The Apparition at Medjugorje: a Transpersonal Perspective – Part 2

This is the second part of a two-part article that provides in-depth background information and a critical examination of a phenomenon that has importance not only to transpersonal psychology but also to psychology and science more generally – the protracted Marian apparition at Medjugorje. Part 1 presented an outer history of the case and examined the phenomenon from the perspectives of critical realism and parapsychology. Part 2 examines the Medjugorje apparition from the perspectives of aspect psychology and empowered imagination and presents future work suggested by the proposed models. Psychological science cannot begin to understand the nature of the Marian apparitions at Medjugorje unless it first enlarges its understanding of human personality action, acknowledges the multidimensional nature of reality, and recognizes the true creativity of consciousness. Part 1 of this two-part article presented an outer history of the Marian apparition at Medjugorje and examined the phenomenon from the perspectives of critical realism and parapsychology. Part 2 first presents the aspect psychology of writer and channel Jane Roberts that places the Medjugorje apparition within a multidimensional, multi-reality, multi-world context. The relevance of Roberts’ writings and theories to transpersonal psychology is discussed, key concepts of aspect psychology are described, and forerunners of Roberts’ multiplex model of selfhood are identified. The nature of what is constructed, how it might or might not be accessible and by what instruments, and why the apparition appears to these particular percipients in the specific guise of the BVM is examined. The issue of whether the Medjugorje apparition discloses the existence of an objective transcendent reality is discussed within the context of Roberts’ model. The Medjugorje apparition is then examined from the perspective of empowered Imagination and the theories of Henry Corbin and Jess Byron Hollenback. Ordinary imagining and empowered Imagination are distinguished, key terms of enthymesis and recollective empowerment are defined, and the apparition is examined in light of the metaphysics of the Imagination of Ibn ’Arabi. The role of empowered Imagination in the human cultural world and the value of a pragmatic approach to understanding the validity of the Medjugorje apparition is described. The article concludes with future work suggested by the proposed perspectives. THE PERSPECTIVE OF ASPECT PSYCHOLOGY A perspective that may advance understanding of the nature of the Medjugorje apparition is the aspect psychology model of Jane Roberts (b.1929–d.1984). The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology trps-43-01-05.3d 27/7/11 00:55:25 1 [email protected] Copyright ’ 2011 Transpersonal Institute The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 2011, Vol. 43, No. 1 0 For a period of almost 20 years, Roberts channeled an entity that called himself ‘‘Seth’’ and produced an extensive body of writings consisting of more than 30 volumes collectively known as the Seth Material. The Seth Material extends and broadens psychology’s understanding of human personality by placing it within the context of a psyche that is essentially and intrinsically a multi-dimensional, multi-reality, multi-world consciousness. Original transcripts of all trance sessions are available for public inspection in the Sterling Memorial Archives at Yale University and are presented with sufficient candor to offer the interested scholar excellent evidential material and a good outer history of the case. In addition to trance-channeled writings, Roberts produced more than 15 books of her own that drew their inspiration from her experiences in various alternate states of consciousness. As a part of those writings that she herself produced is a theory of human personality she called ‘‘aspect psychology’’ (Roberts, 1975, 1976). What is Aspect Psychology? Roberts’ Multiplex Model of Selfhood. According to Roberts’ (1975) aspect psychology model, human personality consists of multiple, dynamic, and interconnected ‘‘Aspect’’ selves that exist simultaneously in many different open-ended dimensions of reality accessible through different focuses of consciousness. The focus personality refers to one’s usual, personally familiar self that experiences the work-a-day world of everyday life (chaps. 10, 14). The focus personality with its psychological ego and its intellect resembles Myers’ (1895) supraliminal self, Jung’s ego-complex (Edinger, 1972), and Assagioli’s (1965/1976) conscious self or ‘‘I.’’ Distinct, though not separate, from the ‘‘outer’’ focus personality, the ‘‘inner’’ nuclear self is the self-aware portion of the whole self that forms and maintains the intricate systems of the body, perceives all aspects of the focus personality’s experience– conscious and subconscious, actual and probable. Being free of time and space, the personality’s inner self is the prime identity beyond ego which survives the death of the physical body (Roberts, 1975, pp. 231–232, 240– 244; 1999b, pp. 257–258). The source self (or ‘‘entity’’) is the origin of both the focus personality and the nuclear self and of all other Aspects that comprise the totality of the human psyche (chaps. 10, 13). It is the multidimensional source of intuitions and revelatory knowledge that spring into waking and dreaming experience to creatively enrich, deepen, and expand the awareness and experience of the focus personality (chaps. 