Abstract: The Prism Paradigm: Energy-Filter Map-Metaphor

The Prism Paradigm: Energy-Filter Map-Metaphor views emotional and psychic energy as light filtered through the unconscious/conscious mind. The paper sketches how unconscious spiritual symbolism, physiology, and circumstances act as filters shaping diverse forms of spirituality. The paper focuses on physiological filters.

• Autistic individuals may express spirituality through unexplainable sensory experiences.
• NF personality types often connect deeply with art and report after-death contact experiences.
• Stress or distress can trigger spiritual experiences.
• Women tend to be more receptive to spirituality and religiosity than men.
• Individuals with stronger religious beliefs tend to hold more conservative political views.

The “Integrative Approach and Synthesis-Consensus” Model complements the Prism Paradigm by highlighting a “new integrative approach” based on the consensus among Viktor Frankl, William James, Carl Jung, Emile Durkheim and Elzbieta Halas, emphasizing that spirit, spiritual, and religious beliefs create meaning, reality, and truth. This consensus is supported by observations from Dr. Paul Wong, who notes the approach bridges the divide between science and religion. The paper briefly highlights Social Symbolism in the context of Elzbieta Halas’s model of social symbolism, noting that groups exist based on common symbolization, which creates social order, expresses meaning, and controls actions. Lastly, thew paper sketches Emotionally Energized Idea-Symbols & Archetypes and highlights unconscious spiritual symbolism, drawing on the works of William James and Carl Jung. The paper emphasizes the role of emotions in energizing ideas and beliefs – drawing on William James, Kalsched and Furlotti.

Prism Paradigm:

Energy – emotional and psychic – are light in this Metaphor. There is agreement among Willaim James, Donald Kalsched, and Furlotti that often powerful energy originates in unconscious symbolism – which is processed and filtered by the conscious mind. Diverse form and types of spirituality emerge from this consciousness prism. Lastly, neuroscience has demonstrated that there are two sides to selective attention. Selective attention focuses attention but it also filters out information (in order to focus). It is true that “Spirituality and Life are what you make of them!” It is also true as Gasset observes – “I am I plus my circumstances” and in some cases that is not just cultural or political circumstances but can include “physiological” circumstances as well. Rather than view spirituality as some huge “Blob” – like in the movie, “The Blob that ate Chicago” – the Prism Paradigm provides a model of unconscious spiritual symbolism as energy and circumstances and physiology compared to a prism. That is much more realistic and practical in my view.

Keywords: spirit, spirituality, unconscious symbolism, spiritual symbolism,  

Physiology Filters in Spirituality

1, Autistic spirituality & unexplainable sensory experiences

2, NF Personality types and Art

3, NF Personalities: Dreams and visions of the deceased

4. “Distress” or stress – at times – can trigger spiritual experiences.

5. Gender: Women vs Men: Studies consistently show women are more

6. Studies consistently show that individuals with stronger religious beliefs tend to hold more conservative political views.  

Physiological Filters

1.    Autistic spirituality & unexplainable sensory experiences

As Dr Visuri emphasizes that out autistic spirituality tends to be expressed as unexplainable sensory experiences as well as invisible touch. It is readily apparent that unexplainable sensory experiences, which is unique to autistics, would be a result of their unique physiology – and perhaps compensatory for their well-known weakness in social skills and deficit in the “theory of mind” process or Default Mode Network which process social signals.

2.    NF Personality types and art

“Intuitive-feeling types are the most-rare. That’s why they often have trouble connecting with other people because they often feel judged, misunderstood, and left out…NF’s are usually empathetic individuals who strongly dislike conflict and injustices. They typically enjoy volunteering for social justice causes and seek careers that allow them to express their values and mission to help others. Although enjoying the arts is not exclusive to NF’s, they most often take  artwork, writing, and drama to a different level.”

