Mind; Self Awareness
MIND
325. The Unconscious (by Robert C. Murphy; 1996)
About the Author—Robert Murphy & his wife live & work in the high mountain country of Wyoming. He is a physician/ psychiatrist; his wife is a specialist in learning disabilities. They are involved in issues of human rights, environment, homelessness, death penalty, violence to women, & Quaker concerns. Bob's first Pendle Hill (PH) pamphlet was Psychotherapy Based on Human Longing (#111; 1960); it met an unarticulated need in psychotherapists & psychiatrists countrywide. Psychotherapy has become strongly based on human longing, while orthodox psychiatry with its new knowledge of neurobiology has drifted away from creative Unconscious.A Story—[I packed for a trip East to visit children & grandchildren & made the long drive to a motel in Billings, MT. As I went to unload the trunk, I felt a horrible emptiness in my belly, a knot in my stomach. I opened the trunk & realized I had left my suitcase in our living room. What can forgetting a suitcase mean? We decided to postpone 1 day.] I said, "I could have used 12 days for finishing the manuscript instead of going East." The knot eased as I said those words; the "mistake's" meaning became clear. [My daughter was very understanding & reminded me] that she had canceled a trip at the last minute because she had to paint. [Actually, I wanted to take the trip to use up an] expiring free flight ticket. I had been regretting losing 12 days on my manuscript, but had told myself that I'll make it up. My unconscious said, "No—this is your time for writing."
Introduction to the Unconscious/ [Conscious Only Thinking]—It has been the source of all that is most satisfying in our lives since long before the word "unconscious" was coined. There were Vedantic philosophy's atman, Christian mysticism's "Cloud of Unknowing", & the 1st Americans' Vision Quests. The deepest, least accessible unconscious is our spiritual connection to the Universe. Our relationship with the divine is, for the most part, unconscious. I was a docile & obedient candidate eager to please my teachers; I struggled to understand the unconscious of Freud's unyielding determinism. The following synthesis of what Freud, Reich, Horney, Jung, & others contributed to my grasp of the human unconscious denies nothing of what I have learned.
Most of our awareness of the unconscious comes at the conscious/ unconscious interface, i.e. where you are when you can't remember someone's name, & a few moments later do. The unconscious is like an anchor holding us to the entire Universe. If we cling to conscious-only experience, we feel isolated, separate from it. Conscious-only thinking is a flight from an ocean & variety of mental activity, as if we might get lost & drown; it is freedom from anxiety & it is boring. We are drawn toward our deeper selves & our creative energy's source.
[Language of the Unconscious/ "Bad" Impulses]—Unconscious "language" is different from that of consciousness. It is not a language of words, for it has none of its own, but only those borrowed from consciousness; the unconscious is our awareness of relationship, and the source of insight. When a difficult associate becomes an opportunity to practice dealing with toxic people, our fear is leavened by a sense of adventure. Unexpected connections are made in the unconscious; [their unexpectedness] expresses the hiddenness of their source. As we open our hearts to the unconscious we take part in the peace and passion of life: 2 faces of the same coin.
The unconscious, life's ocean, is the source of peacefulness & passion. Peace's leaven can raise the bread of passion into loaves only in touch with life's breath. It is in repression of "bad" impulses that we injure our-selves & Earth & each other. Culture picks our enemies for us, in contrast to spontaneous rage over military budgets, [subsequent neglect of infrastructure & basic human needs]. Culture routinely pushes American children into "zombie-hood, which is demonstrated by the occasional child who hasn't been affected. [Exceptions & zombie-repressed children have sparkle]. Given a chance, children can recapture their freedom & begin to sparkle.
The repression of rage has varying, often serious, ill effects on our bodies, is often feared and is thought to be ungovernable. Anger is a an impulse to violence; when it comes into full consciousness it is likely to be non-violent, [rather than the hurtful form anger's energy takes when carried out in unconscious designs aimed at someone's most sensitive spot]. We don't recognize the violence we fully intended to commit.
[Expression of the Unconscious/ Relationship to Consciousness]—Under heavy repression, impulses are sneaky & violent through being hidden. If one finds a way to speak straight, even in the midst of anger, it can lead to more development of the relationship. Impulses allowed airing & full exploration without repression or distortion lead to nonviolent reciprocity feelings. We don't live by the unconscious, i.e. keep it in our hearts, trust what we don't yet know of our thinking & feeling, invite it to yield insights, [or believe] there is truth deeper than immediate experience. The more we discover the unconscious the more fascinated we are. [In biofeedback, where one] abandons control of brainwaves to the unconscious, many quiet healing events may take place.
There is a dynamic opposition between consciousness and unconsciousness. Our consciousness is the status quo of the mind that would prefer awkward questions not be raised. Toward the headstrong conscious, the unconscious is like a loving parent; it waits for its deeper experience to be recognized. When we are functioning with an open gate between conscious and unconscious we have fewer accidents, make fewer mistakes, and attend to our needs more gracefully; you experience yourself "in one piece," and find yourself more graceful.
Part of the unconscious is made up of repressed, conscious material. Psychic material is banished from consciousness, sits in the unconscious, watching for a chance to act in an [subtle], unnoticed way. Without outlet, it may build enough charge to burst out without being conscious, [leaving one to wonder about] source or meaning. Gigantic rage in some Vietnam veterans was expressed unconsciously by torturing prisoners with almost no satisfaction or revenge. Their rage [at being seen as expendable for a purposeless war], found its way from unconsciousness to motor pathways of behavior with almost no conscious awareness of it. Military indoctrination kept overwhelming rage almost completely out of sight. Violent culture, with its ineptness, repression, lack of reliable authority, [has been a heavy influence on motiveless mass murderers &] their frighteningly common atrocities.
Rage, when repressed, is dangerous. It is a gift of sheer energy which we can take inward as personal non-violent power. Rage is much too precious to be wasted by merely lashing out at someone. Let a burst of rage-energy fan out through your whole being as a sense of power, freedom and control, and you feel great. Rage needs to be held in full and painful consciousness, while giving up guarantees that the method will "work." Its transformation is a gift; all we can do is to put ourselves into a position that is most receptive to it.
Passion, Rage, & Creativity—Our culture isn't discriminating in what it represses; its overall target is passion. [The deans, those who profit most from the status quo of major career paths—including religion]—& secondarily parents, send out messages against too much passion. [In medicine, people are deprived of exercising self-care; in religion], some churches offer a pre-digested god so much that one's own discovery of God becomes blurry, or no longer possible. Culture's sexual display is shallow & [rage-on-display] isn't really rage. In my mid-70's, I experienced a sustained explosion of sheer, screaming rage at my long-dead parents; it greatly helped to free me from their continuing impact on my life.
A person committing unconscious, violent rage is experiencing self-righteousness, which grants license to lots of mischief. "Raging" religious moralists don't feel "rage"; they just know what is "right." Conscious rage enables us to see: that isn't I; this is where I stop. Conscious boundaries, although they change, make possible our condensing & focusing our energy. No boundaries makes it impossible to take a stand about anything. International & unconscious rage causes world leaders to explain [& excuse war's toll of 100,000's]. In everyday life it underlies ordinary insincerity. [All levels of brutality] seem to be carried out with little apparent angry feeling.
The possession of rage is facilitated through its non-violent expression. [Emotions need] endocrine and muscular components to become fully conscious. Wilhelm Reich identified the muscular armoring as the body's contribution to keeping unwelcome emotions out of consciousness. [He formed] both a theory & muscle-unbinding method of therapy that in well-trained hands can be effective.
[Repressed Rage and Creativity; Reliable Unconscious]—Converting impulses from inactive, buried, dead chunks of alien feeling into vibrant, living feelings in our full possession, changes us into free, creative, imaginative persons able to go where we want, to know, & to do what we want to do. Repression necessarily results in the diminishment of our health, as well as shrinking creative freedom to fit within the boundaries of the status quo. [There are signs of creativity not confined to the status quo within the women's movement, and within the new approach], a sparkling and humane program, for treating coronary disease.
The key to that transformation is to welcome all of our impulses, [especially] those that are barely conscious. Common phobias can be healed by gradually learning to trust the unconscious. The culture's twin demands are that we not be angry, and that we learn self-control. Both lay waste to our health, for to be healthy we must be angry about the chains we are invited to accept; we must give up the notion that control is simply [all] in our own hands. Our behavior in greater or lesser degree, always expresses unconscious needs.
Self-control is forced into us; it is little but thought-control. If children don't think about sex then they won't do it—is a statement 180º opposite to reality. [Unexpressed sexual] energy condenses in the unconscious like a bomb waiting to explode in sexual or non-sexual behavior almost certain to be destructive. Trusting the unconscious or spontaneity, points to keeping faith with the unconscious' unfailing reliability. Health means living in harmony with the unconscious, opening to it when we don't know what to do. Living in that trust, we will find that ordinary life emergencies are competently managed by the unconscious, [often before the conscious is fully aware of the problem or the best solution]. What emergency have you had where your unconscious took over, partially or totally? [Your harm-avoiding or life-saving actions can often be mistaken for conscious skill].
Freedom from Repression—Teaching children to control their impulses is inferior to, [& perhaps incompatible with] helping them develop self-trust. We adult products of a lame and ailing culture need to remake ourselves. [While we are remaking ourselves, self-control is needed]. [Ultimately], there are no impulses that must be repressed, because, there are no bad impulses. Weird fantasies of violence, inventive deviant sexual impulses, these are some of the "crazy" thoughts to be found behind the civilized facade of many of us. [These impulses are disguised thought-energy], pushing in unrecognizable costumes, toward consciousness where they can offer us their energy. When we welcome these strangers we become freer & stronger, & we don't have to understand what they are all about. The rage of those of my Vietnam veteran patients who could welcome & possess their impulses might not have burst through to take such catastrophic & unconscious charge of their behavior.
School youngsters are given an immensely confusing double message: "Don't do ["immoral"] sex," and "Do sex every chance you get." Sex is always to be separated from the rest of life, which cuts [their true self] off from their sexuality. [The results are] repression of sexual feeling and passionless promiscuity. We must hope that they experience themselves as fully and joyfully sexual; [this will alleviate the cruelty inflicted and the pregnancy epidemic]. Adolescence is the hardest time for grownups to maintain loving control of their youngsters. Parents may find the cultural and hormonal [influences that interfere with parenting] more than they can gracefully handle. [Often repressed by culture, hormones, and parents], teenagers precariously raise each other.
[The Revealing of the Unconscious]—Our dreams, when we remember them, are a source of endless entertainment and instruction. Maybe after reflecting on the drama left behind, we find it pulling everything together. Sometimes they design careful parables in dream action, from which we find new portents. They may offer us the golden opportunity of recognizing our terror, living through it and forgiving it. They may be richly satisfying in spite of their obscurity, for they move material from the deep unconscious to more accessible levels.
On some occasions stimulus for feeling good remains unconscious, but still affects mood. Dreams may also do a lot for us without us being aware of what they say. They make unconscious material more accessible, leave us feeling more in control, better able to creatively handle [life challenges related to the dream's unconscious material]. When we see dreams intuitively, dreamlike, we speak their language. Trying to force dream-meanings into [a long-winded, psychoanalytic system] results in losing [deeper] meaning. Even nightmares are gifts. Vietnam veterans have become stronger, freer, more resilient when they are held & supported through them.
We don't escape an impulse toward sexual behavior that couldn't be integrated into our life by finding ways to banish it from awareness. As we learn to trust impulses our unconscious will take care of behavior. It isn't likely to demand that we act on an impulse too powerful for us. The unconscious is reliably-reliable, but it's also allied to a fallible ego. We need sharing both ways in close relationships. There's no end to the variety of close contacts—friends, spouse, a never-to-be-seen-again stranger—that offer practice in sharing & shaping our lives.
[Unconscious as Guide]—The unconscious is alert to what eyes & ears sense, & draws immediate, accurate conclusions. Imagine relying on the same process for major life choices as easily as you do about hitting ball with a racket. [In relying on it] we will discover ["new" freedom that has always been available]. At our deepest reaches our unconscious & the Universe's Spirit, the Infinite meet; God rests there also. There is a difference between trusting our depths & "doing God's will." The latter [is likely] weighted with moralisms. Keeping tuned to inwardness, [our unconscious], we develop behaviors from the love, truth, beauty, & honesty [that is at our core]. In everyday life we experience echoes of Oneness. It makes life enjoyable, generous & loving—& guides behavior. The words "I love you" are wondrous when one senses Spirit in them; a wildflower poking through melting snow opens heaven for a moment. There are situations when we are too scared or angry or far away from our inner guide. Those are good waiting, "not-doing" times; our unconscious is always pressing its way toward us.
The Unconscious and the Body's Health—The connection between our unconscious & life-supporting neuro endocrine systems has been recognized in general medicine since Walter Cannon's Wisdom of the Body (1932); he popularized adrenaline & "fight or flight." Medical technology & organized medicine [later turned the body into machine parts]. Trying to heal the body without reference to the unconscious as its major source of healing is absurd. Physicians, with 4 to 8 years of intense training, are molded into technicians & out of healing. The unexplained resolutions of cancer, people going from death-bed to full healing in response to a life affirming event, may completely escape the modern physicians' notice. Many accounts show that moods & our beliefs heal or sicken us depending on which way they point, or that patients wait for some person to come before allowing themselves to die. The unconscious very frequently decides when the time is right or not right for us to die.
After 20 minutes of examining a man with an ulcerative & hyperactive bowel, I said to him, "Bob, you may die." The agononizing pain [& frenetic activity] in his gut went completely quiet; & he became instantly peaceful. I think my words granted his tormented body immense relief by giving voice to what his unconscious was clearly accepting. Doctors are taught that death is our enemy, but when we dare to accept it as friend we can come to trust it. How is it possible for physicians not to see that body health & spiritual health can't be separated? I hope doctors can continue to learn more & more from our most ready & accessible instructors, our patients.
A Free Ride—The unconscious & God. who [forms] a spring at its deepest reaches, make up the paired One that Quakers call "the inner light." This One's unconditional love ends inner conflict & deception, which integrates spirit & bodily functions into a healthy focus & accepts unavoidable pain. The unconscious wants the whole sweep of life that includes suffering. The boundary provided by freedom is that of my personal limitations. My freedom makes boundaries clear by showing us that power lies, undiminished, within them. We are, within our [true] limitations, [not the safe ones we create to conform to culture], a tool for the perfecting of life.
We potentially have a free ride through life—almost effortless. We can live carelessly & delightedly with whatever life brings us, & get through the dull times & depressed times when nothing seems any good. As Thomas Kelly said: "Everything matters & nothing matters." Dying isn't particularly important, but how we die certainly is. Being hurt by a Friend's painful remark is unimportant—how we absorb pain & let ourselves be stimulated to new insights by it, is. When we shape the insights of our small, unconscious voice by sharing them with each other we have a project for appropriate living which can't be improved upon. Trusting the unconscious does not mean a happily-ever-after life. Healing wounded spirits can take a long time. The seed of body/spirit health (comfort, pleasure, laughter, companionship, & peace) wants to be found. The heart's task is timeless; it seeks a sense of home, sureness, belonging & love. There is time for everything, and it doesn't need to be measured.
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221. Harnessing Pegasus: Inspiration and Meditation (by Elizabeth Gray Vining; 1978)
About the Author—The actual basis and texture of Elizabeth Vining’s life has been her writing, some 25 books (under Elizabeth Janet Gray and Elizabeth Gray Vining), and 6 Pendle Hill Pamphlets [2 as editor, 4 as author, 1 after this one]. This pamphlet fulfills her promise to get down on paper her contributions to Pendle Hill’s “3 Writers on Writing” weekend conference in early 1978.
Can you write a book right off or do you have to go out into the woods & think? 5th Grade class writing query
[Introduction]—What is inspiration? One definition is “the seemingly involuntary element in the art of expression for which the artist holds a power outside himself responsible. Elizabeth Drew wrote: “The poets do seem to agree that the origin of their art lies outside their purely conscious faculties.” [Some see in inspiration] an element of divine revelation. In the case of Archimedes, it is probable that all the thinking & mental wrestling with the problem that he had done earlier had been working in his mind's deep recesses & threw up the answer when the surface mind had let go & was at rest. Can Pegasus, the fiery steed of the Muses, be harnessed?
The Will?—[I had a long walk home from school on an empty stomach]. [In passing through] “the village,” there was a penny candy store. If I imagined myself walking quickly by it, I actually did. If I allowed myself to picture the candy store inside, [I felt a compulsion to go in]. [I had similar results in imagining concentrating on my homework]. I wrote: “The will’s an ox. It strains and heaves/ To drag its heavy load,/ Submits to yoke and goad,/ And massively its ends achieves.// Imagination is a bird,/ Flying and singing high/ And free in the windy sky./ Between the two is there a word// In common? Here is paradox:/ The soaring bird drops seed/ That roots and grows to feed/ The dumb, deliberate ox.”
Imagination?/ Race Memory—Imagination was a handmaid of inspiration. [I would “mull over” a story, letting the characters act & interact as they would, and think about their “history”; they would emerge, seemingly] of their own volition. After a while I jumped up, sat down at my desk and began to write. If I omitted mulling, I found myself going through a much longer and often frustrating process. It was not my own exclusive discovery. As a cartoonist put it: “But a writer isn’t always writing when he’s writing.”
