SUMMARY OF SOME OF THE CORE IDEAS OF “RADICAL NATURE”

> > This brief summary (6 pages) can in no way qualify as a thorough synopsis of DeQuincey’s book, RADICAL NATURE, which is (311pages). Much has been left out. It is only meant to serve as a coarse outline of some of his main ideas expressed in rather
simple and general statements that, unfortunately, miss many of the details in his definitions and arguments. The bulk of my synopsis was concer withhis explication of Whitehead’s process metaphysics, one of the clearest I have ever read, which I deem
is instrumental in understanding the argument for panexperientialism. Here I leaned heavily on his well-crafted expressions . My hope is that this outline will encourage the reader to acquire this scholarly book and read it for himself. Please do not judge its value from this summary. It is a well written and thought out work by a brilliant
contemporary philosopher.

Sincerely, Nick Kondax

> > From the preface of his book, RADICAL NATURE, Christian De Quincey states his purpose for writing the first of a trilogy which is, to challenge the dominant myth/paradigm of matter as essentially being “dead stuff” that somehow generates consciousness/mind
out of body and brain. (Physicalist view) This is the 400 year old story we have been handed down from the legacy of its founders- Bacon, Descartes Locke, Newton, Darwin, etc., that the universe is meaningless, accidental, and without purpose, a vast assemblage of particles being pushed and pulled by blind external forces.

This reductionistic and mechanical view has desacralized our lives, emptied our dreams of promise, discarded the soul and left us bereft of any hope as we see the fallout from its implications that manifest today in our modern world in the way we relate to ourselves, to others, and to our environment.

With a kind of intuitional courage and intellectual prowess, DeQ. goes out on the limb to
argue the case for the possibility of a new story that we sorely need to restore our sense of the sacred to our sick planet and our alienated lives. It is a narrative that involves a new understanding of what matter really is.

DeQ. lists the three dominant ontologies that deal with the reality of the world as as
materialism, idealism, and dualism. He then proceeds to reveal the weaknesses in these positions as being flawed philosophically as well as being inadequate to matching the empirical data.

First there is Materialism with its major problem of how it can explain how consciousness which has no mass, volume and has subjectivity can evolve/emerge from that which is massive, spatial, and objective to begin with. It is nothing short of a
miracle like turning water into wine. If the universe starts out dead matter, it must remain dead, otherwise it makes an inexplicable ontological jump.
Absolute materialism that states that matter is

insentient undermines and makes inconceivable epistemological legitimacy for rationality, which is a mental function. In short, we end up with a story without a story teller.

With Idealism we have consciousness/mind/spirit as being the ultimate reality, matter being only an illusion (maya) or an emanation from spirit. Since consciousness is primary and matter unreal in this sense, we are presented with the problem of how we are able to live in the practical world if all material objects are treated as dream-like illusions. It would certainly have dire consequences to our survival, as it counters our commonsense about safety issues assuming that if matter really isn’t there, how could
it harm us? Also if the material world is illusory, then it follows that our sense organs must be illusory, leaving us without any access to truth or reality.
Thirdly, we have Dualism, our modern legacy from Descartes. Simply put, the world is composed of two fundamental substances –matter and mind, both are real. Both exist separately- matter being an extended substance and mind unextended substance, and we are immediately confronted with the problem of how these two substances are able to interface or interact with one another. It has been an intractable puzzle for philosophy since its inception.

It is DeQ.’s position that there exists a forth possibility that bridges many of the above problems, and, from the title of the book, he calls radical naturalism. It is both an ontological and a participatory epistemological position that embraces the philosophical theory of panpsychism or panexperientialism. These ideas are gleaned from Whitehead’s process philosophy of organism , Bergson’s theory of duration , Bruno’s mater-materia, etc., all of which are developed and interweaved with the new findings in quantum physics into a coherent philosophical position through several chapters of the book.

The roots of this story actually extend back into antiquity, but DeQ has put a modern philosophical spin on it to create an acceptable cosmology that could offer the solution and vision for many of the problems we are confronting in our alienated and pathological relations. His argument utilizes the theory of panexperientialism that proposes that all objective bodies (matter) possess an interior, sentient, or subjective reality. In short, that matter and mind are inseparable “all the way down”and are a unity, which is diametrically opposed to the Cartesian concept that matter and mind were two distinct substances. (Dualism) DeQ. is convinced that the fundamental ontological substance of the world is sentient matter right down to the subatomic particles at least to some degree.

From the beginning , he focuses on distinguishing the two meanings of consciousness. The philosophical one and the psychological one. The former is defined as a state or quality of Being with a capacity for sentience and subjectivity-“ a mode of being” that makes possible the contents of consciousness. It is contrasted with nonconsciousness. The latter is defined as a state of awareness or being alert and is contrasted with the unconsciousness. It is limited to the contents of consciousness and the mode of access to those contents. He treats the first meaning as being more fundamental than the second, since, no psychological contents can exist without it. He takes the position that it cannot be an emergent phenomena since it has ontological priority over the material and biological complexity of nerves and brain.

Within the 20th century came the advent of the new sciences of relativity, quantum physics, and complexity. It is here that the cracks first begin to appear in the foundations of mechanistic universe. It was a shift in understanding that the universe is more like a complex space-time matrix of dynamic events rather than static substances. From Einstein’s Relativity Theory we discover that: a) matter and energy are equivalent (matter is a kind of concentrated energy) b) gravity is no longer considered a mysterious force that is able to influence at a distance but rather a geometrical property of curved space. C) the speed of light or photons is the limit that any signal flow between events must abide by. It remained still a deterministic , and mechanistic view point of the universe.

