A Pandemic is a Terrible Thing to Waste
Part Four – The Magic and Mystery of Spiritual Healing
My title is a quote from American priest, theologian, and author Matthew Fox. Indeed, how can we not waste what we have to learn from this current health crisis? It is often, perhaps always, that we learn the most from passing through the fire of ordeal to walk through the doorway of greater enlightenment. What does “spiritual healing” mean in a world with so much sickness and dysfunction in ordinary times, and even more in this extraordinary time. Among many other things to learn, what can this pandemic teach us about Jesus and his work in healing bodies, minds, and society?
Sri Aurobindo (1872 – 1950), Indian spiritual reformer and visionary, in his magnum opus, The Life Divine, writes, “At present, mankind (sic) is undergoing an evolutionary crisis in which is concealed a choice of its destiny; for a stage has been reached in which the human mind has achieved in certain directions an enormous development, while in others it stands arrested and bewildered and can no longer find its way.”
The most common way of approaching a problem in modern culture is to bring our best thinking to it and, hopefully, “figure it out.” That purely “rational mental” method is not working and will not work for today’s problems.
Each structure, magic, mythic, and mental, as it has emerged in history, has had a time of flourishing and contributing to our wholeness. Later it moves into decline when it has exhausted its contribution and then becomes a limiting force. Gebser sees this as what has happened today with the rational mental structure:
The Scream by Edvard Munch
“This means that we are approaching the ‘zenith’ of confusion and are thus nearing the necessary breakthrough. . . . The confusion in the individual’s everyday life, his (sic) lack of fulfillment in his work, his isolation in the masses, his powerlessness over against the idle running of anonymity, whether of mechanisms or of bureaucracies — this insecurity and enslavement are only reflections of the general malaise. Anxiety is always the first sign that a mutation [structure] is coming to the end of its expressive and effective possibilities.”
This declining phase of the mental structure of consciousness in today’s world reveals itself in the increased sense of reality as stagnant and alienating. Declining mental health states, such as depression, suicide, mass killings, and addiction, are rooted in the current mental structure. The decrease in mental health in the last half-century in this country is reflected in the 35% increase in suicide rates over the last twenty years.
The need for integral healing in different areas of life is interconnected. The November 2019 issue of National Geographic declares that deforestation is leading to more infectious diseases in humans. By triggering a complex cascade of events, deforestation creates the conditions for a range of deadly pathogens and the parasites that cause malaria and Lyme disease to spread to people. As we destroy more and more forests, scientists fear that the next deadly pandemic could emerge from what lives within them.
Minds need healing. Bodies need healing. Society needs healing. The earth needs healing. All of these need the wholeness and vitality that comes from the integral structure of consciousness. Only integral brings the resources of magic, mythic, and mental into our awakened consciousness’s spirituality.
My focus in this series is on the part of integral consciousness that involves spiritual healing through prayer. Here are three healing avenues in integral prayer to consider: the numinous, inspiring music, and transcendent oneness.
The Numinous
We can intensify healing by the power of the mystical numinous. Gebser says, “The concept of the numinous is an attempt to grasp and define a primordial experience, and this experiential character places it particularly within the sphere of the pre-rational vital sphere of magic.” It is our deep, healing response to sacred experiences that we cannot understand. As we have become more intellectually sophisticated, we have been less inclined to value the mystical. The mystical magic only occurs when we move from rational, logic dominated consciousness to a non-ordinary consciousness that moves beyond the rational. As I have quoted previously, Gebser says, “All magic, even today, occurs in the natural-vital, egoless, spaceless and timeless sphere. This requires—as far as present-day man is concerned—a sacrifice of consciousness; it occurs in the state of trance.” In my language, this means the numinous occurs, even momentarily, in a non-ordinary, awakened state of consciousness connected with the gut/womb center of spiritual knowing.
Gebser points out, “The numinous experience exists, within our culture, in the feeling of religious awe, the ‘shiver’ which overwhelms him or her during the sacramental rites.” He sees Jesus as a “numinous person,” and I see Jesus as the Christian’s primary model of accessing and living from the numinous.
I shiver or shake quite often whenever something mystically touches me. This happens to me numerous times every day. When I tremor, it is a signal that I am encountering sacred, numinous truth in some form. That’s my experience, and you may have other manifestations of the numinous.
Almost anything can cause us to experience the numinous. From Catholics and Episcopalians in their liturgy to the African American church and charismatic worshippers being “overcome by the spirit.” Or a glorious sunset, an act of kindness, or a comforting note in a time of need. The more I am in touch with the mystical magic radiating from my gut, the more things I find numinously radiant. Recently, I was driving home on a broad, six-lane, almost empty highway, bathing in the presence of God, when I came to a massive intersection of several highways. At this moment, they appeared to be shimmering in graceful curves around one another in a dazzling display. Imagine – a numinous moment engendered by highway architecture!
Jungian analyst, Fred Santana, says, “The numinous has an incredible healing capacity, too, since it has the potential to reconnect us to a greater whole. Numinous experiences, such as prophetic dreams or stunning synchronicity, are an invitation and can signal a transition or important new phase beginning to unearth itself.”
