04.20.08
A Certified “Mystic” story
This week this story came in from a person in the United States and I am one hundred percent sure this person belongs in our “Mystic” group. He claims he never went through any of the stages and started out at the Mystic level as a child. This may well be the case. However, even though his story shows no progression through any stages, it certainly does give us a clear idea of how a mystic approaches spiritual concerns.
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Dear Ms. Johnston,
I just came across your website today via a Google search. FYI, your sight
comes up #1 for the search [temperament Fowler faith] not [Christian].
Just from this search you may be able to tell something about me, but of
course, I am writing to tell you my story, which I believe might be very
unusual. While I was not familiar with Peck’s stages until just now, I was
familiar with Fowler’s. I am solidly in Peck’s stage 4 and may be in stage
6 in Fowler’s system. I’ve just recently come across Wilber, so I can’t
speak to that system yet. Anyway, I believe that my story is highly
unusual because I think I was at Peck’s stage 4 in early elementary
school! Here’s my tale …
When Did I Develop Through the Stages?
I grew up in a small town in the midwest, with both my mother and father
as educators in the general fields of literature and the humanities. My
father, who died unexpectedly when I was 12, was never obviously
interested in organized religion. My mother at one time entered a convent
intent on becoming a Roman Catholic nun. At some point she decided this
was not the right path for her, and she was not an active church-goer
either while I grew up. I recall a content childhood in a caring
environment. I was a very good boy and a model student.
My story begins when I was 5 or 6, and my mother enrolled me in Sunday
School at the Catholic church just a few blocks from our house in town. I
have few memories of the classes, and do not know how long I attended
them. What I remember clearly, however, was an abrupt and strong feeling
that came over me as we were asked one Sunday morning to draw a picture of
Jesus with our family. In no way could I color a picture like all the
others, of a robed and bearded man holding hands with me and my family. I
thought, so clearly and forcefully, “this doesn’t make any sense; it is
just not this way.” Of course, at that age I had no possible way of
expressing what I now know are my natural tendencies toward the abstract
and mystical areas of spirituality. What I did after that was remarkable -
the following Sunday when my mom dropped me off at the church education
building, I waited inside the door until she was out of sight, and then I
spent the class time in the park across the street. I simply could not participate in the teachings of that class any longer. That may have been the only time I played hooky from Sunday school, for I do not recall ever going back.
Over the years, my mother, brother, and I made a few sporadic attempts to
attend church, the most memorable of which was a kind of hip Catholic
ministry associated with the university where my mother taught. I was not
hostile to church, but it never connected to me, and I do remember as a
teenager discussing with my mother whether I was an atheist or agnostic.
Because of all the curiosity and humility inside me, agnostic seemed like
a safe tag for myself. I took these matters very seriously even though I
was not a student of religion or philosophy at the time. For example, in
order to represent my school at a statewide mock-government meeting
sponsored by the American Legion, I had to sign a form stating that I
believed in God. I did sign the form, and while at the meeting I asked one
new acquaintance whether he believed in God; he wasn’t sure either, but
signing the form was not a big deal to him. For me, making a promise or
commitment was always a very big deal. Rationally I knew
that I wouldn’t get caught by anybody by signing for my God-belief, but
intuitively I knew that I was absolutely “caught” by something/someone at
a much higher level that was aware of everything. I never put this
feeling together with the God of the church, however. Academically, I was
succeeding through school, with talent in mathematics and science.
Although the rest of my family were much more literary and artistic, I
was thoroughly technical and abstract-reasoning. Our house was full of
books, and I recall being fascinated with an encyclopedia of philosophy
we had, but also frustrated that I could not comprehend the difficult
concepts within.
Come college, interestingly I chose to attend a catholic liberal arts
college in my state. I was nearly set to attend a distant powerhouse
school, but as the time came to make a final decision I did what seemed
better for me and my temperament. To this day I am convinced of the
correctness of this choice, as I ended up very happy in the community
atmosphere of my college. My education continued to focus on hard science,
although I took advantage of the many electives with courses in music,
art, and history. Science was ridiculously easy for me, while classes in
the humanities were much more difficult. Looking back, the most
life-influential course I took was in the honors program, a year-long
seminar on issues of modernity and faith. At the time, almost nothing of
the course’s content stuck with me. However, the benefit was the great
library of books we were required to purchase in the program, so that I
was aware of a greater world of intellectualism and the types of problems
being undertaken.
Graduate school followed, and then post-doctoral training;
this was 10 years of intensive training in biochemistry and biomedical
research techniques. I invested no energy in overt spiritual-mindedness at
all for this decade. However, it was obvious that I was an unusually
ethical and moral person; religious friends remarked that I was the most
“Christian” person they know and I was nearly completely ignorant of the
church’s teachings. My career began with another 10 year period of intense
work and focus on things scientific. I married and started a family during
this period. My wife was raised in a strict protestant environment, though
currently she is not a regular church-goer, either.