It was the Quantum theory which expanded those cracks into weird paradoxes and anomalies that followed: a) the break down of either/or logic with particle /wave complementarity. b) the fact that quantum events are non-causal. c) the participatory effect of the observer in collapsing the potential probabilty wave into actuality in one interpretation of the theory. d) from the Alain Aspect experiment the concept that quantum events are nonlocal –the idea that these events are connected at a deeper level and that signals can flow instantaneously between them a violation of Einstein’s speed limit of light). The implications were that the cosmos appears to be some undivided whole more in the sense of a verb than a noun. It is a dynamic process not static. Finally, through Complexity theory, we came to understand that in various dynamic systems parts influence the whole but are not controlling of the whole. Each part contributes and in turn is affected by the complex network of feedback and feed forward loops. This leads to nonlinear evolution in natural processes that are difficult to predict or attempt to control because we ourselves are embedded in the process and are part of the problem we are trying to control. The dream of controlling nature and predicting it with certainty must be given up. (mechanistic claim). Yet on the edge of chaos new creative patterns can arise. We all make a difference , participation counts even if it is only a small change. Entropy is disrupted and order can flow again in a ceaseless dance between these two integral processes of our” Cosmosing “ universe, a concept that is found in the Eastern philosophies.
Much of DeQ.’s thought centers around the concept that consciousness and matter are co-extensive and co-eternal. Simply put, if consciousness exists now it must have always existed in some form, or trace, otherwise we face an inevitable ontological problem of how that which lacks feeling-(objective matter-energy) can ever produce the subjective feeling entities that we know we are, from our intuitional and felt interiority. Scientific theories of emergence , and complexity have been inadequate so far in resolving this. The solution for this philosopher is that matter can be conceived as a single ontological substance with both objective and subjective modalities. Matter/energy cannot exist without consciousness and consciousness has no existence without matter/energy. For DeQ. energy “flows” but consciousness “ feels”. He suggests the idea of consciousness-within –matter or “embodied mind” could restore the return of a sense of sacredness to the body, to Gaia, and to the Cosmos.

The hard problem in the philosophy of consciousness has always been how we can account for qualia, the raw feels, pain, etc., when we add up the physical facts of the brain. Neither the material fundamentalists, who claim that consciousness is either a property of matter or a function of it , nor the eliminationist, who deny consciousness outright , have adequately developed a satisfactory explanation for how subjectivity ,a totally novel ontological category can arise ex nihilo from pure objectivity.

Emergence theory lacks credence for the author and is still being debated, and those that deny consciousness altogether, fall into the trap that it takes consciousness to deny consciousness.

From our conscious experience of exercising volition we hold the belief that free will exists even though this is vehemently denied by scientific determinism. The act of choice is purely creative and spontaneous and is fundamental to all subjects/selves for DeQ.
Choice-as-effect coincides with self-as-cause. Cause does not in this unique way precede effect because, in free choice, they are synonomous, which to DeQ. is tantamount to saying that choice is uncaused by anything outside of the existential act of choosing itself. It was A. N.Whitehead, the process philosopher, that gave us the concept of the self as a self-creative agency positing itself from moment to moment within the world of physical objects. If free will exists at all it must go all the way down to even electrons possessing some degree of freedom.

DeQ. lists self-agency, (the ability to orient and/or move itself externally); sentience, ( the ability to experience); and subjectivity, ( the ability to experience interiority, as in having a unique viewpoint), as comprising some the major attributes of consciousness. It is noted that these characteristics are devoid of measurement or objective description by mechanistic reductionism. These constitute the participatory epistemology that he
develops his theory of embodied mind around drawing from the evidence that quantum events are not causal but are inherently unpredictable. But it can be construed from the thinking of Arthur Young, the philosopher/cosmologist, that these quantum events can also be understood as being “self-caused “, since their behavior is undetermined (by any prior cause).
Dr. Young claims that to any outside observer, a choice driven action is indistinguishable from purely random action. But to the quantum entity acting through choice there would have to be a profound difference. We know that on the macro level we are able to make choices and this fact compells us to ask how this is possible if we believe that choice does not exist on the micro level. It is plausible that it must exist to some degree all the way down to the sub-atomic level. How can there be this distinction of matter and mind without having two fundamental substances? It is here that DeQ. draws from the modern process philosophers- Leibniz, Bergson, and especially Whitehead. All were thinkers that converted the spacial and substance language to a temporal understanding of the world. This idea has a long thread in history which the author traces back to the Orphic influence, Milesians, ancient Greek philosophers, and up to the Renaissance with the philosopher Tommaso Campanella, who asserted that the only trustworthy of experience is the feeling of one’s own existence. But it was Giordano Bruno , the unsung hero to the author, who declared that matter possessed intelligence, in other words, came with it’s own algorithm program. He was a brilliant but unfortunate thinker who could be claimed to be a forerunner to Bohm’s concept of the implicate order. Bruno was burned at the stake for his ideas which he would
not recant since they smacked too much of pantheism as interpreted by the inquisition . Had his ideas been adopted instead of Descarte’s and Newton’s ideas of the mechanical universe with inert matter being controlled entirely by external forces , our thinking might have taken a different path. For Bruno, matter had “soul” and came with a teleological principle or an autopoietic drive. Today we are slowly learning from the sciences of chaos, complexity and fractal geometry that it is feasible, that matter does seem to give an account of itself as intrinsically self-organizing and self –propelled by an internal program.

DeQ. turns to Whitehead and David Ray Griffin, a contemporary process theologian, to explicate his forth alternative and resolve the anomalies and problems of the three dominant ontologies we have inherited from the past. Most of the rest of this summary deals with the process metaphysics of Whitehead and Griffin. Space and things are false categories for these process thinkers. For Whitehead, “actual entities” are the fundamental ingredients of reality. These actual entities are construed as events (actions) not things which become the primary “substances” of which our universe is constituted and these events must be conceived as “subjects experiencing”, a very radical idea. We know now, from the famous quantum physicists, Schroedinger, Heisenberg, Linde, et. al., that consciousness/experience must be included in a complete description of quantum events and also from Quantum findings, that each and every particle exerts some kind of “influence” everywhere and all at once, in a strange connection known as “quantum entanglement”.