3.  NF Personalities: Dreams and visions of the deceased

J. E. Kennedy observes: “Research studies have found that belief in paranormal phenomena is associated with the N and F personality factors (Gow, et. al., 2001; Lester, Thinschmidt, & Trautman, 1987; Murphy & Lester, 1976). In a study of a technique attempting to induce a sense of contact with someone who had died, 96% of the participants with NF personality types reported after-death contact experiences, whereas 100% of the participants with ST (sensing, thinking) personality types did not have these experiences (Arcangel, 1997).”  (Personality and Motivations to Believe, Misbelieve, And Disbelieve In Paranormal Phenomena by J. E. KENNEDY (Original publication and copyright Journal of Parapsychology, 2005, Volume 69, pp.263-292))

4.  “Distress” or stress – at times – can trigger spiritual experiences.

Dr. Ingela Visuri, in her study of autistic spirituality, observes that “Distress” can be an underlying cause of spiritual experiences. Visuri also notes that beliefs sometimes emerge “gradually” in autistic experiences. Jean MacPhail, author, scholar, and expert on Vedanta also observes that among her many spiritual experiences, stress seemed to paly a strong role. I haven’t seen any hard numbers but as a rule of thumb in my experience spiritual experiences connected with death or grieving would likely be among the top types of experiences. Grieving and death are very stressful, of course.

5.  Gender: Women vs Men: Studies consistently show women are more

receptive to spirituality and religiosity, and attend church more regularly than males. “Women tend to be more spiritual and religious than men. This pattern has been found consistently across cultures, across religions, and throughout history (Stark 2002). Women also tend to believe in psychic phenomena more than men (reviewed in Irwin 1993, also see Orenstein 2002). In the Canadian survey, 72 percent of the extreme skeptics were males and 64 percent of the extreme believers were females. The tendency for men to be more skeptical may reflect a genetic tendency to be more inclined toward rational, practical thinking and competition whereas women t d to be more interested in people, relationships, and connections.” (An Exploratory Study of the Effects of Paranormal and Spiritual Experiences on Peoples’ Lives and Well-Being J.E. Kennedy and H. Kanthamani)

A possible underlying cause for this could be because women tend to engage both the left and right side together versus males who tend to be more left brain prioritized. Left brain – right brain theories are controversial – though a consensus that emotion are largely processes in the right brain appears to have become accepted. The classic theory suggests that right-brained people are more: creative, free-thinking, able to see the big picture, intuitive, likely to visualize more than think in words

6.    Studies consistently show that individuals with stronger religious beliefs tend

 to hold more conservative political views. This association is particularly strong among those who are highly politically engaged. “In a combined sample of national survey respondents from 1996 to 2008, religiosity was associated with conservative positions on a wide range of attitudes and values among the highly politically engaged, but this association was generally weaker or nonexistent among those less engaged with politics. The specific political characteristics for which this pattern existed varied across ethno-religious groups.” (The Association of Religiosity and Political Conservatism: The Role of Political Engagement April 2012 DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9221.2012.00875.x Ariel Malka, Yphtach Lelkes, Sanjay R Srivastava)

New Model: Integrative Approach and Synthesis-Consensus: Viktor Frankl, William James and Carl Jung:

Spirit, spiritual and religious beliefs create meaning, a sense of reality, and ultimately meaning structures, reality, and truth and ultimately Meaning Structures, Reality, and Truth

Dr. Paul Wong, a world renowned Christian psychologist, author/editor of The Human Quest for Meaning: Theories, Research, and Applications (Personality and Clinical Psychology), and keynote speaker at a recent worldwide logotherapy convention – after I approached him with a brief summary of my “New Approach,”  made some thoughtful comments after looking over my brief summary. Dr. Paul Wong observed that “Your approach is new in the sense of a broad-minded integrative approach, breaking down the artificial traditional divide between science and religious, or scientific psychology versus humanistic or psychoanalytic psychology.” He went on to suggest that a title of “A new integrative approach” would be suitable.” It is a bit mindboggling – but it actually is a “new” approach. I have not come across any mention in my research suggesting any awareness of the Consensus among Viktor Frankl, William James and Carl Jung.

