Primitive Ego Theory Of Human Development: Authentic Spiritual Growth and Middlepath Enlightenment

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The Primitive Ego Theory Of Human Social and Spiritual Development: Authentic Spiritual Growth and Middlepath Enlightenment© Dick Rauscher Issue #4

I have had several requests from readers asking me to write a brief overview of the Primitive Ego Theory of Social and Spiritual Development© that I am referring to in my articles and in the Newsletters. So here is a brief overview. It's a bit on the technical side, but should give readers a clearer understanding of Primitive Ego Theory©. In the next issue of the Stonyhill Newsletter I will get back to more practical applications of the theory and how it can help you grow day to day in your spiritual life.

There is an old adage that says 'we do not grow and change our behaviors by force of will.' We change our beliefs and our behaviors only when our old beliefs and behaviors no longer make any sense to us; when we grow in self-awareness. Unfortunately, most of us still attempt to change ourselves primarily through force of will.

Paul said it very clearly when he said, "For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate" (Rom. 7:15). How many times could each of us have uttered those same words! How often have each of us struggled with regret and dis-like of ourselves over the words and behaviors that we have put out into the world even though we knew they were wrong or not kind?

Because Paul lived in a pre-modern culture, he assumed that it was sin caused by a demonic force that dwelled inside him that was making him do the things that he did not want to do. "If I will to do what I cannot do", he reasoned, "then it is no longer I who do it but sin that dwells within me". (Rom. 7:18). The price he paid for his inability to change by force of will was a decades long period of self-loathing.

Not unlike most of us alive today, Paul was unaware that his unconscious mind; his hard-wired genetic "self", and the primitive ego of his unconscious inner-child were controlling him.

To help us understand the importance of bringing to conscious awareness the primitive ego of our unconscious inner-child, I will be referring in this and future newsletter articles to the Stonyhill Primitive Ego Theory of Human Social and Spiritual Development© or PETHSSD©, so I want to offer readers a very brief description of the theory.

PETHSSD© is a post-modern developmental theory of human consciousness that has been under development at the Stonyhill Institute for more than a decade. It is a relational developmental theory, not a psychodynamic theory.

PETHSSD© was developed to integrate the insights of current post-modern psychological research with over 200 hundred years of biblical scholarship into a practical model for both human development and spiritual growth; a model that could be effectively used by any one interested in authentic spiritual growth regardless of their individual religious beliefs.

It describes in detail the evolutionary journey of human consciousness from the pathological narcissism of our inner-child's primitive ego to the authentic spiritual growth and enlightened middlepath spirituality of our adult observing ego.

Because there can be no authentic spiritual growth without growth in our self-awareness, all spiritual growth requires a deep commitment to the evolution and transformation our consciousness. Achieving authentic spiritual growth does not need to be confusing, nor does it come from blind adherence to a set of rigid religious beliefs designed to create unity. There are many valid paths to God or Ultimate Reality and all of them require us to grow in self-awareness; to become aware of the log in our own eye.

I learned very early in my counseling practice that my client's grew only when they were able to embrace mutuality, accept the concept of radical diversity, confront the fragmentation of their psyche, and see the systemic inter-relationships between themselves and the rest of creation. As they learned to take full responsibility for the creation of their own lives, and consciously examined their many unconscious childhood beliefs they became significantly happier and grew spiritually.

As they deepened their understanding of the workings and impact that the primitive ego of their inner-child had on their relationship with others, they began to achieve a more integrated sense of wholeness. The healthy relationships they had always wanted with themselves, with family and friends, and with reality itself, all became increasingly possible for them.

As they became increasingly conscious of the survival skills they had acquired in early childhood, they grew in self-esteem. The behaviors they were uncomfortable with began to make sense when seen through the eyes of childhood. They began to see that they were simply using out-moded early life survival skills; skills that had been effective in their childhood but were not at all helpful when they attempted to use them unconsciously as adults. They came to understand that there wasn't anything "wrong" with them, they simply needed to develop more "adult" ways of dealing with the events and challenges in their life.

Our unconscious mind has many ways to defend itself; disassociation, suppression, avoidance, procrastination, denial, repression, projection to name only a few. As a therapist and counselor, my primary focus was on relationship impediments; things that influenced my clients and kept them from creating healthy relationships with the world around them, and with other persons. I decided early in my practice to leave the development of detailed psychodynamic theories to other mental health specialists.

As this work unfolded over the years, and as I began to incorporate Eastern spiritual practices that encouraged growth in self-awareness and self-consciousness, it became clear that growth in self-awareness and authentic spiritual growth were one and the same subject. Over time, this fundamental and seminal insight led to the birth of the Primitive Ego Theory of Human Social and Spiritual Development©.