Process involves consciousness because it unfolds by feeling or prehension the term used by Whitehead. The term prehension means to engulf, to perceive and to transform. Both matter and mind for Whitehead are only abstractions derived from actual events that are intrinsically experiential. All of these events are conceived as being mutually co-creating and thus never isolated but belonging to the complex matrix of reality with each event inter-related to every other event. His cosmology rests on an aesthetic foundation beyond reason, that we can’t know the ultimate rootsof the world solely by reason, but also through our aesthetic sense. It is a unique psychology of perception where primitive feelings come down no nerve fiber, yet account for the larger mass of our total awareness. Science emphasizes the sensory data over the nonsensory , especially the visual and kinesthetic senses (touch) which convinces us that the world consists of objects located in space. Whitehead called this the Fallacy of Simple Location. Rather objects must be perceived as petrified abstractions derived from process - the ever perishing now moment in time. Each new event is related by a kind of feeling (prehension) to the immediate previous moment (past) and to the immediately subsequent moment (future). In Whitehead’s metaphysics, some thing of the past is
always giving something of itself to the next future moment in the “now” moment which prehends them in process. In other words, it does not passively copy the past, rather it refreshes the design of the past , thereby, generating a novel present. The “now moment” is the ultimate reality for Whitehead and it ceaselessly vanishes into the past. The reality of the world is relationship flowing in a temporal process. Objects must be viewed as the products of the universe converging to become that object. (Concrescence) No objects are isolated and each object involves the whole universe in this manner. This comprises the “cosmosing” network that processes the universe into ever self-organizing cascades of creativity, which to Whitehead is the aim of the universe. The universe is conceived as holographic in this sense, the part contains the whole the whole contains the part . Each existing part enfolds within it the nature of everything else (Doctrine of Internal Relations) and all parts feel (prehend) the being and presence of other “organisms”. Value is a graded hierarchy and is the meaning of internal relations for Whitehead. Reality consists of pulses of vibrations/patterns that transition from one event to the next. As soon as an event arises it concresces with what Whitehead calls the” Eternal objects”, which exist only potentially. Examples being forms,colors, sounds,etc. that become the requirements for actual events to exist. The actual event completes itself and then perishes. Before it perishes, it passes on its essential actuality to a subsequent event. There is being, becoming, and perishing in this fashion.

For Whitehead, parts determine the whole, but never completely, since wholes impart novelty into the system ( downward causation). Mechanism has never been capable of accounting for creativity in relationships. This goes all the way down to even electrons in living bodies. An electron exterior to the body would be different from one within according to Whitehead. Those in the body would be affected by the body’s mental state.This is the concept of internal relations in organism. Each occasion of experience is a dipolar entity that prehends the past (objects) into the present (subject) and directs the organism toward the future in a “creative advance”. We know the world by how it impresses itself upon our body (somatic experiences). The present experience, which is always becoming, feels the past experience through physical prehension.
According to Whitehead, sense data is at the end, not the beginning of our knowledge of a highly complex selection and amplification by the somatic conditions of our bodies. Our experience of the world is essentially rooted in the matter of the body. Perception in this mode is extrasensory and intuitional. This is, in a sense, participatory epistemology- “knowing becomes being”.

As stated before, Whitehead believes that our sensory perception is derivative of a more fundamental extrasensory perception or feeling . The sensory mode of perception that nerves transmit he terms “presentational immediacy” and it is related to our knowledge of the world as it is filtered through our sensory-cognitive system. Reason alone cannot give a full account of reality. This is accepted by DeQ. when he states that somatic feeling is available to all of us and offers us an alternative to knowing besides sensory empiricism and reason in how we interact with the world . It appears at times as a gratuitous gift that does not have to be isolated from the rest of our conscious experience which may include the senses and reason . Granted that we don’t know where it comes from, it continues to play a significant part in how we find meaning and value in the world.

Mechanistic science with its emphasis on external causes , dismissed the possibility and actuality of self-causation. (Aristotle’s final cause). They only accepted efficient causation, even though there exist many troubling challenges rooted in the metaphysical assumptions of sensory empiricism, and reductionism. i.e. (the evidence of Psi phenomena) Whitehead’s metaphysics resolved the problems with a redefinition of matter and a new interpretation of the notion of causality. He believed that the notions of causality are derived from our own experiences of actuality which consists of “felt” influences in the mode of causal efficiency. It is experienced in our bodies or through the effect of our past on our present experience. “When we asssume causation, we can only understand it if we assume that there is some analogous experience taking place whereby at least one of the entities involved feels the influence of one or more other objects.”
Subjectivity must exist if causation is real, so claims Whitehead. The scientific approach abstracts the phenomena for measurement and causal analysis. This is “Knowing how,” but there is another kind that DeQ recognizes, following Whitehead, and that is”knowing> that” or participatory epistemology. This one blends subjectivity with the phenomenon investigated. It involves knowing as meaning whereas the other involves knowing through mechanism. As human beings we are capable of employing these extrarational capacities such as emotion , feeling tones and intuition to “knowing that”.i.e. -(heart-felt feelings, gut reaction, what it’s-like-within).

Arthur Young ,as mentioned before, has contributed greatly to DeQ.’s theory of participatory epistemology. There are four levels of knowing for this philosopher all are related to time and space dimensions:- 1) The first is the level of Spirit , lacking dimensions and the distinction between knower and known 2) The second is the level of the soul which involves the dimension of time –knowing through feeling or emotions 3) The third may be called cognitive knowing , knowing through spacial perception and involves our concepts and comparisons 4) The fourth level involves the combination of time and space and emotion and reason. Scientific knowing has dominated our thought to the point where it has eliminated all emotionality as though it is a subjective distortion of truth. But we know through common sense, that everyday knowing involves a blending of emotion and reasoning. (the forth level) Empathetic knowing is temporal but vital to the artistic or creative force, for it only can engage our subjectivity in the flux of events when we unconsciously feel for the“tones” and “patterns”of our experience and express them in artistic endeavors. This is where creativity takes hold and creativity is the yearning of the Cosmos to advance toward greater beauty, the only value that requires no justification for Whitehead.