The womb-centered numinous creates a larger cosmic reality. It moves us out of our small world into God’s big world where we are connected with something greater than ourselves, in an embodied way that we experience immanently and directly. This changes the way we view and experience reality.
One of my favorite spiritual teachers, Adyashanti, speaking of the numinous, says, “In each of us, there’s an indescribable, unconditioned state of being that is present every instant, in every experience. One encounter with it can alter the course of one’s entire life. The numinous is always right there at the center of our immediate experience of being. We’re all touching, tasting, and looking from and through the numinous.
In a certain sense, the spiritual instinct is the numinous seeking its recognition of itself. There’s something about what’s always been that transcends our descriptions of it.”
Power of Music by Louis Gallait
Music as a spiritual healing practice
Gebser wrote, “The basis for music is found in the magic structure.” He saw music as one of the most powerful means to activate magic timelessness in a way that is appropriate for our times and able to unlock the magic, mystical world for us.
Beautiful music is the art of the prophets that can calm the agitations of the soul; it is one of the most and delightful presents God has given us.
˞Martin Luther
Author and teacher Deepak Chopra says, “Music can play a central role in the spiritual life of a person or community. Throughout history, music has been used in spiritual ceremonies in the form of acapella singing, chants, drums, among others. Music has a transcendent property that can connect you to something greater than yourself and has been proven to positively affect spirituality and quality of life. Use it to connect to yourself, others, and the Universe in ways that will transform your life into a healing environment.”
It should be noted, however, that spiritual power is not present equally in all music. Going beyond musical taste, one must discern what music awakens their innermost being and what merely entertains, distracts, or agitates. Mozart inspires me. Country music or rap for others. I have to admit that country music is beyond my imagination, just as Mozart is beyond the imagination of others. We are all different.
The healing power of oneness
The intuition of oneness comes from the gut or spiritual womb. As we relax our hold on the rational without becoming irrational, we more easily move into magical deep truth and reality. We then actually “see” the inner and outer worlds in such a transparent way that they become one. Gebser speaks of “the unfathomable mystery of magic unity,” and the “viscera or intestines are evidence of unity or identity.”
The primary constituent of spiritual healing is the magic structure of the spiritual womb. This means healing does not come from mere mental wishing or hoping for healing. Holding mental pictures of healing can be a beginning, but ultimately magical healing power can only come from deeper within. In the heart, we can hold someone in light and love. But healing energy comes principally from the flow of living waters from our innermost being or spiritual womb as described and modeled by Jesus. When these living waters flow from each of us and intermingle, we sense a oneness with one another — and even everyone.
Gebser pens, “We would again emphasize that the magic structure is characterized by unity. Whenever it [enchanted mysticism] breaks into consciousness, it subordinates consciousness to its might, thereby not strengthening consciousness so much as confounding it.” This is not a unity that can be grasped by the logic of the mind. Logic says we are all separate and different. The mystical allows us to experience oneness in ways that do not lend themselves to description but rather to metaphors and symbols.
Recently, Luke and I were meditating in integral prayer together as we do every week. When I focused on our womb centers, I was aware that so much energy was flowing between us that I could no longer tell what his energy was and what was mine. The flow of Living Waters had so mingled that there was no difference between us. I was myself. He was himself. Yet, we were one without differentiation.
Integral Healing Prayer Practice
1. If you are not used to immediately moving into a meditative state, or you are feeling especially scattered, take fifty normal breaths. Each breath moves you deeper into yourself in only two or three minutes.
2. Begin with your feet in anchoring yourself to the earth and drawing grounding energy up into your feet and legs.
3. Draw that expanded embodied energy now up into your gut or spiritual womb. Feel the movement and vitality of the radiant energy of your innermost being. You may, at first, only feel the smallest glimmer of a feeling. That’s fine. Just sink into that feeling. Pay attention to it. Let it intensify.
4. If you seek healing for yourself, let the energy field flow to the part of your body that needs healing. Direct it there as long as you wish. Let that body part soak in that healing energy field.
5. If you seek healing for another or a situation, direct that flow, in Jesus’ metaphor, of living water to the other. No need for words. Just send and sense the energy flow.
An Opportunity for Holistic Mystical Healing
We didn’t know we were sick. It took a pandemic to highlight the degree to which we are fragmented and disassociated from ourselves and others. The mental structure, for all its gifts, has reached its deficiency. While it brings the healing power of medicine and science, it alone is incomplete and incapable of the deeper healing needed globally and individually.
To come to our own healing and wholeness, we need the integration and accessibility to our inner resources of the heart and spiritual womb. We need the magical structure to come alive within us once again through mystical consciousness. Traveling deeply into any of these three pathways—the numinous, the musical, and the unitive oneness—is in and of itself profoundly healing and nourishing. Journeying there together with others in the empowerment of companionship, such as a WeSpace group, is to cocreate the new mystical healing wards for a new, healthy world.