Dear Member
Welcome to the third newsletter of the SIG, a
full edition we hope you will enjoy reading.
Thank you for the positive feedback we have
received about the newsletter, which is encouraging. Besides
the reports of meetings, we are glad to include book reviews and
notices you have sent to us. Please do send in your comments
and views as we are aiming to make the newsletter both informative
and "interactive" for members.
Again, please remember to return the reply
slip at the end of the newsletter if you are able to come to the
meeting on May 4th, 2001 on
"Engaging the Spiritual Mind."
Warmest good wishes
Gillian Broster, Daphne Wallace, Andrew Powell
(editors)
Contents
Forgiveness and Reconciliation: Dr. Jack Dominion
Forgiveness: Psychological and Religious
Aspects:
Dr. Fraser Watts
Forgiveness
and Reconciliation: Professor Femi. Oyebode
Chairman’s
corner: Dr. Andrew Powell
BBC
Reith Lectures Afterword: HRH. The Prince of
Wales
Intimations of Immortality – The Nature of Near-Death
Visions: Dr. Peter Fenwick
Report
on 10th Annual Conference on Religion and
Psychiatry:
Dr. Daphne Wallace
Book
Review: Dr. Sunhil Raheja
Notices
and Forthcoming Events
Programme
and reply slip for SIG meeting May 4th 2001
The meeting was chaired by Professor
Andrew Sims and Dr. Andrew Powell. There were three speakers in the
morning, the afternoon being used for questions and
discussion. This was the first time that guest speakers had
been invited who were not members of the SIG. It was an
extremely informative and thought-provoking day with the morning
talks giving rise to a very stimulating and wide-ranging discussion
in the afternoon. All three speakers kindly provided abridged texts
of their talks, which we have reproduced for the newsletter
‘Forgiveness and Reconciliation’
By J Dominion
F.R.C.Psych
I start with a resume of my
psychiatric training and work because it forms the background of my
paper. I started my psychiatric training at the Maudsley in
1958, achieved my D.P.M. in 1961 and became consultant psychiatrist
at the Central Middlesex Hospital and Shenley in 1964. After
qualifying, I had a Jungian analysis but did not proceed to an
analytical training. I read extensively the dynamic
literature and in the last forty years have proceeded with an
eclectic therapeutic approach, which includes a great deal of
psychotherapy. My main specialised interest has been marital
pathology and marital therapy, and it was with reference to my
marital work that I became interested in forgiveness and
reconciliation, apart from its centrality to the Christian faith to
which I belong.
At the heart of forgiveness is the
reparation of a broken relationship and as such it is crucial for
human relationships and for those between states. It is in the
interpersonal relationship of marriage and other intimate
relationships that I am familiar with conflict, forgiveness and
reconciliation. From the start of marital work, I was struck
by the difference between couples who angered one another and yet
resolved their conflict quickly and completely, and couples who,
after a quarrel, sulked for days and weeks and who could not
forgive.
Dynamically, I was, and am attracted
by object relations theories and at the heart of these stands
Melanie Klein. As some of you will be aware, central to her
work are two early positions, covering the first six months of
life. The first three months she calls the paranoid-schizoid
position. Klein postulates that the baby goes through a range
of good and bad feelings, identified with the full and empty
breast. When the baby is fed and satisfied, it feels good and
its anxiety abates. When the breast is empty, the baby too
feels empty and bad. Klein postulates that the baby deals
with its bad feelings by projecting them outside itself, hence the
term paranoid, from whence the baby feels persecuted. At this
stage the baby does not know what to do with these persecutory
feelings.
In the following three months the
baby experiences the breast and thus the mother as a whole and can
tackle its bad feelings with reparation. The young child
experiences repeatedly persecution, loss, guilt and
reparation. I know many question the validity of Klein's
theories on the early months but we can see it in adult life with
the persistent projection of bad feelings in paranoid people and
the capacity in mature people to deal with anger and hurt by making
reparation.
For me, this Kleinian theory is at
the root of one explanation of forgiveness. The young child,
but all of us, have to juggle with the mixture of good and bad
feelings in us and, on the balance between the two, emerges our
self-esteem. With the word self-esteem, I come to the main
dynamic proposition of my understanding of forgiveness. Our
capacity to forgive, the ease, speed and endurance of our
forgiveness are related to our level of self-esteem. The more
we love and accept ourselves, the greater is the psychological room
inside us to adjust to the hurt, compensate for it and to
forgive. The lower our self-esteem, then the room for
compensation and adjustment is less, the bad feeling more intense
and our capacity to forgive reduced. Self-esteem is the key
to forgiveness in the sense that the balance of good and bad
feelings within us determines our ability to accept hurt without
being overwhelmed, and to have sufficient resources to support our
ego.
Klein was not the only contributor to
our understanding of self-esteem. Winnicott, her
contemporary, stressed the nursing couple and the baby's
experiences of being touched, held, caressed, talked to, fed and
cleaned as a powerful source of good, affirmative feelings which
enhance the child's self-esteem. Erikson described the second
and third years as the autonomy phase when the child learns to
talk, to feed and dress itself, to walk, all of which, if properly
encouraged and executed, add to self-esteem.
Finally, I come to my own hero, John
Bowlby, whose theories of attachment have revolutionised our
understanding of the personality. Bowlby dismissed the libido
theory and instead placed attachment at the heart of the child's
growth. The mother is the secure base from which the child
gradually separates, always returning to her for solace and comfort
at times of distress. The security of attachment is a
powerful source of self-esteem.
I have no doubt that this view will
stand the test of time and will become one of the cornerstones of
dynamic psychology. Self-esteem also grows at the cognitive
level of progress at school and later on at work. We can
surmise that self-esteem and the capacity to forgive is an amalgam
of dynamic growth and intellectual development at school and at
work.
I have concentrated on the positive
development of self-esteem but we are all familiar with the many
ways in which things can go wrong with this growth. The
commonest pathology that influences self-esteem is of course
depression, which affects one in four of us at some time in our
lives. There is an intimate link between depression and
anger. Anger can turn inward with an attack on self-esteem,
leading at the extreme to the complete lack of forgiveness of self,
an overwhelming sense of guilt and finally suicide.
In the Christian tradition, we are
told to forgive in an unlimited way. What we are not told is
that forgiveness is not enough. This can be observed in
couples that are constantly arguing and then forgiving each other
without examining the reasons for the conflict. Beyond
forgiveness and reconciliation is the need to understand the
underlying roots of the conflict and to do something about
them. What spouses, partners and friends can do, and all
therapists try to do, is to heal the underlying wounds.
I close my paper with an example that
I wrote up as a book, entitled "One Like Us", a psychological study
of Jesus. In it I postulated that the upbringing of Jesus in
the hands of Mary and Joseph was so loving that, humanly speaking,
the personality of Jesus was the most loving one the world has ever
known. His love of himself was so complete and so was his
self-esteem that He had a profound capacity to forgive and, from
the cross, He forgave those who crucified him in a total act of
forgiveness and reconciliation.
‘Forgiveness: Psychological and Religious
Aspects’
By Dr Fraser
Watts, Starbridge Lecturer in Theology and Natural Science,
University of
Cambridge.