So here is a brief description of PETHSSD© that I will refer to in future newsletter articles as we explore together our human spiritual journey from the narcissism of our primitive ego to a spiritually matured middlepath enlightenment. Until the concepts in PETHSSD© become understood and more effectively integrated into the psyche of our over-all species consciousness, the development of a truly compassionate global culture will continue to elude us.

Briefly, Stage One represents the early childhood memories, learning's, and experiences that slid quietly into our unconscious when we were about eight years old. This material comprises the primitive ego of the inner-child that unconsciously resides in each of us. Our first primitive sense of "self".

The reactive adult of Stage Two is essentially the primitive ego of our inner-child masquerading as an adult in an adult body. We look like an adult until someone challenges our beliefs or threatens our sense of self. At that moment we manifest the unconscious knee-jerk defenses of our inner-child. The vast majority of adults alive today are stuck at a stage two level of development.

See diagram for visual illustration of PETHSSD©

Stage Three represents the "awakening" of our self-consciousness. We no longer grow unconsciously or haphazardly from our various life experiences. After awakening, our growth in consciousness becomes intentional. We begin the work of a stage four consciousness. PETHSSD© was developed primarily to encourage and support the awakening process of Stage 3, and the intentional growth of our observing ego in Stage 4. As I stated earlier, virtually all of the people alive in the world today are unconsciously stuck in a highly reactive Stage 2 level of human development.

Stage Four represents the "intentional" growth of our observing ego and the increased control we have over what we choose to pay attention to in both our outer environment and our internal thinking process.

By Stage Five, our observing ego consciousness has begun to transform and develop itself into a progressively deeper self-awareness. Our need to know and be right is increasingly replaced by a need to simply "be with" and quietly "pay attention" to both inner and outer stimuli. We more and more become the "observer" as we develop the skill of manifesting our pure consciousness.

Stage Six is full enlightenment. There have been many different descriptions and schools of enlightenment over the last several thousand years. Most have been concerned with individual enlightenment.

The only enlightened consciousness that makes sense to me in the context of 14.5 billion years of evolution is what I refer to as a middlepath evolutionary spirituality; a fully conscious Co-creative oneness with the on-going evolutionary process begun 14.5 billion years ago by the Initiating Conscious or God.

Do not be put off by all these complicated sounding words. A middlepath evolutionary spirituality simply means that one is learning to walk the middlepath in life and learning to see the truth on both sides of any issue; in other words, not splitting the world into categories of us versus them, good and bad, or right and wrong.

Splitting, as we have seen, is a survival skill of our primitive ego. It creates a sense of "otherness"; the taproot of conflict and violence. When we walk the middlepath in life, we are no longer projecting onto others the hurtful judgmentalism that is created when our primitive ego insists on splitting reality into either-or categories.

An evolutionary spirituality simply means seeing our selves and our human species in the context of 14.5 billion years evolutionary history. We live in a universe that is continuously creating new form. Through increased systemic cooperation at the cellular level, the evolutionary process has been able to increase the complexity of living systems and create a self-reflective consciousness in those living organisms.

The rest of the words simply mean that God is the universal Initiating Consciousness that created the universe at the moment of the big bang. What scientists are learning is how incredibly finely tuned the universe was designed to support the birth of life and reflexive-consciousness; the ability to think about thinking. Extremely small changes in 8 to 10 of the critical physical constants that determine how our universe operates would have resulted in a universe very hostile to life and consciousness.

PETHSSD© offers significant tools in helping us see how our primitive ego's insistence on splitting reality into black and white categories, and its narcissistic self-focus leave it with virtually no ability to internalize life in a larger 14.5 billion year evolutionary context. In other words, our primitive ego is primarily focused on our own needs and desires and has great difficulty seeing the bigger picture. It sees itself as a separate object and is therefore intuitively unable to see itself as being systemically inter-related with the rest of creation.

In the area of religion, the primitive ego can believe in God, but only because God can narcissistically offer us the reward of an eternal life in heaven if we are obedient. Take away the promise of eternal life and then add a list of "religious" responsibilities such as learning to love unconditionally, mutuality, and compassion, and the primitive ego will lose its faith in religion and God very quickly.