12, 15). Basic Source Aspects. Because the source self’s ‘‘bigger-than-life’’ abilities cannot be completely actualized in any one system of reality or focus personality, it creates a multitudinous number of Aspects of itself, which it sends out into an infinite number of probable dimensions of basic reality that it has itself created, thereby enriching the entire personality structure. Some Aspect selves possess greater dimensionality than others by their existence in other systems of reality and are called basic source Aspects (chap. 11). Basic source Aspects are true multi-dimensional, multi-reality, multi-world conThe Journal of Transpersonal Psychology trps-43-01-05.3d 27/7/11 00:55:45 2 0 The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 2011, Vol. 43, No. 1 sciousnesses that may communicate to the focus personality as a transcendent ‘‘inner voice’’ or some dramatized personification. Jane Robert’s trance personality, Seth, is a basic source Aspect. When such contact and communication occurs and the focus personality is willing to expand its usual abilities to join in this affiliation on a conscious basis, it can then glimpse its own reality from a viewpoint not its own. Basic source Aspects resemble Jungian archetypes in many respects (Jung, 1959). It is the basic source Aspect’s archetypal characteristic, for example, that would be responsible for an apparition’s vitalizing effect on bystanders. As an element of the transpersonal collective unconscious (Jung, 1945/1953, pp. 65, 96–97, 131–132, 142), the basic source Aspect would represent a psychical pattern of ideal species development through which the experiencing ego-self could view itself and its world. The basic source Aspect, in these terms, would serve as an invisible model for selfhood projected outward in apparitional form (Roberts, 1976, p. 272). In the present context of Medjugorje, the idea-energy transmitted from the BVM source self needed to construct its apparition is telepathically received and enters the psyches of the six percipients who then transduce the inner data that they receive and encode it into the personified guise of a conventional Blessed Virgin Mary image which they then perceive. The apparition would be the personification and dramatization of the BVM entity that has a completely different kind of psychological existence in a different dimension of being, and that represents or activates a ‘‘heroic personage’’ basic source Aspect within the psyche of the percipients (Roberts, 1976, chap. 25). Roberts (1975) explains: You could say that the focus personality activates its own components, senses the Aspects within its own psyche, and isolates them, bringing them alive to itself through personification... . Each of these basic Aspects would be personified according to the ideas of the focus personality, in line with the dimensional level being contacted... . These prime Aspects have their own reality outside of us, while acting here as components in the psyche... .guiding indirectly rather than directly... .[acting] as guides or teachers at unconscious levels and in dream states. (pp. 134–135, 137) According to Roberts’ model, the Marian apparition and its Messages would provide a framework through which percipients and faithful alike are able to express abilities and strengths to which they may not otherwise have access, and give objective shape to their need for something ‘‘More’’ and desire for a better world (James, 1902/1936, pp. 498–509). That desire opens up this ‘‘other’’ transpersonal bigger-than-life heroic dimension and represents the sudden three-dimensional breakthrough of trans-dimensional information involving communication between a focus personality and a source self (Roberts, 1975, pp. 138–139). The transpersonal elements then flow through the inner ideal pattern of their ‘‘heroic’’ basic source Aspect to fill out the life of their focus personality in historical time. The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology trps-43-01-05.3d 27/7/11 00:55:45 3 Medjugorje Apparition 0 Relevance to Transpersonal Psychology. Some may consider the works and views of Jane Roberts controversial because of its channeled nature and production in alternate states of consciousness. It is important to acknowledge, however, that channeled sources such as the Seth Material and derivative theories such as aspect psychology represent a form of genuine transpersonal experience and understanding (Hastings, 1991; Klimo, 1987). Seth, the trance personality of Jane Roberts, drew its energy and derived its power to act from unconscious sources that were arguably transpersonal in nature. Logically, either Seth was a subconscious production of Jane Roberts’s own psyche, or Seth was who he said he was: An ‘‘energy personality essence’’ no longer focused in physical reality (Roberts, 1997b, p. 327). In either case, ‘‘our concept of what we call the subconscious mind must be radically altered so as to include potencies of which we hitherto have had no knowledge, or else some cause operating through, but not originating in, the subconscious... must be acknowledged’’ (Prince, 1927/1964, p. 8). A similar kind of phenomenon may be occurring at Medjugorje. Aspect psychology and the Seth Material that inspired it may provide a useful framework for understanding the subconscious psychical processes that underlie religious forms of experience such as the Medjugorje apparition. As such, the writings and theories of Jane Roberts can and should be assessed on their own merits, irrespective of their source, within the context of other such theories and research that are relevant to its premises. Forerunners of Roberts’ Aspect Psychology The existence of ‘‘other’’ selves at other systems, levels, or strata of consciousness has long been recognized in the history of psychology (see, for example, Braude, 1995; Ellenberger, 1970; Hilgard, 1977; James, 1902/1936; 1909/1971; Jung, 1934/1960; Kelly, Kelly, Crabtree, Gault, Grosso, & Greyson,, 2007, chap. 5). Beahrs (1982) uses the term ‘‘co-consciousness’’ to describe the existence within a single human organism of more than one consciously experiencing psychological entity, each with some sense of its own identity or selfhood relatively separate and discrete from other similar entities, and with separate conscious experiences occurring simultaneously with one another within this human organism... . We are not just a cohesive self, but also a composite of many aspects, facets, or parts which have their own personalities and ongoing experience simultaneous with one another and with the overall self. (p. 182) Roberto Assagioli’s (1965/1976, 1988) dynamic system of ‘‘Psychosynthesis’’ is one noteworthy forerunner of Jane Roberts’ multiplex model of personality, especially its concepts of subpersonalities (Rowan, 1990) and superconscious Higher Self (Ferrucci, 1982, pp. 43–45; Firman & Gila, 2002, p. 195n.8; Hardy, 1987, pp. 30–31). Two other forerunners of Jane Roberts’ multiplex theory of selfhood whose seminal writings may advance understanding of the Medjugorje apparition are F. W. H. Myers and C. G. Jung. The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology trps-43-01-05.3d 27/7/11 00:55:45 4 0 The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 2011, Vol. 43, No. 1 F. W. H. Myers’ ‘‘Multiplex’’ Model of the Self. In the present Medjugorje context, Myers (1889, 1892a, 1892b) would treat the Marian Messages as ‘‘message-bearing or nunciative’’ sensory automatisms