There is now a widespread programme
of empirical research on forgiveness (see, for example, Dimensions
of Forgiveness, edited by E L Worthington, Templeton Foundation
Press, 1998). A central purpose of this paper will be to
evaluate this programme, to see where it helps us to understand
forgiveness, and where it may be missing the point.
Forgiveness is only one of a series of religious practices that
have been raided by the contemporary consumerist world for their
practical efficacy. Transcendental Meditation has similarly
been taken out of its original context of yogic teaching and
general life-style. I will thus concentrate here particularly
on issues about forgiveness that arise at the interface of theology
and psychology.
Many current therapeutic applications
of forgiveness take a cognitive approach and see it in terms of
re-framing. There is nothing novel in this, and Bishop Joseph
Butler, in his sermon on forgiveness of injuries advocated
something similar. He suggested that, if we could achieve a
'due distance' and see the other person's actions as arising from
'inadvertence and mistake' rather than 'malice and scorn', we would
find that 'the indignity or injury would almost infinitely lessen,
and perhaps at least come out to be almost nothing at all'.
It would be hard to find a clearer statement of the principles of
attribution therapy in the classic Christian Literature. As I
have argued elsewhere, prayer provides a good opportunity for such
Christian re-framing of attributions. However, valuable
though cognitive aspects of forgiveness may be, they do not exhaust
its psychological components. Some, especially Everett
Worthington, have stressed the value of empathising with the person
to be forgiven. There may also be a place for emotional
ventilation, for re-appraisal of costs and benefits, and for other
elements.
Some have reacted strongly against the current
therapeutic application of forgiveness on theological grounds, and
none more so that L.G. Jones in Embodying Forgiveness (1995, W.B.
Eerdmans). In his view, forgiveness in the New Testament
refers solely to the forgiveness of sin and to forgiveness by
God. However, it is helpful to bear in mind that there are
two quite distinct words for forgiveness in the New
Testament. What Jones says may be true of the main words for
‘to forgive’ in the Gospels (aphiemi), but the Pauline concept, to
deal graciously (charizomai), though often also translated as
forgiveness, is clearly broader in its scope. Also, the
Lord's Prayer very specifically links God's forgiveness of humanity
with people's duty to forgive others.
A more fundamental issue, in my view, is how
far forgiveness can be taken out of its original moral context and
still be efficacious. It seems to be an empirical facts that
people with no religious commitment can practice forgiveness, and
to good effect. What is more doubtful is whether forgiveness
remains equally helpful if it is practised out of deliberate
self-interest. It has been said, as Professor Sims quoted in
his introduction to this symposium, that forgiveness 'is not just
altruistic, but the best form of self-interest'. But what
effect does forgiveness have if it is practised in a blatantly
self-interested way? My hunch is that if forgiveness is to be
helpful to the person who practices it, that person may at least
need to believe that they are acting altruistically, and to believe
in the rightness of what they are doing.
Finally, I want to draw attention to
some of the dark aspects of forgiveness, and to try to draw the
boundaries between where forgiveness is helpful and where it is
not. Though forgiveness is frequently helpful, it is not a
universally applicable panacea. There can be considerable
dangers in pressing people to forgive if they have no inclination
to do so. Especially if people have suffered abuse, to press
them to forgive before they are ready may be felt almost as an
additional form of abuse.
There are various ways in which the
conditions necessary for effective forgiveness may be
lacking. If the person who forgives has no positive feelings
towards the person they are forgiving, it is doubtful whether it
can be helpful. Equally, if there is no sense of penitence on
the part of the transgressor, forgiveness may not be helpful.
There is also a danger that premature forgiveness may encourage
people to flip too quickly into an up-beat mood before they have
done the inner work necessary for the benefits of forgiveness to be
felt. As James Hillman points out in his book, Suicide and
the Soul (1964, Hodder & Stoughton) there is a 'soul-making'
that comes from allowing distress to run its natural course.
Forgiveness has both inner and outer aspects and it is unhelpful
for them to become dissociated. If they do, forgiveness
becomes either silent, or empty.
‘Forgiveness and
Reconciliation’
By Femi Oyebode
F.R.C.Psych
'Grace is getting something you don't
deserve; and mercy is not getting something that you do
deserve' Francis Bacon
In this paper, I will set out a view
of what I believe forgiveness to be and then go on to talk
specifically about how African conceptions inform our understanding
of forgiveness and reconciliation.
One of the much-quoted psychological
definitions of forgiveness is that developed by Enright and the
Human Development Study Group. It proposes that:
'Forgiveness is the overcoming of negative
affect and judgement toward the offender, not by denying ourselves
the right to such affect and judgement, but endeavouring to view
the offender with benevolence, compassion, and even love, while
recognising that he or she has abandoned the right to them.
The important parts of this definition are as follows: (a) one who
forgives has suffered a deep hurt, thus showing resentment; (b) the
offended person has a moral right to resentment but overcomes it
nonetheless; (c) a new response to the other accrues, including
compassion and love; (d) this loving response occurs despite the
realisation that there is no obligation to love the offender'
In this definition, forgiveness is not set
within a larger conceptual framework. It is a secular
definition. It fails to explain why human beings should find
themselves forgiving others at all. And here I am not
referring to post hoc explanations, for example, that it
does the individual good to forgive, or that the emotional well
being of someone who forgives is enhanced. What I mean is
that the definition fails to hint at the counter-intuitive
magnanimity that forgiving another person often entails, except for
the reference to the idea of love. I must confess that on my
first reading of this definition, I was immediately reluctant to
accept that forgiveness required ‘loving’ the offender. In
other words, I thought that it was quite possible to forgive and
yet not to use the language of love. The people one offends
most often, on a day-to-day basis, are people whom one already
loves. Therefore, the question of love preceding or being the
ground on which forgiveness is founded on a daily basis. In
the situation where there is a relationship of victim and
perpetrator with a stranger, one may question whether love enters
the dynamic or not. Compassion definitely does.
There are psychologists who hold the view that
mature forgiveness is not a replacement of negative and hateful
feelings with loving feelings. So, for example, Gartner, who
holds this view, would claim that it is the capacity to hold an
integrated and realistic view of the perpetrator that counts.
In a sense, this response evades the crucial issue of love.
The questions that definitions of forgiveness raise include ‘what
is the groundwork on which forgiveness is built? What role
does compassion play in this situation and what is compassion
anyway? What is love in this context?’ I will return to
these issues later on.
Enright’s definition eschews any reference to
religious or theological framework. It is obvious that
forgiveness in the religious context exists within the context of
our relationship to God and within the boundaries of the problem of
sin and evil. Thus, in a theological analysis, it is
impossible to consider the forgiveness of another person outside of
the context of God’s forgiveness. Our own readiness to
forgive others lies in relation to God’s willingness to forgive
us. ‘Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive others their
trespass against us’.