1, Emile Durkheim, a founding father of sociology, in his 1912 The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, emphasized that religious and spiritual beliefs create social ideals, such as Morality, as well as Compassion Truth, Justice, Equality, and Righteousness!

2. Carl Jung, a psychoanalyst and contemporary of Sigmund Freud, observed that “Spirit gives meaning to his [man’s] life” (CW8:643)

3. William James emphasizes in his classic work, originally published in 1902, The Varieties of Religious Experiences that “They [spiritual experiences] determine our vital attitude as decisively as the vital attitude of lovers is determined by the habitual sense…… (P.47) William James goes on to say that religious experiences and spiritual experiences create and generate a “sense of reality” (p.48)

4. Paul Wong observes: “Frankl considers meaning seeking as stemming from one’s spiritual nature…. The noetic (spiritual, specifically human) dimension contains such qualities as our will to meaning [Frankl’s central concept of humanity’s primary drive] our goal orientation, ideas and ideals, creativity, imagination, faith, love that goes beyond the physical, a conscience beyond the superego, self-transcendence, commitments, responsibility, a sense of humor, and the freedom of choice making.” (anthology, Meaning in Positive and Existential Psychology (2014), edited by Batthyany and Russo-Netzer, p.156) 

This consensus among four very prominent psychologists dovetails into the Elzbieta Halas Model of Social Symbolism: Halas states that “More profoundly, groups exist only on the ground of common symbolization of their members.”  “The processes of symbolization…create a social order, express meaning and control actions.” – and R Reyes “Social-Moral Order”, as well as Durkheim’s Social Forces

Emotionally Energized Idea-Symbols & Archetypes: Unconscious Spiritual Symbolism

William James, the Father of American Psychology, in his classic work first published in 1902, “The Varieties of Religious Experience,” which analyses peoples spiritual and religious experiences, concludes that spiritual and religious experiences can create a “sense of reality.” In his chapter titled “The Reality of the Unseen,” James emphasizes that the emotional energy and power associated with “abstractions”- or symbols – is critical in shaping and creating in the human mind a sense of reality. It is not only the ideas of pure Reason as Kant styled them, that have this power of making us vitally feel presences that are beyond our capability to articulately describe. All sorts of higher abstractions bring with them the same kind of impalpable appeal…. As time, space, and the ether soak through all things so [we feel] do abstract and essential goodness, beauty, strength, significance, justice, soak through all things good, strong significant, and just” (p. 48) William James states unequivocally,

“This absolute determinability of our mind by abstractions is one of the cardinal facts in our human constitution. Polarizing and magnetizing us as they do, we turn towards them and from them, we seek them, hold them, hate them, bless them, just as if they were so many concrete beings. And beings they are, beings as real in the realm which they inhabit as the changing things of sense are in realm of space. When talking about the abstractions involved in imagination William James observed, in talking about symbolism in the realm of imagination, that [they] “determine our vital attitude as decisively as the vital attitude of lovers is determined by the habitual sense, by which each is haunted, of the other being in the world.” It is telling that James used the passionate attachment almost unbreakable bonds of lovers to communicate the energy and vitality of emotionally charged “abstractions, idea-symbols or archetypes.

Carl Jung and William James had remarkably similar concepts, ideas and theories. Like William James, Carl Jung believed that emotions were a driving force which energized and motivated ideas, beliefs, and ultimately behavior. In fact, the contemporary psychologist, Eric Klinger states unequivocally that a “primary function of several emotions is to direct attention to concern-related stimuli. (p.42) Furthermore, Jung also believed that symbols [or abstractions] are “inarticulate” in James’s terminology or “inaccessible to consciousness” in Jungian terms. As Jung states, “an idea must evoke a response from the emotions, I meant an unconscious readiness which, because of its affective nature, springs from deeper levels that are quite inaccessible to consciousness. Thus, our conscious reason can never destroy the roots of nervous symptoms; for these emotional processes are needed, which even have the power to influence the sympathetic nervous system. We could equally well say that when the wider consciousness sees fit, a compelling idea is put before the ego-consciousness as an unconditional command. Anyone who is conscious of his guiding principle knows with what indisputable authority it rules his life.” CV 588 642