Mary Austin’s Everyman’s Genius defined, explained, and developed my fumbling practice. Mary lived for some 15 years among the Indians of the Mohave Desert and was the autocratic “dean” of writers like D. H. Lawrence, Willa Cather, and others. There are repetitions and inconsistencies in Everyman’s Genius. Her best definition of genius is: “The capacity of the immediate self to make free and unpremeditated use of racial material stored up in the deep-self, as well as material acquired in the course of individual experience.”
It became clear to me that I had been skating over the surface of another discovery: one could draw on deeper sources of imagination than I had yet probed. E. M. Forster wrote: “What about the creative state? In it a man is taken out of himself. He lets down, as it were, a bucket into the unconscious & draws up something usually beyond his reach. The deep self lies in the lowest region of our being, below the level of our store of acquired information. This is the level at which inspiration in the sense of a message from the divine occurs.
Brahms believed that a higher power was working within him to produce his music. Max Bruch spoke of “drawing on the Eternal Energy, from which all life flows. He who consciously appropriates the inner force is inspired, but technically he must be adequately equipped to present the inspired ideas on paper.”
Is there such a thing as race memory? Some of our ways of thinking may indeed come from a source deeper than early education and the climate of thought in which we live. Something important to me was missing in my trip to Japan; it was something that had come to me from Greek thought, from English folk who were steeped in the classics, and from the Christianity of Luke and Paul. I am sure my Japanese Friends must miss in me what they get from their inheritance of Buddhist thought: an ability to recognize that A and B are not opposite or even separate but part of each other. How do we “let down a bucket” into the unconsciousness?
Letting Down the Bucket—Different people, of course, have done it in different ways. Howard Pyle would go on solitary walks, receive images, shut out distractions, process images with his keen, disciplined intellect, shaping it into graphic realization. Thoreau would philosophize upon waking, “having in my sleep transcended the limits of the individual and made observations which I can neither recall nor appreciate.
Bertrand Russell said: “I haven’t the vaguest idea either how I think or how one ought to think. The process is as instinctive & unconscious as digestion. I fill my mind with relevant knowledge & just wait. Giacomo Puccini said: “I 1st grasp within me the Ego's full power. [When] I feel a burning desire I make a fervent demand for & from the Power that created me, with full faith this will be granted. The vibration passes from the soul-center dynamo into my consciousness, & the inspired ideas are born.” Loren Eisley wrote: “I don't doubt that the freedom to create is somehow linked with facility of access to those obscure regions below the conscious mind. Elizabeth Coatsworth, told of “taking dictation from her subconscious, a muse [which inhabits] her home.”
[Having difficulty writing a chapter], I deliberately asked my deep self for help, then put the whole thing out of my mind. The next morning, I wrote the new chapter as if I were taking dictation, and when it was finished it carried forward the development of the story swiftly and surely. The deep self may also give warning when one is going astray or in danger of doing so. When Early Friends “had a stop in their mind,” and when they paid attention and refrained from the action, they found they had avoided some awkward mistake. I was blocked from writing a teenage novel by something far down in my mind, my deep self. Then it came to me in a rush. I should be writing my autobiography; the structure of this book became clear to me. After "Quiet Pilgrimage" was finished and off my mind, the teen-age book, "The Taken Girl," went through like a breeze.
Cooperating with the Deep Self—I have regular hours of writing. If one can’t set aside hours for writing, one can still engage the deep self by making a definite appointment the day before; one must be sure to keep the appointment. The deep self contains: childhood experiences; race memories; streams from the collective unconscious; facts; impressions; scenes; ideas. The relationship between the surface mind & the deep self, must be tended & fed. It means an absorbing of their essence & meaning, a making them one’s own by thinking about them.
Reading, music, art, travel all provide fodder for the silo of the unconscious. One should not read the kind of books one writes for recreation and relaxation. A novelist especially should not read other novelists. A novelist should read philosophy, natural history, books that appeal and fill blanks in one’s mental equipment. Music, art, and drama enlarge, deepen, and sensitize; travel brings new horizons.
Any experience, like the silo fodder, has to ripen & ferment in the [deep dark] before it is brought out for use. Experience, taken into the deep vaults of the memory, might years later emerge in a work of substance, clothed in meaning & beauty. Experience must be aged in the wood, pondered over, referred to other experiences. Mary Austin wrote: “The one indispensable talent for creative art … is the talent for experiencing. One should: let the experience have its way with one; not avoiding pain; after it is over, try to understand all its meanings & implications; never shirk an experience because of unexpected results.” An experience can leave little trace, or it is assimilated in a way that makes it the very stuff of one’s being. It isn't magnitude of happening it-self but the way it is committed to the deep self. [There is no telling when or how an experience will resurface].
Concentration/ Meditation—When surface mind & deep self are in harmony, an energy results that carries one in a burst of creation that is exhilarating & exhausting. Stephen Spender wrote: “Creative writing’s problem is essentially one of concentration; the eccentricities of poets are usually due to mechanical habits or rituals developed in order to concentrate. [A poet isn’t] concentrating or developing in one direction, just as a plant works in many directions, towards the warmth & light with leaves, & towards the water with roots, at the same time.”
William Butler Yeats says: “When a man writes any work of genius or invents some creative action, is it not because some knowledge or power has come into his mind from beyond his mind? … I know now that revelation is from the self, but from that age-long buried self.” He wrote that he “practiced meditations” and as a result ideas came to him in his dreams that later he developed into poems.
The resources of the deep self, I believe, become available to the surface mind not only through “meditations,” but through the daily practice of one or another of the more universal types of meditation; [the good ones train the person so that he can effectively move toward his goals.” We are at present seeing a revival of general interest in mysticism. One begins with meditation and goes on to contemplation and union.
In the revival of interest in meditation, it has been secular & eastern aspects of it that pre-dominate, although Merton’s Seeds of Contemplation & other writings have had wide reading & influence. Transcendental Meditation & Zen Meditation [are growing in popularity]. Zen meditation in Japan is also training in concentration that can be applied to secular activities. Businessmen devote time to it in order to be successful in their businesses.
Laurence LeShan "How to Meditate" [talks of structured meditation]. This includes: mantra, breath counting, 1,000 petal Lotus meditation, Bubble meditation & others. In unstructured meditation he says: “You think about a subject and simply stay with the subject and your own feelings about it.” Unstructured meditation is also one of the resources of the artist. The 14th century English Cloud of Unknowing has some excellent hints. The Cloud states: “Try to look as it over the distraction’s shoulders, seeking another thing.” Do not strive with them.
A mind accustomed to meditation & skilled in it, can more easily conceive of a special relationship with the deep self & achieve more easily the “concentration” which Stephen Spender described. Meditation takes the whole self. LeShan saw meditation as leading to understanding love. When all roads are mapped & signposts set in place, every one still has to find the way. Pegasus may be skittish & difficult to catch. Or [if we fall into presumption we may as] Keats wrote: “sway about upon a wooden rocking horse & call it Pegasus.” Any real con-tact with deep Self refreshes & strengthens. It blesses in the most profound and significant sense of the word.
About the Author—Helen Kylin is a painter and photographer whose work has been seen in art shows around Cleveland. She has been a teacher and coordinator of an elementary program on creative enrichment. She is member, deacon, and Bible student in the Fairmount Presbyterian Church. Most of this pamphlet was written during the 3 terms when Helen Kylin was a Pendle Hill Student. She hopes to continue developing her own creativity which is the open end of her own parable.
i thank you God for most this amazing day; for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky, and for everything/which is natural which is infinite which is yes (i who have died am alive again today/ and this is the sun’s birthday;…) (now the ears of my ears awake and now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
i am not sorry when silence becomes singing e. e. cumming
Even though it is my own free will to write this study, there is also an element of compulsion because the subject has been on my mind for many years. Being a creative, left-handed, and somewhat dyslexic person, I have sought ways to understand the dilemma that made me think differently about the world. I am grateful for the struggle to [“be like the others”] because it has taught me to be logical and verbal. So it is my logical self that says I do this study of my own free will and my intuitive self that wordlessly pushes me to the task.
When I look at a landscape or a group of people with an eye to taking a photograph or painting a picture, I am looking as much at the shapes between the objects as at the objects themselves. The empty spaces between much of what I say and the poems and stories I use will be as important as the words I will be using. It is in these spaces that thought connections can be discovered. A friend said: “There is no music in a rest, but there is the making of music. Silence is also a component of creative thought. A certain part of the brain must be put to rest so that intuition can speak to us with its own language. Einstein spoke of a period of visual and kinetic images, after which words were laboriously used to translate the images into language.
[In the right brain/left brain process] the right brain looks at the whole of a situation & then proceeds to its parts. The left brain looks at a situation by breaking it up into a sequence of steps that lead to wholeness. Our creative moments are not just times when we paint a picture or write a book. The same process is in operation when we make a connection with a story or metaphoric statement. [The process goes from]: preparation & investigation; rest and forgetfulness; integration and revelation; new relationships and patterns of ideas & images.
Creative thinking is not a matter of the dominance of one hemisphere over the other. It is a matter of using both sides in a manner appropriate to the type of work being done. [I worked with the creativity in children. Many of them said] they would remember the quiet place they had found inside their minds. Victoria said: “You dig down deep in your well—all the way to your little self.” Katie said: “If you can’t think of anything you go to a corner where it is quiet.” I am not emphasizing staying in intuitive states for long periods of time. It is in the movement between the 2 hemispheres of the brain that creativity is generated. The Society of Friends explores this process and creative social action has proceeded from it. In the stillness, empty spaces occur and new possibilities are searching their way to the surface of the mind.
One early morning when I was about to leave a well-loved place, I stood before a great tree and it spoke to me. I was slightly changed by the confrontation. I had been discussing Findhorn the evening before; Findhorn people produce vegetables of prodigious size by talking affectionately to them. The tree did not turn my life around, but it did broaden my view so that now I think again before doubting possibilities.
In I and Thou Martin Buber says there are 3 spheres in which the world of relation arises involving: nature; language; & spiritual beings. [My encounter with the tree] enlarged my primal knowledge of reality in ways that aren’t expressed but are valid. The 2nd sphere involves language. Forces of nature were like pre-metaphors for pre-historic man & helped him cope with the world. Even abstract words were once images developed by some-one making connections between a known & an unknown. [Very old metaphors] may have lost their metaphoric surprise, but we can realize that these words & others once had a surprise effect on any person who 1st used them
Small children reach out perceptually to their environment & find similarities. We can’t discount evidence that children have a metaphor sense. As the child learns good vocabulary, the process of putting words into categories continues. Mental lists of color words or flower words [& other groupings] are made. Metaphor has come to be seen by scholars as a process where a known becomes linked with an unknown in such a way as to present new thought or image. The 3rd sphere of relationships which Buber mentions is life with spiritual beings. It lacks but creates language. “We hear no YOU & yet feel addressed; we answer—creating, thinking, acting.”
As we know, the conscious mind is only part of the thinking process. What is happening in the silent hemisphere can be processed in the verbal hemisphere. Then, a new insight suddenly appears in the mind that is prepared to receive it. It is sometimes as creative to understand a metaphor by using our imagination as it is to create one yourself. The ability to think this way becomes lost to some people but perhaps it could be recaptured.
St. Augustine spoke of his surprise at the mountains and hills of his imagination and the plains and caves of his memory. We cannot develop new meanings without the skill of comparing feelings or objects for which we have no known words with a known. The making of metaphor does not ever take us completely away from ourselves. The self is always one component of the process, and the new insight adds a dimension to the self in its journey of becoming what it can or must become.
We are advised by Jesus to lose ourselves in order to find ourselves. Perhaps we cannot lose ourselves until we have a self to lose. Each separate road taken becomes a story for God’s eyes to see and God’s ears to hear. If we being one part of metaphor are moving from the known through the unknown, our stores will probably become myths or parables. The Bible gains power in our lives through images and stories we can take into our lives and relate to as examples and guideposts on our journey.
Stevie Smith’s poem “Not Waving but Drowning,” is to me a metaphor for our inability to communicate well. It says in part: “Nobody heard him, the dead man./ But still he lay moaning: … I was much too far out all my life/ & not waving but drowning.” Kafka says: “When the sage says: ‘Go over,’ he means to some fabulous yonder, something unknown to us, something that he cannot designate more precisely, or help us get there.”
I can spend a ridiculous amount of time building walls between myself & the critical remarks of friends. Gifted teachers like Jesus, the Baal Shem Tov & Chuang Tsu break down the barriers & reach us by an indirect approach through open-ended stories. Parables have the power to make people see reality & face it. Here is a short Pendle Hill garden parable: “One time we put a fence around the garden & trapped 5 rabbits inside. Each garden/parable is harboring a real live rabbit or toad which may jump into our hands & reveal personal messages.
Jesus realized that people respond to an indirect approach. He showed respect for his listeners by speaking to them so that his words could be met by each person’s perception. Since we are developing organisms our understanding may change and develop as we grow. [The early churches began with parables]. As they moved out into the world influenced by Greek culture they were influenced by a different literary style—the allegory. In the gospel passage where Jesus explains the parable of the sower and the seeds, it is probably the church speaking and not Jesus himself. This interpretation set a pattern of allegorization that has stayed with the church until this century. An allegory assigns a set meaning to each person or event and reaches a known conclusion; Greek minds could not easily handle an uninterpreted parable.
Through the study of biblical language and history in the last century, the allegory’s [set values & meanings for each aspect of the parable] has been challenged. We need a growing understanding of the message Jesus came to bring as well as understanding that the people Jesus spoke to were used to hearing ideas in indirect metaphoric words. If we aren’t careful we can make up meanings that carry us farther from [the reality of life that parables were meant to teach us]. Parable are fragile & not to be stretched out of shape. The part of the parable that is unexplained carries the emotional impact. Our interpretations may need verification, but each can be unique.
Brinton Turkle, writer & illustrator of children’s books & a Quaker says: “In a way all the stories I have written & will write are already in my head. It means that the right time & right climate must be there before it can come out.” [The same is true of creating our Self]. As we progress on our journey many parables occur in our own lives. If we become sensitized to them these insights can be gifts that have meaning beyond the words.
Because most of us have heard the parables often & since childhood, it’s not easy to hear with new ears & see with new eyes. In a real way for us Jesus can become a part of our personal metaphors & part of our personal parables. As we confront ourselves with biblical parables & with our parables we can be met by truths that have in them the power of transformation. In a real sense Jesus [can] become the Harvest as we respond with our lives.
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SELF-AWARENESS
About the Author—Scott Crom's undergraduate work was math; his doctor's degree at Yale was philosophy. He is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Beloit College, & clerks Beloit Preparative Meeting. He participates in American Friends Service Committee work camps. He came last fall to serve as dean of studies. He wrote Obstacles to Mystical Experience (PHP #132). In the present pamphlet he discusses personal & religious wholeness, reconceiving truth as fidelity of consciousness to a fluid, evolving reality.
FOREWORD—There are gross oversimplifications in this paper, particularly in comparison of East & West religious ways. [I have sacrificed writing] an acceptable work of scholarship [in favor of preserving] the thread of the developing argument. Relatively few of my ideas are original. I absorb an idea & it becomes comfortable to me; I forget where it came from. I'm not describing familiar landmarks; I'm trying to detect what lies ahead on the way I hope I have entered. The following essay grows out of my attempt to be a faithful Friend. Many Friends will have little sympathy with some of my conclusions.
I: [Wrong & Right Questions]— (Wrong):How can I become an authentic, 3-dimensional, integral & grounded human being instead of a bundle of fragments hiding behind a facade? How can I come to the real knowledge and service of God? How can I share in the light, illumination of the transcendent, holy, divine? These questions all grow out of a sense of unfulfillment; there is more to life than we have yet encountered or created. Life isn't the wasteland it seems to be. These questions, these pleas must be met & the response lived with by each individual in each generation. If spiritual & psychological nostrums only momentarily ease the worst of our symptoms and leave the illness untouched, perhaps we have been asking the wrong questions.
Instead, the questions should be: (Right)Why am I not real, why am I not free? Why am I estranged from my-self & that reality without which I can't exist? Questioning our unreality is meaningless; speaking of being cut off from God makes no sense. Yet obviously, such meaningless language speaks to us. [Paradoxical language] serves a purpose other than communicating literal sense; it can effect our deeper centers of experience.
[Western Disobedience, Eastern Ignorance]—We are born real, & then become unreal. The infant [& a cat] have a greater authenticity than we feel in ourselves. The integrity of cat or infant isn't one to which we can return. They don't have a conscious self to be estranged. Salvation presupposes that we see & acknowledge we are lost, cast out. What keeps us from fulfillment, from authenticity, from grace, from enlightenment? Eastern & Western religious traditions give different answers [from different questions]. Western questions are: Why have we fallen from grace [into self-gratification]? Why don't we know & serve God? The answer is: we are disobedient. Eastern questions are: Why are we bound to a ceaseless cycle of return, of a rebirth of old fear? Why do we find ourselves enslaved by suffering of which we are the author? The answer is: we are ignorant.