It could also be argued that what are being
forgiven are not mere acts of trespass but evidence of sin and
evil. Thus, the forgiveness of these sins or acts of evil
prepare the ground for healing, that is, act to transform both the
lives of the forgiving and the forgiven individuals. For
Patton, human forgiveness is:
‘Not doing something but discovering something
– that I am more like those who have hurt me than different from
them. I am able to forgive when I discover that I am in no position
to forgive. Although the experience of God’s forgiveness may
involve confession of, and the sense of being forgiven for specific
sins, at its heart it is the recognition of my reception into the
community of sinners – those affirmed by God as his children’
Patton’s description emphasizes the fact that
we are ourselves undeserving of forgiveness and, therefore,
not in a position to forgive others. Thus, the mutuality of
sinfulness is underlined even though the specific offence or sin in
question may not be shared; we all share in the certainty of
being equally sinful in the eyes of God. In this description,
my forgiving another is as much about humbling myself in the
recognition of my own need for grace.
To summarise, forgiveness can be defined as a
response to a moral wrong in which there is restraint from pursuing
resentment or revenge. It is the response of one single
person to injustice suffered.
‘Ultimately we must concentrate on
forgiveness and reconciliation because if we concentrate on
retribution, I am fearful that the spiral of violence, resentment
and payback will never
end’ Desmond
Tutu
There is nothing in the foregoing that is
specifically African, either in perspective or conception. In
searching for a uniquely African dimension to the experience of
forgiveness and reconciliation, one must be careful not to imply
that there are categorical differences in how human beings perceive
the world. In other words, we must be careful not to seek to
reify the particular as if the accentuated difference of the
particular, confirms difference of temperament or
constitution. There is also the danger of thinking that there
is a uniquely African perspective to anything. I have argued
elsewhere, that Africa is so disparate that to attempt to classify
African cultures or values, as uniquely African is doomed to
failure. The reverse is also true: borrowing or
dependence. It only underlines the fact of the strength of
our common humanity. In other words universal concepts and
values do exist. My final caveat is that what this very
particular African has to say can only ultimately be true for
Nigerians who are Yoruba, indeed who are Ekiti Yorubas, born into a
Christian home. Culture is not a crystalline structure, set
and immobile, but a growing and dynamic entity. Often, what
is described as African is a fossilised value or practice from the
l9th century or early 2Oth century, commented upon by academics,
regardless of the fact that no such pure practice currently
exists.
My starting point is the situation in South
Africa of the extraordinary Truth and Reconciliation
Commission. This was South Africa’s response to its
history. In his foreword to the Final Report, Desmond Tutu
wrote: ‘Having looked the beast of the past in the eye, having
asked and received forgiveness and having made amends, let’s shut
the door on the past – not in order to forget it but in order not
to allow it to imprison us’. This statement draws attention
to why Tutu thinks forgiveness and reconciliation are so important,
that is to free us from history. In Chapter 5, Volume l, the
conceptual framework of the commission’s work is discussed.
The Commission saw reconciliation as a goal to help people come to
terms with painful truth and to help reconcile victims and
perpetrators. Thus, the commission stated that ‘the
Commission’s quest for truth should be viewed as a contribution to
a much longer-term goal and vision. Its purpose in attempting
to uncover the past had nothing to do with vengeance; it had to do,
rather, with helping victims to become more visible and more
valuable citizens through the public recognition and official
acknowledgement of their experiences’. The Commission goes
on, ‘the road to reconciliation requires more than forgiveness and
respectful remembrance …. reconciliation requires not only
individual justice, but also social justice’. The Commission
is identifying a distinction between forgiveness, reconciliation
and justice.
It is probably worth exploring the nature of
this distinction. At an ordinary level, to forgive is already
to forgo punishment or vengeance. To forgive is to pardon an
offence or offender, or to cease to resent, or to remit a debt,
that is to give up one’s claim against a debtor. In this
respect, justice is not done; it is abrogated, if justice is to
mean restitution or punishment. To reconcile is to restore
what is out of harmony. It may entail forgiveness or
not. The restoration of concord may entail no more than open
acknowledgement of harm caused and experienced by both parties
respectively as prerequisite for reconciliation.
How does justice relate to these
concepts? Retributive justice is the idea of seeking to
balance an injustice by rectifying the situation, or by regaining
equality that the injustice overturned. It is most simply
summed up in the principle of ‘an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a
tooth’. Rectification suggests taking from the offender and
giving to the injured party, whereas retribution at least
acknowledges that this is sometimes impossible, but embodies the
idea that an offence may cry out for punishment and that the moral
order is out of balance until this is administered. This
suggests that a real world concept of forgiveness may
encompass retributive justice. In other words that the
individual who has suffered harm may forgive the individual who has
caused the harm, but the sufferer may still have rights of
restitution and the perpetrator may still be punished, all at the
same time that both parties are reconciled. This issue was
recognised by the Commission. The Commission went on to say
that restorative justice demands that the accountability of
perpetrators be extended to making a contribution to the
restoration of the well being of their victims; furthermore that
those who have benefited and are still benefiting from a range of
unearned privileges under apartheid have a crucial role to play by
contributing to the present and future reconstruction of
society.
The examples of rare acts of forgiveness from
the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Hearings are worth
hearing: Desmond Tutu gave an example of the former head of Ciskei
Defence force and four officers giving evidence in relation to the
Bisho massacre. This was in the presence of a packed hall
full of people who had either been injured or had lost loved
ones. One soldier turned to the audience and said ‘Please
forgive us, please. The burden of the Bisho massacre will be
on our shoulders for the rest of our lives'. He was white and
the three other soldiers were black and he went on to plead, ‘Would
you please receive my colleagues back into the community?’
Desmond Tutu reported that ‘It was unbelievable, unexpected. You
could sense the presence of grace right there, because that
audience, angry as they had been, almost immediately turned around
and broke out in applause. Here were people who were limping,
who were shot, some had lost children or other loved ones, and they
could applaud’.
In another account, Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela
wrote about Eugene de Kock who is currently serving 2l2 years for
his role in the murder of the apartheid government’s enemies.
He asked for a private meeting with widows of the victims who died
in an incident he had organised. He said ‘I wish I could do
much more than say I’m sorry. I wish there were a way of
bringing their bodies back alive. I wish I could say ‘here
are your husbands’. But, unfortunately, I have to live with
it’. One of the wives said later ‘I was profoundly touched by
him, especially when he said he wished he could bring our husbands
back. I didn’t even look at him when he was speaking to
us. Yet, I felt the genuineness in his apology. I hope
that when he sees our tears, he knows that they are not only tears
for our husbands, but tears for him as well. I would like to
hold him by the hand and show him that there is a future and that
he can still change’.
These examples challenge us to reach some kind
of understanding of what makes ordinary people act with such
genuine compassion and selflessness as to be able to reach across a
gulf, despite personal suffering and anguish, and to touch someone
who has caused great harm. In responding to the question ‘Why
was such a process as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission
possible in South Africa?’ Desmond Tutu remarked that it was
because of the concept of ubuntu (we are people through other
people). He explained that this meant that ‘my humanity is
caught up in your humanity, and when your humanity is enhanced –
whether I like it or not – mine is enhanced as well.
Likewise, when you are dehumanised, inexorably, I am dehumanised as
well’. He concludes. ‘So there is a deep yearning in
African society for communal peace and harmony’.
