[iDC] Jorge Ferrer: The Participatory Turn in Spirituality

[Michael Bauwens]

Excerpt from a landmark book, that I will present on our p2p blog on december 1, 3,and 5

The Participatory Turn: Spirituality, Mysticism, Religious Studies.
Edited by Jorge Ferrer with Jacob H. Sherman. SUNY Press, 2008


Subtitles are ours:



Jorge Ferrer:
 
"My intention is this essay is to first uncover the spiritual
narcissism characteristic of our shared historical approach to
religious differences, as well as briefly discuss the shortcomings of
the main forms of religious pluralism that have been proposed as its
antidote. Second, I introduce the “participatory turn” in the study of
spirituality and religion, showing how it can help us to develop a
fresh appreciation of religious diversity that eschews the dogmatism
and competitiveness involved in privileging any particular tradition
over the rest without falling into cultural-linguistic or naturalistic
reductionisms. Then I offer some practical orientations to assess the
validity of spiritual truths and outline the contours of a
participatory critical theory of religion. To conclude, I suggest that
a participatory approach to religion not only fosters our spiritual
individuation in the context of a shared spiritual human family, but
also turns the problem of religious plurality into a celebration of the
spirit of pluralism. 


Critique of Spiritual Narcisssism and the existing interpretations of religious pluralism
A few marginal voices notwithstanding, the search for a common
core, universal essence, or single metaphysical world behind the
multiplicity of religious experiences and cosmologies can be regarded
as over. Whether guided by the exclusivist intuitionism of
traditionalism or the fideism of theological agendas, the outcome—and
too often the intended goal—of such universalist projects was
unambiguous: the privileging of one particular spiritual or religious
system over all others. In addition to universalism, the other attempts
to explain religious divergences have typically taken one of the three
following routes: exclusivism (“my religion is the only true one, the
rest are false”), inclusivism (“my religion is the most accurate or
complete, the rest are lower or partial”), and ecumenical pluralism
(“there may be real differences between our religions, but all lead
ultimately to the same end”). 


The many problems of religious exclusivism are well known. It
easily fosters religious intolerance, fundamentalist tendencies, and
prevents a reciprocal and symmetrical encounter with the other where
divergent spiritual viewpoints may be regarded as enriching options or
genuine alternatives. In the wake of the scope of contemporary
theodiversity, the defense of the absolute cognitive superiority of one
single tradition over all others is more dubious than ever. Inclusivist
and ecumenically pluralist approaches suffer from similar difficulties
in that they tend to conceal claims for the supremacy of one or another
religious tradition, ultimately collapsing into the dogmatism of
exclusivist stances. Consider, for example, the Dalai Lama’s defense of
the need of a plurality of religions. While celebrating the existence
of different religions to accommodate the diversity of human
dispositions, he contends that final spiritual liberation can only be
achieved through the emptiness practices of his own school of Tibetan
Buddhism, implicitly situating all other spiritual choices as lower. In
a way, the various ways we have approached religious
diversity—exclusivism, inclusivism, and ecumenical pluralism—can be
situated along a continuum ranging from more gross to more subtle forms
of “spiritual narcissism,” which elevate one’s favored tradition or
spiritual choice as superior.
The bottom line is that, explicitly or implicitly, religious traditions
have persistently looked down upon one another, each believing that
their truth is more complete or final, and that their path is the only
or most effective one to achieve full salvation or enlightenment. Let
us now look at several types of religious pluralism that have been
proposed in response to this disconcerting situation. 


Insufficiency of Earlier Varieties of Religious Pluralism
Religious pluralism comes in many guises and fashions. Before
suggesting a participatory remedy to our spiritual narcissism in
dealing with religious difference, I critically review here four major
types of religious pluralism: ecumenical, soteriological, postmodern,
and metaphysical. 


As we have seen, ecumenical pluralism admits genuine
differences among religious beliefs and practices, but maintains that
they all ultimately lead to the same end. The problem with this
apparently tolerant stance is that, whenever its proponents describe
such religious goal, they invariably do it in terms that favor one or
another specific tradition (e.g., union with God, nondual liberation,
and so forth). This is why ecumenical pluralism not only degenerates
into exclusivist or inclusivist stances, but also trivializes the
encounter with “the other”— after all, what’s the point of engaging in
interfaith exchanges if we already know that we are all heading toward
the same goal? The contradictions of pluralistic approaches that
postulate an equivalent end-point for all traditions have been pointed
out by students of religion for decades. A genuine religious pluralism,
it is today widely accepted, needs to acknowledge the existence of
alternative religious aims, and putting all religions on a single scale
will not do it. 