In the West we are lost because we have disobeyed, followed our own wills, made new gods, made our-selves into gods. Self-indulgence takes many forms, [gross and subtle, tangible and intangible]. We are called on to obey, to love the Lord and our neighbor. [In any interpretation of salvation and grace], there is something within our power which we must do before grace can be received or salvation can take place. Worship, praise, [and mediation] are ultimately brought to bear on the turning of the willful heart.
The religious East believes we are in bondage and in darkness because we are ignorant. We mistake the Maya-illusion for the Brahma-reality. We are in bondage to suffering because we do not know enough. The Eastern way of enlightenment lays much stress on preparation through obedience, moral discipline, and self-purification. In their content, Eastern moral insights reach heights that we in the West can respect and aspire to. The will and the mind which distort the truth and which attach themselves to falsehood and delusion must be disarmed and put to rest before the liberating truth [and saving wisdom], can flood and release the whole person.
The Western way of obedience lays much stress on knowledge. One may suspect that Christianity has the most highly developed systematic theology of any major world religions. Christian theologians seek to extend & deepen their attempts to understand God's nature. The joint heritage of Greek thought & modern science makes it impossible to achieve an obedient heart and will unless the questing mind is somehow disarmed and put to rest.
[Lessons for East and West]—East and West are still living in a tradition of thought forms and social and cultural practices which must be tremendously stretched, if not broken, before the value of each tradition can genuinely inform the other. [The East has assimilated Western technology, and Western culture is accepting the influence of] Eastern literature and art. [Beyond the scholars in both cultures], Western philosophy and moral configuration, and Eastern views of man, time, and experience's nature have yet to reach the other culture's man in the street. There are encouraging signs that a genuine interpenetration of traditions has begun to take place over the last generation or two. The Western way of obedience must reconceive and radically integrate the way of knowledge [of true self] into its obedience. The Eastern way of true-self knowledge must reconceive and radically apply its way of obedience into its own knowledge. Although the West is looking freshly at the problem of knowing God and the East is taking with new seriousness the need for action in this world, both run the danger of a real split between their respective ways of knowledge and obedience.
II:[New Conception of Truth & Reality]—In Greek thought, objective reality is an absolute, timeless system of structure & relationships. Leslie Dewart has suggested rethinking the whole nature of truth & reality. Consciousness isn't a human faculty, but constitutes one's very being. It increases by qualitative intensification as consciousness further differentiates itself from the rest of reality while it relates to reality as subject to object. We must reject Plato's view that there can be a final discovery of some fixed armature on which the universe is built.
Truth reconceived as the fidelity of consciousness to reality is susceptible to continued growth & development, & to being perceived more & more sensitively, receptively, & consciously. [There are several belief systems which are] protests against conceiving God (or truth) in a way which doesn't heighten consciousness but stultifies it. God isn't to be conceived as a being, or being itself; God isn't to be regarded as a person, or as personal. God is to be conceived as the open background out of which emerge consciousness & being. Let us say that God is the flavor of all our experience, the new smell that the world took on for George Fox. Two ways of experiencing the world are possible, God-flavored & God-less.
If we aren't to conceive God as a person, then of course we could not conceive God as having a will. The whole notion of discovering and obeying the will of God becomes meaningless. There are several forms in the East where there is no concept and therefore no experience of God as personal. Some Christians have experienced discovering and obeying the will of God. Just what is it about their experience which enabled them to be open to reality and power? An approach in terms of what religion does, rather than in terms of what it is, permits a drawing together of East and West, of the ways of enlightenment and obedience. We are estranged from God and ourselves because of self-will; we are in darkness and in suffering because of self-ignorance. We must fully let go and let God's will and the cosmic consciousness shine through us. The letting-go must be by the whole person in that wholeness of presence to one's self that makes one human. [To do otherwise is to cling] to something partial, something fixed, something narrow [based on] self-will and self-ignorance.
III: [Fear and Trust]—Why are we unable to let go, or why do we refuse to let go of self-will and self-ignorance? It is an intellectual fear, ranging from complacency to cynicism to skepticism to agnosticism to a desperate, frightened refusal to accept an insight that will shatter one's tiny, partial, beloved corner where one stands. Fear is at the root of disobedience. It may be that a sudden & drastic threat shows that underneath world-ly comfort and security there is a fearful clinging as desperate as that of one with only a shred to sustain one.
Fear is countered by trust. For the present purposes, the concept of trust may be more helpful or fruitful than "love." Whereas love is often thought of as an emotion, trust is more easily thought of as a total response of the person, an attitude of receptive openness. It is easier to think of trust as relevant alike to mind and heart and will. Trust does not seem drastically incomplete without a specified object. In Eastern mysticism, the development of trust seems to proceed negatively by showing that the narrow self we cling to, is not something ultimately real. The Eastern difficulty in letting go of [self-experience] is comparable to the Christian's difficulty in letting go of [self-will]. [Trust and obedience is dependent on having] a creator, a father, a redeemer, a being in whom power and loving mercy are combined, [a being who is seeking our trust & reconciliation with God]. This undergirding of trust means that faithful Christians over the generations have not been ultimately deluded, and it grounds the reality of the power and freedom and the grace of their lives.
[Just as we can re-think truth, reality, & God, we can reconceive trust as] the healing & redeeming flavor of our experience & as having a ground in reality outside our own psyches. Wholeness is the seamless garment of a free & vital personality; it is that nondual world in which we live & move & have our being. The way of wholeness, the way of letting go, of trusting is nothing new. Our wholeness can reach heights faithful to, but going beyond those of the past. The richer the possibilities & the more various the strands making up the new fabric of consciousness & life the greater are the chances of going astray & of taking something partial for the whole.
IV:[Becoming Real or Whole]—How can I become real or whole? We are told that we get there by being there. We learn to love by loving, to be free by exercising our freedom, & to trust by trusting. They tell us to do that very thing we are asking help to do. These answers are true, & they are the only safe answers. There are many answers more immediately helpful and satisfying, but they are dangerous because they are ultimately partial. The more that partiality approaches genuine wholeness, the more difficult it will be to see its remaining inadequacy. It is the one on the verge of enlightenment who is most trapped by one's craving for enlightenment.
By an intrinsic & obvious necessity, the way of wholeness must be whole, but not all at once. Each pair of wholeness/ fragmentation, reality/ unreality, freedom/ bondage, saint/ sinner marks not a set of static & polar opposites, but 2 different directions. The whole person must be involved in every advance toward wholeness. Language seems to falsify reality; any expression pointing towards truth seems also to point in the opposite direction. We mustn't mistake the finger for the moon it points at, or the raft with the farther shore to which it carries us.
Some fragmented people need part-by-part healing. There are some whose life of services takes up such a large part of their attention that their inward life is stinted, or those with spiritual senses so keen that they seem to miss the needs of those around them. Any catalog of our fragmentation is virtually endless and each of us has a unique configuration of them. When we can recognize our own partialities, we can begin consciously to counter them. [Focusing on what most needs] growth runs the danger of a partial way, which in its very helpfulness tends to take the place of wholeness, and which uses only temporarily helpful [concepts which later become obstacles]. One can only return to the classical answers that tell us to do that very thing we are asking help to do.
[We may have a vision of our goal], but we must not let it so intensify the difference between what we are and what we want to be that it hardens into reality the distinction between goal and journey, ends and means. Wholeness is appropriate because it can be applied in 2 directions, in the wholeness of a person, the unity of a single center, and in the universe as a single whole, without ultimate clefts or chasms. With these two put together, we see ourselves as continuous with the rest of reality. In our present [reconceiving], present-ness refers to the actualness, the there-ness, the is-ness, [the now-ness] of reality. Present-ness, trust, wholeness abide. Yet they do not abide; they are fingers, not the moon; they are rafts, not the shore.
V: [Making ourselves Partial & Whole]—[For some], the integrity of life consists of a harmony in which different elements are in good proportions, rather than a genuine present wholeness where consciousness is faithful to reality. We label, fragment, & distort our already whole reality. We make ourselves partial by being partial, and we become whole by being whole. The freedom available to us is not one that can be achieved by taking conscious thought, which can only be partial. Nor is what is required merely a change in attitude. All such procedures and changes, necessary as they can be, are only baby-steps and one fragment working against another.
We need to change our total selves, yet we cannot because there is no place to stand in order to get leverage within one's self; too often we find ourselves back in the conflict of part against part. No other can change us either, in the way required; any outside impact depends on what we make of it. We cannot lift and heal and grow ourselves to wholeness, nor can anyone else. Yet lifting, healing and growth do take place. [However we speak of change, we are comparing fragments with one another]; fragments are unfaithful to reality.
We can be open and present to another in ways going beyond those in which we are open to ourselves. As we mediate present-ness and love for another we find them returning to ourselves many-fold. Wholeness and present-ness are already at work; we can become sensitive to the ways we are blocking them. We must exercise suspicion, forgiveness and letting go. Our experience of reality is no optical illusion, nor a subjective hallucination. Our experience of reality is itself real; it is neither cause nor effect; and it is both cause and effect. In a God-flavored world one does not to look at some neutral world through God-colored glasses. We can point our natural and growing wholeness in the direction of the sun which calls it forth. We can align ourselves with the creative and redeeming power which is divinity in action. Any prayer is not a petition, it is not an addressing, not a calling from one center to another. It is the opening of depth to background, the pervasive flavor of every moment, where mindful consciousness is present to Presentness.
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125. Children and Solitude (by Elise Boulding; 1962)
A Prayer for Parents [Excerpt]—Father [Parent] of us all, we are caught in a fear there will be no future for our children. We are beset with temptations to act in many directions at once [to “save the world”]. Shall we save the world and lose the soul of one untended child? Spare us the blasphemy of taking the world’s weight on our shoulders. Help us to lead our little ones to the true source of all being, as we have been led. Grant that we may together experience the outpouring of thy love, that our children may know the one source of true joy.
Children and Solitude—When William Penn found himself in a period of enforced retirement, he “kissed the Gentle Hand which led him into it,” for he found his solitude a great treasure. I have come to feel solitude is the most natural thing in the world; that children, like adults should need and cherish times of solitude. The importance of [and emphasis on] the socialization process in the development of the individual seems to have obliterated awareness of the kind of growth that takes place when the individual is not reacting with others. In sociological literature, “privacy” is something defensively [desperately] longed for, rarely achieved. We have a real compulsion to groupism, rather than to develop our private selves.
In examining the positive function of aloneness in the individual’s development, we are moving against the mainstream of thought of our time. [The knowledge that] physiological psychologists and neurologists have [gained about how the brain works] is remarkable. Add to this [sociological knowledge that has been gained], and we have an impressive body of knowledge about what makes a person what they are. But humankind will come to a spiritual dead end if they do not allow time apart and in solitude for things to happen inside [the self].
Our latest information about the nervous system’s operation, combined with our creativity knowledge, must lead [to awareness of] the importance of solitary meditation in the human mind’s development. The vividness and variety of inward images and sounds vary from person to person, but the basic phenomenon is universal, like breathing, yet unique to each individual in the light-pattern they use. It needs to be counterbalanced by experiencing the outside world. The danger faced by most children is what we might call imagery deprivation. [They need time to go off quietly and mull things over; groupism resists this “mulling time”]. The duality of [being] dust of the earth and image of God is a duality which the fact of our creation challenges us to encompass.
We know it was the tremendous creativity in the Renaissance and the Enlightenment Age which produced explosive and exciting developments in 20th century society. 1st, creativity is a fundamental characteristic of the human mind; there is no sharp dividing line between the creative thinker and artist and “ordinary” human being. 2nd, the essence of creativity is fragments of knowledge and experience being recombined to create a new synthesis. 3rd, there has to be large chunks of uninterrupted time available for creative activity, for the brain to work with the impressions from the outside world. The workings of the unconscious mind are of little use if [time is not taken to organize them with the conscious mind.
Solitude—H. G. Wells said, “I need freedom of mind. I want peace for work." [He wanted a Great Good Place to work in, but he said,] “We never do the work that we imagine to be in us, we never realize the secret splendor of our intention.” What secret splendor of intentions resides in the heart of every child? [Some answers to this question are found in Walter De la Mare’s Early One Morning]. The children described make special use of solitude. These youngsters stood slightly aside from life’s mainstream & observed & pondered. [The childhoods of Isaac Newton, Joan of Arc, Herbert Spencer, & Lord Herbert of Cherbury were used as examples]. Anything which brought about a drastic break in the usual routine and left a lengthy period of time in which the child was [left to the child’s] own devices was remembered as a time of special importance [to the inner life].
Before a child can consciously make use of time alone, comes that important moment in one’s life which represents the dawning of the self-consciousness. Except for this sense of me, [life] is perhaps a purely animal or sensual experience, occupying the merest point of time.
[Importance of Self-Awareness Moment]—Why is such a moment so important? This may be the first conscious integration which the young mind undertakes of the world outside with the interior world of one’s mind. Because awareness of spiritual reality depends on experiencing the invisible as real and present, it is likely to flower most in the children who have times alone. A study of religious experiences of children between 9 and 14 [shows that] the most meaningful experiences were at times when they were alone in house, forest, or field.
There are many kinds of aloneness, and they are not by any means all desirable. [It is important] to provide the child’s mind with materials with which to work. Unfortunately our generation of parents has developed a negative attitude toward steeping the mind of a child in Scripture and the language of religious experience. Many children [once] labored under a heavy burden of doleful religious imagery and admonition. In the close warm communities of early Friends Meetings children knew life, love and fun as well as the somber truth of the Time of reckoning; they worked out their own solutions to the inward and outward pulls they felt.
Their resolutions didn't come in ready-made scriptural formulas, or through application of external admonitions. Ruth Fellows (18th century) said, “I left [Mother’s] counsel behind me, trod her testimony under my feet & took a large swing into vanity... [The Lord] stopped me in [mid-career & took off my chariot wheels.” Benjamin Bangs (17th century) had a similar response: “I had such a visitation, as I had been ignorant of before, in which a sweet calmness spread over my mind, that if I could but keep to this, what might I grow up to in time? Sarah Stephenson, [17th century daughter of a rich merchant, enjoyed vanity & loved the Lord. She heard] the seemingly trivial words of Elizabeth Ashbridge, “What a pity that child should have a ribbon on her head.” [It was] enough to set her permanently on the Lord’s path, ribbonless. These Quaker journals are an enduring demonstration that seeds planted unnoticed bring forth unanticipated flowers. For the early Quakers the prescription for religious nurture was simple: provide a living human example of the God-directed life, provide time for religious experience in worship [and the reading of the Bible] within the family circle and the Meeting.
[Crisis of Identity]—We must look well [into the crisis of identity in] the nurture of the 20th Century child. Who is taking “time out” to probe for the new dimensions in a now-unimagined life? Who is dreaming dreams? Who is seeing vision? Where are the solitary ones? They are all about, but they are too few, and we make it very hard for them. Have we not each of us stumbled upon a child’s solitary joy? Each of us has our own recollection of solitary childhood joy, hidden away deep in our minds for safekeeping.
These are solitude’s fruits for children: A sense of who and what they are, whence they came, their place in God’s world. [Instead of math formulas or art, their “recombining knowledge and experience to create a new synthesis”] may produce a beautifully ordered life, one of the highest forms of integration anyone may achieve.
[Creative Solitude]—How do we adults help to make creative solitude available to our children? 1st, by finding meaning in it for ourselves. Helen Thomas Flexner said: “[The] moments of intense listening for God’s voice in the room with my grandfather are among the most vivid memories of my early childhood.” In homes where silence is lived, the child finds it easy and comfortable to turn to it. [Even rare] times of family worship become hours to be remembered & valued for their scarcity [& for bringing more] love and awareness.
The silence of the Quaker Meeting for Worship opens a unique door into solitude for the child who is fortunate enough to experience corporate listening. Rufus Jones said: “Sometimes a real spiritual wave would sweep over the Meeting in these silent hushes . . . and carry me into something which was deeper than my own thoughts. Little William Harvey has been squirming through the first long hour [of a 2-hour Meeting. He listened [without understanding to] a message delivered with deep conviction by an older Friend. William said, “I feel that he was a good man, that what he said was not lightly spoken. . . I am conscious of feeling awe.” [Grandmamma offers a prayer in her Quaker dress and bonnet, her face shining with an inner radiance].
Whether they are awestruck or mischievous, we know in our hearts that our children must have solitude in order to do the inward growing which we can't plan for them. One educator said the greatest danger of our time is “unoccupied” minds; he recommended school year-round. May it not rather be that unoccupied time is the only thing that can lead to the creatively occupied mind? Walter De la Mare says: “There is a natural instinct to preen wings & choose the food & water . . . converting into song and beauty and energy the seed of a thistle.”
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR—Carol Murphy is a writer on religious philosophy and pastoral psychology. She studied political science at Swarthmore College and was a student in religious philosophy while at Pendle Hill. She is the author of 3 previous Pendle Hill pamphlets: The Faith of an Ex-Agnostic, The Ministry of Counseling and Religion and Mental Illness.