that ‘‘present themselves to us as messages communicated from one [psychical] stratum to another of the same personality. Originating in some deeper zone of man’s being, they float up into superficial consciousness as deeds, visions, words, ready-made and fullblown, without any accompanying perception of the elaborative process which has made them what they are’’ (Myers, 1889, pp. 524–525). On Myers’ view, the Marian apparition illustrates the operation of a ‘‘mythopoetic’’ faculty initiated by an intelligent system of consciousness below the threshold of usual awareness. It emerges into the normal waking consciousness of the percipients as a sensory automatism projected outward in the form of a hallucination. The apparent objective and ‘‘not-self’’ quality of the apparitional figure and the seemingly supernormal character of the Marian Messages at Medjugorje may derive not from the fact that its origin is a source or intelligence external to the percipient’s own mind, but rather that it is simply outside the range of the percipient’s normal state of consciousness with which she (he) usually identifies. Even if the BVM is the source of the messages, according to Myers, those messages would first have be communicated to some subliminal (subconscious) level of the percipient’s psyche before they emerge into normal waking awareness. It will therefore be very difficult to distinguish between (a) messages whose origin is within the percipients themselves yet outside their habitual stream of consciousness, and (b) messages whose origin is a source external to the percipients’ own mind. The only way to tell the difference is from evidence deriving from the messages or communications themselves. By their fruits, not their roots, shall you know them. C. G. Jung’s Complexes and Archetypes. From a Jungian perspective, the Medjugorje apparition would be treated as the genuine production of an autonomous complex and a collective archetype – the spontaneous attempt of the unconscious to become conscious in a collective form (Jung, 1920/1960, p. 317). Autonomous complexes when they manifest in apparitional form are projected outward into space because the psychological ego is unconscious of them and its intellect does not recognize them as being a part of its identity. As Jung (1920/1960) put it: ‘‘Spirits... viewed from the psychological angle are unconscious autonomous complexes which appear as projections because they have no direct association with the ego’’ (p. 309). In so far as the apparition is connected only to the six percipients, it would be considered ‘‘the exteriorized effects of unconscious complexes’’ (p. 318). On this view, the Marian apparition in itself would not be considered anything extraordinary since the archetype of the Cosmic Mother of God is found everywhere in mythology as well as the products of individual fantasy (Campbell, 1949). Why is the apparition happening in Medjugorje at this moment in history and why does it take the form of the discarnate spirit of the BVM? From a Jungian perspective, apparitions of this sort appear ‘‘when the individual loses his adaptation to reality, or ...to replace the inadequate attitude of a whole people by a new one. They are therefore either pathological fantasies or new but as yet The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology trps-43-01-05.3d 27/7/11 00:55:45 5 Medjugorje Apparition 0 unknown ideas’’ (Jung, 1920/1960, p. 315). On this view, the ‘‘fruits’’ of Medjugorje are treated as the psychotherapeutic effect of a collective archetype conveyed indirectly through the image of the BVM spirit and directed to the people of the world to pull them out of bondage to the materialistic world and force on them the conviction of a spiritual reality (Jung, 1920/1960, pp. 302– 303). According to Jung, It not infrequently happens that the archetype appears in the form of a spirit in dreams or fantasy-products, or even comports itself like a ghost. There is a mystical aura about its numinosity, and it has a corresponding effect upon the emotions ... In spite or perhaps because of its affinity with instinct, the archetype represents the authentic element of spirit... . The essential content of all mythologies and all religions...is archetypal. The archetype is spirit or pseudo-spirit: what it ultimately proves to be depends on the attitude of the human mind. (Jung, 1947/1960, pp. 205–206) What Is Constructed and How Is It Perceived? The apparition possesses a curious mixture of subjective and objective features that raise a number of questions: How can a prolonged apparitional event reported to possess quasi-physical features be seen only by these six percipients and remain invisible to everybody else? Do all percipients see the ‘‘same’’ apparitional figure and, if not, then how do they agree on details of location, form, and appearance? How might the apparition be made accessible, by whom, or by what instruments? According to Roberts’ aspect psychology model, in order to understand the nature of what is constructed and how it is perceived, it is necessary to understand the similarities and differences between apparitional objects and physical objects, how consciousness constructs physical matter, and the nature of sense perception (Roberts, 1999a, pp. 68– 94). Type of Constructions. According to Roberts’, the apparition can be either a ‘‘primary’’ construction or a ‘‘secondary’’ construction. If the apparition is a primary construction, then it is considered a reflection of the survival personality of the BVM who projects her consciousness directly into the physical system as an energy-idea. Using data telepathically received, the percipients construct the apparition, which they then perceive. If the apparition is a secondary construction, then the percipients telepathically receive the inner data but without the BVM projecting into the physical system, construct an apparition, and then perceive the apparition they have created. In both cases, the percipients construct a quasi-physical apparition of the BVM in line with the telepathic data subconsciously received from the BVM source self. The difference is that in secondary constructions the apparition is constructed through telepathic communication alone, whereas in primary constructions the BVM Herself has projected her consciousness into the physical plane to effect the communication. The apparition at Medjugorje can be considered to be a secondary construction in these terms. While the apparition has its own sort of form and