of imagining-- of telling the story of our existence. While he doesn't
mention the New Cosmology by name, he clearly means, it seems to me, exactly
what "cosmology" means in Anthropology and in references to the New
Cosmology.
OK so far, but then
he says it's "soul" and "soul ways" that we need. I note
that, to me, that's no more helpful that any other wording that's presently
available for telling a [or the] new story. But Sardello has evaluated the
problem nicely....
He says, "Only
soul understands and responds to soul." And so to understand the longing
for wholeness and meaning we need to use soul's own terms; we need soul-words,
like "archetypal" and "imaginal." I wonder if there isn't
some other way to talk about all this. Certainly we need a wholistic cosmology.
But we need to look at soul-ways?? Hard to accept that as is.
But... Sardello
then makes a very powerful point: "Imagination is a world force."
Without imagination any metaphysics splits spirit and matter, with no linkage
possible. I note that I hear "world force" here as dynamis, holy Spiritus-- "energy" in the broadest cosmo-the-andric sense, which is also the missing fourth of the
mandalic understanding of time and space, matter and energy.
What comes next is
a bit fuzzy-- not that his initial references to "soul" aren't. But
apparently, in his transpersonal psych perspective, he uses "soul" as
James Hillman does, and sees no need to say so.
The fuzzy part is
that he seems to talk about science and materialism as the two sides of the
split. Either he has a special 'philosophical' meaning for
"materialism" or he just didn't say well what he was trying to say.
Anyway, that so far
is his presentation of the problem of dualism. He never used the word
"dualism" nor does he even note that he's talking in what seems to be
not just a Western but also an explicitly American context. (Although his later
reference to "this country" can only mean the USA.)
He then moves on to
say that Cheetham helps us to see what's lost when we ignore the imaginal and
archetypal aspects of "soul." His list: imagination, speech, words as
angels, reading ("from, not about, reality," he says) and, "most
important of all," sense of place.
What he means by
"reading" seems close, I think, to the traditional lectio; and his "most important of all 'sense of
place'" could easily be called "sacred geography."
In any case, these
five aspects of soul clearly have to do with the "human" (in contrast
to the "cosmic" or "divine"), and specifically have to do
with human consciousness. It is the first list I've seen of just what it is
that the imaginalis perspective
involves that makes it different from other views.
Aside from the
sense of place (and probably that one, too, when I think about), the items on
the list are all obvious characteristics of not of the divine or of the cosmic
but precisely of anthropos-in-cosmos. He is exactly right with that.
And here is the
project at hand: Sardello says Cheetham helps us first to feel the loss, then
to establish a "metaphysics of imagination as the forming force of the
world." This, as far as I can
see, presumes a scientific worldview.
Earlier Sardello
used the phrase "world force," but this phrase-- "the forming
force of the world"-- is an even clearer-- indeed, a much clearer-- way of
talking about energy (dynamis, holy
Spiritus) in exactly the sense
it's understood by people like Fred Spier (Senior Lecturer in Big History at
the University of Amsterdam), and the American physicist Eric Chaisson (from
Harvard and Tufts) whose book is so
good.
That phrase is also
exactly a way of talking about energy (dynamis, holy Spiritus) in the same sense that "evolution" is
used in the New Cosmology, and in the way "non-stasis" is understood
in a more philosophical sense. "Etc, etc, etc," as the King of Siam
says. (That last sentence is an indication that I feel swamped!)
There's no
indication in the Foreword that Sardello is tuned in to much (or any) of the
mandalic perspective, but he's expressing the right idea in a very clear way:
"The forming force of the world." Any aware 6th grader (my criterion
for good communication) can readily understand what's being said there! This is
a major breakthrough for me. (Although, amazingly, not the only one in this Foreword!)
Sardello goes on to
describe the archetypal/imaginal/soul "metaphysics of the
imagination" that Cheetham helps us establish:
• it allows for
participation (our participation in the dynamic process)
• it sees creation
happening always and everywhere
• it sees that all
reality is alive
• it sees us
(humans) as "part of soul" and not v.v. (Obviously a definition of
"soul" would be of tremendous help here!)