PETHSSD© is a tool that anyone can use to awaken his or her consciousness and begin to intentionally grow in self-awareness so-as-to achieve authentic spiritual growth. As we have begun to explore in previous issues of the Stonyhill Newsletter, our journey toward an authentic spiritual growth begins when we learn to embrace two important spiritual practices. The first is learning to pay conscious attention to whatever our primitive ego is manifesting in the world moment by moment, and the second is then learning to quietly sit with what we see while avoiding the compelling need to look away or ignore what we see simply because we don't like what we are seeing. The primitive ego does not like to be told that it is wrong.

Authentic spiritual growth is growth in self-awareness. We will continue to explore this reality in depth in future issues of the Stonyhill newsletter.

1-See Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism: A Bishop Rethinks The Meaning of Scripture, by John Shelby Spong, HarperSanFrancisco, 1991, p.107ff for an in-depth discussion on Paul's struggle with "sin". Spong makes a powerful argument that the "demon" Paul struggled with was homosexuality. If his conclusions are true, isn't it ironic
that the person who first prepared the foundation for the spread of Christianity and "the one who would define grace for Christian people" might have been a homosexual male.
2-Readers interested in a more detailed description of PETHSSD and authentic spiritual growth can read many other articles posted on the Stonyhill web site at www.stonyhill.com.
3-Of course, the majority of them would not have described their growth as "spiritual". They just "felt better" and were "happier". They often described themselves as being less "anxious".
4-See the last issue of the Stonyhill newsletter on the Stonyhill web site at www.stonyhill.com for a more detailed discussion of "splitting" and "middlepath".

PERSONAL COMMENTS

Form and matter appears to have been created from nothing at the moment of the big bang 14.5 billion years ago. The creative Consciousness that poured itself into what we call the Universe began a creative evolutionary process that ultimately resulted in living organisms and self-reflexive consciousness.

It is important to remember that despite what our narcissistic primitive ego believes, the human species is not the final life form that will be created by this already 14.5 billion year old process. The evolutionary creative process is an infinitely on-going process and it will continue long after we have either destroyed ourselves as a species or evolved into a higher life form.

Scientists and biologists such as Darwin and Teilhard de Chardin have helped us increase our awareness and understanding of the evolutionary process. Because of their discoveries, we now have the wisdom and insight to know that the evolutionary process does not appear to be random.

It appears to have a very specific purpose. Namely, the creation of ever-increasing complexity of living organisms, an increasing cooperation between the living organisms, and the birth of self-reflective consciousness in those living organisms.

The knowledge of where the evolutionary process will ultimately take us is outside our present awareness. Those answers lie hidden from us just beyond the horizon by time. But given where we started from 14.5 billion years ago, evolution will certainly hold some amazing surprises for us as we move into the future as a species; both biologically and in the growth of our reflexive self-consciousness.

There is a simple truth that has profoundly influenced the way I look at my own life. It states that 'no form can be created without there first being consciousness'. In other words, consciousness precedes the creation of all form.

Because I am a reflexively self-conscious being, the questions I find increasingly difficult to ignore are what "forms" am "I" personally creating right now in this moment, and is it what I really want to be creating?" "Is the universe a kinder more compassionate place because of what I'm creating?" Am I working with the creative evolutionary process or am I working against it?

As a self-aware being, I am consciously aware that I now have the ability to participate as a Co-creator with the Initiating Consciousness itself in the creation of new form. It is no longer totally up to God the "forms" that are created in this universe. I too have a personal role in that responsibility.

I watched the recent launch of the Atlantis as it lifted off its pad at Cape Canaveral and began its journey into space with a large truss member that would significantly increase the size of the international space station and ultimately, human knowledge itself.

Watching the launch in real time that afternoon brought to my awareness the incredible level of cooperation that must have been required between the many brilliant minds that were part of that effort to successfully launch a single space flight and take a single truss and some solar panels up to the space station.

That got me thinking about all of the other invisible people that must have worked cooperatively behind the scenes for decades or longer to develop the technology, the mathematics, and the equipment required to achieve the miracle I was watching.

Even the ability to watch the entire process in real time on a television in my own home was reflective of the amazing complexity that self-reflexive minds could create when they worked cooperatively together.

It was an inspiring spiritual experience for me personally to watch the creation of new form happening right before my eyes. All of those bright self-reflexive minds creating a complex and sophisticated platform in space. I was humbly aware that I was literally watching the conscious evolution of the human species taking place right before my eyes.

I was proud to be part of the human species that day.

It is my hope that through the development of the Primitive Ego Theory of Human Social and Spiritual Development© I too am contributing to the creation of new form that ultimately helps the evolution of human consciousness.

I am increasingly aware that more consciously participating in the evolutionary process with the Initiating Consciousness of the universe as a Co-creator of new form is bringing greater meaning and purpose to my life. It's what connects me with the Initiating Consciousness that created form out of nothing at the moment of the big bang and began the creative evolutionary process itself.