The risk of this kind of talk is that it
implies this is something peculiar to African societies to the
exclusion of other societies. I do not, for once, agree with
this view. Nonetheless, it is worth reviewing what it means
to become a person through others. This particular proposition is
clearly set out in Martin Buber’s ‘I and thou.’ For Buber,
Man becomes an I through a You. He distinguishes relating to
an It, in other words to an object, from our relationship to a You,
another subject of experience. Of course, Buber’s world is
dyadic whereas the world that Tutu is conjuring up is a multifold
world of subjects constituting the world and giving life to the
individual. The individual’s existence in this conceptual
realm, is dependent on the harmony of the larger group. Here
we are not referring to the idea of a faceless, anonymous crowd as
Elias Canetti describes in Crowds and Power. For
Canetti, the attributes of crowds include the desire to grow in
size, the equality of all members, the love of density and the need
for a goal and so on. However, it is important to note that
Canetti is not referring to a group but a crowd. In contrast,
we are referring to a very definite, palpable reality of a people
living coherently and giving sustenance to the meaningful
individuality of the one, in other words to a group. In a
group, our individuality is given sustenance and solidity whereas,
in a crowd we lose our identity, the singularity of our
individuality, in a formless pooling of egos. In this
conceptualisation of life, to be unaccounted is to suffer anguish
because integration within the whole is central to the existence of
the individual. But in the same way, it is a deep hurt in the
life of the whole to deprive itself of one of its constituted
parts. The sorrow felt is both for the unfulfilled self as it
is for the diminished group. In talking about this issue,
Segun Gbadegesin, a Yoruba philosopher refers to a common saying,’
I am because we are; I exist because the community exists’.
He goes on to say that ‘a high premium is placed on the practical
demonstration of oneness and solidarity among the members of a
community. Every member is expected to consider him/herself
as an integral part of the whole and to play an appropriate role
towards the good of all. Everyone is expected to be the
keeper and protector of the interests of others who are, by
extension, theirs too’. He concludes that ‘all the above
point to the value that traditional Yoruba place on community and
communal existence, with all its emphasis on fellow-feeling,
solidarity and selflessness’.
Extending this argument, Kwasi Wiredu, a
Ghanaian philosopher discussing the role of reconciliation in
African societies, referred to the relationship between consensus
and reconciliation. Although he does not make this point
explicitly, his intention is to distinguish between Western
democratic principles, where one individual or a group may
determine the outcome to the exclusion of a minority, and African
traditional political principles that rely on consensus. The
question is, of course, what advantages accrue on account of
consensus? In my view, the underlying value is the importance
attributed to a harmonious community. The Yorubas have a God,
Ela, of whom Bolagi Idowu says, 'He organised earth's affairs and
set things in their proper places. He is even described as
the one who made all things, in the sense that it was through his
agency that all things have their being. To him is credited
the main functions of peace making and of reconciliation wherever
there is discord, and the restoration of order wherever there is
chaos'. Consensus building is part of the art of
politics. It involves being careful not to exclude any
opinion or section of society and it emphasises the reconciliation
of difference. One of the verses referring to Ela in the Ifa
corpus reads, 'It is he who puts things right for the people. /
When day turned into night in the town of Okerekese, / And the
sages of the place were baffled, / It was he who came to the aid of
Oluyori, it's king, with a remedy; / Whenever Elegbara plans to
turn the world upside down / It is he who obstructs him; / He
receives no money / He receives no kola-nuts / Yet it is he who
rectifies unhappy destinies.'
The foregoing illustrates how important it is
in African communities for there to be a sense of visible harmony
within society. The South African Truth and Reconciliation
Commission is, in my view, the visible expression of the wish
to create a harmonious society. That is not enough to explain
the readiness of ordinary people to forgive and to move towards
reconciliation despite great privation.
For the Yoruba, the highest accolade is to be
described as oseniyan, 'knowing how to make a person',
that is how to constitute a person. This idea, which is
untranslatable into English, sits somewhere between the idea of
being humane, sociable, and human. One cannot say it of
oneself and when it is said of one, it denotes how one relates to
others. It is as if one defined what it is to be human solely
with being humane. This definition ascribes our humanity on
the basis of our capacity to act well towards others. This,
fundamentally, underlines what it means to forgive others. To
forgive others is to enter into human commerce with them, to have
compassion for their position, and to see the world through their
eyes and all this, despite the fact that they may have caused us
great and irreparable harm.
You may remember my initial disquiet at the
notion of love, and how love enters into what forgiveness is
about. However, if we define love as the ability to see the
other as oneself, and to recognise the vulnerability of the other
and his innate inclination to sin as no different from one's own,
then we are facing the other with the attitude of love, no matter
that this idea is uncomfortable.
In conclusion, I have sought to argue that
forgiveness is a fundamental and pervasive (that is, pervasive
across all cultures) human response to a moral wrong that we
suffer. It depends on our capacity to recognise in the other,
mutual moral worth, frailty and vulnerability to sin. In the
context of societies or nations, where it takes the form of
reconciliation, it depends on our wish to promote a particular kind
of harmony, underlining our need to inhabit a world of
equilibrium. The South African experience demonstrates not
only how much need the human spirit has for forgiving harm suffered
but also what depths of compassion and reservoir of grace ordinary
people possess.
In the closing plenary, Professor Sims
concluded that reconciliation and retribution should not be seen as
alternatives and that both are needed. The model of marriage
had been a very useful one to discuss issues of reconciliation and
forgiveness, both in professional and personal life. He made
the point that forgiveness as a technique without the
religious/spiritual aspect could be of questionable benefit.
He also made the point that within a group, all are united.
Forgiveness can lead to the healing of a group and without healing
and reconciliation, the group is damaged.
Professor Sims also added, by way of
appreciation, that despite having spent a good deal of time in the
council room at the College, he had never previously heard words
being used like love, God and forgiveness in these
surroundings.
Chairman's
Corner:
The length and content of this
newsletter speaks for itself and so there is little I need to add.
Our group continues to grow apace – we now have 350 members. But
please do come to our meetings in the College when you possibly
can. The feedback we get is very positive, the meetings are
informal yet the content is always thought-provoking and enriching
and we have no shortage of topics! You will see from the ‘further
meetings notices’ that we are co-hosting a residential conference
in August on Meditation. This is bound to be over-subscribed, so if
you are interested, contact the office of the Scientific and
Medical Network as soon as possible. The final programme is going
to the printers shortly and it will then be forwarded to you. We
are also very pleased to be contributing fully to the College
Annual Meeting. Our guest speakers will be addressing research in
the field of Spirituality and Mental Health, a subject that is
important and timely.
The range of interest of the
membership of the group is wide and deep. As you will know, the
Patron of the College is the Prince of Wales and with his kind
permission, we reproduce here the BBC text of his 'afterword' to
the 2000 Reith Lectures on Sustainability, which we see as being
very much in line with the spiritual ethic of the SIG.
With all good wishes, Andrew
Powell
Presenter: James
Naughtie: Good evening from Highgrove in
Gloucestershire – the home of His Royal Highness, the Prince of
Wales, and welcome to this special programme to mark the end of
this year's Millennium Reith lecture series. With me are the
Prince of Wales and the five Reith lecturers, who over the past few
weeks have dealt with our theme of sustainable development.