[Critic on the Hearth: Day 1]—The Critic announced: “I’m going to invent a religion without conscience.” [Author]: If you think that’s a new invention, you’re mistaken. [Critic]: I’m willing to agree with Christianity that agape love is the supreme value. But corruption enters in as soon as we call it a ‘a morality.’ We then feel we must love, [but] we can’t manufacture the real thing at command. The great mistake of Christianity has been to try to force us to feel what we cannot be ordered to feel; [love is replaced with fear].
[Critic]: Negativism is the fault of a conscience-ridden religion. Emerson criticized Quakers because the Inward Light forbade them doing things rather than leading them to do more. [Author]: The Catholics call it scrupulosity, and no religious denomination has been free of it. [Critic]: Negativism is the direct opposite of what a religion full of life and power should be. Must the [religious purist] always draw apart from others?
[Author]: We are none of us incorruptible and the saint is the one who knows it and acts or refrains from acting accordingly. [Critic]: Whatever a saint did or refrained from doing would be done out of love. A saint refrains because he [chooses] something better to do. Those who believe that wine, cigarettes, or playing-cards have an inevitably fatal attraction are also denying free will. There is no security in this world. Everything is both a blessing and a curse, and it’s entirely up to you which it shall be. [Author]: How could we agree with Paul that all things are lawful but not all things are expedient?
“What does your belief in love lead you to think of war?” [Critic]: I would ask: what would a lover do? The answer isn’t a simple one. War is people who hate; war also means soldiers showing more love & loyalty to each other than most people do in peacetime. There are things I can’t make myself do; I expect that includes military activities. I hope my feeling toward war is based on experiencing an eternal power. My faith in love is like engineering, not like an idealism. Idealism is just as bad as fear; idealists aren't peacemakers. They never compromise; their cause is always right. Idealists have to have white & black, & we call ‘principle’ what-ever it is we want to get stubborn about. I think what we both want is reconciliation rather than compromise.
“Reinhold Niebuhr still sees political power & physical force as ultimate determinants in the world. Yet at the same time he tries to look at the world with the other half of his mind from the viewpoint of sin & salvation. God, (Love) gives whatever power there is to ideals; but more powerful than ideals are personalities completely mastered by love. It’s up to us to learn to be grasped by that power and apply it intelligently and successfully.”
“Moralistic idealism is being irrationally rigid and irresponsible, [when it claims] ‘principle regardless of consequences.’ The end should determine the choice of the means, for the actual consequences of the means are going to determine the actual goal achieved. [Author]: You want a religion without fear or rigid and powerless idealism. What would you substitute for a moralistic view? [Critic]: I would substitute the view of the poets and the psychiatrists, who have to develop an impartial compassion, while moralists are merely melodramatic; they have a worldview that is too simplified and one-sided. [I don’t want them to disapprove of Hitler or Stalin as I do], I want them to understand the Hitlers & Stalins—& the saints too, as well as sinners. We need to know how & why [we grow up or are stunted the way we are], not spend our lives in separating the ‘sheep’ from the ‘goats.’
“Prophets make good reading in later eras, when we can look condescendingly at the society they attacked. You can’t change people by putting them on the defensive, or show men their potential by condemning them. We live by the compassion of the prophets, not by their indignation. We are moved by the universal sympathies of a Shakespeare, not by anti-this. Men can safely become discontented with themselves when they are understood & loved. The tragic artist sees men as neither good nor bad; they just are, and the tragic poet loves them as such.”
[Author]: Christianity is the morality of love; Judaism, love of morality. The Cross somehow symbolizes the reconciliation of God’s infinite concern for men with the tragic acceptance of undeserved suffering. Chekhov said: “Everything in nature has a meaning, & everything is forgiven, and it would be strange not to forgive.”
[Critic of the Hearth: Day 2]—[Critic]: I would say that everything human is legitimate. It’s hatred and repression of the human that is immoral. I suppose I must admit I have a morality; but it’s not a code of regulations, nor an ideal standard one usually fails to attain. It’s a discovery of what it means to be human. Think of a human as a harmonious whole. When you know yourself with the same compassion with which the wise man treats his fellows, many impulses will be transformed. What is wrong is not that a ‘sinner’ does too much, but that one expresses too little. We are painfully learning that we can never destroy any part of our mental or spiritual energy, all we can do is to redirect it into creative channels.
“Asceticism sound wonderful in theory, but in practice it has turned into moralistic negativism of the worst sort.” [Author]: How would you practice self-discipline? [Critic]: Take on yourself the growth-giving agony of making mature decisions. Find the Ultimate Love, and finite things at once appear both smaller and dearer in its light. Above all, be unselfconscious. [Author]: It is better to give the Bread of Life to others than to make a virtue of going without one’s supper. [Critic]: Spontaneity is the essence of the spiritual life.
[Author]: I rather like the idea of a life-affirming Abbey; I would [have] its motto be ‘Love and do as you please.’ [Critic]: We become ourselves only in a loving relationship. [Author]: Spiritual maturity means giving that sort of love to others. [Critic]: When you are ready to love genuinely, and not from a sense of duty.
[Critic of the Hearth: Day 3]: [Critic]: I went to a Quaker meeting today. [I heard about] thinking kindly thoughts, our government & Russian foreign policy, a simile between something & electricity, & Jesus. It was quite a shock to hear something religious; I wonder what people got out of it spiritually. There was no sense of worship, no awe, no Presence. I bring what I can to meeting, but sometimes I’m empty & want to be filled. Let’s keep one day a week for pure, single-minded worship, something that gives spiritual income for our spiritual expenditures during the week.
[Critic]: What is the sacrament [for Quakers]? [Author]: What is the test of really helpful worship? Worship should be therapeutic. [Critic]: The real function of our encounter with the Presence of the Ultimate is to heal. [Author]: Prayer has always been the creative agent in sanctification. [Critic]: Prayer has been made a kind of religious duty. [Author]: How is neglect of prayer and meditation responsible for a lot of our frenetic do-goodism and general lack of depth? [Critic]: Spiritual power is where you find it, and you don’t have to be a salesman for any one method. We must broaden our meaning of the word ‘prayer’ if we are to defend it universally. Anything transforming is a contact with God and a communication of divine love.
“My people with spiritual power, my saints, are inconspicuous, hard-working people who work through love, whither they are consciously religious or not. A real miracle to me is when something happens which, thought quite explicable by natural laws, is, when seen more deeply transparent to God; anything can be seen that deeply. Much of the writing on prayer cultivates self-ignorance, ignoring ‘distracting’ thoughts, in order to manufacture an approved state of mind. That’s like sweeping the dust under your carpet.” [Author]; The great mystics always spoke of having to enter the ‘cell of self-knowledge’ before going further.
[Critic]: Instead of ignoring ‘distractions’, why not listen to them, capture them and find out what is really going on in the pre-conscious area of your mind? How [do we] know what we are really doing? To know yourself is to know the quality of your relationships with others, and to know other people is to learn your reactions to them and hence yourself. [Author]: Knowledge of relationships, beginning with oneself, is the important thing that clears the way for learning how to love—love being the perfect relationship. [Critic]: Here is the true sacrament: the human therapeutic love which necessarily brings the Real Presence of divine Love.
[Critic of the Hearth: Day 4]—[Critic: When it come to belief] Quakers should bear witness to a reality, not produce another religious opinion. Something has to happen to you, which becomes the basis of your interpretation & which helps you interpret other things. [Author]: For me, religion is not so much a particular kind of experience as it is a way of seeing all experience, the sunny and the stormy. One has assurance and uncertainty. [Critic]: One is sure of the reality and skeptical of his formulations. Religious people cling to words so much that they can’t be very sure of the reality. One is led to one’s ideas [of God] by actual contact with that power. Human beings are the only animals who have a faculty for not taking things for granted. Plato wrote: “If, Theaetetus you should ever conceive afresh, you will be soberer and humbler and gentler to others, and will be too modest to fancy that you know what you do not know. These are the limits of my art; I can no further go …”
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35. The Self to the Self (by Dora Willson; 1947)
About the Author—Dora Willson (1900-1953) enriched Pendle Hill's spiritual life of during her brief time among Friends. She met her future husband, at Fellowship of Reconciliation gatherings in England & France. After marrying Robert Z. Willson, they moved to the US & studied in the 1st class at Pendle Hill, in 1930. In '38 she taught the gospels at Pendle Hill. She helped start the Friend Conference on Religion and Psychology.
INTRODUCTION—Talk preparation was done by 6 to 10 women in informal discussion. [It was decided that] conscious, largely intellectual preparation is inadequate [for this topic]. Quieting the surface mind & cultivating deeper relationships [were thought to be better methods to produce better communication]. The speaker's responsibility was to express truly felt experience as simply & sincerely as possible. [Confucius said that instilling virtue into the empire begins with the individual. In order to correct their heart, they began with investigation of matter to achieve utmost knowledge, which led to sincere thoughts, & thereby rectified their heart].
[Relating to One's Self]—The self's relation to the self is a vast subject; one can but dip into it in mid-stream; [there is no] beginning, middle, or end. Nor is it possible to say anything new about it. Words are like an embroidery upon the underlying fabric of communication between men. That embroidery could be destructive of the fabric itself if it were not seen as an integral part of it. This subject must be felt before it could be spoken of, and the speaking needed to be based on the pooled inner experience of many.
Most of us realize some of the time that there are many selves inside each of us; most of the time we feel ourselves to be "single." Awareness of other aspects of ourselves, or "others" that make up a legion inside us, brings with it recognition of the need for a good system of inner relationships. The self is analogous to an island, with king, subject and animals, or a house with many room. All inhabitants of the island should work together democratically to make the island a desirable home. All the rooms of a house need some attention, rather than all our attention lavished on front parlor everybody sees. Can we rule our inner-self island democratically, with no suppressed, dissatisfied minorities? Can we be wise inner-self householders, be aware of all the rooms in our "house" and make use of all our house?
It is possible and necessary to encompass this unending variety in some sort of relationship, [of each part of the legion with every other part]. Human history shows how we found in religion, as its very name indicates, that which ties together what is separate into a functioning whole. All religions and most philosophies insist on self-awareness as a basic requirement. The Commission on Christian Doctrine (1938) writes: "The things most wrong with a man are often those of which he is least conscious ... A primary duty of the individual is to try and find out what his duty really is." Isaac Penington writes: "Mind this precious Truth ... grace ... light ... power inwardly ... [It is also called] the inward word of life, heart-voice, seed, salt, leaven, pearl ... Distinguish between words without [about] the thing, and the thing itself within. Labor to be guided by motives, leadings, teachings, [ways] coming from the thing itself within." What should our relationship with our Self look like? How do we establish, maintain and develop it?
The Nature of the Relation of Self to Self—[Why has the "as thyself" clause of Jesus' "great commandments," the relationship] of self to self, been so consistently ignored or even contradicted? [Jesus links love of God with love of neighbor, and love of neighbor with knowing and loving thyself]. The 2nd great commandment is no mean perception; it is the discovery that in human relationships you don't need to read the books, just read yourself. [Avoiding the difficulties of] the way to self-knowledge and self-love means missing the way to love of others, for these 2 "ways" are in reality one, as the 2nd commandment states clearly.
[Calvinism despises self-love, & even labels it] one of the greatest of sins. Love of others becomes duty, [a prescribed virtue], instead of the ever-renewed outflowing of a creative inner relationship. From this attitude, it is but a step to neglecting or contradicting the 2nd commandment as a whole. Since each of us, & therefore humankind is essentially evil, how could it be expected that one be lovable? Saints who came to the same evaluation of the sinfulness of man, knew nevertheless that it is possible to "love him even under a blight," as a sinner.
[At the other extreme, where] selfishness, self-love, self-regard was advocated indiscriminately, and love of others was condemned as weakness, [there is a similar contradiction of the commandment]. Nietzsche condemns neighbor-love rooted in a wrong attitude toward oneself, saying, "You flee into your neighbors from your-selves and would fain make a virtue thereof ... You can't stand yourselves and you do not love yourselves sufficiently." Modern humans are baffled by the contradictions of ones guides, and the false opposition between love of self and love of others is still part of ones daily pattern. Naïve respect is paid to self-advancement & unashamed concern for self alone is recommended [for] the "good of the whole."
[True & False Forms of Love]—Interpreting love of self as selfishness, & love of others as unselfishness, is a widely accepted idea. [Confusion about true love dominates our thoughts]; false forms of love are numerous. True love & its imitations spring from different sources; at their source they can be distinguished from each other. True love grows out of a positive, affirmative attitude towards life & its potential. False love grows out of dislike, distrust, fear, & insecurity. They defend against attacks imagined as coming from without, when the enemy is within, & is strengthened by the mistaken defense.
True unselfishness affirms life; false unselfishness deeply distrusts & dislikes the self, so deeply the feeling usually goes unrecognized. Self may be thrown away into a greater whole where security may be expected. Erich Fromm writes: "The criticism of democratic society shouldn't be that people are too selfish; [they are, but only as] a consequence of something else. What democracy hasn't succeeded in doing is to make the individual love oneself; that is, to have deep affirmation for ones individual self, with all its potential ... Individuals who cease to love oneself are ready to die & kill. Our culture's problem is ... there is no self-love." True love's all-inclusiveness of others & self is its hallmark, a distinguishing characteristic by which we may [always] recognize it.
[There is true hate], a healthy specific reaction to attack on something [truly] valued, grounded in a positive attitude of affirmation of values. False, poisonous hate is a condition of character, a fundamental, dormant, indiscriminate hatred, growing out of frustration & negativism; it is a chronic state of latent hostility. As members of groups or nations, we let inner hostility appear even more unmistakably in the worldwide destructiveness of our age. Difficulties in understanding true self-love is inherent in the word love, a most mercilessly abused word. Clarity of understanding comes through persevering in investigation [of love] through personal inner experience.
The Way to Right Relatedness—How do we come to true creative love of self? We must chose to become acquainted with our Self, often a neglected requirement. It requires catching our Self off-guard, [in order for Real Self to be revealed]. Listening to our Self is very revealing. If we patiently pay attention, as to a child learning to speak, self-talk will emerge more & more clearly. We begin to hear deeper hopes & fears, loves & hates.
One woman said: "I have ... learned to watch, wait & feel in order to come closer to what Self wants self to do ... When I followed the spontaneous urge, I actually during a time of days or weeks did achieve also what [family] wanted of me—but "their wanting" had to be removed as a motive or [I would be pleasing them out of] a sense of duty, [with an undercurrent of resentment] ... I'm increasing energy all the time to do more and more, when I keep to the "spontaneous" way ... We should "fear" and treat with awe the life force in us, the God in us... [If I try to conceal] this inner Self, it may react on my blood and heart-beat (different physical symptoms for different people) ... When this Self calls my bluff, I have to give in [to the Self's influence] for me to survive."
Getting acquainted with our Self implies having some objectivity, [a readiness to express our spontaneous reactions to the self], & a readiness to acknowledge the reality of usually hidden & sometimes disagreeable elements. We are dual in nature; our task & nature is to balance our opposites, & to hold them in creative tension. [2nd century Gnostics reworded Matthew 5:23-25 to address this]: "If thou ... rememberest that thou hast aught against thyself, leave thy gift before the altar & go ... 1st be reconciled to thyself & then come & offer thy gift. Agree with thyself quickly, whilst thou art in the way of thyself, lest haply thou deliverest thyself to the judge."
Francis de Sales writes: "How are we to be patient in bearing a neighbor's faults, if we are impatient with ours? He who is fretted by failings won't correct them; profitable correction comes from a calm, peaceful mind." George Fox writes: "The Lord God Almighty keep you in Power & Wisdom & by it bind the unruly; when ye have bound them, then ye may speak to & fetter them ... When this is done, being kept in the Power ye will know him that Rides meekly upon the Foal of the Ass ... to Jerusalem, the highest place of Worship ..."
[Silence, Symbols, & Final Words]—[Besides these rational "devices"], other less logical or "grown up" procedures must be adopted, ones using silence & symbols. We should listen to words heard inwardly, however unintelligible they may seem, & hold them in our mind & examine them & sift them later. One person envisioned a great river—the river of life—with many people struggling or drifting in it as they were swept along. A few on the banks called to those in the water; a few climbed out painfully onto shore, into conscious, responsible living. Let us file away the mysterious, secret messages from silent worship; life may offer us the code later.
Symbols have served humankind throughout the ages in tapping depths far below the level of words. The cross becomes the individual, ever crucified on the opposites of human nature. It is better still for each to find & use his or her own symbols. There is a choice to make between conscious, appropriate use of them, & letting them sway & determine us without our control. Symbols are a very direct way of relating our Self to our deepest Self, a childlike way to see, through the transparent envelope of fact, the shining symbol of the inexpressible.
A certain loneliness is a result of attempting to live a conscious, responsible life. The risks of taking a false path are constant. We aren't creators of a relationship with our Self; we only clear the ground, plant the seed, open the gates. Whenever we do our part in preparing, & that alone, then comes the reward, the "full grown grain." Greeting ourselves in true love, we find we hold the hand of fellow humans & that God's hand holds both of ours. The psalmist's words in #24 gain new importance: "Lift up your heads, O ye gates, & be lifted up, ye everlasting doors! That the King of Glory, [Lord God of hosts], may come in!" [And our True Self will greet God].