In summary of the above, Mind as subject, exists only in the now. As soon as it completes itself in each instant, it perishes and slides back into the past. It becomes matter (object). Matter is by this process- “expired experience”. No sooner has the moment of experience moved into the past, it is replaced by a new moment of experience through physical prehension (causal efficiency). Matter is in this sense devoid of experience-only an abstraction, not an actuality. When we accept the nontemporal view that substance is actual , we commit the fallacy of “misplaced concreteness” in Whiteheadian terms. Thus, matter is to be understood as being only a phase in process. Its endurance continues from past to present because it is prehended in the present by some subject of experience. In process theory, actual reality consists of both the object and subject involved in a perpetual flux. The cycle proceeds from subject to object to subject to object,etc., or as DeQ puts it ,“past matter, present mind”. In this sense we are led to the understanding that mind and body are not different ontologically. They are rather the consequence of intrinsic temporal reality (experience in process). This makes the theory of panexperientialism a kind of Idealism in the sense that its ultimate ontology is experiential, and Realistic, since the ultimate units are the actualities.
Therefore, Ontology is codetermined with Epistemology for DeQ. In the Whiteheadian view, the creative power of the universe becomes the ultimate category of actuality/reality and the universe is seen as organistic. It manifests in the physical pole of events as energy and in the mental pole as self-action, freedom, choice and intentionality. The operating principle is process that reality is composed of instants of experience that endure for small spects of time and then dissolve which underlies the concept that the universe is always becoming never finished. It can be seen that there exists an obvious parallel here with the fleeting processes that have been revealed of quantum events, that shape our world about us.
Lastly, DeQ. traces the thread back to the ancient Chinese tradition and their concept of Ch’i and Li. Essentially this concept reminds us tha matter-energy could not exist without form or pattern and these manifest through the requirement of substance. The Tao itself is the unknowable void that issues forth the Ch’i and Li.

Under the current science paradigm the world is still only giving recognition to the Ch’i-(matter-energy). But there is this steady undercurrent of ideas of the organicist
philosophers that is slowly making its way into the fields of biology, physics, and cosmology as we accept the existence of non-material organizing fields at all levels of the organic hierarchy. In the Ch’i and Li , we have the “within” and ”without” of our processing universe. Matter-energy ascends the organic hierarchy until it achieves self-reflection consciousness. In Chinese philosophy the order and harmony of the cosmos is not by chance arrangements nor by divine inspiration, but from spontaneous cooperation of all organisms unfolding their intrinsic nature. In this mode of thinking the body knows itself-by feeling. The body becomes the media by which we are able to experience ourselves and the world. From the concept of Li, our bodies express their entelechy ( fulfilling an essential, dynamic purpose) through the intrinsic organizing principle that we happen to be. According to Chu Hsi, a twelfth century neo- Confucian that DeQ sites, “the Li of consciousness exists beforehand.” DeQ. interprets this as meaning that Li is logically prior to Ch’i, not chronologically. Li, by itself, is not conscious but becomes so in combination with the Ch’i. Thus, Eastern thinking implies embodied consciousness.


The Chinese view leads us to the notion that the universe tells its story through the great adventure of matter that is sentient and feeling. Each body is interdependent within the process and related to all other bodies within the whole. Meaning becomes the connection between beings, not mechanics. It is synchronicity, not causality that shapes these meanings and connections. “Mind is the self-becoming, the self-organization, and self-creation of matter.”

In conclusion , DeQ. expresses this beautiful statement: ‘The cosmos as a whole resonates to the creative meaning of its own never ending story, a narrative of ensouled matter and embodied experience, embracing the sublime paradox of “subjective objects”, and multiplicity-in–unity.’ He has made a plausible case for the forth alternative, that nature is sentient, purposeful, and possessed of meaning and value, that nature is sacred to the core, something we may already know deep inside, but now needs to be
rediscovered.

PART 2 THE ADVENTURE OF THE “MISS K” ON THE POTABSICO RIVER

What lousy luck, I thought, to hit a submerged boulder in all that water. It probably would not have happened, had it been day light, as we would have judged our distance better from the point. We all cussed our fate for a few moments, then made the decision to head back from whence we came, if we could. The engine was shut down and we were adrift, as we pulled up the trap doors to the bilge. We each took a turn at assessing the internal damage to the hull with a flash light . Right away we could see that the shaft bearing was cracked and water was seeping in, but there appeared no structural damage to those bottom planks, and we were all thankful for that. It was decided to turn all lights out, to conserve battery power, since we would have to operate the engine at the lowest throttle position. The Universal engine runs with a generator and not an alternator, so we had to lessen the chance that the battery would not be charging very much at low speed. This would prove to be a wise decision, one of the few that night. We knew there was damage to the prop and shaft by all the infernal vibration and noise, so I fired up the engine cautiously and took the helm, hoping the rudder was still operating… it was! I did a 180, as we were now moving at a snail’s pace back to opposite shore or, maybe, even to the marina, which was miles away. We were moving through pockets of fog, steering for the lights of the Sparrows Point Ship Yard that could be seen, occasionally, in the hazy mist. Wayne was watching the bilge and bailing the water out with a hand pump, as the seepage was fast becoming a steadier stream with all the vibration from the engine running. Meanwhile, that large ship was nearing the mouth of the river and starting into the channel. We could tell that by the color of the running lights that it was making the turn, we could see both of them. It still seemed pretty far away, so we weren’t too concerned. Our judgement would be poor that night. Now we are in a boat that is struggling in the dark, the engine is overheating, water is slowly rising in the bilge and I’m frantically searching for a channel buoy with only a flashlight. Finally, I see one up ahead, maybe 50 yards and I’m dead set on crossing it come Hell or High water! Wayne and Dennis now are taking turns bailing the water and suddenly the engine quits. I quickly hit the starter, but it just cranks and will not fire. The Miss K is adrift with just enough momentum to begin entering the channel barely moving. Wayne has always been a good mechanic, so he jumps into the engine compartment and slowly starts cooling the engine down by splashing bilge water on the head and sides. All along the big ship is coming straight up the channel probably moving faster now, because it has dumped its ballast, and, we are somewhere in the channel, powerless. Too risky, with the strong current there to try to swim for it, most likely we would all drown. We had to get the boat moving again, as I kept hitting the starter button and screaming “START”! at the top of my lungs. Because I had left it in gear, the starter was actually keeping the boat moving, since it was still turning the damaged prop. Glancing a look broadside, I could see, now, a forebidding sight, all the lights of that monster was starting appear like a slowly rising skyscraper out of the darkness of the black horizon and heading right for us. The drone of its powerful engines could now be heard , but the sound of the huge props splashing the water, ran chills up my back. They could make mince meat out of all us. In a last desperate attempt to get moving out of that channel , Wayne, who by now was making some quick adjustments to the carburator , yells to me, ”PUT IT IN NEUTRAL, AND TRY IT NOW”! By gosh, the engine fired and I took the chance of throttling it up. We had little time left as that ship closed on us and I gambled. It worked , the boat was shaking furiously, but we were moving out of the channel. All of us relieved as we passed the other channel buoy, grateful and celebrating with cheers. It seemed like a very short time that we began to see the portals of the huge ship passing us by and she was steaming. We could hear crewman above on the ship working. They had no idea that we were even around. We all forgot that we were going to be hit from the wake, and we took it broadside. Dennis was slammed to the deck, Wayne disappeared in the bilge, and I almost got flung over into the water, grabbing the guard rail only at the last second. The boat rocked hard and bobbed like a cork, as we slowly picked ourselves up being a bit bruised, battered and drenched. We broke down a few more times, that long night, tired and exhausted, but we got back to the marina and got the boat into the lift before it sank. The Miss K saved us that night and we saved her.