In response to these concerns, a number of scholars have
proposed a soteriological pluralism that envisions a multiplicity of
irreducible “salvations” associated with the various religious
traditions. Due to their diverse ultimate visions of reality and
personhood, religious traditions stress the cultivation of particular
human potentials or competences (e.g., access to visionary worlds,
mind/body integration, expansion of consciousness, transcendence of the
body, and so forth), which naturally leads to distinct human
transformations and states of freedom. A variant of this approach is
the postulation of a limited number of independent but equiprimordial
religious goals and conceptually possible ultimate realities, for
example, theism (in its various forms), monistic nondualism (à la
Advaita Vedanta), and process nondualism (such as Yogacara Buddhism’s).
The soteriological approach to religious difference, however, remains
agnostic about the ontological status of spiritual realities, being
therefore pluralistic only at a phenomenological level (i.e., admitting
different human spiritual fulfillments), but not at an ontological or
metaphysical one (i.e., at the level of spiritual realities). 


The combination of pluralism and metaphysical agnosticism is
also a chief feature of the postmodern solution to the problem of
conflicting truth claims in religion. The translation of religious
realities into cultural-linguistic fabrications allows postmodern
scholars to explain interreligious differences as the predictable
upshot of the world’s various religious beliefs, practices,
vocabularies, or language games. Postmodern pluralism denies or
brackets the ontological status of the referents of religious language,
which are usually seen as meaningless, obscure, or parasitic upon the
despotic dogmatism of traditional religious metaphysics. Further, even
if such spiritual realities were to exist, our human cognitive
apparatus would only allow us to know our culturally and linguistically
mediated experience of them. Postmodern pluralism recognizes a genuine
plurality of religious goals, but at the cost of either stripping
religious claims of any extra-linguistic veridicality or denying that
we can know such truths even if they exist. 


A notable exception to this trend is the metaphysical or deep
pluralism advocated by some process theologians. Relying on Alfred
North Whitehead’s distinction between “God’s unchanging Being” and
“God’s changing Becoming,” this proposal defends the existence of two
ontological or metaphysical religious ultimates to which the various
traditions are geared: God, which corresponds to the Biblical Yaveh,
the Buddhist Sambhogakaya, and Advaita Vedanta’s Saguna Brahman; and
Creativity, which corresponds to Meister Eckhart’s Godhead, the
Buddhist emptiness and Dharmakaya, and Advaita Vedanta’s Nirguna
Brahman. A third possible ultimate, the cosmos itself, is at times
added in connection to Taoism and indigenous spiritualities that
venerate the sacredness of the natural world. In addition to operating
within a theistic framework adverse to many traditions, however, deep
pluralism not only establishes highly dubious equivalencies among
religious goals (e.g., Buddhist emptiness and Advaita’s Nirguna
Brahman), but also forces the rich diversity of religious ultimates
into the arguably Procrustean molds of God’s “unchanging Being” and
“changing Becoming.” 

[edit]
The co-creation hypothesis as solution to diversity
"Can we take the plurality of religions seriously today without
reducing them to either cultural-linguistic by-products or incomplete
facets of a single spiritual truth or universe? I believe that we can
and in the anthology I recently co-edited with Jacob H. Sherman, The Participatory Turn: Spirituality, Mysticism, Religious Studies (SUNY Press, 2008), we are calling this third way possible the “participatory turn” in the study of religion and spirituality. 


Briefly, the participatory turn argues for an understanding
of the sacred that approaches religious phenomena, experiences, and
insights as cocreated events. Such events can engage the entire
range of human faculties (e.g., rational, imaginal, somatic, aesthetic,
contemplative, and so forth) with the creative unfolding of reality or
the mystery in the enactment—or “bringing forth”—of ontologically rich
religious worlds. Put somewhat differently, we suggest that religious
and spiritual phenomena are “participatory” in the sense that they can
emerge from the interaction of all human attributes and a creative
spiritual power or dynamism of life. More specifically, we propose that
religious worlds and phenomena, such as the Kabbalistic four realms,
the various Buddhist cosmologies, or Teresa’s seven mansions, come into
existence out of a process of participatory cocreation between human
multidimensional cognition and the generative force of life and/or the
spirit. 