They've travelled from all around the world to join in this
discussion and we hope that our lecturers, an American scientist,
and Indian academic, a European politician, a world businessman and
the Director General of the World Health organisation will pool
their ideas and speak tonight of practical things. What can
be done to keep the world safe for the generations still to
come? But first let's hear the thoughts of His Royal
Highness, the Prince of Wales.
Prince
Charles: Like millions of other people around
the world I've been fascinated to hear five eminent speakers share
with us their thoughts, hope and fears about sustainable
development based on their own experience. All five of those
contributions have been immensely thoughtful and challenging.
There have been clear differences of opinion and of emphasis
between the speakers but there have also been some important common
themes both implicit and explicit. One of those themes has
been the suggestion the suggestion that sustainable development is
a matter of enlightened self-interest. Two of the speakers
used this phrase and I don't believe that the other three would
dissent from it, and nor would I.
Self-interest is a powerful motivating
force for all of us, and if we can somehow convince ourselves that
sustainable development is in all our interests then we will have
taken a valuable first step towards achieving it. But
self-interest comes in many competing guises – not all of which I
fear are likely to lead in the right direction for very long, nor
to embrace the manifold needs of future generations. I am
convinced we will need to dig rather deeper to find the
inspiration, sense of urgency and moral purpose required to
confront the hard choices which face us on the long road to
sustainable development. So, although it seems to have become
deeply unfashionable to talk about the spiritual dimension of our
existence, that is what I propose to do.
The idea that there is a sacred trust
between mankind and our Creator, under which we accept a duty of
stewardship for the earth, has been an important feature of most
religious and spiritual though throughout the ages. Even
those whose beliefs have not included the existence of a Creator
have, nevertheless, adopted a similar position on moral and ethical
grounds. It is only recently that this guiding principle has
become smothered by almost impenetrable layers of scientific
rationalism. I believe that if we are to achieve genuinely
sustainable development we will first have to rediscover, or
re-acknowledge a sense of the sacred in our dealings with the
natural world, and with each other. If literally nothing is held
sacred anymore – because it is considered synonymous with
superstition or in some other way "irrational" – what is there to
prevent us treating our entire world as some "great laboratory of
life" with potentially disastrous long-term consequences.
Fundamentally, an understanding of the
sacred helps us to acknowledge that there are bounds of balance,
order and harmony in the natural world which set limits to our
ambitions, and define the parameters of sustainable development. In
some cases nature's limits are well understood at the rational
scientific level. As a simple example, we know that trying to
graze too many sheep on a hillside will, sooner or later, be
counter-productive for the sheep, the hillside, or both. More
widely we understand that the overuse of insecticides or
antibiotics leads to problems of resistance. And we are
beginning to comprehend the full, awful consequences of pumping too
much carbon dioxide into the earth's atmosphere. Yet the actions
being taken to halt the damage known to be caused by exceeding
nature's limits in these and other ways are insufficient to ensure
a sustainable outcome. In other areas, such as the artificial and
uncontained transfer of genes between species of plants and
animals, the lack of hard, scientific evidence of harmful
consequences is regarded in many quarters as sufficient reason for
allow such developments to proceed.
The idea of taking precautionary
approach, in this and many other potentially damaging situations,
receives overwhelming public support, but still faces a degree of
official opposition, as if admitting the possibility of doubt was a
sign of weakness or even of a wish to halt "progress". On the
contrary, I believe it to be a sign of strength and of
wisdom. It seems that when we do have scientific evidence
that we are damaging our environment, we aren't doing enough to put
things right, and when we don't have that evidence we are prone to
do nothing at all, regardless of the risks.
Part of the problem is the prevailing
approach that seeks to reduce the natural world including ourselves
to the level of nothing more than a mechanical process. For
whilst the natural theologians of the 18th and
19th centuries like Thomas Morgan referred to the
perfect unity, order, wisdom and design of the natural world,
scientists like Bertrand Russell rejected this idea as
rubbish. 'I think the universe' he wrote 'is all spots and
jumps without unity and without continuity, with coherence or
orderliness. Sir Julian Huxley wrote in "Creation a Modern
Synthesis" – that modern science must rule out special creation or
divine guidance.' But why?
As Professor Alan Linton of Bristol
University has written – 'evolution is a man-made theory to explain
the origin and continuance of life on this planet without reference
to a Creator'. It is because of our inability or refusal to
accept the existence of a guiding hand that nature has come to be
regarded as a system that can be engineered for our own convenience
or as a nuisance to be evaded and manipulated, in which anything
that happens can be fixed by technology and human ingenuity.
Fritz Schumacher recognised the inherent dangers in this approach
when he said 'there are two sciences – the science of manipulation
and the science of understanding.'
In this technology-driven age it is
all too easy for us to forget that mankind is a part of nature and
not apart from it. This is why we should seek to work with
the grain of nature in everything we do, for the natural world is,
as the economist Herman Daly puts it – 'the envelope that contains,
sustains and provision the economy, not the other way round.'
So which argument do you think will win – the living world as one
or the world made up of random parts, the product of mere chance,
thereby providing the justification for any kind of
development? This, to my mind, lies at the heart of what we
call sustainable development. We need, therefore, to
rediscover a reference for the natural world, irrespective of its
usefulness to ourselves – to become more aware, in Philip
Sherrard's words, of 'the relationship of interdependence,
interpenetration and reciprocity between God, Man and
Creation.'
Above all, we should show greater
respect for the genius of nature's designs, rigorously tested and
refined over millions of years. This means being careful to
use science to understand how nature works, not to change what
nature is, as we do when genetic manipulation seeks to transform a
process of biological evolution into something altogether
different. The idea that the different parts of the natural
world are connected through an intricate system of checks and
balances which we disturb at our peril is all too easily dismissed
as no longer relevant.
So, in an age when we're told that
science has all the answers, what chance is there for working with
the grain of nature? As an example of working with the grain
of nature, I happen to believe that if a fraction of the money
currently being invested in developing genetically manipulated
crops were applied to understanding and improving traditional
systems of agriculture, which have stood the all-important test of
time, the results would be remarkable. There is already plenty of
evidence of just what can be achieved through applying more
knowledge and fewer chemicals to diverse cropping systems.
These are genuinely sustainable methods and they are far removed
from the approaches based on monoculture which lend themselves to
large-scale commercial exploitation, and which Vandana Shiva
condemned so persuasively and so convincingly in her lecture.
Our most eminent scientists accept that there is still a vast
amount we don't know about our world and the life forms that
inhabit it. As Sir Martin Rees, the Astronomer Royal, points out,
it is complexity that makes things hard to understand, not
size. In a comment, which only an astronomer could make, he
describes a butterfly as a more daunting intellectual challenge
than the cosmos!
Others, like Rachel Carson, have
eloquently reminded us that we don't know how to make a single
blade of grass. And St Matthew, in his wisdom, emphasised
that not even Solomon in all his glory was arrayed as the lilies of
the field. Faced with such unknowns, it is hard not to feel a
sense of humility, wonder and awe about our place in the natural
order. And to feel this at all stems from that inner heartfelt
reason which sometimes despite ourselves is telling us that we are
intimately bound up in the mysteries of life and that we don't have
all the answers. Perhaps even that we don't have to have all
the answers before knowing what we should do in certain
circumstances. As Blaise Pascal wrote in the 17th
century, ' it is the heart that experiences God, not the
reason.'