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About the Author—Carl Rogers was born in 1902. He received his academic and professional training at the Univ. of Wisconsin and Teachers College, Columbia University. For many years he was involved in clinical work with children, adolescents and adults. His major interests for many years has been in the field of counseling and psychotherapy, in practice, in research, and in theory development. He seeks a theory of therapy, personality, and interpersonal relationships which seems to fit the observed facts.
“… to be that self which one truly is”—Soren Kierkegaard
The Questions/Some Answers/Another View—What is my goal in life? What am I striving for? What is my purpose? They are old, old questions which have been asked & answered in every century of history; everyone must ask & answer these questions for themselves. [From my work] with troubled & maladjusted individuals I believe that I can discern a pattern, a trend, a commonality, an orderliness in some answers to these questions. Some have answered: “to glorify God”; some answered: “to prepare oneself for immortality”; some sought to achieve, to gain possessions, status, knowledge power; some give themselves completely to a cause; some seek to eliminate desires and exercise utmost control over one’s self.
In a recent important study Charles Morris discovered through factor analysis 5 dimensions of value which appeared to be responsible for the individual choices: 1) a responsible, moral, self-restrained life; 2) vigorous action, & overcoming of obstacles; 3) self-sufficient inner life, heightened self-awareness; 4) receptivity to persons & to nature; 5) sensuous enjoyment, self-enjoyment. Morris said: “it is as if persons in various cultures have in common 5 major tones in the musical scales on which they compose different melodies.”
The aim of life as I see it coming to light in my relationship with my clients is “to be that self which one truly is.” This seems to mean and imply some strange things. I trust you will look at my views, and accept them only in so far as they ring true in your own experience.
DIRECTIONS TAKEN BY CLIENTS—In my relationship with these individuals my aim has been to provide a climate which contains as much safety, warmth, empathic understanding, as I can genuinely find in myself to give. The trends I see appear to come from the client rather than from me. The client tends to move away from a self that he isn't. At 1st this may be expressed as a fear of exposure. But the very expression of this fear is a part of becoming what he is (i.e. a frightened person hiding behind a façade, not the façade itself).
Another tendency seems to be a moving away from the compelling image of what he ought to be. A patient said: I find it’s not a very good way to be. I thought I had to be that way to be loved. And yet who would want to love a person that wishy washy?” Another patient said: “If you are something which is disapproved of very much, then I guess the only way you can have self-respect is to be ashamed of that part of you which isn’t approved of… [But] I’m not going to feel ashamed of myself.”
Other clients find themselves moving away from what the culture expects of them. The impact of the college experience is to socialize the individual, to shape values so one can fit comfortably into American college alumni's ranks. A patient said: “I somehow felt so much more than that at some level.” I find that many individuals have formed themselves by people pleasing; when they are free they move away from being this person. Clients define their goal, their purpose, by discovering in the freedom & safety of an understanding relationship, the directions they don’t wish to move. They don’t choose to be artificial, imposed on, or defined from without.
[After establishing some of the negatives], clients seem to move toward more openly being a process, a fluidity, a changing. They are in flux, and seem more content to continue in this flowing current. One client says: “I am beginning to enjoy this now, I’m joyful about it, even all these negative things.” Clients move toward being a process of potentialities being born, rather than being or becoming some fixed goal.
[More than being a process, forming one’s self] involves being a complexity of process. [A fellow counselor checked with me] to be sure that he was clearly aware of the complexity of his own feelings in a relationship. If he could be all of his complex & changing & sometimes contradictory feelings in the relationship, all would go well; any façade or defense & the relationship would not be good. One of the most evident trends is to move toward becoming all of the complexity of one’s changing self in each significant moment.
The individual needs to move toward living in an open, friendly, close relationship with his own experience. [Opening up] to internal feelings that are not new, but which have never been fully experienced will make them less terrible, and one will be able to live closer to one’s own experiencing, and find that one’s own inner reactions and experiences are friendly. Maslow says: “[Self-actualizing people’s ease of penetration to reality, their closer approach to an animal-like or child like acceptance and spontaneity imply a superior awareness of their own impulses. Experiencing the basic goods of life [never goes stale for these people]. As a client moves towards being able to accept his own experience, he also moves toward the acceptance of the experience of others. This accepting attitude toward that which exists, I find developing in clients in therapy.
Each client increasingly trusts and values the process which is the client’s self. I have seen simple people become significant and creative in the their own spheres as they have developed more trust of the processes going on within themselves, & have dared to feel their own feelings, and express themselves in their own unique ways. Clients move away from being: a façade, either more or less than what they are. One increasing listens to the deepest recesses of his being, and finds himself increasingly willing to be that self one most truly is.
SOME MISAPPREHENSIONS—To some it appears that to be what one is, is to remain static. They see such a purpose or value as fixed or unchanging. But to be what one is, is to enter fully into being a process. It is only as one can become more of one’s self, can be more of what one has denied in one’s self, that there is any prospect of change. Another reaction to being what one truly is that it would mean being bad, evil, uncontrolled, destructive; it is a common fear of my clients. [On the contrary], one finds that one can be his anger; accepted or transparent anger is not destructive. [The same is true of one’s other “bad” feelings]. When one lives closely with & accepts one’s feelings & their complexity, they operate in a constructive harmony rather than [making one] uncontrollably evil. When one is truly a unique member of the human species, it means that one lives fully & openly the complex process of being one of the most sensitive, responsive, and creative creatures on the planet.
SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS/SUMMARY—Does this path of life have any meaning or significance for groups or organizations? [If an individual were to describe his/her actions the way our government leaders describe diplomacy (i.e. always based upon high moral purposes, always consistent, always right in its judgments and choice)], I think you will agree that we would recognize that this must be a façade.
If we as a nation were to express ourselves as we are, we would say that we as a nation are: realizing our enormous strength, power, and responsibility; moving ignorantly and clumsily toward accepting a position of responsible leadership; far from perfect; deeply frightened by Communism’s strength; extremely competitive toward Communism; selfish in some of our foreign interests; not desiring to hold dominion; valuing and respecting the dignity and worth of each individual, yet when we are frightened, we move away from this act.
The probable outcomes would be that we could: have nothing to hide; focus on the problem at hand, rather than trying to prove our morality or consistency or defend ourselves; find the balance of selfish interests and sympathetic concern which is acceptable to us as a people; be [more genuine] and less feared; by our own openness, bring forth openness and realism from others. World problems would be solved on the basis of real issues, rather than in terms of the façades being worn by the negotiating parties. This view contains the seeds of a philosophical approach to all of life that it is more than a trend observed in the experiences of clients.
I have pointed out that my clients tend to move away from self-concealment, away from the expectations of others, [and towards] permitting one’s self freely to be the changing, fluid, process which one is. One is increasingly a harmony of complex sensings and reactions, rather than the clarity and simplicity of rigidity. One finds that to be this process in one’s self is to maximize the rate of change and growth. It means “to be that self which one truly is.” [Being this process] would seem to make the same kind of sense for a group, an organization, or a nation, and would [have the same kind of rewards]. I offer it to you for your consideration.
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50. Self-deceit: [A Comedy on Lies; a Way of Overcoming them] (by Frederick William Faber (1858); edited by Gilbert Kilpack; 1949)
About the Author—Frederick William Faber, (born 1814, Calverly, Eng.—died 1863, London); British theologian, & noted hymnist. He studied at University College, Oxford (1837). He became a John H. Newman disciple, & served the Episcopal Church for 2 years. He converted to Roman Catholicism in 1845 & founded the Wilfridians, a community at Birmingham, which merged into the Oratory of St. Philip Neri, with Newman as superior. In 1849 a London branch was established; Faber presided over it until his death. Spiritual Conferences (1858) contains Fr. Faber's most famous essays: "Kindness," "Death," & "Self-Deceit." It includes also: Wounded Feelings; Monotony of Piety; Spiritual Reading; Weariness in Well-Doing; All Men have Special Vocation.
About the Editor—Gilbert Kilpack was born & raised in Portland, OR. He attended the University of OR, & received his M.A. degree at Oberlin College in the Philosophy of Christianity. He was executive secretary of Stoney Run Friends Meeting in Baltimore. He joined the Pendle Hill staff in 1948, & was appointed Director of Studies in 1954. He wrote PHP #32 , Our Hearts Are Restless (1946), #63 , Ninth Hour (1951), and #349. The Radiance & Risks of Mythmaking (2000). Gilbert Kilpack died in the fall of 1999.
Introduction: [Faber's Humor, Influences, Psychology]—You have in your hands a disturbing piece of writing. Read it only when you feel inward adventure rising in you. Hardly anything like it was seen before its publication (1858). The author chose to laugh his way through the writing process. Divine humor, is his true nature. Faber's humor is a true sense of proportion [in pointing out the absurdity of human presumption]. One who is essentially a spirit may spend a lifetime pampering one's body, or reserve everything for one's self and leave nothing for The One who made everything. [While] refusing to face interconnection of spirit and body, most of us settle down to self-deceit. His writings are like great cartoons of us in our self-important seriousness. The people who find his wit impious are mostly folk holding on to themselves, and dare not be merry.
At Oxford he came under John Henry Newman's influence. After a long mental struggle & a term of service in the Anglican church, he joined Rome's church. He preached & wrote extensively. He is best known for many [mainly Protestant] hymns (e.g. "Faith of Our Fathers"; "There's a Wideness in God's Mercy"). Faber is of the lineage of psychologists who are also religious & literary men. He matches wisdom about interior growth with the power to inspire it. Faber's guardian angel was Philip of Neri. [He is credited with being caught up in rapture] & floating in mid-air before the altar. [He remedied this spectacular distraction from piety] by reading a joke so he could laugh himself down to earth; [Faber used this approach to piety as well]. He preached on St. Ignatius Loyola's [strict regimen, & closed with]: "This ... is St. Ignatius' way to heaven; & thank God, it isn't the only way."
[Spiritual Conferences; Self-Examination]—These essays on self-deceit come from the Spiritual Conferences volume, [which are somewhere between lecture & sermon]. I have chosen these essays in the conviction that our world's failure is worship's failure, which must have a place for self-examination. Faber's point is that most of the world's darkness comes from self-deceit [& delusion]. Self-examination must give way to adoration. In simply feeling God's presence the poor little self is in large measure lost sight of & purified. Without self-examination & confession, common morality, charity, & worship itself will turn sour within us.
Read this as you would a mystery story, as life is a mystery story, [with a very happy ending]. If you find yourself distraught over these pages, make sure you know why. [Concern about self-deceit] comes straight from the Gospel's heart, from Jesus with his call to deny self & take up the cross. The Bible is frightening, withering in its picture of unregenerate human nature. The way to [& of] simple Truth is complex, [deep] and hard. Faber's writings are of this deep, hard order; they will continue to work secretly in us long after [the last word is read].
Gilbert Kilpack
Monkeys can look grave when they scratch one another. But they are monkeys ... [and] we are monkeys; we only grow into men by knowing we are not men yet. Frederick Faber
[4 Fountains of Self-Deceit]—Thorough truthfulness is undoubtedly the most infrequent of graces. Love of suffering and martyrdom are commoner graces than truthfulness. We are all thoroughly untruthful; those of us most so who think themselves least so, those of us least so who think themselves most so. The 1st step toward being truthful is the knowledge that we are far from it. We must not be content with a general admission of guilt; we must go in and ferret out all the misery and corruption. It is worthwhile trying to be less of liars than we are.
It is of little use to plunge into [examining] self-deceit, unless there is determination to be thorough. There is a [lot] of promiscuous physicking of ourselves, after our neighbor's prescriptions, in the spiritual life. What is said here is meant only for honest people. There are 4 fountains of self-deceit: rarity of reliable self-knowledge; power of self-deception; letting oneself be deceived by others; Satan's deception. Few take pains to acquire reliable self-knowledge. There is little honesty even among religious people in religious matters. There is rather a mass of unwholesome delusion, a quackery of spiritual direction to keep things comfortable & respectable.
[Tendency toward Worldliness and Self-Ignorance]—Much of what people think is grace, is simply the providential accident of circumstances. One may have a very right horror of worldliness. When one's circumstances change and improve, behold, one finds oneself worldly, not gradually and under temptation, but worldly without any change at all; worldliness [has been there] all the while. Hundreds of people are thoroughly worldly, to the backbone, who flatter themselves they have no taste for the world at all. How is life at every turn making unpleasant revelations of self? A spiritual life without a lot of disquietude in it, is no spiritual life at all.
People are or become worldly from want of self-knowledge. There is a strange medley of devotion & worldliness, [a contradiction of personal impulses]: alms & luxurious extravagance; humility & exclusiveness; communions & cheap theatricals; works of mercy & [social climbing]; interior life & fine furniture—all mingled in close union & [hopelessly entangled] confusion. Worldliness is an immense number of allowable details claiming our affections, and accumulating into an unallowable end. Things become wrong when they stand between us and God. In the analysis of worldliness, we have to answer questions of kind and degree. Safe judgment and answers, supernatural principles, religious courage and bravery, depend on reliable, truthful self-knowledge.
[Vanity in Self-Deception]—Vanity is one of the most universal forms of self-deception. Even when we have too much sense to speak, we are always inwardly commenting upon our own actions, often with ingenious and far-fetched partiality. We cherish our own plans, [and allow little room for God's influences]. We should all make open fools of ourselves save for: knowledge of how the world works; a keen sense of humor and the ridiculous; self-prevention of self-importance rising to the level of drawing the contempt of others.
Self by its own nature must see itself erroneously. Self nursing self & seeing no imperfection—the fondest mothers are no match for it in this respect. Brooding on self is like spiritual opium-eating; nothing but phantasms come of it. Nobody, not even self shall be able to discern between [what is & what ought to be]. There is almost always a running commentary of secret self-excuse passing through our minds. While we admit to obvious wrongs, we consider our "special circumstances" make them "less wrong" in us than they would be in others. Sometimes we pardon ourselves by thinking of our opposite good points, by way of comfort and compensation.
[Being Deceived by Others]—When we lay ourselves out for praise, we let ourselves be deceived by others, often without fault of theirs. We pray & yet itch for praise. Who ever saw anyone who didn't long for praise? We with praise are almost regardless of its quality. No matter how absurd, how unmerited, how exaggerated, [otherwise sober &] grave men drink it down. There are rules of good taste to be observed by those who [spoon-feed praise] to grown-up babies. [Different nationalities must be praised differently]; praised we must be, or we sulk. Why are people who boast of independence of others' judgment servile, fawning, & deceitful?
We compel others to deceive us by the way in which we talk to them about ourselves, especially in religious conversation. We ought to either keep our inward life very secret, or we ought to let it be unreservedly known. The middle course is practically to tell lies. Self should not be spoken of at all. Yet it would be difficult to name a Christian perfection practice harder than avoiding speaking of it. [If we speak of our self's positive attributes, we should give a balanced amount of time to citing our shortcomings]. Otherwise we are practically telling an untruth, making people believe that we are more noble-minded than we really are, and so causing them to praise, respect, and admire us more than is appropriate, [thus reinforcing our] self-deceit.
It is a 1st principle of spiritual life that each should perceive one's self as one is in the sight of God & nothing more. Yet most will base self-perception on their family's perception. God's view & the family's view are very far from identical in most cases. If we are forever reading of pure & disinterested love of God, we readily come to think that our love for God is such as we read. Heroic thoughts are infectious, but they won't do duty for heroic deeds. When a spiritual book doesn't mortify us & keep us down, it is sure to puff us up & make us untruthful. How am I seeking confirmation of what I already half-believe, rather than true guidance? I greatly suspect that we ["reshape" our] statements to our spiritual guide [in order to get the answer we want].
[The Devil's Deception]—One of his wiles is to fill us with indiscreet and unseasonable aspirations, out of proportion to our grace, unbefitting our present condition. Certain forms of holiness come almost natural to one, suit one's disposition, elicit the excellences of one's [unique] character, and transform one's nature. Other forms of holiness are meant for other souls, [and serve only as temptation to the wrong soul]. Set an active soul to [exclusively] contemplate, and you will have hypochrondria or worldliness. Immerse a contemplative soul only in business, and you will have either melancholy or delusion.
Our spiritual enemy is urging us to speed. To be slow is what St. Francis of Sales & Fenelon teach. Speed in spiritual matters, is followed by darkness. You need unsettling. I wish you had the grace to be unsettled. Many souls are stiff, concentrated, dull, & self-satisfied. Many people like to be ill, especially ill in mind. It shows how little God-thought is in them. [Such choose] to live a sickly spiritual life, always anxious about their spiritual health, rather than having headlong love of God, a robust, out-of-doors kind of religious existence. Simple childlike love of Jesus always goes safely through dangers of self-deceit, almost unaware of their existence.
Varieties of Self-Deceit: [Extreme Reactions to Advice]—There are 7 species of self deceit, that which: mistakes endless deliberation & never sharing plans with wisdom; takes no advice or takes advice indiscriminately; has unjustified, unshakeable faith in itself; applies self-confidence as a standard for censoring others; ambition and impatience to obtain saintly habits; misguided concern for fixing unimportant things; settles for false not genuine humility.