But, how far are we willing to go in affirming the cocreative
role of the human in spiritual matters? To be sure, most scholars may
be today ready to allow that particular spiritual states (e.g., the
Buddhist jhanas, Teresa’s mansions, or the various yogi samadhis),
spiritual visions (e.g., Ezekiel’s Divine Chariot, Hildegard’s
visionary experience of the Trinity, or Black Elk’s Great Vision), and
spiritual landscapes or cosmologies (e.g., the Buddha lands, the
Heavenly Halls of Merkavah mysticism, or the diverse astral domains
posited by Western esoteric schools) are largely or entirely
constructed. Nevertheless, I suspect that many religious scholars and
practitioners may feel more reticent in the case of spiritual entities
(such as the Tibetan daikinis, the Christian angels, or the various
Gods and Goddesses of the Hindu pantheon) and, in particular, in the
case of ultimate principles and personae (such as the Biblical Yaveh,
the Buddhist sunyata, or the Hindu Brahman). Would not accepting their
cocreated nature undermine not only the claims of most traditions, but
also the very ontological autonomy and integrity of the mystery itself?
Response: Given the rich variety of incompatible spiritual ultimates
and the contradictions involved in any conciliatory strategy, I submit
that it is only by promoting the cocreative role of human cognition to
the very heart and summit of each spiritual universe that we can
preserve the ultimate unity of the mystery—otherwise we would be facing
the arguably equally unsatisfactory alternative of having to either
reduce spiritual universes to fabrications of the human imagination or
posit an indefinite number of isolated spiritual universes. By
conceiving spiritual universes and ultimates as the outcome of a
process of participatory cocreation between human multidimensional
cognition and an undetermined spiritual power, however, we rescue the
ultimate unity of the mystery while simultaneously affirming its
ontological richness and overcoming the reductionisms of
cultural-linguistic, psychological, and biologically naturalistic
explanations of religion.
 
What I am proposing here, then, is that different spiritual
ultimates can be cocreated through intentional or spontaneous
participation in a dynamic and undetermined mystery, spiritual power,
and/or generative force of life or reality. This participatory
perspective does not contend that there are two, three, or any limited
quantity of pregiven spiritual ultimates, but rather that the radical
openness, interrelatedness, and creativity of the mystery and/or the
cosmos allows for the participatory cocreation of an indefinite number
of self-disclosures of reality and corresponding religious worlds.
These worlds are not statically closed but fundamentally dynamic and
open to the continued transformation resulting (at least in part) from
the creative impact of human visionary imagination and religious
endeavors. 


In the context of the dilemmas posed by religious pluralism,
one of the advantages of a participatory account of religious knowing
is that it frees religious thinking from the presupposition of a
single, predetermined ultimate reality that binds it to reductionistic,
exclusivist, or dogmatic formulations. Once we do away with this
assumption, on the one hand, and recognize the ontologically creative
role of spiritual cognition, on the other, the multiplicity of
religious truth claims stops being a source of metaphysical agnosticism
and becomes entirely natural, perhaps even essential. If we choose to
see the various spiritual ultimates not as competing to match a
pregiven spiritual referent but as creative transformations of an
undetermined mystery, then the conflict over claims of alternative
religious truths vanishes like a mirage. Rather than being a source of
conflict or a cause for considerate tolerance, the diversity of
spiritual truths and cosmologies becomes a reason for wonder and
celebration—wonder inspired by the inexhaustible creative power of the
mystery and celebration of our participatory role in such creativity,
as well as of the emerging possibilities for mutual enrichment that
arise out of the encounter of traditions. In short, a participatory
approach to religion seek to enact with body, mind, heart, and
consciousness a creative spirituality that lets a thousand spiritual
flowers bloom. 


Although this may at first sound like a rather “anything goes”
approach to religious claims, I hold to the contrary that recognizing a
diversity of cocreated religious worlds in fact asks us to be more
perspicuous in discerning their differences and merits. Because such
worlds are not simply given but involve us as agents and cocreators, we
are not off the ethical hook where religion is concerned but instead
inevitably make cosmo-political and moral choices in all our religious
actions. 