Panentheism, A Religion for the Twenty-first Century September, 2000

I first encountered the word, Panentheism, when I read Dr. Alfred Starratt’s book: THE REAL GOD, about 15 years ago, prior to my move to Maine from Maryland. Being in some kind of midlife crisis, at the time, I was reading a lot of contemporary theology, when I came across this small paperback in a Goodwill store. Reading the bio sketch of the author on the back cover, I noticed that Dr. Starratt was not only a philosopher with a Harvard Ph.D., but also, a minister of an Episcopalian church in downtown Baltimore. He also was doing a radio show each Sunday on the local PBS station. I managed to listen to a few of these talks and knew, right then and there, that I would try to meet this interesting minister. The first part of his radio talks usually dealt with some topic from the Bible, but within a few minutes Starratt could take you into a whole new outlook about that same passage. Right away I could see why he was so controversial as a minister. He was quite untraditional and doing his own theology.

I decided to head downtown one Sunday morning and see this man in person. As I entered his church , the first thing that impressed me was the sheer size of the congregation. The church was completely full. Many different races and all manner of economic types of people there in the pews. It didn’t take long before I experienced his charismatic presence, and you could tell that the congregation both appreciated and loved this man. I was very impressed and felt awful that this was one of his last services, as he was being retired after 30 years of ministering this church. Unfortunately, I had missed all those years. After the service I got to meet him and within the next few weeks we became friends. I continued correspondence with him and subscribed to his bimonthly journal called, “THE COGITO”.

Five years ago, he decided to move to Maine. He’s now 86, and resides in Penobscot County near Castine. I paid him a visit just this past summer, and found his mind to be still functioning well, and even though he has a mild case of Parkinson’s disease , he gets around. He still writes his Journal which was renamed- “The Walrus” when he came to Maine.

Dr Starratt , as a young lad living on a farm in Danvers, Mass., had a mystical experience which he describes in his other book –YOURSELF,MYSELF AND THE SELF OF THE UNIVERSE. It basically transformed him and set his course in life. He survived a severe case of Polio, in his early 20’s, when the doctors told his mother he would certainly die. He went on to college, seminary, and finally ended up receiving a Ph.D. in philosophy of religion from Harvard. He traveled to the Orient where he studied and taught Oriental Religions and philosophy at Huachung University in Central China for several years before the Communists took over. He then returned to America and took up residence in Baltimore, and worked as a minister, reviving a dying Episcopal Church there.

His radio sermons won many followers through the years including agnostics, Buddhists, Hindus, Christians and Jews because panentheistic philosophy is inclusive, rather than exclusive and covers the whole range of religious opinion. He could have easily been viewed as a UU minister in some of his sermons and actually did speak a few times at the Castine Unitarian Church, until he was warned he could lose his pension.

The other minister that influenced my thinking in this theology was the Creation Spirituality theologian- Matthew Fox. Although, I never met him personally, I remember walking into a bookstore in Damarascotta and being “grabbed”, somehow, by the title of one of his books-THE COMING OF THE COSMIC CHRIST! I read the book and was motivated to read more of his works, since Matthew is also a panentheist. I now lean more towards a panentheistic understanding of this universe from the wisdom and thinking of these two scholars.

So what is PAN-EN- THEISM? From the Greek, the term means, All-in- God or God –In- All. Dr Starratt was fond of using the analogy of God as the ocean and we are the waves . We are parts of the whole- the ocean, but NOT the whole ocean.

Panentheism is an eclectic religious philosophy made up of ancient and modern world views. It incorporates the wisdom of Toaism, Vedic Scriptures, Mysticism, process philosophy, as well as current scientific findings ,especially Quantum Physics. Unlike pantheism which states that God is the universe, panentheism accepts the paradox of an immanent as well as a transcendent God. In the thinking of Starratt, the universe is seen as the activity of God’s unfoldment. God being the the primal energy of which all things including us are vibrating variations of that energy. Each of us being a piece of God, so to speak, in a specific time and place. The universe is more like a process than a series of things. Happenings or events take precedence over substance as the universe emerges towards greater structure and complexity all leading towards evolution of life,mind, and greater consciousness in the spectrum of Being. The late Sir James Jeans, the English Physicist, stated that the universe begins to look more like a great thought. Panentheism is a philosophically holistic religion ,in that it views interrelationships and connections of part to whole as being vital to the understanding of the truth of the universe. It, therefore, places a high value on the mystic’s vision of unity permeating all reality.