[In taking no advice outside of one's self], one neglects the duties which God has given one to do, & all one's time is spent in church, while one imagines oneself God's special favorite. In a great number of cases, all worlds of delusion are created by self-deceit which takes no advice. They make plans, which grow into them, & length of time is mistaken for maturity of deliberation; & yet they hold their tongue. Their plans seem to have the light of a quasi-divine sanction. [On the other end of the spectrum], there are those who take advice from everybody. The persuasions on the right hand are so neutralized by the disuasions on the left hand, that one's mind becomes almost blank. These people are always undertaking things, & never succeed in anything. One who is always asking advice, suspects oneself of being in the wrong even if one does not go further than suspicion. Every additional counsellor makes one less able to discern the truth. Every step one takes brings one nearer to the doing of one's own will. Some people are snares to others; this person is a snare to oneself.
[Invincible Faith in One's Self]—Some people have strong faith in themselves, which no number of mistakes or misfortunes can shake; experience is unpersuasive, [doubt is impossible]. There is external reason for every failure, [having nothing to do with the self & utterly unavoidable. Every good fortune is providential, every intervention miraculous]. They naturally have a ruinous tendency for everything to have supernatural origin. Dreams become motives of action; they are wayward & changeable. They receive inspiration every moment. When they get advice, they do so with self-righteousness & pathetic patience. Their position, their name should guarantee them from the impertinence of advice. They aren't very likely to be canonized, yet perhaps most of them expect their lives to be written.
[Standards of Judgment/ Ambitious/ Scrupulous People]—Those who are sure they are right assume they are a standard by which to judge others. To not share that judgment with others would be false humility. Judging is their sole, express purpose in life; the wonder would be if they didn't judge. It is astonishing how ac-curate their unfavorable judgments are. Practice seems to have conferred skill, indeed an unerring science, upon being uncharitable. There is reputation to be had from prophesying doom, & influence can be gotten from scaring others with sarcasm & detraction. The few crumbs of success from accurate judgment is enough for souls that can swallow a sea of flattery.
Censorious people are calm, & have great dislike for enthusiasm & liberty of spirit. They live outside of their heart & can't understand a spiritual person acting from love. [Such people to them seem to make a shallow] examination of conscience, & have an inadequate sorrow for sin. [Their own sorrow is kept secret] as a reality of interior life. This is a very common form of self-deceit, & is hard to cure, because its heart is inaccessible. It seems to need to suffer a great sin, which shatters self-respect, & lets into the soul [a need for spiritual change].
Ambition in self-deceit aims at a distant, slowly obtained object. It is by no means a patient quality; it perpetually overreaches itself in calculations, and mistakes the means for the ends. It also mistakes a one-time generosity for God with having firmly acquired a saintly habit. One would serve God with disinterested love, but is not half sorry enough for one's sins. One passes through the earlier stages of spiritual life at a bound, leaped into high things and starved one's soul upon mysticism, [rather than feasting on common piety]. [This person ends up] being discouraged by religion, and finding faith's common exercises too difficult.
[Scrupulous, Falsely Humble People]—There is self-deceit which is scrupulous. It perversely fixes its attention on wrong, [unimportant] things, and ignores the important moments of temptations to be resisted. [Treating others appropriately is largely ignored, making them seem] snappish, sour, and uncongenial; it has the fidgets in religion. We must not be surprised at finding apparently strong and clear characters, which are nevertheless victims of self-deceit resulting from false humility. Humility is [universally] and pre-eminently a saintly virtue; everyone one aims at mastering it. ["Humility is not thinking less of yourself. It is thinking of yourself less." (C.S. Lewis)]. [Based on the above definition], it is difficult to continually think of oneself little enough to be truly humble. Something must be done to shorten the process of its acquisition.
Every "humble" person has a circle of flatterers who are foolish or insincere enough to be pleased with that person's suffering. This self-abuse produces a cheap heroism and admiration from flatterers, and spiritual blindness. This one's false humility never allows one to attempt anything more than what false humility says one can do. It does not see at all its peculiarly odious form of ungenerosity.
The Characteristics of Self-Deceit—Self-Deceit seems to have boundless power. It something more than a temptation; apparently a law of our soul's infirmity. It seems inevitable to a present condition, something which grace itself cannot altogether repeal. Self deceit is everywhere; it is a sort of caricature of grace. It underlies our actions, or overarches them like the sky; it walks beside them. It is forever invisibly mocking and mimicking the gait of our beloved Guardian, entrapping us into blind plots to baffle the intelligent kindness of the Spirit. Self-deceit is always triumphant, always making game of us. It almost grows with our grace.
It has a deep-seated persistence. Repeated victories over it [give us no sense of closing on an overall victory]. It baffles pursuit. Vigilance does little to help us. We never become expert in dealing with it. It is only active the way other corrosive agents are active. [Strangely], it brings peace, seeking to quietly live our lives for us, & be a kind of soul to us. Appearing as virtue is its normal state; if it looked evil we would not be deceived by it. Self-deceit makes us do the devil's work, believing, though not always with an entirely honest faith, that it is God's. Self-deceit's endless, mostly successful disguises, is the grand characteristic of its inauspicious genius.
Self-deceit is sensitive to touch, [& is revealed when we are called out on certain of our ways, practices, habits, tricks of conduct]; it puts us out of temper when a secret & false part of our self is exposed. This sensitiveness of self-deceit is a fortunate ingenuity of providence, the rattle in the snakes tail, & one to be fearlessly followed up on. Self-deceit has a genius for alliances; its power of combination is incredible. A moderate quantity of this evil is able to neutralize an enormously disproportionate amount of good. Self-deceit purposely abides in the neighborhood of good, in order to be fostered and kept warm. While other weeds of the soul die out or barely survive, self-deceit is an inevitable growth. The broadening of life is the widening of our [capacity] for deceiving ourselves. [Perfect] simplicity is the only thing which is fatal to self-deceit. But life multiplies, entangles, distracts, complicates, bewilders. The self-deceit fountain flows more copiously each year, with grace evaporating the waters as they spring. Life is a [struggle] between grace and self-deceit; most often, deceit wins.
[Self-deceit's Involvement in Spiritual Growth]—The higher one rises in spiritual life, the more subject they become to self-deceit's insidiuous operations. The higher graces [which come right before] the highest grace of the soul's uttermost union with God, aren't high enough to avoid delusions [of being at the highest level]. Prayer is beset by self-deceit. It leads to new worlds, language, & objects. Being unfamiliar, we misinterpret, misjudge distance & size; [mistake pure fantasy for reality] & are dazzled by spiritual splendor. Habit is the only safety with supernatural things; [by the time we perfectly understand 1 level of grace, we are lifted to another]. Self-deceit has timeliness that seizes on fresh graces, & diverts them to its own ends. [We revel in a new level of grace & are delayed in rising further]. Self-deceit levies a tax, paid insensibly as each new grace comes. Careful management & [modest enjoyment of each new level of grace] is 1 of the most difficult subjects in spiritual life.
Self-deceit infests nature & grace. It is a growth of natural character, in a subject weakened, unhinged, & overbalanced by sin. [Self-deceit is not the same as natural character]. It attaches itself to our weak moments & points, [& blends so effectively with our character], that we may be unable to recognize our [true] selves. Everyone concedes to one's disposition a limited right to lay down the law to oneself. One assumes, sometimes falsely, that certain limitations are immutable. We cannot discern between want of trust in nature, and want of trust in the grace of God. Self-deceit insinuates itself into the privileged parts of our character, into the disposition we have made up our minds to humor, and so becomes our law of life; we lie to our self, and make that lie our law.
[The mostly rare awareness of] self-deceit is humiliating. There are no men who shrink more instinctively from self-knowledge than those who [newly discover their self-deceit; the shame is unbearable]. Beginners in spiritual life are especially affected. They fall into spiritual gluttony. They ought to be sent out with [some restrictions, to take in only as much revelation & grace as can be effectively digested]. [Otherwise they are over-whelmed] & give up the whole matter in disgust, take to [unchallenging] comfort & lead unsatisfactory lives.
The Remedies of Self-Deceit—How is there anything substantial in creation? Who in the world is real? Where is spiritual life in the world? Self-deceit has undisguised pettiness when our minds are too introverted upon it; [it dulls the satisfaction of worship and devout practice]. It is not easy to keep the line always clearly drawn between habitual examination of conscience and the misery of [ingrown] self-contemplation. A soul turned inward is mostly mildewed. People are vain and conceited and can't be patient with themselves. What will the result be of breaking away from the undignified bondage of a pious life, or of avoiding the cultivation of an interior spirit in the hope of not being fooled? How will one's exceedingly petty concerns and conceits then be one's masters? How much worse will those concerns and conceits be made without allowing grace to encourage the natural sweetness of one's natural character?
For remedies of self-deceit, there is nothing as specific as we would want it to be. Half-a-dozen times self-deceit has driven me to believe that self-deceit's effect on spiritual life is irreparable. Reparation of self-deceit is possible and indispensable to spiritual life. As we sink deeper and deeper into the knowledge of our own falsehood, we come nearer to the grand truthfulness of God; somehow self-abasement gives us heart.
Knowledge of our self-deceit is the nearest approach to its cure. Mere knowledge of our self-deceit enables us to direct our aim at it, & renders it a much less formidable enemy. Every additional degree of simplicity we have in our conduct, weakens the influence & force of self-deceit, & limits its occasions. Just as light changes anything exposed to it, so too simplicity has quality peculiarly uncongenial to that disease. When someone makes a series of discoveries regarding continual self-deceit, & that a principal basis of one's inward life is 1st seen to be a delusion, it will be wisest to remold one's spiritual system. The best practice will be that of matching pure, pious intention with pure, pious action. The remedy of concentrating the power of the soul on purity of intention won't be helpful to the scrupulous. Those for whom it works will be made happy. Those whom it makes unhappy, it doesn't suit; there is no serving God in unhappiness, when the unhappiness is of our own making. If seeking to make our intentions for God's glory always actual, entangles our conduct instead of simplifying it, and darkens our spirit, we may be sure it is not the right road for us, though it may be right for others.
We must not seek to combat self-deceit by excessively examining conscience and perpetual probing of motives. Like a diver in the deep sea, we must not stay long in the depths of our own motives. If we cannot find what we want quickly, it is better to come up quickly, without having found it; looking up to heaven, [offering defective motives up to heaven], rather than looking down, can be more effective.
The cure of self-deceit is lifelong work. Success in this process is peculiarly susceptible to discouragement. The nature of our warfare with self-deceit invests discouragement with a particular danger. Hope keeps faith's eye clear and steady; self-deceit harasses our hope, with entanglement, complication, indistinctness, multiple stratagems, and neglect of "respectable" laws of war. We must not be proud, [and insist on "victory at all cost]." We shall never march into any of the moral cities we may conquer, with shining armor, clean scarlet, unsoiled banner, and triumphant, braying trumpets. We shall always go home bedraggled. We must show extreme patience, good-humored contentment with small victories, and willingness to accept a drawn battle as a victory.
Meditation on God's attributes is another defence against self-deceit. When we reverently put God before us in detail for a long time, there is sympathy in our soul which draws out, defines, & sharpens, God's image in us. [Being in God's] neighborhood is [being in] truth's native land. Everything that leads us to throw ourselves out of ourselves, & upon the objects of faith, is in itself a remedy against self-deceit. Reverence towards God makes all natural & simple towards each other. We shall generally find that devotion of such people is marked by forcible attraction towards God's Attributes. Habitual reverence is the high breeding of spiritual life. We must endeavor to walk purely by faith. We mustn't spend time looking for outward providential tokens. All excess talking, even when it isn't about our own spiritual life or the characters of others, may be regarded as a power of self-deceit.
Let us be aware & believe God never wishes to entrap us, or take us at a disadvantage, regardless of how much a complication in spiritual life looks like the end of the world, & hopeless. We must have confidence in God as a special remedy. What then will make us real? God's Face will do it. The 1st touch of eternity will wake us & heal us of self-deceit. The nearest approach to seeking God's Face on earth is serving God out of personal love. We catch simplicity as part of Jesus' likeness. Then, when we look out of ourselves in loving faith, our inward processes are fewer in number, & amazingly simplified; their majesty is enhanced by simplicity. We must look out to God, pass over to God, lean upon God, learn to be one with God, & let God's love burn love of self away, [to make way for our union]. Untruthfulness is this creature's condition. How painful it feels, that when we are at our best, we are helplessly pretentious, indeliberate unrealities, unintentional hypocrisies. The time will come to all of us when we shall play parts no more, not with others, ourselves, nor yet with God.
117. Conscience (by Wilhelm Mensching; 1961)
About the Author/ INTRODUCTION—Wilhelm Mensching, a German pastor, is known for his consistent opposition of the National Socialist movement in Germany, and for his work at Freundschaftheim, and international training center for peace workers.// [I can picture Wilhelm Mensching at Freundschaftheim]. To adequately feel the moral and political weight of these words, you need to have some idea of the life out of which this “grain” and these roses grew. My 1st meeting with Wilhelm Mensching took place in early August 1947. George Hogle managed to get me across Occupied Germany to Bückeberg, and then Petzen village to the west. Jews and Germans, British and American soldiers found refuge here at the parsonage.
The British took over the German colonies in Africa, and interned Mensching as a young missionary. It was during his imprisonment that Mensching learned about the teachings and work of Gandhi. When the opportunity came Wilhelm Mensching joined the Fellowship of Reconciliation. He never compromised his Christian and pacifist convictions, and never had hate in his heart for anyone. He said: “When you come [into a] dark room, you do not curse the darkness; you light a candle.” He once told me that of all the men he knew who had been pacifists before the Hitler persecutions set in, only those whose wives shared their conviction and stood by them had remained firm. In this pamphlet, you are listening to the voice of a conscience incarnate. [All those] interested in the acts of a modern apostle, should read this pamphlet. A. J. Muste
Freedom of conscience is inviolable—[This statement is declared in Article 4 of the West German constitution]. The OT speaks repeatedly about conscience. In the NT Paul in particular refers to it and reminds others of it. In Germany, Britain, the US and other Anglo-Saxon countries [the rights of conscientious objection are protected by law]. Special boards examine each case of refusal to do military service to determine whether the refusal is based on conscientious grounds. It is often not at all easy to judge the conscience of another man, especially a young man who has not learned how to express himself clearly, or how to be clear on the questions: Why does the same man’s conscience judge differently at different periods in his life? Is mistaken conscience inviolable? Do I have the right to obey my conscience unconditionally? What should my attitude be when my conscience is not clear and I must nevertheless make an important decision?
What is conscience?—Conscience is a man’s inner ear for the voice which tells him what he should do [and not do], what the pattern and purpose of his life should be; the voice is something quite different from conscience. Socrates, the Shambala tribe in East Africa, people in India hear this voice. Paul was convinced that even the “heathen” have a conscience; “their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or perhaps excuse them.” A man from the Ewe tribe in West Africa wrote in a similar vein.
The ability to hear the voice of truth, or humanity, of the moral law is not dependent on membership in a religious community nor on belief in God. Fridtjof Nansen was impelled by his conscience to leave the Church, and the voice of human brotherhood drove him to work at repatriating prisoners of war, aid refugee and assist millions of starving people in Russia after WW I.
During both world wars and in between I have met men [on 4 continents]: capitalists, communists, colored, white, non-Christian and Christian. There were conscientious and those seemingly without conscience in all groups. [I relentlessly opposed National Socialism]. It was not true that the Nazis with whom I dealt had no stirrings of conscience. Even Himmler, at least in some cases was not deaf to the voice which [our conscience hears]. Among the reasons for support or opposition, conscientious scruples may also play a role. Consciences will differ and stand in direct opposition one to another.
Why does conscience lead to such different decision?—Martin Luther was compelled by his conscience to attack the Church [and refuse obedience to the Emperor]. He declared: “It is not right to act against one’s conscience. Here I stand; I can do no other. God help me. Amen.” The English Lord Chancellor, Thomas More said: “For the sake of my conscience this is one of the situations where I am obliged to disobey my sovereign.” Conscience forces men like Albert Schweitzer, the “Göttingen 18” (German physicists) and thousands of experts in all nations as well as many other men and women to oppose the testing and use of nuclear weapons.
Conscience often leads to different decisions in different men, even in conscientious men. Even in the same man it often happens that conscience judges differently in different times of his life, & even takes a position opposite of an earlier one. As the inner ear of man, conscience is just as subject to error as his physical ear. No conscience possesses the ability to perceive all the appeals of truth or of God, or the whole truth or message of the voice of humanity or of reason.
[Conscience’s hearing may be selective, hearing clearly the appeal of one concern, while failing to hear other calls]. It can grow hard of hearing, fall asleep, degenerate and become deaf. We cannot rely with complete confidence on our conscience. Through parents, church, state, party, or traditional culture, a child is given a dubious substitute for the voice which tells him through his conscience what is good and what is evil.
Why do we have a conscience?—Socrates, Jesus, and Luther were driven to oppose the recognized religion of their world, and to oppose officials of the state [and of religion]. Socrates and Jesus were both executed; Luther was outlawed and excommunicated. But in this way their consciences found peace. Other conscientious men have become pioneers against injustice, inhumanity and evil customs. They obeyed the voice speaking through their consciences, standing often quite alone in their community. We have been given a conscience so that we can hear a voice which wants more than strict observance of the rules valid in our community. We have a conscience so that we will remain alert and sensitive to truth, justice, reason, morality, or God.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights” published by the UN speaks of the conscience of humankind which is deeply outraged by “acts of barbarism.” The history of humankind shows again and again how men have been led by the voice in their conscience to recognize injustice, inhumanity and evil customs, and to replace them with justice, humanity, and a good way of life.