permanence, it does not gain the appearance of physical or temporal The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology trps-43-01-05.3d 27/7/11 00:55:45 6 0 The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 2011, Vol. 43, No. 1 durability that primary constructions would have because of the absence of greater data, which would be a property of the Blessed Virgin Mary source self. What is Perceived. Roberts’ model is consistent with the theory of apparitions posited by Tyrrell (1942/1953) and Gurney, Myers, & Podmore (1886), which postulate that telepathy is one of the main binders in the world of apparitional experiences. Roberts’ model is in agreement with Myers’ (1892c) basic limiting principle that any telepathic communication taking place between the BVM source self and the six percipients must be sifted through the personal subconscious of the percipients before the apparition can be constructed and perceived. The subconscious serves as a psychological bridge, so to speak, that connects the BVM with the six percipients (Roberts, 1999b, pp. 22–23). Nothing would be perceived directly at the level of normal waking consciousness. Paraphrasing Roberts (1998), what is perceived is shaped by many factors, including (a) the characteristic ways in which an individual perceives within a particular field of reality, (b) the characteristic kinds of action which the individual is likely to perceive, and (c) the perceptual apparatus the percipient happens to have operative at the time (pp. 42–43). According to Roberts’ model, each percipient constructs her (his) separate and individual apparition in her (his) own space continuum that quantum physicists call ‘‘Hilbert space’’ or ‘‘fact-space’’ (N. Friedman, 1997, pp. 172– 173; Rucker, 1984). There are actually six individual apparitions, in other words. Percipients can only see their own construction; they cannot see one another’s. Each percipient forms a replica of the apparition that would seem to agree with the other constructions in terms of approximate location, form, and color aided by several factors. These factors include: (a) the transmission of specific details at a telepathic level to the subconscious mind of each percipient from all other constructors, (b) the idea of the BVM as it currently exists in collective public knowledge with which the percipients are previously familiar, and (c) vibrations given off by the density, speed, and impacting of atoms and molecules which combine their individual energy into more complicated gestalt structures to compose the other constructions of the so-called ‘‘single’’ apparitional object (Roberts, 1997b, p. 175). How it is Constructed. According to Roberts’ model, the apparition would be constructed using the energy of actual atoms and molecules formed into various combinations in line with data received telepathically through the percipients’ subconscious ‘‘inner senses’’ (Roberts, 1970, chap. 19). How is it possible for ‘‘ordinary’’ atoms and molecules to combine to form an apparition? Why not simply say that the apparition is composed of a special form of ‘‘subtle’’ matter rather than posit the use of conventional matter as building blocks that form the apparition and which ought to make the apparition accessible to others and detectable by instruments? To understand how it is possible for ‘‘ordinary’’ atoms and molecules to combine to form an apparition in response to subconscious data telepathically received requires a reversal in thinking about the nature of so-called ‘‘dead’’ matter and its relationship to consciousness: Consciousness creates and forms physical matter, and not the other way around. It is an ancient and profound ontology The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology trps-43-01-05.3d 27/7/11 00:55:46 7 Medjugorje Apparition 0 with far-reaching implications understood by leading Western thinkers of the past (Skrbina, 2005), although overlooked and ignored by the mechanistic science of this time, that is known by many names – ‘‘radical naturalism’’ (de Quincey, 2002), ‘‘realistic monism’’ (Freeman, 2006), ‘‘panexperientialism’’ (Griffin, 1997, 1998), ‘‘panpsychism’’ (Clarke, 2003) – which posits the existence of consciousness in all matter. The firm and basic foundation of all such ontologies lies in its recognition of two fundamental aspects of consciousness: (a) an active element as the agent that initiates and directs the transformation of energy into matter and of matter into energy; and (b) a receptive element as a quality intrinsic to matter. In the context of Medjugorje, atoms and molecules possessing their own kind of condensed, generalized consciousness and being responsive to the thought and intention of the six percipients serve as the building blocks used to construct the quasi-physical image of the apparition (Roberts, 1997b, pp. 144–175). Quasi-physical Attributes of the Apparition. The six percipients claim that the images they see during the apparition are quite as real as anything else they perceive in the environment. This is in line with the principle of sensory/ perceptual psychology that if an individual is to become aware of or perceive a stimulus at the level of normal waking consciousness, then some sensory imagery must be involved (Coren, Ward, & Enns, 2004). According to Roberts’ model, the process by which sensory images are built up of apparitional figures is the very same process by which sense images of physical objects are built up. Sensory/perceptual psychology has demonstrated that sense impressions and images can exist independent of physical objects and without an actual object representing them in physical terms (e.g., after-images, subjective contours, mental imagery, illusions, hypnotic hallucinations, psychedelia). It is possible that similar processes may be involved in the construction of the Medjugorje apparition. Roberts’ model predicts that the Medjugorje apparition, if it is valid, would make some impression upon the physical system by virtue of its possessing quasi-physical characteristics. In other words, it should be possible for the apparition to be detected by physical means. Just as there is a spectrum of light, there is a spectrum of matter, ranging from subtle and diffuse to gross and dense molecular structures. According to Roberts’ model, the diffuse quality of electromagnetic and chemical properties of an apparition is the most important difference between it and a physical object (Roberts, 1999b, pp. 252–253). The apparition would have an atomic