When Paul Tillich, the great German theologian,asserted that the universe is an expression of the Divine nature, but that God is not simply equal to the sum of the parts of the universe, but rather “God is the ground of all being”, he was expressing a panentheistic principle- God is in reality but also God is bigger than Reality.

The truths of Panentheism come from a blend of beliefs, intuitions, observations, and rational thought, which focus on the now-moment of existence, rather than the past or future. Its tenets are not written in stone, but are modifiable as new scientific evidence comes forth. This is the nature of reality as becoming. The universe exists in flux, change is all around us.

Alfred North Whitehead, the great 20th century process philosopher, declared that ultimate reality lies only in the Now experience, which he called the actual occasion, and this is constantly perishing every instant. His idea here is that the reality of the world is continuously being created.
In its concept of mankind, panentheism states that we are not simply a body and mind, but our essential nature is the soul and that we are in God through the soul connection which is to be understood as God’s perception of you. Our souls are capable of learning and experiencing in freedom, and because we are parts of the Deity ,we must respect each other as such, not from commandment, but rather from understanding of the very nature of what we are. Thus it removes the traditional hierarchy between God and mankind, which is a theistic doctrine. What exists is an interdependence between us, not a separation, but rather a symbiotic relationship. We need God, in a sense, and God needs us, for this is the way God “grows”. We are thus thrust into being co-creators with God as Matthew Fox has stated, when we fully engage in our creative freedom. We are here to celebrate God with our lives, not worship him/her. We are all works of art in progress. Rabbi Abraham Heschel says, “We are not here just to continue life, we are here to exult it.” And from Nicolai Berdeyev, “The creation of the world is not only a process which moves from God to humanity, God demands newness from humanity; God awaits the works of human freedom”.

Because we are stuck in an illusion that makes us appear to be isolated and separate from the natural world, we are not in awe of it and therefore , exploit it, recklessly causing its degradation. We fail to see the sacred in the creation which M. Fox says was the original blessing that God extended to man. A gift of love which we have essentially turned our back on. Thus we remain on the road to ecological disaster or technological suicide, whatever comes first. Here, I’m reminded of that passage from the Saint Thomas Gospel where it says, “The kingdom of God is here, but men do not see it”.

While there is time, we need to shift our perception of each other as being parts of the Divine nature, and our environment as God’s body, to bring back the respect and reverence required to save it and ourselves. We are conscious beings emerging from the Divine Reality. We are therefore faced with an awesome responsibility before us, since the future world that we are helping to create is open, and we are allowed in our freedom to honor it or destroy it.

As we all know, evil exists in the world and what does panentheism have to say about the problem of evil? According to Dr Starratt, evil exists because the creating power brings about the experience of good in all its forms by dynamic interaction with all t he various forms of evil. It is impossible in the dualist universe to have one without the other, just as its impossible to perceive a figure without a contrasting background. There can be no light without shadow or darkness. We, therefore, should not condemn the evil that exists in man , but at he same time, cannot absolve man of his responsibility either. We are here to do our best to triumph over evil knowing all the while that it will crop up again and again. This is the Yin and Yang of existence.

To the panentheist to follow our moral compass entails that we understand that we are all parts of the process of the unfoldment of God. We are here to contribute our creative gifts to each other and the caring for mother earth. By doing so we expand God’s power, knowledge, and presence. We thus shape the God that exists, or we mold the reality that is to become. This idea runs counter to the theistic doctrine that makes man submissive to God as a servant to the master, so to speak, thereby limiting our potential as humans. The redemption/fall theology which has been the history of Christians for hundreds of years, since St.Augustine, has in the opinion of M. Fox contributed greatly to the abuse of the environment and to each other. Guilt is meant to let us know when we have done wrong, it is not meant to be used by religion as a tool to manipulate people, and until we can elevate man’s consciousness of himself as being of the Divine nature, can we ever hope to effectuate the behavioral change that is required for humanity to find better harmony and peace in this world.

In the end, there is no equilibrium out there or in us, for this means stagnation. Since God is eternally becoming, we are to work hand- in- hand with the creator to magnify God’s glory and significance. The universe is a work in progress through the journey of our creative souls. Or to use A..N. Whitehead’s idea – “the final cause of the cosmos is beauty in action . Beauty is the only self-justifying value. The main activity of the universe is the creative advance into novelty.”

I conclude this talk with a comment from Dr.David Bohm, the late quantum physicist-
“We need a more holistic approach to the ecological problem and must find something else in life besides economic growth. I f it continues unchecked, it will destroy the planet. The emerging change in consciousness is the challenge and the key. Our future depends on whether we feel like part of this one whole, or whether we feel we are separate.”

THE MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE

I first came across the term “mysticism” in the early 60’s when I read a book by the British philosopher, Walter Stace, called:-THE TEACHINGS OF THE MYSTICS. I’m basing most of my talk today on his commentary of this unique experience that he distilled from the broad range of mystical literature when he worked and lived in India.

From the introduction of his book, Stace attempts to distinquish mysticism from what is commonly referred to as the occult, ghosts,or spirits, and emphasizes that we should rather embrace it as a rare, NON-INTELLECTUAL STATE OF CONSCIOUSNESS. The word, itself, comes from the Greek word:MYSTIKOS , which means hidden or secret. It appears that the mystic tradition has been a part of man’s history for millennia. Aldous Huxley called it the PERENNIAL PHILOSOPHY, because it keeps arising anew, originally from the teachings of the ancient prophets, and founders of all religions to more contemporary times with Emerson, William Blake and Gandhi..

Williams James, the psychologist/philosopher, although. not a mystic himself, considered it to be the source and origin of all religion. James made the claim that our so called “normal consciousness” was only one special type, but underlying this was a potential form that was more real and entirely different. By choosing only to identify with the temporal world, modern man would have to “earn” the awareness again of what is infinite, or that which has eternal existence.