"This
metaphysics exists," says Sardello, "in a radical interpretation of
Jung and in Henry Corbin." He says that Jung has some limitations which
Cheetham clears up (I like that!), and it "opens us to Corbin's and
Islamic (Sufi) mysticism's fully developed imaginal metaphysics."
I note that except
for that list's last statement (about humans being part of "soul"--
with its, again presumed, Hillman-ian meaning for "soul"), that this
is the same perspective offered in various contexts and with enormously varied
terminology by many modern thinkers such as Bruno B, Karl Rahner, the Paleo
perspectives of Native peoples, Thomas Berry, et al. Also, recently-- with the
NYRB's review of the book by Patricia Crone on the context of Islam's
emergence-- the ancient Persian-Zoroastrian perspective.
It is amazing that
with those few words of his, "the forming force of the world," Sardello
makes all these views and perspectives tie together so well for me. It feels good. He is saying, maybe, even more than he is aware! I'm
grateful.
I especially
delight in the statement about Jung's limitations. I knew Hillman went beyond
Jung, but never saw what was lacking in Jung's seemingly exhaustive
understanding of the psyche. That Tom Cheetham is the one who "clears
up" those limitations is delightful.
He (Cheetham) is
alive and well today, I've had some contact with him. We're not just trying to
catch up with the thinking of a century or two in the past. We're on the
growing edge. That feels very good.
Sardello's next
part isn't well presented at all, alas. About Jung's limitations... He says
Jung did not distinguish between soul experience and spirit experience.
(Sardello has only used "spirit" once previously here, and this too
will be like "soul," an undefined term-- at best, a starting point.)
He says that the limitation persists not only in Analytical Psych but also in
Hillman's Archetypal Psych. (Hillman pushed "soul" at the expense of
"spirit," apparently.) All this needs much more explanation!
The distinction
between soul and spirit is that the darkness of the Shadow (capitalized in the
Foreword) is a soul experience and is to be integrated into consciousness,
whereas the Divine Luminous "Black-Light" Darkness is a spirit
experience and needed for experience of the world (and "wholeness").
All this is far too carelessly and quickly stated!
Soul goes with anthropos, spirit goes with cosmos. (I think that's what Sardello's saying.) Spirit and world go together in the
same way that soul and consciousness do. There is a soul-consciousness and a
spirit-consciousness. (Those two different uses of "consciousness"
are an example of Sardello's fuzziness-- and of the difficulties we have today
with language.)
Sardello then notes
that Hillman sees Corbin's imaginalis as helping Depth Psych. And what Cheetham does, says Sardello, is to
bring up precisely the right quotes from Corbin that establish-- if I'm getting
this right-- that "un-conscious" goes with "soul" and
"super-conscious" goes with "spirit." He also notes that
the Islamic understanding of imaginalis mundus knows the mundus as spirit-consciousness, and then he talks about
soul-darkness and Luminous Divine Spirit-darkness-- but does so fairly poorly,
alas.
To me, there's a
lot of very sloppy talk here!
But it's not at all easy to dismiss. If it wasn't obvious (to me, at least)
that he's trying to talk about the fourth function as something more than
"soul" (in an un-defined sense), I might have given up at this point.
The mandalic perspective is being affirmed here but, alas, very poorly!
While Sardello
notes that neither Jung nor Hillman distinguishes soul and spirit, and at one
point he says that soul-consciousness is related to the unconscious while
spirit-consciousness is related to super-consciousness. He also distinguishes
soul-darkness from spirit-darkness (which is in fact light, not darkness!), but
he never says clearly and simply what that difference is.
The darkness of
soul (the un-conscious, soul-shadow) is archetypal (as with Jung and Hillman);
the divine-darkness (spirit-darkness, luminous darkness of super-consciousness)
is imaginal (as in Sufi
mysticism). Too many words! Maybe they're needed, and I'm happy to know
someone's trying to sort all this out, but it's really difficult to handle
well.
According to
Sardello, Cheetham says that the un-conscious soul is perceived by soul, but
the super-conscious realm is perceived by the "supersensory senses."
And this fits well
with the mandalic view-- that the fourth function is a perception function just
as the Sensing function is. So maybe "super-sensory senses" is a good term there! Maybe! And maybe, someday, thinkers might be talking
about the physical senses as the "sub-imaginal senses."