structure, but one less complete than a physical object. Similar to the construction of clouds which cause a small disturbance within a weather system, an apparition although not solid in ordinary terms would have shape and boundaries to a certain extent and possess movement. It is possible that the apparition may be detectable in these terms with the appropriate perceptive mechanism. Research into the amazing range of sensory systems in the animal kingdom, for example, shows that very few animals perceive objects anything like the way humans do, and shapes that humans cannot perceive as meaningful, other animal species can perceive and vice versa (Droscher, 1969; Sinclair, 1985). Although it is a kind of pseudoimage, physically speaking, it is possible that the Medjugorje apparition has The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology trps-43-01-05.3d 27/7/11 00:55:46 8 0 The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 2011, Vol. 43, No. 1 diffuse but quite definite electromagnetic and chemical properties that animals can sense and to which they may react. Portraits have been painted of the apparition based on descriptions provided by the six percipients (e.g., ‘‘A crown of stars and a pedestal of clouds, a white veil and a gray robe’’) (Laurentin, 1987, p. 7). The painting by the Italian artist Giovani Mainardi is popular, for example, but it is the portrait of the Blessed Mary painted in 1986 by the Belgium painter Baijot that is said to be ‘‘the best picture and the most conforming to the apparition,’’ despite some disagreement among the six percipients regarding its details (e.g., color of the robe, gesture of the hands, smile on the face, position and number of stars) (Laurentin, 1987, p. 12). No photos at all have been taken of the apparition itself. According to Roberts’ model, ‘‘all systems of reality are created, or constructed, by those who perceive the system. Those who do not construct a system cannot perceive it’’ (Roberts, 1999b, pp. 112–11). It is interesting to speculate in this regard whether the apparition could be photographed if any one of the six percipients were to hold the camera. Why These Particular Six Percipients and Why the BVM? Why is the telepathic data used for the construction of the Marian apparition only given to these particular six Medjugorje youths (now adults) and not to others? A prime factor may have to do with individual differences in ability to access and effectively utilize physical and psychical energy (Roberts, 1997b, p. 162). According to aspect psychology, ‘‘the individual’s ability to receive these impressions and his ability to translate them and to construct them is all determined by his own psychic background in past existences and in the present one, and by his own inner conception of himself, the physical universe, his place in it, and by his inner reactions to ideas’’ (Roberts, 1997a, pp. 175–176). The reception of inner data may be a function of the percipients’ inner focus and concentration or what Hollenback (1996, pp. 94–95) refers to as ‘‘recollective empowerment.’’ Emotional motivation may also be important for communication to occur. Most communications between the living and the dead occur in response to an inner psychological need and purpose on the part of both the agent and the percipient (Doore, 1990). The percipients must want to contact the BVM desperately and the BVM must also want to communicate. Why is the Blessed Virgin Mary (BVM) the personage represented in the Medjugorje apparitional figure and not St. Stanislaus, for example, or some other popular patron saint of Eastern Europe? The exterior dramatization and quasi-physical personification of inner data in the form of the BVM is important psychologically. Perhaps at the beginning when they were together, the six Medjugorje adolescents had been yearning toward the heroic dimension of their lives, and the BVM was a construct to help them in their search. The ready-made symbols of religion are helpful to many people in providing them with an orientation for inner activity and growth. The apocryphal narratives and Marian theology built up around the historical Mary of Galilee would provide a framework of some kind in which an apparition of Mary and the The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology trps-43-01-05.3d 27/7/11 00:55:46 9 Medjugorje Apparition 0 infant Jesus could fit, and may have helped the percipients actualize the personage’s multidimensional nature that they sensed in terms they could understand – as children with Mary as their spiritual mother setting out to comfort and protect the world with them as her channels. By following the Marian Messages the personality would be given a sense of direction and an assurance that one is growing toward one’s proper psychological personhood in the same way, perhaps, that one grows physically into adulthood (Roberts, 1976, p. 341). Does the Medjugorje Apparition Disclose an Objective Transcendent Reality? Does the Medjugorje apparition and its Messages provide legitimate knowledge about the existence of extra-mental realities, such as the basic reality of the BVM entity? ‘‘Extra-mental’’ realities refer to actualities that have an independent existence sui generis ‘‘outside’’ the mind of the experiencing subject. Psychologists will differ in their judgment about whether extra-mental realities exist, whether they can be known even if they do exist, or whether we must remain agnostic about the whole affair and leave it to the department of philosophy to puzzle it out (see, for example, Daniels, 2001; H. Friedman, 2002, p. 183; Nelson, 1990, pp. 36, 45). One cannot escape metaphysics, however, whether dealing with the existence of physical objects or with the existence of other dimensions of reality beyond the physical system to which mystic experiences and religious knowledge claims refer (van Fraassen, 2002). An exclusively psychological approach that is only concerned with what people experience or think about the Medjugorje apparition and not with the apparition as it is ‘‘in itself,’’ that ignores the metaphysical context that makes a phenomenon possible in the first place and that frames its meaning and probable interpretations, does not do full justice to the phenomenon under investigation (Lancaster, 2002; Northcote, 2004). Philosophy cannot be divorced from psychological action. As Ferrer (2011) put the matter: ‘‘Unless one subscribes ideologically to a naturalistic metaphysics, it may be prudent – and heuristically