In general, the mystical consciousness paradoxically lacks any sensations at all , nor does it contain any concepts or thoughts according to the mystic. It is also considered to be not adequately describable by any language. It feels beyond words and thought, beyond even space and time and even beyond the feeling of there being an experiencer having the experience.

It is sometimes known as the “oneness experience” from those that have achieved it- an apprehension of the nonsensuous unity of all things. Usually the experiencer comes away from this radical realization transformed from its profound effect with a deep sense of peace, optimism and well being. The mystic masters have often described the experience as pure ecstasy or ultimate bliss, an insight into the real truth of all existence. There is an expansion of one’s awareness level that includes the whole cosmos. Some have termed it the “Cosmic Consciousness” and even many contemporary quantum physicists have used that phrase.. The self, time, and space, all the primary categories in which we frame our normal experience vanish, leaving behind an effective tone of pure consciousness-awareness without any images.

The experience, itself, defies verbal description and can only be hinted at with words, yet, most mystics, in their absolute elation of its effect and value make the attempt to relate this extraordinary experience to others, knowing that all verbalization falls short of conveying the actual felt meaning. It can be conceptualized, but, it itself, is not a concept.

Lest we think that these transcendental experiences were only the property of ancient meditators, prophets, sages or seers, there is a growing body of evidence of accounts of these experiences being studied in several psychology departments across the country under the heading of transpersonal psychology. Abraham Maslow, the humanist psychologist, referred to them as peak experiences , and they may be more commonplace than we think. In fact, Dr Charles Tart, a transpersonal psychologist , at the University of California, keeps a large archive on the inner net devoted exclusively to only scientists’ accounts. These are scientists in all fields, many with Ph.D.s, who have been brave enough to come forth to offer a description of their own spontaneous realization that had while working in science. Most confessing that they were absolute skeptics or completely ignorant of the whole claim of mysticism up until the time of their own “awakening.” The archive is called T.A.S.T.E., which stands for:- THE ARCHIVES OF SCIENTISTS’ TRANSCENDENTAL EXPERIENCES. Many, who reported these accounts, wrote privately to Dr Tart stating that they were initially reluctant to come forth, because they feared ridicule from their colleagues and were concerned about their identity being revealed. Yet many did think it important enough to overcome this and sent it in with their names. It continues to be a growing archive.

Our own UU tradition keeps an open mind about the mystical and it includes it as one of the many paths of religious diversity that we should respect and honor. In a survey that I saw on the inter net recently of 8000 UU’s in terms of what religious preferences they had, at least 6.7 percent said they were mystics, 13 % said they were theists, and 49% claimed to be humanists. It is still a small percentage , but it may be growing phenomena if we consider two Gallop polls taken of the general public on the question of whether one has ever had a mystical experience: in 1973, 27% polled said yes, and by 1990 that had gone up to 54%, with most claiming that the experience had a beneficial effect on their lives and outlook. I have known a few mystics, some are personal friends. I can’t say for sure if I have had one, but I’ve had many peak experiences and one in particular , that I experienced in the frozen wilderness of Northern Ontario, that changed the course of my life, but I will have to save that for another time.

William James identified four hallmarks of the mystical experience that he extracted from the world’s mystical literature, and these are:

INEFFABILITY –experience is more like a state of feeling rather than anything cognitive

A NOETIC QUALITY-experience is a sudden flash of profound truth or insight

TRANSIENCY-the experience is fleeting, yet seems eternal

PASSIVITY- the individual self dissolves away and feels sustained by a greater power

When we exam the testimony of the mystics of past and present, we are struck by the unanimity of agreement between all of the different cultures, religions and regions in the world where it occurs. The interpretation which necessarily comes afterwards, may vary, but the ultimate realization seems essentially identical in content. That, and the fact that those who have achieved this awakening are radically transformed in character gives the experience a legitimacy for believing it to be a worth while phenomenon for inquiry.

Stace believed we don’t have to assume the experience is miraculous or supernatural, for even atheists have encountered it. It most likely has been produced by the natural processes of evolution, i.e., if we think for a moment about the pervading electromagnetic spectrum that exists in the universe, we all know that only a small band is capable of being perceived by sense of vision. The rest is totally imperceivable without the use of technical instrumentation to detect it. By the same token, consciousness may be conceived as a broader spectrum also, in which we are mostly limited to the normal sensuous cognitive aspect, except for those rare peak experiences which occur in some individuals, spontaneously, without rhyme or reason. Some have acquired it after years of meditative discipline og yogi’s and sages through a rare moment of clarity in contemplation, such as the Dalai Lama. The Indian philosopher, Aurobindo, believed that all mankind would ultimately attain this deeper awareness through natural evolution, though it might take a million years.

Of the two types of mystical experience mentioned by Stace, there is the extraverted one where there is an actual apprehension of the one source of the physical world that shines through the multiplicity and diversity that appears to exist in the external world. Dr Starratt’s experience would be exemplary of this type.

The introverted type is considered to be of a higher level that stems from the introspection and leads to the discovery of one of at the profoundest depth of human personality. Here the knower and known coalesce and become one or non-dual in a state of pure consciousness, what I think Paul Tillich, the great 20th century German theologian, referred to as the GROUND OF BEING..

Dr Amit Goswami, the Quantum Physicist, who wrote the standard text in Quantum Physics that is studied by all graduate physics students, came upon the experience at once, while he was arguing with a friend, when his friend shouted to him that –“consciousness is prior and unconditioned. It is all there is! There is nothing but God.” On hearing this, Goswami states in his book:THE SELF-AWARE UNIVERSE, that those words lifted the viel for him and shifted his whole whole perception of the world in a flash. He says in this book and I quote him here-“that we do not see it because we are so enamored of the experience, of our own melodramas, of our attempts to predict and control , to understand and manipulate everything rationally. In our efforts, we miss the simple thing- the simple truth that all is God,” which is the mystic’s way of saying all is consciousness.