How has conscience functioned in the course of history?—Jesus & his apostles worked against the war that threatened to break out between their people & “heathens” (Romans). The Christians of neither nation took part in it. [In the 1st 3 centuries], most Christians were conscientious objectors. But the conscience of the Christians toward war & military service gradually fell asleep when Christianity became a state religion. Mennonites, Quakers, & Church of the Brethren are the remaining historical peace churches. Following the French Revolution, poets, philosophers, & clergy began to glorify war in Germany. Victor von Straus und Torney complained that “Enthusiasm for war again spreads a new cover over our consciences & smothers them more & more,” & that “a vulgar practical materialism poisons the German mind & here lames & there stifles spiritual interests… All nations are forced to confront each other with clenched fists… Strict military discipline & subordination have penetrated into those areas where they are really immoral & tend to destroy & ruin both character & mind.”
The Japanese Uchimura became the warning prophet of his nation. As a result of refusing to go along with the nationalist spirit, he suffered contempt & deprivation. He wrote: “I too, sometimes preached [for the madness of war]. But it was the most stupid trash. The advantages of war cannot compensate for its damages. There was probably never a war that achieved its purpose. A nation in which no voice is raised against war is an uncivilized, a barbaric nation… One war always leads to another … There is no greater contradiction than saying you are waging war for the sake of peace… If you make room for war then Christianity collapses completely … The blessing promised by the prophets rests upon those who rise against war.
Fridtjof Nansen wrote: “The world is filled with hate, envy and mistrust between individuals, between classes, between countries… War can bring no healing, no salvation. It may well eradicate a threatening illness. But in its place it creates the germs of 10 new maladies. [To end war], we must destroy the bridges behind us which lead us back to old politics and old systems.”
Walther Rathenau was minister for reconstruction after WW I & foreign minister. He wrote: “If we don't act as our conscience prompts, it will weigh heavily upon us. Souls of the slain demand reconciliation for God’s glory… It will be the noblest & proudest moment when we give up hate & grief, every tear & every wound, all death & all revenge, [& start to heal, comfort & rebuild]. On that day God’s Kingdom will come nearer to earth … If we are worthy we will experience it; if we aren’t worthy of it our children will not experience it either.”
After the death of her son in the war, Käthe Kollwitz, the German artist wrote: “Has the youth of all these countries been deceived? Has it been mass madness? We must never forget the war. We must all pay for our guilt… When I know that I am working with an international community against war I have a sense of warm, in-tense satisfaction… Every war has a counter-war in its pocket. Every war is answered by another war… Pacifism is not the role of a calm spectator, but work, hard work.” More and more responsible statesmen and military men warningly declare today that in this nuclear age there is no longer any possibility of victory or defense of a people; [war has become indiscriminate mass murder and suicide].
What does conscience need today?—Often the awakening of a single conscience has led to the formation of a public conscience against what had not been previously recognized as inhumanity. [The awakening] causes some parts of one’s nature, previously idle to be used more and more. Are we today on the way towards a public conscience against war and its preparation? The voice of humanity, of truth, or of God, speaks to each man personally. Everyone has in one’s conscience an ear for the personal call. How much responsibility can the rulers assume over our consciences, and how much obedience can they demand?
Conscience today needs clarity and knowledge about [all things military]. It needs careful cultivation and training of its capacity to hear in order to be able to distinguish sharply the voice of God, truth, humanity, morality, and reason from other voices. What kind of conscience to I want to have and associate with? Many consciences today need the help of companions who constantly practice listening to the voice of humanity, of truth or God. We cannot expect infallible clarity from men, even such conscientious men as Martin Luther and Thomas More. We have in our own conscience, the possibility of turning directly to the voice within. Our conscience needs to turn aside from all the din of [other] voices.
After [hearing] the clear directing voice must come obedience to its directions in the world itself. If we receive advice or command in our conscience we must test it in life. Whoever does not runs into the danger of excusing & glossing over & accustoming himself to barbaric acts. [A conscientious objector tests with life itself the admonition not to take part in war and its preparation. One tests whether it was really the word of truth.
In what direction is conscience leading us today?—Socrates let himself be led by this voice [in the midst of the oppression by the 30 tyrants]. He walked among 30 tyrants as a free man. God led this man, who tested in life what he had heard in his conscience, along a difficult but good path, which was good for others as well as himself. He met his execution with a “good” conscience.
Jesus nurtured very carefully his relationship with this voice. He called it not only God, but Father. Jesus did not let the question whether or not his people should be prepared for war be answered by the people’s voice, nor by the high priests and rulers. He sought, in solitude, for enlightenment from the Father. Jesus destroyed the bridges leading to old politics, and sought for volunteers for service in the cause of peace. Jesus armed his community with such inner strength that it needed no military weapons for defense or for expansion.
Gandhi called Jesus a “prince among politicians,” [& was a follower of conscience, a listener] to the voice of God or of truth. The voice never directed him to [prepare for violence]. It showed him in every situation non-violent political means & ways. Gandhi became a statesman who destroyed the bridge leading to the usual political course. Today we need more urgently than ever a statesmanship without weapons. What can and should conscience do for us in the future? Close to us in our conscience is a wise counselor, a Friend, and a Father.
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[4 Fountains of Self-Deceit]—Thorough truthfulness is undoubtedly the most infrequent of graces. Love of suffering and martyrdom are commoner graces than truthfulness. We are all thoroughly untruthful; those of us most so who think themselves least so, those of us least so who think themselves most so. The 1st step toward being truthful is the knowledge that we are far from it. We must not be content with a general admission of guilt; we must go in and ferret out all the misery and corruption. It is worthwhile trying to be less of liars than we are.
It is of little use to plunge into [examining] self-deceit, unless there is determination to be thorough. There is a [lot] of promiscuous physicking of ourselves, after our neighbor's prescriptions, in the spiritual life. What is said here is meant only for honest people. There are 4 fountains of self-deceit: rarity of reliable self-knowledge; power of self-deception; letting oneself be deceived by others; Satan's deception. Few take pains to acquire reliable self-knowledge. There is little honesty even among religious people in religious matters. There is rather a mass of unwholesome delusion, a quackery of spiritual direction to keep things comfortable & respectable.
[Tendency toward Worldliness and Self-Ignorance]—Much of what people think is grace, is simply the providential accident of circumstances. One may have a very right horror of worldliness. When one's circumstances change and improve, behold, one finds oneself worldly, not gradually and under temptation, but worldly without any change at all; worldliness [has been there] all the while. Hundreds of people are thoroughly worldly, to the backbone, who flatter themselves they have no taste for the world at all. How is life at every turn making unpleasant revelations of self? A spiritual life without a lot of disquietude in it, is no spiritual life at all.
People are or become worldly from want of self-knowledge. There is a strange medley of devotion & worldliness, [a contradiction of personal impulses]: alms & luxurious extravagance; humility & exclusiveness; communions & cheap theatricals; works of mercy & [social climbing]; interior life & fine furniture—all mingled in close union & [hopelessly entangled] confusion. Worldliness is an immense number of allowable details claiming our affections, and accumulating into an unallowable end. Things become wrong when they stand between us and God. In the analysis of worldliness, we have to answer questions of kind and degree. Safe judgment and answers, supernatural principles, religious courage and bravery, depend on reliable, truthful self-knowledge.
[Vanity in Self-Deception]—Vanity is one of the most universal forms of self-deception. Even when we have too much sense to speak, we are always inwardly commenting upon our own actions, often with ingenious and far-fetched partiality. We cherish our own plans, [and allow little room for God's influences]. We should all make open fools of ourselves save for: knowledge of how the world works; a keen sense of humor and the ridiculous; self-prevention of self-importance rising to the level of drawing the contempt of others.
Self by its own nature must see itself erroneously. Self nursing self & seeing no imperfection—the fondest mothers are no match for it in this respect. Brooding on self is like spiritual opium-eating; nothing but phantasms come of it. Nobody, not even self shall be able to discern between [what is & what ought to be]. There is almost always a running commentary of secret self-excuse passing through our minds. While we admit to obvious wrongs, we consider our "special circumstances" make them "less wrong" in us than they would be in others. Sometimes we pardon ourselves by thinking of our opposite good points, by way of comfort and compensation.
[Being Deceived by Others]—When we lay ourselves out for praise, we let ourselves be deceived by others, often without fault of theirs. We pray & yet itch for praise. Who ever saw anyone who didn't long for praise? We with praise are almost regardless of its quality. No matter how absurd, how unmerited, how exaggerated, [otherwise sober &] grave men drink it down. There are rules of good taste to be observed by those who [spoon-feed praise] to grown-up babies. [Different nationalities must be praised differently]; praised we must be, or we sulk. Why are people who boast of independence of others' judgment servile, fawning, & deceitful?
We compel others to deceive us by the way in which we talk to them about ourselves, especially in religious conversation. We ought to either keep our inward life very secret, or we ought to let it be unreservedly known. The middle course is practically to tell lies. Self should not be spoken of at all. Yet it would be difficult to name a Christian perfection practice harder than avoiding speaking of it. [If we speak of our self's positive attributes, we should give a balanced amount of time to citing our shortcomings]. Otherwise we are practically telling an untruth, making people believe that we are more noble-minded than we really are, and so causing them to praise, respect, and admire us more than is appropriate, [thus reinforcing our] self-deceit.
It is a 1st principle of spiritual life that each should perceive one's self as one is in the sight of God & nothing more. Yet most will base self-perception on their family's perception. God's view & the family's view are very far from identical in most cases. If we are forever reading of pure & disinterested love of God, we readily come to think that our love for God is such as we read. Heroic thoughts are infectious, but they won't do duty for heroic deeds. When a spiritual book doesn't mortify us & keep us down, it is sure to puff us up & make us untruthful. How am I seeking confirmation of what I already half-believe, rather than true guidance? I greatly suspect that we ["reshape" our] statements to our spiritual guide [in order to get the answer we want].
[The Devil's Deception]—One of his wiles is to fill us with indiscreet and unseasonable aspirations, out of proportion to our grace, unbefitting our present condition. Certain forms of holiness come almost natural to one, suit one's disposition, elicit the excellences of one's [unique] character, and transform one's nature. Other forms of holiness are meant for other souls, [and serve only as temptation to the wrong soul]. Set an active soul to [exclusively] contemplate, and you will have hypochrondria or worldliness. Immerse a contemplative soul only in business, and you will have either melancholy or delusion.
Our spiritual enemy is urging us to speed. To be slow is what St. Francis of Sales & Fenelon teach. Speed in spiritual matters, is followed by darkness. You need unsettling. I wish you had the grace to be unsettled. Many souls are stiff, concentrated, dull, & self-satisfied. Many people like to be ill, especially ill in mind. It shows how little God-thought is in them. [Such choose] to live a sickly spiritual life, always anxious about their spiritual health, rather than having headlong love of God, a robust, out-of-doors kind of religious existence. Simple childlike love of Jesus always goes safely through dangers of self-deceit, almost unaware of their existence.
Varieties of Self-Deceit: [Extreme Reactions to Advice]—There are 7 species of self deceit, that which: mistakes endless deliberation & never sharing plans with wisdom; takes no advice or takes advice indiscriminately; has unjustified, unshakeable faith in itself; applies self-confidence as a standard for censoring others; ambition and impatience to obtain saintly habits; misguided concern for fixing unimportant things; settles for false not genuine humility.
[In taking no advice outside of one's self], one neglects the duties which God has given one to do, & all one's time is spent in church, while one imagines oneself God's special favorite. In a great number of cases, all worlds of delusion are created by self-deceit which takes no advice. They make plans, which grow into them, & length of time is mistaken for maturity of deliberation; & yet they hold their tongue. Their plans seem to have the light of a quasi-divine sanction. [On the other end of the spectrum], there are those who take advice from everybody. The persuasions on the right hand are so neutralized by the disuasions on the left hand, that one's mind becomes almost blank. These people are always undertaking things, & never succeed in anything. One who is always asking advice, suspects oneself of being in the wrong even if one does not go further than suspicion. Every additional counsellor makes one less able to discern the truth. Every step one takes brings one nearer to the doing of one's own will. Some people are snares to others; this person is a snare to oneself.
[Invincible Faith in One's Self]—Some people have strong faith in themselves, which no number of mistakes or misfortunes can shake; experience is unpersuasive, [doubt is impossible]. There is external reason for every failure, [having nothing to do with the self & utterly unavoidable. Every good fortune is providential, every intervention miraculous]. They naturally have a ruinous tendency for everything to have supernatural origin. Dreams become motives of action; they are wayward & changeable. They receive inspiration every moment. When they get advice, they do so with self-righteousness & pathetic patience. Their position, their name should guarantee them from the impertinence of advice. They aren't very likely to be canonized, yet perhaps most of them expect their lives to be written.
[Standards of Judgment/ Ambitious/ Scrupulous People]—Those who are sure they are right assume they are a standard by which to judge others. To not share that judgment with others would be false humility. Judging is their sole, express purpose in life; the wonder would be if they didn't judge. It is astonishing how ac-curate their unfavorable judgments are. Practice seems to have conferred skill, indeed an unerring science, upon being uncharitable. There is reputation to be had from prophesying doom, & influence can be gotten from scaring others with sarcasm & detraction. The few crumbs of success from accurate judgment is enough for souls that can swallow a sea of flattery.
Censorious people are calm, & have great dislike for enthusiasm & liberty of spirit. They live outside of their heart & can't understand a spiritual person acting from love. [Such people to them seem to make a shallow] examination of conscience, & have an inadequate sorrow for sin. [Their own sorrow is kept secret] as a reality of interior life. This is a very common form of self-deceit, & is hard to cure, because its heart is inaccessible. It seems to need to suffer a great sin, which shatters self-respect, & lets into the soul [a need for spiritual change].
Ambition in self-deceit aims at a distant, slowly obtained object. It is by no means a patient quality; it perpetually overreaches itself in calculations, and mistakes the means for the ends. It also mistakes a one-time generosity for God with having firmly acquired a saintly habit. One would serve God with disinterested love, but is not half sorry enough for one's sins. One passes through the earlier stages of spiritual life at a bound, leaped into high things and starved one's soul upon mysticism, [rather than feasting on common piety]. [This person ends up] being discouraged by religion, and finding faith's common exercises too difficult.
[Scrupulous, Falsely Humble People]—There is self-deceit which is scrupulous. It perversely fixes its attention on wrong, [unimportant] things, and ignores the important moments of temptations to be resisted. [Treating others appropriately is largely ignored, making them seem] snappish, sour, and uncongenial; it has the fidgets in religion. We must not be surprised at finding apparently strong and clear characters, which are nevertheless victims of self-deceit resulting from false humility. Humility is [universally] and pre-eminently a saintly virtue; everyone one aims at mastering it. ["Humility is not thinking less of yourself. It is thinking of yourself less." (C.S. Lewis)]. [Based on the above definition], it is difficult to continually think of oneself little enough to be truly humble. Something must be done to shorten the process of its acquisition.
Every "humble" person has a circle of flatterers who are foolish or insincere enough to be pleased with that person's suffering. This self-abuse produces a cheap heroism and admiration from flatterers, and spiritual blindness. This one's false humility never allows one to attempt anything more than what false humility says one can do. It does not see at all its peculiarly odious form of ungenerosity.
The Characteristics of Self-Deceit—Self-Deceit seems to have boundless power. It something more than a temptation; apparently a law of our soul's infirmity. It seems inevitable to a present condition, something which grace itself cannot altogether repeal. Self deceit is everywhere; it is a sort of caricature of grace. It underlies our actions, or overarches them like the sky; it walks beside them. It is forever invisibly mocking and mimicking the gait of our beloved Guardian, entrapping us into blind plots to baffle the intelligent kindness of the Spirit. Self-deceit is always triumphant, always making game of us. It almost grows with our grace.
It has a deep-seated persistence. Repeated victories over it [give us no sense of closing on an overall victory]. It baffles pursuit. Vigilance does little to help us. We never become expert in dealing with it. It is only active the way other corrosive agents are active. [Strangely], it brings peace, seeking to quietly live our lives for us, & be a kind of soul to us. Appearing as virtue is its normal state; if it looked evil we would not be deceived by it. Self-deceit makes us do the devil's work, believing, though not always with an entirely honest faith, that it is God's. Self-deceit's endless, mostly successful disguises, is the grand characteristic of its inauspicious genius.
Self-deceit is sensitive to touch, [& is revealed when we are called out on certain of our ways, practices, habits, tricks of conduct]; it puts us out of temper when a secret & false part of our self is exposed. This sensitiveness of self-deceit is a fortunate ingenuity of providence, the rattle in the snakes tail, & one to be fearlessly followed up on. Self-deceit has a genius for alliances; its power of combination is incredible. A moderate quantity of this evil is able to neutralize an enormously disproportionate amount of good. Self-deceit purposely abides in the neighborhood of good, in order to be fostered and kept warm. While other weeds of the soul die out or barely survive, self-deceit is an inevitable growth. The broadening of life is the widening of our [capacity] for deceiving ourselves. [Perfect] simplicity is the only thing which is fatal to self-deceit. But life multiplies, entangles, distracts, complicates, bewilders. The self-deceit fountain flows more copiously each year, with grace evaporating the waters as they spring. Life is a [struggle] between grace and self-deceit; most often, deceit wins.