[edit]
How can we evaluate religions in the context of co-creation?
This does not mean that we cannot discriminate between more evocative, skillful, or sophisticated artifacts. 


Whereas the participatory turn renders meaningless the
postulation of qualitative distinctions among traditions according to a
priori doctrines or a prearranged hierarchy of spiritual insights,
these comparative grounds can be sought in a variety of practical
fruits (existential, cognitive, emotional, interpersonal), perhaps
anchored around two basic orientations: the egocentrism test (i.e., to
what extent does a spiritual tradition, path, or practice free its
practitioners from gross and subtle forms of narcissism and
self-centeredness?) and the dissociation test (i.e., to what extent
does a spiritual tradition, path, or practice foster the integrated
blossoming of all dimensions of the person?). As I see it, this
approach invites a more nuanced, contextual, and complex evaluation of
religious claims based on the recognition that traditions, like human
beings, are likely to be both “higher” and “lower” in relation to one
another, but in different regards (e.g., fostering contemplative
competences, ecological awareness, mind/body integration, and so
forth). It is important then not to understand the ideal of a
reciprocal and symmetrical encounter among traditions in terms of a
trivializing or relativistic egalitarianism. By contrast, a truly
symmetrical encounter can only take place when traditions open
themselves to teach and be taught, fertilize and be fertilized,
transform and be transformed. 


Two important qualifications need to be made about these
suggested guidelines. The first relates to the fact that some spiritual
paths and liberations may be more adequate for different psychological
and cultural dispositions (as well as for the same individual at
distinct developmental junctures), but this does not make them
universally superior or inferior. The well-known four yogas of Hinduism
(reflection, devotion, action, and experimentation) come quickly to
mind in this regard, as do other spiritual typologies that can be found
in other traditions. The second qualification refers to the complex
difficulties inherent in any proposal of cross-cultural criteria for
religious truth. It should be obvious, for example, that my emphasis on
the overcoming of narcissism and self-centeredness, although arguably
central to most spiritual traditions, may not be shared by all. Even
more poignantly, it is likely that most religious traditions would not
rank too highly in terms of the dissociation test; for example, gross
or subtle forms of repression, control, or strict regulation of the
human body and its vital/sexual energies (versus the promotion of their
autonomous maturation, integration, and participation in spiritual
knowing) are rather the norm in most past and present contemplative
endeavors. 

]
The need for embodied spirituality
The embodied and integrative impetus of the participatory turn is
foundational for the development of a participatory critical theory of
religion. From a participatory standpoint, the history of religions can
be read, in part, as a story of the joys and sorrows of human
dissociation. From ascetically enacted mystical ecstasies to
world-denying monistic realizations, and from heart-expanding sexual
sublimation to the moral struggles (and failures) of ancient and modern
mystics and spiritual teachers, human spirituality has been
characterized by an overriding impulse toward a liberation of
consciousness that has too often taken place at the cost of the
underdevelopment, subordination, or control of essential human
attributes such as the body or sexuality. Even contemporary religious
leaders and teachers across traditions tend to display an uneven
development that arguably reflects this generalized spiritual bias; for
example, high level cognitive and spiritual functioning combined with
ethically conventional or even dysfunctional interpersonal, emotional,
or sexual behavior. 