Perhaps even more succinctly, Jung states that “A symbol remains a perpetual challenge to our thoughts and feelings. That probably explains why a symbolic work is so stimulating, why it grips us so intensely, but also why it seldom affords us a purely aesthetic enjoyment. A work that is manifestly not symbolic appeals much more to our aesthetic sensibility because it is complete in itself and fulfils its purpose.” CV 588 119

Lastly it is significant that Carl Jung highlights the characteristic of symbols as being beyond ordinary cognitive processes, as well as seeming to imply and infer that symbols have an intrinsic synthesis function “transcending” rational analysis. Carl Jung states, “So long as the spirit can be named and formulated as an intelligible principle or a clear idea, it will certainly not be felt as an independent being. But when the idea or principle involved is inscrutable, when its intentions are obscure in origin and in aim and yet enforce themselves, then the spirit is necessarily felt as an independent being, as a kind of higher consciousness, and its inscrutable, superior nature can no longer be expressed in the concepts of human reason. Our powers of expression then have recourse to other means; they create a symbol.”

Maria Van Franz, a student-confederate of Carl Jung does an excellent job describing the ‘reality’ of emotional symbols and archetypes. Von Franz states that “If we bear this fact in mind, we shall perhaps understand more easily how shattered the author of Aurora [Consurgens] must have been when Wisdom suddenly appeared to him in personal form. Doubtless he did not know before how real an archetypal figure like Wisdom is, and he had taken her merely as an abstract idea. For an intellectual it is a shattering experience when he discovers that what he was seeking ‘from the beginning of his birth’ is not just an idea, but is psychically real in a far deeper sense and can come upon him like a thunderclap. What I mean by ‘psychically real’ is expressed by the author when he says that Wisdom is ‘most true nature.’ He is saying that she is not merely an intellectual concept but is devastatingly real, actual, and palpably present.” That is, symbols and archetypes, though technically not quantifiable and beyond the strict confines of materialist thinking, are in fact very vibrant, vital, and formidable forces in human consciousness – and could – and should – be understood and described as virtual energy and force.

Furlotti observes that, ” Affect emerges from archetypes, which are the a priori ordering principles of nature, the world, and the psyche. When an archetype is activated, energy is put in motion that does not adhere to the laws of causality, or time and space.” (Tracing a Red Thread: Synchronicity and Jung’s Red Book:(2010), Psychological Perspectives, 53:4, 455-478) Unconscious emotions born of symbols – and archetypes – are very real and – at times – incredibly powerful!

Donald Kalsched, Ph.D., a Clinical Jungian Analyst, observes that, “Archetypal energy is rooted deep in the unconscious and it is ‘archaic’, primitive, and also ‘typical’. Archetypal energies and affects are not easily assimilated by the conscious mind. They can be luminous or dark, angelic or demonic, but because they exist in raw, unmediated form they tend to be over-powering.”

Carl Jung, perhaps with ‘prehistoric humanity’ in mind observed that “As soon as you are outside of the domain of self, everything is experienced to be divine.” “In self’s highest function, self can come into a relationship with divinity, and it can experience its experience of divinity, which is beautiful, profound, deep with significance, and life-changing.” “God never was invented, it was always an occurrence, a psychological experience-and mind you, it is still the same experience today.” (Carl Gustav Jung, Seminar on Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, P. 916) Here, it seems Jung parallels the idea of logos or “divine reason” essentially saying that, in one sense or another, “God” or the “Divine” can only be grasped and understood only in terms of how a person thinks or understands God – yet also emphasizing that there is a “divine” nature and reality in what lies beyond the self.

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