So, do you not feel that buried deep
within each and every one of us, there is an instinctive,
heart-felt awareness that provides – if we allow it to – the most
reliable guide as to whether or not our actions are really in the
long term interests of our planet and all the life it
supports? This awareness, this wisdom of the heart, is maybe
no more than a faint memory of a distant harmony rustling like a
breeze through the leaves, yet sufficient to remind us that the
Earth is unique and that we have a duty to care for it.
Wisdom, empathy and compassion have no place in the empirical
world, yet traditional wisdoms would ask, "without them are we
truly human?" And it would be a good question. It
was Socrates who, when asked for his definition of wisdom, gave as
his conclusion, "knowing that you don't know".
In suggesting that we will need to
listen rather more to the common sense emanating from our hearts if
we are to achieve sustainable development, I'm not suggesting that
information gained through scientific investigation is anything
other than essential. Far from it. But I believe that
we need to restore the balance between the heartfelt reason of
instinctive wisdom and the rational insights of scientific
analysis. Neither, I believe, is much use on its own.
So it is only by employing both the intuitive and the rational
halves of our own nature – our hearts and our minds – that we will
live up to the sacred trust that has been placed in us by our
Creator, - or our "Sustainer", as ancient wisdom referred to the
Creator. As Gro Harlem Brundtland has reminded us,
sustainable development is not just about the natural world, but
about people too. This applies whether we are looking at the
vast numbers who lack sufficient food or access to clean water, as
also those living in poverty and without work. While there is
no doubt that globalisation has brought advantages, it brings
dangers too. Without the humility and humanity expressed by
Sir John Browne in his notion of the 'connected economy' – an
economy which acknowledges the social and environmental context
within which it operates – there is the risk that the poorest and
the weakest will not only see very little benefit but, worse, they
may find that their livelihoods and cultures have been lost.
So if we are serious about sustainable
development then we must also remember that the lessons of history
are particularly relevant when we start to look further
ahead. Of course, in an age when it often seems that nothing
can properly be regarded as important unless it can be described as
"modern", it is highly dangerous to talk about the lessons of the
past. And are those lessons ever taught or understood
adequately in an age when to pass on a body of acquired knowledge
of this kind is often considered prejudicial to "progress"?
Of course our descendants will have scientific and technological
expertise beyond our imagining, but will they have the insight or
the self-control to use this wisely, having learnt both from our
successes and our failures?
They won't, I believe, unless there
are increased efforts to develop an approach to education, which
balances the rational with the intuitive. Without this, truly
sustainable development is doomed. It will merely become a
hollow-sounding mantra that is repeated ad nauseam in order to make
us all feel better. Surely, therefore, we need to look
towards the creation of greater balance in the way we educate
people so that the practical and intuitive wisdom of the past can
be blended with the appropriate technology and knowledge of the
present to produce the type of practitioner who is acutely aware of
both the visible and invisible worlds that inform the entire
cosmos. The future will need people who understand that
sustainable development is not merely about a series of technical
fixes, about redesigning humanity or re-engineering nature in an
extension of globalised industrialisation, but about a
re-connection with nature and a profound understanding of the
concepts of care that underpin long term stewardship.
Only by rediscovering the essential
unity and order of the living and spiritual world – as in the case
of organic agriculture or integrated medicine or in the way we
build – and by bridging the destructive chasm between cynical
secularism and the timelessness of traditional religion, will we
avoid the disintegration of our overall environment. Above
all, I don't want to see the day when we are rounded upon by our
grandchildren and asked accusingly why we didn't listen more
careful to the wisdom of our hearts as well as to the rational
analysis of our heads; why we didn't pay more attention to the
preservation of bio-diversity and traditional communities or think
more clearly about our role as stewards of creation? Taking a
cautious approach or achieving balance in life is never as much fun
as the alternatives, but that is what sustainable development is
all about.
Intimations of Immortality – The Nature of Near-Death
Visions
by Dr Peter
Fenwick
Synopsis of
talk given to the open meeting of the SIG at the
College Annual
Meeting 6.7.2000
A number of phenomena connected with
the process of dying are poorly understood and have not been
adequately researched. The two aspects of the dying process
that I would like to discuss both raise interesting philosophical
and spiritual questions.
In 1972 Raymond Moody published his
book Life after Life, which opened up the near death experience
(NDE) for research in the West. There have been numerous
retrospective studies and anecdotal accounts of NDEs.
Broadly, these fall into two groups, the fear of death experience
(FDE), when the subject is in a death threatening situation such as
an impending car crash, and feels they are likely to die but in
which their physiology is in no way disturbed. The second
group are those in which the process of dying has started and major
changes in physiology are likely to have occurred. The
psychological FDE and the physiological NDE are similar in their
phenomenology but quite different in their cause. I shall
deal only with the physiological NDEs.
In the University Hospital of
Southampton, Dr Sam Parnia and I have carried out a prospective
study in the coronary care unit. Over the course of a year,
60 people were able, after their cardiac arrest, to answer
questions about the experiences they had when they were
unconscious. They were given the Greyson scale and four
people were classified as having a near-death experience. Two
had some of the features but did not achieve the Greyson score
necessary to classify them as near death experiences, although the
phenomenology led one to believe that they were indeed true near
death experiences. One person had a confusional experience
that was quite different.
The phenomena of the near death
experiences which we obtained were those reported in the literature
for Western populations; the progress through a tunnel to a light
and the 'Being of Light', a meeting with dead relatives, entrance
into a heavenly English country garden with intense colours and an
abundance of flowers, a border which if crossed would lead to
death, and a decision to return. All patients were treated
with the same resuscitation protocol, and after an audit of the
medical notes, the only physiological factor which distinguished
the two groups (too few for statistics) was higher oxygen
saturation in the NDE group.
The point of interest is that the
patients attributed the time of the occurrence of the experience to
when they were unconscious. Several studies of the EEG in
patients whose hearts have stopped either spontaneously or during
cardiac version have shown that with 16 seconds the EEG is
flat. There are also studies to show that a flat cortical EEG
is accompanied by electrical silence in the depth of the
brain. If the patients accounts are correct, then this would
imply that from the point of view of our current neuroscience, the
experiences occurred at a time when all cognitive structures that
created the experienced world would not have been
functioning. The experiences could have occurred as
consciousness was being lost, but from the experience of people who
faint or have seizures, cognition continues to the point of the
onset of the event but then consciousness is rapidly lost and there
is no elaboration at that point. During the experience, the
EEG is flat and cognition is therefore impossible. They could
have occurred on recovery, but all recovery from a severe anoxic
episode is confusional and these patients were no exception.
The near death experience, which was clear and lucid, with a marked
narrative component and containing intense positive emotion that
was integrated into the experience, could not have occurred in a
confusional setting.
Anecdotal accounts from patients who
had had out-of-body experiences during the near death experience
point to them obtaining information about the resuscitation process
that would not have been available to them where they were lying
through ordinary sense transmission, and thus raise the question of
whether mind and brain are necessarily absolutely linked.