Then there is the famous English poet, Alfred Lord Tennyson, who had these experiences early as a young child. They later came on spontaneously in the beginning, but he later developed the ability of regaining the experience just by simply repeating his own name over and over to himself in a meditative trance like a mantra. Even Gandhi writes about an inner voice that he would intuit in deep contemplation whenever he was in a precarious situation that he could put his total trust in. He came to believe that Truth is God from that insight.

Why some are able to achieve these transcendental states and how so many things can trigger them remains a mystery. Although, there is an important connection between religion and mysticism, It was Stace’s contention that the connection was more secondary than primary or immediate. Each culture and religion tends to divest the experience in terms of its own dogma or creed. We must keep in mind that the interpretation of it can only resonate with what is remembered afterwards. None of it can be exactly identical to the living experience, itself. It tends naturally to be structured in the language of the individual’s culture or tradition.

Stace recognized three kinds of religious interpretations:

The THEISTIC- which interprets the “oneness” experience a s union with God or the eternal being. This became the meaning for the Jewish, Christian , and Sufi faiths

Then there is the MONISTIC MYSTIC- who interprets it as union with the absolute or impersonal soul of the universe. This is the way the Hindu conceptualizes it and it is called Samadhi

Finally the BUDDHIST interpretation- The experience is of no God at all, but rather an experience of the VOID, pure formless emptiness which is called Nirvana.

What is to be noted here in the universal testimony of many mystics is the transformation of character in which the individual undergoes the transition as an egotistical self to a more selfless person in thought and deed. Thus we may consider that Both Jesus and the Buddha were truly mystics in their time. Some mystics fervently believe that the mystical consciousness is the real secret fountain of all LOVE , which is the origin from where all morality flows. Selfishness and cruelty result from a misperception that we are disconnected, separate and alienated from others and our environment. But the mystic testimony counters this by insisting that the deeper truth is we are really all one, no one is an island. The Buddhist, who believein no God, still hold up Compassion as being the highest goal of all mankind on account of this insight:- that love, in the final analysis , is the only source of true moral behavior.

Even the skeptic among us, can likely find in the experience of the mystic something that can only be qualified as being sacred, and this feeling is as close to a religious experience as one can hope for. Most scientists , because they study the empirical world, believe that all truth is limited to the avenue of the senses. To the mystics this can only be a partial truth. I t will take time before scientific paradigm gives way and the mystical understanding is understood as a greater truth. But, ever so slowly, this may be happening as more accounts of transpersonal experiences come out in the open, pointing to the idea that Teilhard De Chardin, scientist /theologian stated in ;THE PHENOMONON OF MAN, that we as conscious beings will eventually evolve collectively into a greater consciousness which he called the Noosphere and achieve the highest truth of creation.

In concluding my talk today, I allude to the work of the late psychiatrist,Victor Frankl, who survived the Holocaust and went on to develop Logotherapy:- the understanding that the will to meaning is vitally important to ur mental health and survival. He discovered this insight from his observations at the Nazi death camp: those that life had a purpose were more likely to endure and survive the horrible suffering, than those that gave up on life as being meaningless. Frankl came to an understanding that all spirituality had its basis in man”s unconscious, constitutes the full spectrum of human existence. Like the human eye, there exists a blind spot in our consciousness wher spirit has its origin. So there , no self observation is possible. At this spot we may fully subscribe to what the Indian Vedas were expressing when they wrote 3000 years ago:” that which does the seeing cannot be seen, that which does the hearing cannot be heard, that which does the thinking cannot be thought”.

A few individuals have penetrated this viel or blindspot in a strange fleeting moment to become witness to this greater reality that exists beyond the threshold of most of us. They have endeavored to bring this light , this realization with resonating words that can only be feeble to the task. Most of us have not achieved this, but we can, at least be receptive to its wisdom and possibility for our own spiritual journeys. So I encourage you all to take time to explore the varied accounts that make up the mystic literature, both past and present, with the hope that they might inspire you beyond you r boundaries, and, who knows, if you might be next in line to be truly awakened and transformed by the COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS. GO IN PEACE.

The Story of Corinna Farmstead

It was moving day in early March of '86 when we adventured north to Central Maine and our house in the woods. My wife,Ann, drove the '66 Chevy packed to the ceiling with provisions and odds and ends, and I drove the '79 Dodge pickup with a camper cap. In the cab was my 2-year old son strapped in his restraining seat, and in the back, our two canines: a nervous Great Pyrenees,"LOBO", and a somewhat more docile Golden retriever, "Chrysos".
There were over 600 miles to cover in this "leap into the unknown", but we were determined to do it in a day. By the time we touched Maine, the snow was flying and driving was slowing to a crawl. Along the way, LOBO, the pyrenees , would let us know with his timely ferocious barking, that large tractor -trailer trucks were closing in on us. As they would roll by the Dodge would shake as LOBO would pounce on the side of the camper crazed by the heavy roar of the engines surrounding us. Somewhere on I-95, one of the windshield wipers on the Chevy gave out restricting my wife to a smaller field of vision in the vast whiteness of the storm. We and the semi's appeared to be the only ones foolish enough to be out there in the storm. We had no choice but to press on....so I stayed in front of the Chevy, hopefully giving Ann some thing to follow or aim at, at least.
Somehow, at last, we found the road and our challenging driveway. It was 800 feet long, curvy and downhill. It did not take long to to get stuck. Exhausted and groggy, we unloaded some provisions and trekked the rest of the way with child and dogs, all gleeful to be stretching our stiff legs. Our feet were wet and numb as we entered the house which sits up on a knoll. I made a bee-line to the wood stove gathering some combustibles along the way. But we soon discovered we had failed to pack a very important essential...matches! Shivering from the cold ,we frantically searched the cupboards and closets , to no avail. Then just when we were about to utter a primal scream, from the corner of my eye , I saw something red on the window sill. It was a bic lighter. I made a dash for it and shook it. It seemed empty. With trepidation I hurried back to the open stove and gave it a flick...a weak flame appeared. Soon the small flame gave birth to a warming fire and our house became our home.