fertile – not to reject a priori the possibility of effective causation from the various metaphysical sources described in religious utterances’’ (p. 10). Beyond a Neo-Kantian Dualistic Metaphysics. Roberts’ (1975) model posits the existence of ‘‘a basic creative undifferentiated reality – an ever-present field of latent activity – that springs into being as consciousness encounters it, and patterns it according to its own perceptive focus’’ (p. 180). This idea corresponds to Ferrer’s (2002) notion of ‘‘participatory spirituality’’ which posits spiritual experiences to be a result of the individual engaging a nonstructured spiritual field, and the result is dependent on the participation or interaction of the two (see also, Ferrer & Sherman, 2008) . There is something out there, for the ever actual integrity of basic reality is not to be denied, but the form that ‘‘something’’ takes is not pre-given (Ferrer, 2002, chap. 6). According to Roberts’ model, a transduction process occurs during the perception of ‘‘transcendent’’ Reality that is similar to what occurs during The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology trps-43-01-05.3d 27/7/11 00:55:46 10 0 The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 2011, Vol. 43, No. 1 sensory perception of physical objects and events. Sensory receptors detect stimulus energies and then change (or encode) them into a form of energy that the perceptive apparatus (or nervous system) can handle. In this way, stimulus energies themselves are changed by the act of perceiving them. The perceiver’s nervous system itself is also changed through the catabolic/anabolic processes that occur at the receptor level and through the electrochemical changes that happen at the cellular level by which neural impulses are transmitted to various areas of the brain. The attempt to perceive that which is basic reality is thus an action that changes both the stimulus (noema) and the perceiver (noesis). The changes occur so smoothly and automatically that the instant transformations are not noticed at a conscious level, and it is taken for granted that what is perceived is an actual and direct representation of what is sensed (‘‘naı̈ve realism’’). In the present Medjugorje context, the Seers must translate inner data into sensory representations in order for it to be perceived by normal waking consciousness. As soon as the six percipients pick up the telepathic data conveyed by the BVM and attempt to translate it into quasi-physical terms in the form of an apparition, they are distorting it. Perception is creative and imposes a highly specialized pattern upon an available field of energy, distorting the actual stimulus to some degree in order for it to be perceived. The attempt is bound to bring distortions since the perceptive apparatus that happens to be operative at the time will shape and color that which is perceived. Some distortion is necessary; otherwise the six percipients would not consciously perceive the apparition in quasi-physical terms. The distortion forms the physical pattern of experience. In this way, the apparition at Medjugorje may come to reflect, even though in distorted form, the greater actualities of an inner order of being. Roberts’ model is in agreement with the principle of critical realism when it affirms that the Medjugorje apparition – like other natural objects and events – is perceived according to the nature of the perceiver and not according to the nature of basic realities perceived. The realities remain unchanged as they exist in their own field of actuality and frame of reference, even though the perceiver may perceive it in a limited fashion. Roberts’s model extends the neo-Kantian dualistic metaphysics of critical realism in an original way, however, by proposing that the apparition does disclose an actual transcendental reality, as a creative version that is produced by the action of perceiving it. The act of perception creates a ‘‘distortion’’ of that which is perceived, creating in fact a new reality, and that is what is perceived. A new basic reality is created whose legitimacy and basis for existence lies in the very perception of it. The distortion is not falsehood but is creative and is the interpretation of basic reality experienced through a state of limited perception. On this view, ‘‘any individual reacts to a reality as he perceives it to be, and he perceives it to be since he has himself created it from basic reality’’ (Roberts, 1998, p. 43). That which is basic reality is thus a product of perception, while always remaining ‘‘that which is’’ and the basis for new perceptions (Roberts, 1999c, p. 241). Because the perceiver is always a part of and not apart from basic reality, one can say that basic reality is both perceived and perceives itself in the act the The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology trps-43-01-05.3d 27/7/11 00:55:46 11 Medjugorje Apparition 0 perception. The physical world rises up before our eyes, but our eyes are a part of that world which they perceive. How Beliefs At One Level of Consciousness May Program Experience At Another. The Medjugorje apparition may be an example of the transformation that occurs to original visions in alternate states of consciousness when beliefs program their content as the primary revelatory data flows from one level of consciousness to another. According to Roberts’ model, as soon as the percipients turn the focus of their attention inward, they try to interpret what they perceive according to usual waking state beliefs and assumptions which act as filters that program inner experience. Misunderstood or half-understood distortions begin to occur as precisely-tuned intuitive data are translated into sensory images that make sense in terms of the root assumptions of a symboloriented, literal-minded, verbally-structured normal waking consciousness. Because personal identity is so symbol-oriented in normal conscious terms, for example, at the farther reaches of human consciousness transpersonal states of pure knowing and pure feeling that do not involve the necessity of symbols may be mistakenly interpreted as states of nonbeing. The original inner data that initially exists outside and beyond the ‘‘fact’’ framework of normal waking consciousness becomes interpreted according to root assumptions that are considered valid at a different state of consciousness. Valid other-reality perceptions become consciously and unconsciously stylized in terms of readymade stereotypes in order to make