In the 24 hours before death, nearing
death experiences occur in a proportion of patients. This is a
poorly researched field and only one major study exists in the
literature. This study found that deathbed visions, similar in many
respects to the phenomenology of the NDE, occurred during this
time. I have questioned a number of caregivers who were with
their family in the 24 hours before a family member's death and
they report accounts that confirm the previous study. One
caregiver's daughter reports such a family member moving between
the near death experience world and this world in a perfectly lucid
and clear way. Although clearly more information is required,
this suggests that the phenomena of the near death experience
precede death and raise questions about the epistemological
significance of these findings.
With our current neuroscience, which
is based on the Galilean subject/object split and a dead matter
universe in which consciousness is created by the brain, any theory
that postulates a mind/brain split is impossible. However,
with post-modern science and the concept that consciousness may in
some way be a distributed function of the universe, splitting of
brain and mind becomes a theoretical possibility.
The Annual
Conference on Religion & Psychiatry, November
23rd 2000
Mediation / Medication – Culture /
Control: reported by Daphne Wallace
This was the tenth Annual Conference
on Religion and Psychiatry, held at the Institute of
Psychiatry. It was organised jointly by the Institute, The
South London and Maudsley NHS Trust and the Bishop John Robinson
Fellowship in Pastoral Theology & Mental Health.
There were four speakers who each
addressed the theme Truth & Reality from a
particular perspective. The first, John Rowan, spoke to the
Spiritual aspect. He gave an account of the work of Ken
Wilber and his concept of Transpersonal Psychology and
Experience. He emphasised the transpersonal is not
extra-personal, nor religion, right brain, spiritual or new
age. He outlined the maturational concept of pre-personal,
personal and transpersonal spirituality. He emphasised that
spiritual emergencies may be confused with psychotic mental
illness, yet are not the same. He said that these emergencies
arise in a situation when a person reaches the transpersonal area
too soon. He gave 10 examples of this situation, which
included near death experiences, shamanism, UFO encounters and
spirit possession.
The second speaker, Dr Sean Spence,
considered Psychiatric Truth & Reality.
He highlighted that of necessity this had to be third person,
external and objective perspective. Psychiatric treatment
needs an evidence base. We face 'impossible' questions such
as the distinction between hysteria and feigning, criminal
responsibility in psychosis (meta-responsibility), whether
psychopathy should be a case for psychiatry at all and how we
cannot predict what free agents will do. He discussed
research into areas of the brain from scanning and work on EEGs
that have implications for the relationship of consciousness and
brain physiology, the EEG changes taking place before the
conscious wish. Religious and spiritual experiences seem to
be linked to temporal lobe function.
After lunch, David Lorimer spoke to
the Cultural aspect of the theme, presenting a
diagram with four quadrants to demonstrate the relationships
between the individual and collective, interior and exterior.
The individual, interior quadrant (meditation) had been represented
by John Rowan and the individual, external quadrant by Sean Spence
(medication). He saw his own contribution as representing the
interior, collective quadrant, (culture), while Pat Bracken's final
contribution would represent the exterior, collective quadrant
(control). He then traced the development of our modern
understanding of the cultural context from its roots in Aristotle's
nominalism and Plato's realism, through William James to the birth
of anthropology, the development of scientific thought and the 'new
metaphysical foundations' of modern science. The primary
observations of (material) qualities are from the outside looking
in, while secondary (objective) studies include those of
consciousness/mind. Yet consciousness is needed for
study, therefore objectivity is always dependent on
subjectivity.
An earlier bias towards giving the
primary role to the material is now shifting towards also valuing
the subjective and intuitive. As programme director of the
Scientific and Medical network, David Lorimer drew our attention to
a forthcoming publication on 'Beyond the Brain' (Floris Books 2001)
by the Network, which is a manifesto for an integral science of
consciousness. He then addressed the relationship between
science and epistemology. He quoted Einstein's assertion that
epistemology without science is an empty scheme while science
without epistemology is at best muddled. Returning to
consciousness he reminded us that we need a vehicle for the
existence of consciousness to be visible. However, if
consciousness is primary, it need not be dependent on brain
processes (one interpretation of the phenomenon of near-death
experiences). Looked at in terms of Wilbur's four quadrants,
the NDE could be described as a brain disturbance (individual
exterior), death but with consciousness continuing (individual
interior), finding acceptance socially (collective, exterior), or
culturally (collective, interior).
Pat Bracken ended the presentations
with Social Truth & Reality. He looked
at psychiatry and its origins in European enlightenment and the
development of the 'Age of Reason', with its emphasis on the
importance of the individual. He pointed out how this had led
to blindness to the importance of context. Prior to the 'Age
of Reason' there was no concept of mental illness. There was
a move away from religious revelation towards bureaucracy,
capitalism, science, literacy and colonialism. Those who did
not conform were incarcerated, eventually in asylums. This
social exclusion eventually involved the gaze of medicine but
originally only in relation to treatment of physical conditions and
provision of moral advice. Social seclusion led to increased
stigma. Ironically, the specialty of psychiatry had only come
about through the act of social exclusion.
Simultaneously there had been the rise
of phenomenology and psychoanalysis. In the latter's focus on
self and the search of individual truth, combined with the
emergence of biological approaches, we see the roots of psychiatry
today.
Dr. Bracken appealed for a radical
rethink. He suggested four main areas of concern:
1. Post-modern
thought – 'science can silence as well as liberate'
2. Post-modern
culture with its acceptance of multiple realities
3. The rise of the
User Movements
4. Government
policies – National Framework for Mental Health.
He emphasised the importance of
rebuilding community and communal activity, instancing how PTSD,
for example, tends to see trauma as an individualised experience,
taking the individual away from family.
This challenging approach brought to a
close the stimulating presentations of the day. Discussion
was wide and varied, reflecting the thought provoking content of
the presentations. Answers were not the message – rather a
challenge to our pre-conceptions and assumptions in our psychiatric
practice. Altogether a very rewarding day.
Book Reviewby Dr
Sunil Raheja: "The Road Less
Travelled" (Arrow p/b £5.99).
This book gets its title from lines in
the poem by Robert Frost ‘The Road not taken’. Scott Peck
himself is a practising psychotherapist who has been medical
director of New Milford Hospital Mental Health Clinic and
psychiatrist in private practice in New Milford, Connecticut,
USA. His book is subtitled "A new psychology of love,
traditional values and spiritual growth" and has had a profound
influence around the world. Since its publication in 1978 it
has become a number one international best seller, bringing Scott
Peck much worldwide acclaim.
Perhaps in recognition of this, in
1992 he addressed the American Psychiatric Association in
Washington as Distinguished Lecturer on the subject of
‘Psychiatry's Predicament with Spirituality’.
The genius of Scott Peck's writing is
his willingness to admit that confronting and solving problems is a
painful process which most of us attempt to avoid. He is also
careful to point out that he makes no distinction between the
process of achieving spiritual growth and that of achieving mental
growth. He presents a powerful case of how the two are
inextricably linked.
The tone of the book is set from the
first page as he starts with the first of Buddha's four noble
truths that "life is difficult". He goes on to lucidly
describe how avoidance itself results in great pain and an
inability to grow both mentally and spiritually. From here he
draws on his professional experience as a psychiatrist to suggest
ways in which facing our difficulties (and suffering through the
changes) can reach a higher level of self-understanding. He
goes on to explore the nature of loving relationships in terms of
how to recognise true compatibility, distinguish dependency from
love and in the process how to become one's own person and a more
sensitive parent.