In any case,
Sardello goes on to note that he and Corbin use, as a term for
"supersensory sense," nothing other than "heart."
So here at least
we're with the Hesychasts and Cynthia B, in trying to distinguish perception in
the imaginal realm-- by the "heart"-- from perception by
"soul'"--although there doesn't seem to be some other "soul
realm" wording to go with imaginal realm). Again, this is not as satisfying
as it might be, considering how profoundly significant it is. Surely we can do
a better job with all this! There is sensory realm, soul realm and
super-sensory/imaginal realm. As I see it, using "heart" confuses the
soul realm and the imaginal realm! It sure as hell confuses me.
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Next: Some
explanation of Imaginal Metaphysics.... In imaginal metaphysics "all
persons, places and things are mirrors of the spirit world." Note that
"spirit world" is same as "imaginal realm." I presume this
is Sardello's way of saying 'all is theophany' (even though "expression
of" and "reflection of" surely do not mean the same thing,
although I think they are meant to, here). Seeing by the "heart" is
perception of all things as theophany.
But this has
nothing at all to do with soul-"perception"! (I think, even, that we
can say there is no such thing as perception via "soul." It is an evaluation of all things as good, something very different
from perception of all things
as theophany.)
Sardello adds: We
see by the light that makes all things visible, but then he also says "we
are, in effect, composed of the artistic play of spiritual beings." Maybe
that's supposed to be "poetic"? But both it and his use of
"mirrors" seem to me to negate any real reality to "persons,
places and things"-- even though he obviously doesn't mean to do that. So
I find his language totally unacceptable here.
But he concludes
this section by saying that the imaginal metaphysics of Ibn Arabi is fruitful
(his word) "for gnosis of divine worlds and earthly worlds," and this
is precisely because it
"does not confuse or separate them as Jung does." "Gnosis"
here is used in the right sense as perception.
So there's no
question that all of this is on the right track. It's amazing, though, that
Sardello does not attempt a more clear distinction between the various
expressions of that all-important distinction he's saying Corbin, Cheetham and
Islamic mysticism are presenting to us. I'm sure he thinks he is, however.
Even with all of
(what I call) his "sloppiness," it's still very, very impressive. It is all about wholeness and
meaning-- nothing less than our understanding of and participation in our life
and existence-- to which gnosis
we have access via "heart" (i.e., imaginality, our fourth function).
The language here
is very different but it reminds me a lot of the Carmelite Constance
Fitzgerald's understanding of John of the Cross and the dark night of the soul,
where his (John's) directive is "move on." I.e., "Get out of
your isolated Feeling function." It also reminds me of Bruno B saying
simply, that "There is no dark night."
===
I'm about half way
through my 10 pp of notes on this 6 ½ page Foreword. This is the end of
Sardello's introduction to
Cheetham's book. The rest of the Foreword talks about the implications for the
culture of seeing imaginally. Some of it is good, some of it is awful. He
mentions seven topics....
1) Incarnation. The first topic is about what I think is an
extremely poor understanding of incarnation and Xnity. Sardello says
"Gnosis from imaginality is in opposition to any kind of incarnational
Xnity." Sloppy, to be sure. He actually means something like "is in
strong opposition to the conventional/popular Christian understanding of
incarnation." His sense of "incarnational" is almost
fundamentalist.
He talks about
"Christ" when he means Jesus, and says that the Christian
understanding of incarnation is both "archetypal secularization" and
"the death of God." He says that Cheetham's chapter about all this--
which he calls "the theological chapter"-- is pivotal in the book.
One more thing the
conventional understanding of incarnation does is that it "collapses any
sensitivity of the angelic hierarchies." (How's that for clarity!)
Sardello adds:
"An imaginal theology accompanies-- even precedes-- imaginal
metaphysics" and is "founded on Beauty, not salvation."
What a testimony
all this is, to the failure of the church! That a leader of Spiritual
Transpersonal Psychology sees Christianity only as a fundamentalist does, with
no sense at all that "salvation" can mean
healing/wholeness/fulfillment, rather than a rescue from reality.