Furthermore, it is likely that many past and present spiritual
visions are to some extent the product of dissociated ways of
knowing—ways that emerge predominantly from accessing certain forms of
transcendent consciousness but in disconnection from more immanent
spiritual sources. For example, spiritual visions that hold that body
and world are ultimately illusory (or lower, or impure, or a hindrance
to spiritual liberation) arguably derive from states of being in which
the sense of self mainly or exclusively identifies with subtle energies
of consciousness, getting uprooted from the body and immanent spiritual
life. From this existential stance, it is understandable, and perhaps
inevitable, that both body and world are seen as illusory or defective.
In contrast, when our somatic and vital worlds are invited to
participate in our spiritual lives, making our sense of identity
permeable to not only transcendent awareness but also immanent
spiritual energies, then body and world become spiritually significant
realities that are recognized as crucial for human and cosmic spiritual
fruition. 
This account does not seek to excoriate past spiritualities,
which may have been at times—though by no means always—perfectly
legitimate and perhaps even necessary in their particular times and
contexts, but merely to highlight the historical rarity of a fully
embodied or integrative spirituality. At any rate, a participatory
approach to spirituality and religion needs to be critical of
oppressive, repressive, and dissociative religious beliefs, attitudes,
practices, and institutional dynamics. 
Conclusion:Spiritual Individuation in a Common Spiritual Family
Let me conclude this essay with some reflections on the future of world religion and spirituality. 
Briefly, to embrace our participatory role in religious knowing
may lead to a shift from searching for a global spirituality organized
around a single ultimate vision to recognizing an already existent
spiritual human family that branches out from the same creative root.
Traditions may then be able to find their longed-for unity not so much
in a single spiritual megasystem or global vision, but in their common
roots—that is, in that deep bond constituted by the undetermined
dimension of the mystery (or the generative power of life, if one
prefers more naturalistic terms) in which all traditions participate in
the cocreation of their spiritual insights and cosmologies. 
Like members of a healthy family, religious people may then
stop attempting to impose their particular beliefs on others and might
instead become a supportive and enriching force for the “spiritual
individuation” of other practitioners, both within and outside their
traditions. This mutual empowerment of spiritual creativity may lead to
the emergence of not only a rich variety of coherent spiritual
perspectives that can potentially be equally aligned to the mystery,
but also a human community formed by fully differentiated spiritual
individuals. Situated at the creative nexus of immanent and
transcendent spiritual energies, spiritually individuated persons might
become unique embodiments of the mystery capable of cocreating novel
spiritual understandings, practices, and even expanded states of
freedom. If we accept this approach, it is plausible to conjecture that
our religious future may bear witness to a greater than ever plurality
of creative visionary and existential spiritual developments. This
account would be consistent with a view of the mystery, the cosmos,
and/or spirit as moving from a primordial state of undifferentiated
unity towards one of infinite differentiation-in-communion. 


The affirmation of our shared spiritual family may be
accompanied by the search for a common—nonabsolutist and contextually
sensitive—global ethics. It is important to stress that this global
ethics cannot arise out of our highly ambiguous moral religious past
but needs to be forged in the fire of contemporary interreligious
dialogue and cooperative spiritual inquiry. In other words, it is
likely that any future global ethics will not be grounded in our past
spiritual history but in our critical reflection on such history in the
context of our present-day moral intuitions (for example, about the
pitfalls of religious dogmatism, fanaticism, narcissism, and
dissociation). Besides its obvious relevance for regulating
cross-cultural and interfaith conflicts, the adoption of a global
ethics may be a crucial step in bringing about the mutual respect and
openness among practitioners necessary for sustaining and invigorating
both their common roots and their individual spiritual blossoming. 


To conclude, I propose that the question of religious
pluralism can be satisfactorily answered by affirming the generative
power of life or the mystery, as well as of our participatory role in
its creative unfolding. The time has come, I believe, to let go of our
spiritual narcissism and hold our spiritual convictions in a more
humble, discriminating, and perhaps spiritually seasoned manner—one
that recognizes the plausibility of a multiplicity of spiritual truths
and religious worlds while offering grounds for the critical appraisal
of dissociative, repressive, and/or oppressive religious expressions,
beliefs and practices. To envision religious manifestations as the
outcome of our cocreative communion with an undetermined spiritual
power or dynamism of life allows affirming a plurality of ontologically
rich religious worlds without falling into any of today’s fashionable
reductionisms. The many challenges raised by the plurality of religions
can only be met by embracing fully the critical spirit of pluralism. 

]
Source
Extracted, with some original passages, from J. N. Ferrer & J.
H. Sherman, eds., The Participatory Turn: Spirituality, Mysticism,
Religious Studies, State University of New York Press, October 2008 (http://sunypress.edu/details.asp?id=61696). The author would like to thank Jacob H. Sherman for his helpful feedback and editorial advice. 
Bio
Jorge N. Ferrer, Ph.D. is chair of the Department of East-West
Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies, San
Francisco, and author of Revisioning Transpersonal Theory: A
Participatory Vision of Human Spirituality, State University of New
York Press, 2002. Prof. Ferrer offers talks and workshops on integral
spirituality and education both nationally and internationally.