them fit with accepted ‘‘facts’’ of the human cultural world that the mind can understand and has come to accept. According to the present view, in order to see that which is the BVM in its native form, the percipients would have to go where it exists. The survival personality of the BVM would be psychologically different in many respects from the individual that she was when alive as a historical personage 2,000 years ago. No longer the same person as it was having experienced new realities since death, she would nevertheless still exist as a sort of psychological unit retaining previous recognizable characteristics (Roberts, 2006, pp. 231– 232). But like trying to bring back home an exotic fish encountered in the deepest parts of the ocean, changes must occur if it is to survive as it travels up to the surface. The original vision of that which is the BVM automatically becomes altered and transformed as it is carried out of its territory in deep psychic realms and brought to the surface of normal waking consciousness, adapting itself to the changed conditions of a four-dimensional living area just to ‘‘stay alive.’’ THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE EMPOWERED IMAGINATION The Empowered Imagination Distinguishing Empowered Imagination From Ordinary Imagining. Another approach that may advance understanding of the nature of the Medjugorje apparition is the perspective of empowered Imagination (Chittick, 1989; Corbin, 1969; Hollenback, 1996). The empowered Imagination (uppercase ‘‘I’’) The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology trps-43-01-05.3d 27/7/11 00:55:46 12 0 The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 2011, Vol. 43, No. 1 is not to be confused with ordinary imagining (lowercase ‘‘i’’) that produces analog representations of physical objects and is studied by cognitive psychologists (Matlin, 2005, pp. 210–225). Nor is it to be confounded with goal-directed fantasy, counterfactual thinking, confabulation, or believed-in imaginings of the unreal for which it is often mistaken (Roese & Olson, 1995; Schumaker, 1990). Hillman (1975) regarded ‘‘the major task now confronting psychology’’ is to differentiate between the imaginary and the imaginal (p. 37). Ordinary imagining generates acts (imaging, imagining-that, and imagininghow) and imagined objects that are bound by and connected to the imagining subject (Casey, 1976, pp. 38–60). Its phenomenological features tend to be chararcterized by qualities of spontaneity and controlledness, self-containedness and self-evidence, indeterminacy and possibilizing power (Casey, 1976, pp. 63–123). The empowered Imagination, on the other hand, has a cosmic function (Corbin, 1969; Hollenback, 1996, chap. 9). It is a species of human imagination that is separable from the imagining subject and has an objective and independent existence sui generis. The empowered Imagination is capable of actually creating physical objects ‘‘exterior’’ to the imagining subject that can be seen by others who possess similar imaginative abilities. It has the power to alter physical events by virtue of the reality that such changes already possess in the creative field of possibilities and probabilities that exist as a function of the Imaginal realm of being (Corbin, 1969, p. 4). Enthymesis and Recollective Empowerment. From the perspective of the empowered Imagination, the apparition at Medjugorje is more than the mere projection into place, space, and time of the existential contents of six percipients’ unconscious minds as conventional psychologisms might suggest. The apparition is instead the result of the percipients’ self-induced ‘‘empowered’’ Imagination that brings so-called supernormal perception, communication, and knowledge into physical actuality. The Greeks called this secret force or creative power of the Imagination enthymesis ‘‘which signifies the act of meditating, conceiving, imagining, projecting, ardently desiring... the force of an intention so powerful as to project and realize (‘essentiate’) a being external to the being who conceives the intention’’ (Corbin, 1969, p. 222). Hollenback (1996) discusses how thoughts, desires, and emotion may become real not only subjectively but also objectively (or trans-subjectively) and potentially perceptible to others through the empowering effect of enthymesis. In the present context of Medjugorje, enthymesis refers to the ‘‘peculiar simultaneity between thinking and being that often operates during mystical experiences... . [in which] visionary landscapes and spiritual environments behave as though they are constructed out of the mystic’s thoughts and desires’’ (Hollenback, 1996, p. 25). This aspect of the empowered Imagination’s function of giving physical actuality to intentions of the heart (himma, enthymesis) constitutes the body of phenomena studied by modern parapsychology, and includes spiritual healing (Benor, 2001), distant mental influence (Braud, 2003), and apparitional experience (Irwin, 1989, chap. 13). Hollenback (1996, pp. 94–95) uses the term recollective empowerment to describe the conditions under which enthymesis may occur. In the present context of Medjugorje, recollective empowerment requires the percipients to The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology trps-43-01-05.3d 27/7/11 00:55:46 13 Medjugorje Apparition 0 focus their abilities of attention and intention, desire and expectation, imagination and will to such a concentrated degree that these faculties are transformed, enhanced and empowered to create real being (chaps. 