It is my responsibility as Co-creator that ultimately connects me with God, not my religious beliefs.

I will talk more about the creation of form, and our role as "Co-creators" in future newsletter articles.

SPIRITUAL PRACTICE

We all begin as a primitive ego. The question is where will you be when your life is over.

The evolution and maturation of our primitive ego begins when we acknowledge its presence and develop the skill to consciously pay attention to what it is we are manifesting in each moment.

What form are we creating in this moment?
Is it working with, or against, the ongoing creative process of the universe?

If the answer is yes, then our observing ego is consciously creating form that is contributing to the complexity and cooperation of life through compassion and unconditional love. We see ourselves as having evolved "from" the earth, not placed here to use the earth.

If the answer is no, then our primitive ego is unconsciously creating form called pain, suffering, judgment, conflict and violence. We are working out of our primitive ego to accumulate stuff, power, and control over others. Our life motto is "survival of the fittest". We insist on splitting the world into good and bad. Right and wrong. Our beliefs are good and right of course.

One is not right and good. The other is not wrong and bad. Both just "are". The question is always "Am I creating the kind of form I "want" to be creating right now?" "What form "am" I creating?"

If we can learn to consciously pay attention to the form we are creating from moment to moment, and not look away just because we do not like the current form we are creating or manifesting, eventually we will begin to experience choice. We will increasingly begin to develop the ability to intentionally choose, moment to moment, what we are manifesting.

The ability to intentionally choose the forms we are creating moment to moment is a basic skill required for authentic spiritual growth. In other words, authentic spiritual growth comes from the self-aware ability to consciously and intentionally pay attention.

GOALS OF THE STONYHILL NEWSLETTER

We live in a world filled with conflict and violence. Almost everyone agrees that something has to change. There is an urgent need to develop a more compassionate global spirituality.

At Stonyhill, we believe it makes no sense to profess the values and morality of peace and compassion while continuing to manifest the primitive ego's paradigm of vertical power called survival of the fittest; a paradigm of power, control, and violence.

We must learn how the unconscious judgments of the primitive ego bring the seeds of conflict, and a sense of "otherness" into the world. If our personal goal is to do no harm to others or the world, then our thinking must consciously evolve and become more conscious or self-aware.

We will become what we think about and authentic spiritual growth is achieved only when we grow in self-awareness.

Traditional mainline religions are based on primitive pre-modern and violent tribal metaphors written during a time when our human consciousness was still very primitive. Until our mainline religions remove the violence contained in their scriptures and come to understand that most of the wisdom in their scriptures is metaphoric and should not be interpreted literally, they will be unable to offer the moral and ethical framework needed to create effective global solutions to the challenges facing us in the 21st century.

We will evolve as humans only as we become more self-aware and intentionally increase our ability to love unconditionally. A compassionate global spirituality is no longer just an interesting philosophic idea; the future of the human species may very well depend upon our ability to create it. The danger that we could destroy ourselves as a species has never been greater. The creation of a compassionate global community is the most important goal of human consciousness in the 21st century.

The Stonyhill Newsletter explores the insights and spiritual practices required to achieve the authentic spiritual growth that comes from deep self-awareness, understanding the primitive ego that resides in each of us, and the intentional evolution of our species consciousness.

The Stonyhill newsletter is written each month for counselors, therapists, clergy, and individuals interested in authentic spiritual growth, intentional growth in our human consciousness, and the formation of a compassionate, non-violent global community that openly embraces radical inclusiveness and diversity.

Namaste
Dick Rauscher

IMPORTANT INFORMATION

The Stonyhill Newsletter is written and published by Dick Rauscher, M.Div., Fellow AAPC. For past issues of the Stonyhill Newsletter and other in depth articles on authentic spiritual growth and the Primitive Ego Theory of Human Development written by Dick Rauscher go to www.stonyhill.com
All rights reserved.
Copyright 2007

There are many article on spiritual growth, the middlepath and the primitive ego on the Stonyhill web site at www.stonyhill.com. If you would like to read an in-depth article on The Primitive Ego Theory of Human Development and the relationship between authentic spiritual growth and the growth in self-awareness that comes as we better understand the primitive ego that dwells inside each of us, you can go to the Awakening article #26 on the web site or just click on this link: http://www.stonyhill.com/articles.htm - awakening

Visit the STONYHILL INSTITUTE website at http://www.stonyhill.com/articles.htm for additional articles on the integration of spirituality and psychotherapy.

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