All in all a powerful book that goes
beyond so many of the glib answers that are so prevalent in our day
and age.
Readers may like to see the poem by
Robert Frost, which we have reproduced here (eds.)
THE ROAD NOT TAKEN
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come
back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Notices and
Forthcoming Events
1.
NEXT SIG ONE DAY MEETING – Friday, 4th May
2001
‘Engaging the Spiritual
Mind’. Please see attached programme and
be sure to return the reply slip if you are able to
come.
2.
RESIDENTIAL SUMMER MEETING – August 23rd –
26th.
‘Scientific and Spiritual
Perspectives on Meditation’
Co-hosted with the Scientific and
Medical Network, the Infinity Foundation and the British
Psychological Society, to be held at Ripon College, Yorkshire.
David Lorimer, programme director, writes:
Beyond the Brain IV will
build on the success of the first three conferences, held at St.
John’s College, Cambridge. These conferences examined respectively
new avenues in consciousness research, frontiers in consciousness
and healing, and the possibility of existence before birth and
after death. At the heart of central questions in consciousness
studies is the nature of the self in our experience of altered
states. This year’s meeting will be more experiential in addressing
the topic of meditation from a scientific and spiritual
angle.
Since the 1970s scientists have taken an
interest in brain wave patterns associated with meditation, and
many of these investigators are themselves long term meditators.
They can thus take both a first- and third-person view. One of the
critical questions relating to the emerging science of
consciousness is whether science can investigate consciousness only
from its traditional third-person view, or if it is necessary to
supplement this with first-hand experience that involves the
scientist directly and may even lead to a transformation of
consciousness.
All our speakers at this conference have
extensive experience of meditation in addition to their scholarly
expertise. This makes it an exciting occasion where there can be a
true meeting of outer and inner in a spirit of open exploration. We
will have communal meditations together and make time for
contemplative walks, especially to the nearby ruins of Fountains
Abbey, perhaps one of the most beautiful and peaceful places in
England. Speakers include:
Z’ev ben Shimon Halevi: Kabbalistic
Metaphysics and the Ascent of Jacob’s Ladder
Dr. Ram-Prasad Chakravarthi: Consciousness
and its Transformation: the Role of Philosophical Analysis in
Classical India
Dr. Peter Fenwick: Subjective Correlates
and the Neurophysiology of Meditation
Prof. James Austin: Zen and the
Brain
Prof. Jon Kabat-Zinn: Clinical
Applications of Mindfulness Meditation
Dr. Andrew Powell: Dreams and Desires of
the Unquiet Self
Prof. Guy Claxton: Buddha’s Brain: the
Neuroscience of Mindfulness
Dr. Alan Wallace: First-Person Methods of
Exploring Consciousness in Tibetan Buddhism
Sr. Jayanti: Exploring the Realms of the
Soul with the Vehicle of the Inner Mind
Elizabeth West: Meditation in the
Christian Tradition: Opening the Way to Unity
Prof. Arthur Zajonc: Phenomena as Theory:
Goethe, Steiner and the Encounter with Consciousness
Prof. Jonathan Shear: Third-Person
Research on Meditation: Can it Ever be Really
Significant?
Dr. Bisong Guo: Daoism and the Esoteric
Art of Qigong
Prof. David Fontana: Meditation as
Transpersonal Experience
For further details, contact: The
Scientific and Medical Network, Lake House, Vann Lake Road, Ockley,
Surrey RH5 5NS Tel: 01306 710072 email: info@scimednet.org and also
Website: www.scimednet.org
3.
COLLEGE ANNUAL MEETING London 9th –
13th July 2001
The SIG is contributing
workshops and lectures.
Monday
9th
9.30 –11.00 am. Wisdom
and Science, Compassion and Caring: Spiritual and Material Values
in Psychiatry
4.00- 5.30 pm. Meditation
Techniques: An Introduction for Psychiatrists (Workshops
conducted by Dr. Larry Culliford and Dr. Sarah Eagger).
Thursday
12th
2.00 – 3.30 pm.
Spirituality and Mental Health Care.
Guest
Speakers:
Professor Michael King
Professor David Larson
Professor Gerrit Glas
4.
Proposed Study Trip to India. Dr. Kishore
Chandiramani writes:
I am organising a study trip to India in
October this year, which will offer an opportunity to the members
of the SIG to learn about and experience an ancient mindfulness
meditation practice called Vipassana. The trip would include
academic events and visits to some of the historic sites in India.
Further details and costings will shortly be available.
Would interested colleagues please contact me on 0121
4752149 or email me at kishore.c@btinternet.com.
Other Meetings:
"Human Rights, Sacred and
Secular" Sea of Faith Network Conference, on Date,
Saturday, 28th April 2001 at Friends' House, Euston
Road, London. For information send s.a.e. to John Seargeant
(SoF), 61 Fordington Road, London N6 4TH or access
website: http://www.sofn.org/
The Buddhist Psychology and Psychiatry
Group
Formed in 1987, it meets once or twice a year
in an informal setting to discuss the interface between Buddhism,
psychology and psychiatry. There is no membership fee.
However, a small charge of £12.50 is made for attending the
meeting. The meetings are held usually on a Saturday from
10.00 a.m. – 4.00 p.m. The meetings consist of discussion on
themes to share ideas, experiences and skills and also some
presentations on selected topics. The next meeting of the
group is on 31st March in Northampton and Dr Kedar
Dwivedi would be happy to be contacted for details.
Address: Dr Kedar Dwivedi, Child & Adolescent
Psychiatrist, 8 Notre Dame mews, Northampton NN1 2BG. Tel
01604 604608.
Email: kedarnd@doctors.org.uk
Editors note:
We hope you have enjoyed this edition of the newsletter. We are
currently looking into the possibility of a desktop edition to
follow the 2001 College Annual Meeting, which would include the
presentations made there by the speakers and members of the SIG.
May we encourage you to support the newsletter with any articles,
comments and reflections you might like to contribute? This would
enable us to open a member’s forum, which we are sure would make
interesting reading.
Gillian
Broster
Enquiries, correspondence or articles to:
Daphne
Wallace Dr.
Gillian Broster, Avenue House,
Andrew
Powell 8
Bycullah Avenue, Enfield EN2
8DW
SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP PROGRAMME FOR
FRIDAY MAY 4th 2001
Venue: Royal College of Psychiatrists
‘ENGAGING THE SPIRITUAL
MIND’
10.15
Coffee
10.45
Preliminary notices Dr. Powell (Chair)
11.00
Dr. K. Chandiramani ‘Vipassana meditation as a tool for
mental health’
12.00
Dr. de Wet Vorster ‘The Church and patients who are
reluctant
to
engage with helping agencies’
1.00
Lunch
2.15
Dr. C. Holman ‘Perverse Spirituality’
3.15
Dr. S. Raheja ‘Examining our Spiritual Spectacles: Dangers
and
Pitfalls’
4.15
Plenary
5.00
End of Meeting
5 CPD Credits have been given
for the whole day
programme
Please note the closing date for this
meeting will be Friday, 27th April 2001