My story now reaches a point of explanation, in that my spiritual quest
has been underway for some 5 years now. Currently, I am an accomplished
professional - a manager of research projects at a large, complex medical
institution. The blessing is that my job has become much more manageable
now, in that it does not consume all of my waking attentions. With this
new freedom for my mind, I decided to begin exploring my longtime
interests in mythology, the meaning and origins of organized religion,
consciousness and decision-making, and the psychologies of temperament and
of human development. Study in all these areas was important because I was
trying to answer the question of who I was and why was I so unusually
honest and moral. Well, as happens, my studies have taken me places I had
only the smallest inkling of before, including eastern religions and
philosophy, overviews of western intellectualism, and recently diving into
serious literature.
The most blissful feeling of connectedness and purpose filled me during these studies, once I came to understand that there was a valid world of spiritual paths that was not connected to Christian churches! Furthermore, I understand now that I have the most
profound faith - it is the foundation of my worldview and the basis for my
humanity in dealing with all others - but it is not linked to any religious doctrine! It was absolutely amazing to me that this was possible - that spirituality could be so strong and meaningful without going to church. In my previous 40 years I was sheltered by small-town homogeneous values and then by the modern technical world. Not until recently did I come to understand the much wider ways in which us humans have approached
the issues of belief, faith, ethics, personal integrity, and on and on.
In short, I am a mystic; I love, completely love god in the abstract way
that I choose to conceptualize god. This is god beyond all the
anthropomorphic images, beyond the creeds, scriptures and dogma, even
beyond good and evil, as Nietzsche said. Contemplating the overarching
unity of it all, and the beauty in what is unknown, is what fulfills me.
Now, the strange part of my story is that when I think back, as far back
as the 6-year-old who did not want to draw a picture of Jesus, I believe
that this was my level of development at that time, too. I always wanted
to do the right thing - not because of the possibility of punishment for
doing bad, but because it mattered somewhere, somehow if things were not
good or beautiful or perfected. This is my faith: there is something
unknowable all around us, call it god; god really matters, and aligning
yourself with god will lead you through a life that is exactly appropriate
for you. My learning has shown me that others have described this
god-concept as tao.
Strong faith, and contemplation of god/tao has steered me and my decisions
all through childhood and adulthood. From childhood on I have thought hard
about what happens to us at death, and I have stared at the night sky and
thought about what was at the edge of the universe, or what existed before
the big bang. I would think about these things until the unknowable-ness
of it became too much for me to bear. Still, the unknown was so important
that I would not stop these contemplations. My faith has also always been
highly universal. When I first heard, at age 6 or so, the Christian
doctrine that only those who believed in Jesus would go to heaven, I
rejected it outright with the reasoning that the God who Jesus represents
would not be disinterested in all the people in China and elsewhere who
did not have a chance to hear His story and believe. I was not afraid of
damnation at all; I was afraid of acting against what was firmly within
me, as that would have been the greater sin. Growing up, my friends spoke of their guilt over sex or other behaviors, and I could not relate because I always seemed to have an internal standard of right and wrong. My conclusion is that since 1st grade, I have operated at Fowler’s stage 5 or higher, and definitely within Peck’s stage 4. I cannot
recall a time when the conventional stages of faith or moral reasoning applied to me.
So, I know you asked for people’s stories of development through the stages. My story is different, obviously, and I hope that you enjoy and learn from it, too.
Best regards,
Lee McDonald
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Oh! I need to mention - all those comments he made about being really ethical and moral and honest - those are more typical of the Rational level - which only makes the point that each stage both transcends and includes all the prior stages. Mr. McDonald here may not recall going through a Rational stage - but he shows signs of having remaining traces of that stage in him.
Annie said,
September 11, 2008 at 7:13 am
I tried commenting before and it didn’t work I don’t think, but I’ll try again.
I think this individual does show signs of having gone through other stages, and I can honestly say I envy his natural progression.
I remember making a similar decision when I was 7.
I was being taught all these things in Sunday school, and I just knew..there was something wrong with them. This could simply be a humans natural sense of morality, or the inquisitive mind that looks beyond the stories and requires explanations, I’m not sure.
What I remember most of all however, was telling my mum I didn’t think I believed any of it, and did I have to continue to go. She said No I didn’t, and I wasn’t required to believe. Then..I said in my head “Sorry God, it’s not that I don’t love you, I just don’t agree with them”. I still remember that like it was yesterday. I remember thinking it was really important that “God” knew that I wasn’t rejecting him and I hoped I wasn’t hurting his feelings by not listening to all of ” them”.
I’m a firm stage 3′er atm, but have gone through a similar process to you(starting with Scott Peck also), so I am enjoying your Blog a lot.
Thanks for making the effort to write all your thoughts, research and ideas down, it is greatly appreciated
MPJ said,
September 11, 2008 at 3:09 pm
Thanks for your comment. I agree with you that I think I see stages this person went through earlier in his life. But he point blank stated that he never did so I could hardly disagree with him.
You are certainly lucky to have had such an understanding mum who said you did not have to believe if you didn’t want to. How many people grow up too afraid to even think that, much less articulate it to their parents? How many parents would accept such a comment?
Thanks also for appreciating my blog. They say people usually write about what they need to better understand personally themselves, so I guess that is part of my motivation - that and finding myself annoyingly somewhere between Stage 3 and 4. I can understand Stage 4 intellectually and have respect for it, but I don’t feel it personally. So I guess I write to try and sort all that out….
Anyway, thanks for writing. Keep in touch!
Margaret Johnston