---
2) Beauty. About Beauty, Sardello says, "That's what
the longing is for." But it has to be strived for, via soul-purification.
He then adds that
"Beauty is the theophany of Sophia." This is the first use of
Corbin's "theophany" term, and offers no hint of what
"Sophia" might mean in this context. He does, however, describe
Sophia as "a destination," but then uses what I thought of as a
singularly dumb image about "arriving but not arriving" when he's
trying to say that it's a goal into which we can enter ever more deeply.
He then backs off
from trying to talk about imaginal knowing by saying that non-dual gnosis is
"epistemological complex." I realize that this is a Foreword, not an
explanatory essay, but surely this phrase is nothing but what used to be
known-- when people still looked for explanations of things-- as a "cop
out."
---
3) Freedom. Next comes a paragraph about Freedom.... Sardello
identifies freedom in the conventional understanding with nihilism, blames it
on the Christian understanding of salvation, and notes that "this
country's battle cry is freedom"-- which, as nihilism/terrorism,
"speaks of wars of self-destruction." Hard to know what to make of
all that! He's trying to say
something of the greatest importance, but stutters woefully.
He adds that for
freedom not to be nihilistic, it has to be filled with love, and he seems to be
critical of Cheetham about this.
Somehow, Christian
freedom leads to Christian technology (which seems to be yet another name for
nihilism), and stands in great contrast to Islamic mysticism. The difference
"hangs on transformation"-- he uses the term metamorphosis-- "and on initiation into the Source of Love,
'the Beloved'."
He says
conventional Christianity "lacks the angelology to proceed to this
Source;" it can only lead to nihilistic freedom. And adds that
"Cheetham's work on all this is wondrous." (Earlier, he called
Corbin's work on Beauty "stunning." Hmmm.)
---
4) Geigerich. A paragraph about someone new to me, Wolfgang
Geigerich, follows. It's about Jung's spirit-matter dualism, which comes, says
Sardello, from Jung's work on alchemy. The main idea seems to be that without
spirit, matter can only lead to
nihilism and thus to technology understood "as the god and the means of
salvation."
Sardello says of
these ideas in Cheetham's book that "Just this section is worth the price
of admission to the book." That statement is followed by one more comment
about Geigerich and incarnation, which, alas, makes no sense at all. (All my
condemnations of Sardello are really laments-- that he doesn't talk better
about these tremendously important perspectives!)
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5) The way out. Cheetham's concern is for valuing the world, Sardello
says, "but not in an abstract or nostalgic sense." He describes
Cheetham as "one of the most courageous thinkers I have ever read."
What Cheetham does is "shows us the way out of the nihilistic worldview through-- not above-- the labyrinth."
And that way--
based on the imaginal, and not on a dichotomy between spirit and matter-- is
two-fold:
• love, as an initiatory process via
purifications
• re-sanctification
of the world.
---
6) Word. This is followed by a fascinating section on Word
"as way out and as way to rightly respond to the longing for
wholeness." He refers to Ibn Arabi's understanding that our language is a
unique articulation of divine Breath, saying that "our breath belongs to
us and to the world" (i.e., that it expresses both a human and cosmic
reality).
Our breath is
"poetic and creative speech," he says. As spirit is linked to world
via soul, so speech embodies spirit without collapsing it into matter. He notes
that "This is a new idea of soul, as that by which spirit is embodied and
thus matter is spiritualized." I hear him saying something like: we are
the world speaking and our symbol-speech is Divine Breath. Surely Rabbi Arthur
would agree!
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7) Lectio. We need to read the world-- which is a discipline of imaginal
asceticism-- keeping us from giving in to technological worldview desire, and
giving us the courage "to be fully present to what is present."
That's it. End of Foreword. So many significant things!
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Summary. I think what "floored me" most about
all this is that it so directly addresses the dualism of Western culture in
terms of psychology (which I wasn't expecting), including the different
dualisms of Jung and Hillman, while at the same time incorporating them into
much bigger perspective. And of course I am delighted by the fact that that it
does so precisely by affirming the reality of the fourth function.
Most of what has
been important to me all my life, and utterly absent from the culture as a
whole, is here recognized as central to our existence. Can't ask for more than
that! As I've said, I'm grateful! (1 July 2013)
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