8 and 9). Under conditions of recollective empowerment, the Seers of Medjugorje would possess the power to ‘‘materialize’’ an apparitional figure that conformed in shape and detail with the Marian system of theology that they took for granted as providing ‘‘a true description of reality and humanity’s destiny within that reality’’ (pp. vii–viii). Because it is the percipient’s own thoughts, will, and emotions that become objectified under conditions of recollective empowerment, a strong correlation between the apparition and its Messages and the percipient’s cultural context and historical situation will be observed (chap. 4). The Imaginal Realm and Ibn ’Arabı̄’s Metaphysics of the Imagination In Ibn ’Arabı̄’s metaphysics of the Imagination, the empowered Imagination functions from an intermediate Imaginal realm that exists between the material world of sensory data and the spiritual dimension of Mystery (mysteria). Corbin (1969, p. 13) refers to this intermediary world as the Imaginatrix where energy-ideas, archetypal figures, subtle bodies, and ‘‘immaterial matter’’ exist. It is the metaphysical Imaginal realm of being that is the operational center through which the noetic (being-creating) function of empowered Imagination manifests itself. The journeys that one takes in the dream state are real and not imaginary because they occur in the Imaginal realm. In our dreams we dream daily life into existence, and by our thoughts and emotions, desires and expectations, we make our dreams real. In the present context of Medjugorje, the Imaginal realm is ‘‘the place of apparitions and of spiritual beings, Angels and Spirits, who in it assume the figures and forms of their ‘apparitional forms’’’ (Corbin, 1969, p. 189). This is where the figure represented by the Medjugorje apparition exists. Corbin (1969) compares apparitions to forms that appear on the surface of a mirror (p. 218). While they may appear to be in the mirror (i.e., physical reality), they are not actually in the mirror. They exist basically outside the mirror in the intermediary world of the Imagination and project their appearance into the four-dimensional space/time world where they appear and are perceived. Apparitions are not unreal in these terms. They are perfectly real, but not in the same sense in which the sensory experience of physical objects is real. According to Ibn ’Arabı̄’s metaphysics of the Imagination, if the spiritual aspect of the BVM entity is to be perceived, then it must manifest itself in physical form that simultaneously discloses and camouflages the true nature of the figure represented by the apparition (Corbin, 1969, pp. 153–154). ‘‘Thus the real and invisible Beloved has to be typified in a concrete figure by the empowered Imagination; through it She attains a mode of existence perceptible to the vision of that privileged faculty’’ (pp. 153–154). This form may be that of a theophanic figure and the visible manifestation of God or a god (e.g., Roberts’ primary construction) or an apparitional figure with quasi-physical features perceptible through an act of contemplation (e.g., Roberts’ secondary construction). In this and other ways, the empowered Imagination is a ‘‘noetic’’ The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology trps-43-01-05.3d 27/7/11 00:55:46 14 0 The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 2011, Vol. 43, No. 1 mechanism for transensory perception and knowledge. It creates the real being of the BVM through its cosmic function of transducing nonphysical realities into quasi-physical objects, ‘‘investing visible figures with a ‘theophanic function’’’ (Corbin, 1969, p. 81). In Ibn ’Arabı̄’s metaphysics of the Imagination (Chittick, 1989; Corbin, 1969), the species is gifted with the ability of empowered Imagination by virtue of being a creation of the Creator’s unconditioned Imagination. ‘‘Our manifest being is the divine Imagination; our own Imagination is Imagination in His Imagination’’ (Corbin, 1969, pp. 190–191). The empowered Imagination represents the action of himma or the active power of the heart by which the soul is capable of perceiving divine realities – such as the BVM entity – that have an existence sui generis independent of its apparitional form in the Imaginal realm of being. Similar processes may be occurring at Medjugorje. The Empowered Imagination in the Human Cultural World Suppose it turns out that the apparition of the BVM has not occurred in any place or at any time as the Seers of Medjugorje have claimed, but because the human species responds to the idea of a Blessed Virgin Mary, the mother of God, they created the apparition out of the species’ need. No matter what the apparition’s status turns out to be in the world of literal fact, it has given an objectivity to believers’ religious sentiments that it would not otherwise have. The apparition, which historically may not have occurred as proponents say it has, would nevertheless retain a reality, and more than it may have had, had it occurred in the world of so-called historical fact. It is not sufficiently appreciated how waking experience is directed, religious and political structures are maintained, and cultures and civilizations are formed through the use of human imagination (Brann, 1991). Imaginative constructs such as Darwin’s theory of evolution, Freud’s psychology of personality, Existentialism’s philosophy of existence, and science’s ‘‘Big Bang’’ theory of the origin of the universe have literally structured generations of people’s experience of themselves and of the natural world. A dream, idea, feeling, value, religious faith–any psychological experience, for that matter– definitely exists and can be as real and, in some instances, more real than the chair upon which one sits because of its effect upon personal experience and behavior in the human cultural world. Television characters of a favorite western or murder mystery or science fiction drama, for example, may attain a level of reality in the mind of viewers that is more real, tangible, and substantial than the lives of the actual actors who portray those characters. The evidence provided by the hundreds of purported physical healings and religious conversions at Medjugorje demonstrates how an apparition which bystanders cannot see or touch nevertheless attains reality because of the effect (‘‘fruits’’) it produces in their experience of themselves and of their lived world. This is aligned with William James’ pragmatic view of truth and reality (James, 1907/1981). The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology trps-43-01-05.3d 27/7/11 00:55:46 15 Medjugorje Apparition 0 The unseen region in question is not merely ideal, for it produces effects in this world. When we commune with it, work is actually done upon our finite personality... .But that which produces effects within another reality must be termed a reality itself, so I feel as if we have no philosophic excuse for calling the unseen or mystical world unreal. (James, 1902/1936, pp. 506–507) Jung (1933/1960) held the position that the world of imagination, symbol and myth is in many ways closer to the way reality really is than what is referred to as physical, material, ‘‘sensory-hard’’ facts that one can see, hear, feel, smell, and touch. The Imaginal world and the empowered Imagination may be the closest one can presently come to the inside of so-called ‘‘facts’’ and the deeper realities from which facts emerge (Corbin, 1969; Hollenback, 1996).