[Self-deceit's Involvement in Spiritual Growth]—The higher one rises in spiritual life, the more subject they become to self-deceit's insidiuous operations. The higher graces [which come right before] the highest grace of the soul's uttermost union with God, aren't high enough to avoid delusions [of being at the highest level]. Prayer is beset by self-deceit. It leads to new worlds, language, & objects. Being unfamiliar, we misinterpret, misjudge distance & size; [mistake pure fantasy for reality] & are dazzled by spiritual splendor. Habit is the only safety with supernatural things; [by the time we perfectly understand 1 level of grace, we are lifted to another]. Self-deceit has timeliness that seizes on fresh graces, & diverts them to its own ends. [We revel in a new level of grace & are delayed in rising further]. Self-deceit levies a tax, paid insensibly as each new grace comes. Careful management & [modest enjoyment of each new level of grace] is 1 of the most difficult subjects in spiritual life.
Self-deceit infests nature & grace. It is a growth of natural character, in a subject weakened, unhinged, & overbalanced by sin. [Self-deceit is not the same as natural character]. It attaches itself to our weak moments & points, [& blends so effectively with our character], that we may be unable to recognize our [true] selves. Everyone concedes to one's disposition a limited right to lay down the law to oneself. One assumes, sometimes falsely, that certain limitations are immutable. We cannot discern between want of trust in nature, and want of trust in the grace of God. Self-deceit insinuates itself into the privileged parts of our character, into the disposition we have made up our minds to humor, and so becomes our law of life; we lie to our self, and make that lie our law.
[The mostly rare awareness of] self-deceit is humiliating. There are no men who shrink more instinctively from self-knowledge than those who [newly discover their self-deceit; the shame is unbearable]. Beginners in spiritual life are especially affected. They fall into spiritual gluttony. They ought to be sent out with [some restrictions, to take in only as much revelation & grace as can be effectively digested]. [Otherwise they are over-whelmed] & give up the whole matter in disgust, take to [unchallenging] comfort & lead unsatisfactory lives.
The Remedies of Self-Deceit—How is there anything substantial in creation? Who in the world is real? Where is spiritual life in the world? Self-deceit has undisguised pettiness when our minds are too introverted upon it; [it dulls the satisfaction of worship and devout practice]. It is not easy to keep the line always clearly drawn between habitual examination of conscience and the misery of [ingrown] self-contemplation. A soul turned inward is mostly mildewed. People are vain and conceited and can't be patient with themselves. What will the result be of breaking away from the undignified bondage of a pious life, or of avoiding the cultivation of an interior spirit in the hope of not being fooled? How will one's exceedingly petty concerns and conceits then be one's masters? How much worse will those concerns and conceits be made without allowing grace to encourage the natural sweetness of one's natural character?
For remedies of self-deceit, there is nothing as specific as we would want it to be. Half-a-dozen times self-deceit has driven me to believe that self-deceit's effect on spiritual life is irreparable. Reparation of self-deceit is possible and indispensable to spiritual life. As we sink deeper and deeper into the knowledge of our own falsehood, we come nearer to the grand truthfulness of God; somehow self-abasement gives us heart.
Knowledge of our self-deceit is the nearest approach to its cure. Mere knowledge of our self-deceit enables us to direct our aim at it, & renders it a much less formidable enemy. Every additional degree of simplicity we have in our conduct, weakens the influence & force of self-deceit, & limits its occasions. Just as light changes anything exposed to it, so too simplicity has quality peculiarly uncongenial to that disease. When someone makes a series of discoveries regarding continual self-deceit, & that a principal basis of one's inward life is 1st seen to be a delusion, it will be wisest to remold one's spiritual system. The best practice will be that of matching pure, pious intention with pure, pious action. The remedy of concentrating the power of the soul on purity of intention won't be helpful to the scrupulous. Those for whom it works will be made happy. Those whom it makes unhappy, it doesn't suit; there is no serving God in unhappiness, when the unhappiness is of our own making. If seeking to make our intentions for God's glory always actual, entangles our conduct instead of simplifying it, and darkens our spirit, we may be sure it is not the right road for us, though it may be right for others.
We must not seek to combat self-deceit by excessively examining conscience and perpetual probing of motives. Like a diver in the deep sea, we must not stay long in the depths of our own motives. If we cannot find what we want quickly, it is better to come up quickly, without having found it; looking up to heaven, [offering defective motives up to heaven], rather than looking down, can be more effective.
The cure of self-deceit is lifelong work. Success in this process is peculiarly susceptible to discouragement. The nature of our warfare with self-deceit invests discouragement with a particular danger. Hope keeps faith's eye clear and steady; self-deceit harasses our hope, with entanglement, complication, indistinctness, multiple stratagems, and neglect of "respectable" laws of war. We must not be proud, [and insist on "victory at all cost]." We shall never march into any of the moral cities we may conquer, with shining armor, clean scarlet, unsoiled banner, and triumphant, braying trumpets. We shall always go home bedraggled. We must show extreme patience, good-humored contentment with small victories, and willingness to accept a drawn battle as a victory.
Meditation on God's attributes is another defence against self-deceit. When we reverently put God before us in detail for a long time, there is sympathy in our soul which draws out, defines, & sharpens, God's image in us. [Being in God's] neighborhood is [being in] truth's native land. Everything that leads us to throw ourselves out of ourselves, & upon the objects of faith, is in itself a remedy against self-deceit. Reverence towards God makes all natural & simple towards each other. We shall generally find that devotion of such people is marked by forcible attraction towards God's Attributes. Habitual reverence is the high breeding of spiritual life. We must endeavor to walk purely by faith. We mustn't spend time looking for outward providential tokens. All excess talking, even when it isn't about our own spiritual life or the characters of others, may be regarded as a power of self-deceit.
Let us be aware & believe God never wishes to entrap us, or take us at a disadvantage, regardless of how much a complication in spiritual life looks like the end of the world, & hopeless. We must have confidence in God as a special remedy. What then will make us real? God's Face will do it. The 1st touch of eternity will wake us & heal us of self-deceit. The nearest approach to seeking God's Face on earth is serving God out of personal love. We catch simplicity as part of Jesus' likeness. Then, when we look out of ourselves in loving faith, our inward processes are fewer in number, & amazingly simplified; their majesty is enhanced by simplicity. We must look out to God, pass over to God, lean upon God, learn to be one with God, & let God's love burn love of self away, [to make way for our union]. Untruthfulness is this creature's condition. How painful it feels, that when we are at our best, we are helplessly pretentious, indeliberate unrealities, unintentional hypocrisies. The time will come to all of us when we shall play parts no more, not with others, ourselves, nor yet with God.
117. Conscience (by Wilhelm Mensching; 1961)
About the Author/ INTRODUCTION—Wilhelm Mensching, a German pastor, is known for his consistent opposition of the National Socialist movement in Germany, and for his work at Freundschaftheim, and international training center for peace workers.// [I can picture Wilhelm Mensching at Freundschaftheim]. To adequately feel the moral and political weight of these words, you need to have some idea of the life out of which this “grain” and these roses grew. My 1st meeting with Wilhelm Mensching took place in early August 1947. George Hogle managed to get me across Occupied Germany to Bückeberg, and then Petzen village to the west. Jews and Germans, British and American soldiers found refuge here at the parsonage.
The British took over the German colonies in Africa, and interned Mensching as a young missionary. It was during his imprisonment that Mensching learned about the teachings and work of Gandhi. When the opportunity came Wilhelm Mensching joined the Fellowship of Reconciliation. He never compromised his Christian and pacifist convictions, and never had hate in his heart for anyone. He said: “When you come [into a] dark room, you do not curse the darkness; you light a candle.” He once told me that of all the men he knew who had been pacifists before the Hitler persecutions set in, only those whose wives shared their conviction and stood by them had remained firm. In this pamphlet, you are listening to the voice of a conscience incarnate. [All those] interested in the acts of a modern apostle, should read this pamphlet. A. J. Muste
Freedom of conscience is inviolable—[This statement is declared in Article 4 of the West German constitution]. The OT speaks repeatedly about conscience. In the NT Paul in particular refers to it and reminds others of it. In Germany, Britain, the US and other Anglo-Saxon countries [the rights of conscientious objection are protected by law]. Special boards examine each case of refusal to do military service to determine whether the refusal is based on conscientious grounds. It is often not at all easy to judge the conscience of another man, especially a young man who has not learned how to express himself clearly, or how to be clear on the questions: Why does the same man’s conscience judge differently at different periods in his life? Is mistaken conscience inviolable? Do I have the right to obey my conscience unconditionally? What should my attitude be when my conscience is not clear and I must nevertheless make an important decision?
What is conscience?—Conscience is a man’s inner ear for the voice which tells him what he should do [and not do], what the pattern and purpose of his life should be; the voice is something quite different from conscience. Socrates, the Shambala tribe in East Africa, people in India hear this voice. Paul was convinced that even the “heathen” have a conscience; “their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or perhaps excuse them.” A man from the Ewe tribe in West Africa wrote in a similar vein.
The ability to hear the voice of truth, or humanity, of the moral law is not dependent on membership in a religious community nor on belief in God. Fridtjof Nansen was impelled by his conscience to leave the Church, and the voice of human brotherhood drove him to work at repatriating prisoners of war, aid refugee and assist millions of starving people in Russia after WW I.
During both world wars and in between I have met men [on 4 continents]: capitalists, communists, colored, white, non-Christian and Christian. There were conscientious and those seemingly without conscience in all groups. [I relentlessly opposed National Socialism]. It was not true that the Nazis with whom I dealt had no stirrings of conscience. Even Himmler, at least in some cases was not deaf to the voice which [our conscience hears]. Among the reasons for support or opposition, conscientious scruples may also play a role. Consciences will differ and stand in direct opposition one to another.
Why does conscience lead to such different decision?—Martin Luther was compelled by his conscience to attack the Church [and refuse obedience to the Emperor]. He declared: “It is not right to act against one’s conscience. Here I stand; I can do no other. God help me. Amen.” The English Lord Chancellor, Thomas More said: “For the sake of my conscience this is one of the situations where I am obliged to disobey my sovereign.” Conscience forces men like Albert Schweitzer, the “Göttingen 18” (German physicists) and thousands of experts in all nations as well as many other men and women to oppose the testing and use of nuclear weapons.
Conscience often leads to different decisions in different men, even in conscientious men. Even in the same man it often happens that conscience judges differently in different times of his life, & even takes a position opposite of an earlier one. As the inner ear of man, conscience is just as subject to error as his physical ear. No conscience possesses the ability to perceive all the appeals of truth or of God, or the whole truth or message of the voice of humanity or of reason.
[Conscience’s hearing may be selective, hearing clearly the appeal of one concern, while failing to hear other calls]. It can grow hard of hearing, fall asleep, degenerate and become deaf. We cannot rely with complete confidence on our conscience. Through parents, church, state, party, or traditional culture, a child is given a dubious substitute for the voice which tells him through his conscience what is good and what is evil.
Why do we have a conscience?—Socrates, Jesus, and Luther were driven to oppose the recognized religion of their world, and to oppose officials of the state [and of religion]. Socrates and Jesus were both executed; Luther was outlawed and excommunicated. But in this way their consciences found peace. Other conscientious men have become pioneers against injustice, inhumanity and evil customs. They obeyed the voice speaking through their consciences, standing often quite alone in their community. We have been given a conscience so that we can hear a voice which wants more than strict observance of the rules valid in our community. We have a conscience so that we will remain alert and sensitive to truth, justice, reason, morality, or God.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights” published by the UN speaks of the conscience of humankind which is deeply outraged by “acts of barbarism.” The history of humankind shows again and again how men have been led by the voice in their conscience to recognize injustice, inhumanity and evil customs, and to replace them with justice, humanity, and a good way of life.
How has conscience functioned in the course of history?—Jesus & his apostles worked against the war that threatened to break out between their people & “heathens” (Romans). The Christians of neither nation took part in it. [In the 1st 3 centuries], most Christians were conscientious objectors. But the conscience of the Christians toward war & military service gradually fell asleep when Christianity became a state religion. Mennonites, Quakers, & Church of the Brethren are the remaining historical peace churches. Following the French Revolution, poets, philosophers, & clergy began to glorify war in Germany. Victor von Straus und Torney complained that “Enthusiasm for war again spreads a new cover over our consciences & smothers them more & more,” & that “a vulgar practical materialism poisons the German mind & here lames & there stifles spiritual interests… All nations are forced to confront each other with clenched fists… Strict military discipline & subordination have penetrated into those areas where they are really immoral & tend to destroy & ruin both character & mind.”
The Japanese Uchimura became the warning prophet of his nation. As a result of refusing to go along with the nationalist spirit, he suffered contempt & deprivation. He wrote: “I too, sometimes preached [for the madness of war]. But it was the most stupid trash. The advantages of war cannot compensate for its damages. There was probably never a war that achieved its purpose. A nation in which no voice is raised against war is an uncivilized, a barbaric nation… One war always leads to another … There is no greater contradiction than saying you are waging war for the sake of peace… If you make room for war then Christianity collapses completely … The blessing promised by the prophets rests upon those who rise against war.
Fridtjof Nansen wrote: “The world is filled with hate, envy and mistrust between individuals, between classes, between countries… War can bring no healing, no salvation. It may well eradicate a threatening illness. But in its place it creates the germs of 10 new maladies. [To end war], we must destroy the bridges behind us which lead us back to old politics and old systems.”
Walther Rathenau was minister for reconstruction after WW I & foreign minister. He wrote: “If we don't act as our conscience prompts, it will weigh heavily upon us. Souls of the slain demand reconciliation for God’s glory… It will be the noblest & proudest moment when we give up hate & grief, every tear & every wound, all death & all revenge, [& start to heal, comfort & rebuild]. On that day God’s Kingdom will come nearer to earth … If we are worthy we will experience it; if we aren’t worthy of it our children will not experience it either.”
After the death of her son in the war, Käthe Kollwitz, the German artist wrote: “Has the youth of all these countries been deceived? Has it been mass madness? We must never forget the war. We must all pay for our guilt… When I know that I am working with an international community against war I have a sense of warm, in-tense satisfaction… Every war has a counter-war in its pocket. Every war is answered by another war… Pacifism is not the role of a calm spectator, but work, hard work.” More and more responsible statesmen and military men warningly declare today that in this nuclear age there is no longer any possibility of victory or defense of a people; [war has become indiscriminate mass murder and suicide].
What does conscience need today?—Often the awakening of a single conscience has led to the formation of a public conscience against what had not been previously recognized as inhumanity. [The awakening] causes some parts of one’s nature, previously idle to be used more and more. Are we today on the way towards a public conscience against war and its preparation? The voice of humanity, of truth, or of God, speaks to each man personally. Everyone has in one’s conscience an ear for the personal call. How much responsibility can the rulers assume over our consciences, and how much obedience can they demand?
Conscience today needs clarity and knowledge about [all things military]. It needs careful cultivation and training of its capacity to hear in order to be able to distinguish sharply the voice of God, truth, humanity, morality, and reason from other voices. What kind of conscience to I want to have and associate with? Many consciences today need the help of companions who constantly practice listening to the voice of humanity, of truth or God. We cannot expect infallible clarity from men, even such conscientious men as Martin Luther and Thomas More. We have in our own conscience, the possibility of turning directly to the voice within. Our conscience needs to turn aside from all the din of [other] voices.
After [hearing] the clear directing voice must come obedience to its directions in the world itself. If we receive advice or command in our conscience we must test it in life. Whoever does not runs into the danger of excusing & glossing over & accustoming himself to barbaric acts. [A conscientious objector tests with life itself the admonition not to take part in war and its preparation. One tests whether it was really the word of truth.
In what direction is conscience leading us today?—Socrates let himself be led by this voice [in the midst of the oppression by the 30 tyrants]. He walked among 30 tyrants as a free man. God led this man, who tested in life what he had heard in his conscience, along a difficult but good path, which was good for others as well as himself. He met his execution with a “good” conscience.
Jesus nurtured very carefully his relationship with this voice. He called it not only God, but Father. Jesus did not let the question whether or not his people should be prepared for war be answered by the people’s voice, nor by the high priests and rulers. He sought, in solitude, for enlightenment from the Father. Jesus destroyed the bridges leading to old politics, and sought for volunteers for service in the cause of peace. Jesus armed his community with such inner strength that it needed no military weapons for defense or for expansion.
Gandhi called Jesus a “prince among politicians,” [& was a follower of conscience, a listener] to the voice of God or of truth. The voice never directed him to [prepare for violence]. It showed him in every situation non-violent political means & ways. Gandhi became a statesman who destroyed the bridge leading to the usual political course. Today we need more urgently than ever a statesmanship without weapons. What can and should conscience do for us in the future? Close to us in our conscience is a wise counselor, a Friend, and a Father.
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