Intersecting Realities
Immanence and Transcendence
Affecting change in the world—whether at a societal, cultural, or political level—and cultivating our inner life are deeply interconnected. Throughout history, various cultures have developed healing modalities, such as modern transpersonal psychotherapies1, shamanic practices2, use of sacred plant medicines, as well as intensional use of music, dance, and movement. Put simplistically, these methods aim to foster experiences of integration and wholeness. Facilitating connection to the Transpersonal —an experience that transcends our ego-centric subjectivity and opens us to a larger, allocentric, collective consciousness.
While each modality offers a unique approach to healing, they all share a common goal: to help individuals transcend their current limitations and experience a sense of interconnectedness with the Sacred, however that is understood. This process is more about remembrance and unlearning than the acquisition of new knowledge3, helping to widen the cracks in the materialist, reductionist worldview that conceals a deeper living truth.4
Opening ourselves to non-ordinary states alters our perceptive faculties, activating the sensuous intuitive self in a dance of synesthesia, revealing aspects of the living world that were previously hidden.
"Synesthesia is not only the experience of multiple senses blending into one, but the ability to perceive reality in ways that transcend our normal sensory systems.”
Stephen Harrod Buhner
In many ways, this return to direct mystical experiences5 , and the spontaneous knowing that can resultantly arise, brings us back to the origins of religion; and science as natural philosophy. Reclaiming our mystical intelligence is key in deconstructing the powerful religious and scientific abstractions that bind our civilisation in chains. This also connects with Alfred North Whitehead’s creative advance of the Universe. For Whitehead, mystical experience is not just the individual surpassing their subjective limits, but is a direct participation in the broader unfolding of reality—a creative, interconnected becoming of Self and Cosmos. To truly embed this as a sustainable world-transforming practice, we must find balance between immanence, the divine presence within the world, and transcendence, this expansive autopoietic6 impulse of life.
Transcendence is not about escaping the world, but about expanding the limits of our perception, understanding, and selfhood—integrating novel dimensions of being into our unique anthro-ontology7. By doing so, we allow the immanent processes of life to speak to us more clearly. These dimensions, accessed through the transcendent impulse, widen our capacity for intuition and insight into the immanent living world of our locality.8 With the reverse (knowing the whole through the part9) also being true. This anthro-ontological weaving strengthens our personal becoming as a node in the creative evolutionary advance of the Universe.
"There is more God to come"
Teilhard de Chardin
We are both causal weavers in the great Dao, and self-actualising agents in the flowering of our own unique pluralistic omega points10. Our personal cosmogonies11 resonates with the Whole, intertwining in relational webs of morphogenetic12 process and possibility, each of which comes to inform our lives in unseen and unknowable ways.
"The many become one, and are increased by one."
Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality.
The challenge, then, is not to overvalue transcendent experiences or ideological abstractions as 'more divine' or 'greater than' everyday life. This can lead to an ever-increasing disconnection from the real world and its complexities, and form the dogmatic hierarchies we see in many institutions today. Instead, mystical perceptions should serve as doorways, inviting us to become more sensitively embedded in Life’s animacy.
This can help deepen the dynamism between self, ecology and cosmos, increasing the flow and cultivation of experiential generative knowing. When we bring this knowing home to the Self we expand our horizon of choice as we dream into the unfolding moment.13
References
Psychotherapy and Healing: Psychotherapy, especially forms like transpersonal psychology, integrates ideas about transcending the ego and seeking a deeper sense of interconnectedness. Transpersonal psychology, developed by figures like Abraham Maslow and Stanislav Grof, examines the ways in which psychological healing can lead to experiences of wholeness and transcendence (Grof).
Grof, S. (2000) Psychology of the Future: Lessons from Modern Consciousness Research
Shamanism and Transpersonal Healing: Michael Harner’s work on core shamanism and the use of ritual and altered states of consciousness for healing and spiritual connection demonstrates the transformative potential of these practices (Harner, 1980).
Harner, M. (1980). The Way of the Shaman: A Guide to Power and Healing. HarperOne.
Unlearning and Transformation: The idea that true transformation involves unlearning or letting go of existing structures of knowledge rather than acquiring new information resonates with the work of thinkers like Gregory Bateson, who emphasized that learning often involves breaking old patterns and shifting one's way of thinking to perceive the world differently (Bateson, 1972).
Bateson, G. (1972). Steps to an Ecology of Mind. Chandler Publishing Company.
Materialist Reductionism and Consciousness: The critique of materialist reductionism and the call for a more holistic, expansive view of consciousness has been a central theme in the works of both spiritual and scientific thinkers. The reductionist approach to understanding the mind and consciousness is often critiqued in favor of more integrative or systems-based models, such as those developed by Fritjof Capra, who advocates for a more holistic understanding of consciousness and reality (Capra, 1996).
Capra, F. (1996). The Web of Life: A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems. Anchor Books.
Whitehead, Alfred North. Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology. Free Press, 1929, p. 47.
Whitehead describes mystical experience as a direct engagement with the creative, dynamic processes of the universe, where the individual becomes aware of a deeper, relational reality beyond ordinary perception.
Maturana, Humberto R., and Francisco J. Varela. The Tree of Knowledge: The Biological Roots of Human Understanding. Shambhala, 1992.
In The Tree of Knowledge, autopoiesis refers to the self-organizing, self-maintaining nature of living systems, where organisms continually produce and regenerate their own structure through internal processes, forming the basis for cognition and perception.
Anthro-ontology is an interdisciplinary field that explores the nature of human existence (ontology) through the lens of anthropology. It examines how different cultures understand, experience, and construct the concept of being, identity, and reality, focusing on the relational, cultural, and existential aspects of human life.
Whitehead, Alfred North. Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology.
God's consequent nature: God as a principle of order within the dynamic processes of the universe, not a distant or separate entity but deeply involved in the creative advance of life.
Bortoft, H. (1996). The Wholeness of Nature: Goethe's Way of Science. Floris Books.
Bortoft elaborates on how we can understand the whole (or the "totality") by attending to its parts in a dynamic and relational way, rather than merely breaking things down into isolated components. His approach draws from Goethe’s method of scientific inquiry, which emphasizes the importance of experiencing the whole through the direct perception of parts, allowing the wholeness to emerge rather than being abstracted.
Teilhard de Chardin, P. (1955). The Phenomenon of Man. Harper & Row.
Teilhard explores his ideas about the evolution of life and consciousness, culminating in the concept of the Omega Point, which he describes as a final stage of cosmic evolution in which all of creation converges and reaches a state of unity and divine fulfillment.
Cosmogony is the study or narrative of the origin and creation of the universe or cosmos. It explores how the universe came into being, often involving mythological, philosophical, or scientific explanations of its beginning, structure, and development.
Sheldrake, R. (1981). A New Science of Life: The Hypothesis of Morphic Resonance. London: Blond & Briggs.
Sheldrake's work on morphic resonance explores how forms, patterns, and behaviors are influenced by non-local fields, offering an alternative to the mechanistic view of biology and offering a basis for understanding the interconnectedness of all life.
Gebser, J. (1985). The Ever-Present Origin (translated by Noel Barstad and Algis Mickunas). Ohio University Press.