SECOND PAPER: “PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TRUTH”
“The path to truth begins with the self.” So begins Richard Rose’s second paper. Some, especially those who spent years of schooling in order to be certified as experts, will say it is simplistic. But as one reads through this devastating overview of orthodox modern psychology, it will become apparent that the certified professionals, who, with their legal franchise comprise its exclusive priesthood, turn out to be the real over-simplifiers. For the approved methods and practices employed by contemporary psychologists deal only with the mechanics of the human robot, and not with those matters related to the robot’s origin.
The problem of man’s origin, his essence, and his real self, is a crucial one. Rose shows how woefully deficient modern psychology is in addressing these problems. Indeed, most psychologists ignore them, or even declare that attempting to seek their solution betrays a pathological mind. In contrast to the prevailing psychological methods, Rose boldly states that the only true psychologist is one who enters his own mind. This is the route to self-definition.
I wish to add a personal note here regarding more recent developments in the field of psychology. Richard Rose wrote this paper in the early 1970’s. It will be acknowledged that during this time, and in his later years, there were some notable exceptions to the rule that psychology dealt with body mechanics rather than origin or essence. The depth psychology of Carl Jung, Roberto Assagioli’s Psychosynthesis, and Arthur Deikman’s “Observing Self” come to mind. But their approaches were, and are, not in the dominant mainstream of modern psychology.
More recently, there has been a group of courageous psychoanalysts who have discovered the ancient meditative spiritual practices of the East. For example, Jon Kabat-Zinn, the author of Wherever You Go, There You Are, has studied meditation and yoga for several decades, and applies their methods, such as the Buddhist practice of mindfulness, for the purpose of reducing stress. In 2003, Jeffery. D. Safran edited a group of essays, published by Wisdom Publications, entitled Psychoanalysis and Buddhism. Several psychologists and psychoanalysts who are practitioners of Zen, Vipassana, and Tibetan Buddhism wrote the essays. These psychoanalysts are attempting to incorporate methods derived from their spiritual practices into mainstream psychoanalysis. This effort is to be lauded.
After reading these essays, I believe there are now some in the profession who are addressing the issues paramount to Rose, namely, the issues of defining the mind, ultimate self, and the essence of man. For example, some of essayists discussed such eastern concepts as no-mind and non-duality. Yet it must be noted that the profundity of their approaches derives from practices developed long ago by philosophers and transcendentalists.
While these psychoanalysts are sympathetic, and even personally committed, to defining the mind and the ultimate self, they are still dependent on the findings of realized mystics and sages, whose methods are ancient, non-scientific, and often non-traditional. More will be said later on how the dominant modern strain of psychology attempts to trump philosophers and transcendentalists with concept building. Regrettably, it remains that the findings of the ancient philosopher, transcendentalist, and the new breed of psychoanalyst influenced by eastern techniques and practices, continue to be rejected by the contemporary mainstream of psychology.
For the purposes of this commentary, I think it is fair to assume that the dominant forms of psychology today, as taught in academia and practiced on the professional level, continue to be Freudian, behaviorist, and cognitive, with some recent, new gimmicks such as the study of “evolutionary psychology” based on Darwinism. Their approaches attempt to be empirical and scientific, which can only remain on the level of the somatic, material, and mechanical. Anything transcendental, or suggestive of a state prior to thought, is rejected out of hand. Therefore, Richard Rose’s critique in this paper, written four decades ago, remains as valid today as it did then.
Our lives are unexamined, Rose points out. We do not know who we are, or where we came from. We accept things on faith, but we never question why we do so. This situation must change. Rose implores us to doubt, compare, analyze, criticize, question authority, and wean ourselves from conventionality, custom, and tradition. Further, he challenges those who believe they are thinking their own thoughts.
Perhaps there is an essence subtler than our thoughts, where forces and impressions work upon the nervous system. We assume we think with and inside our heads, but is this so? What of the claims of telepathy? Science is timid to the claims of occultists, who knew the existence of telepathy many centuries ago. The scientific authorities, in order to establish their monopoly of the craft, will invent their own set of fancy words, thereby impressing the student, who accepts them without question. As a result, we have a maze of scientific jargon, which, according to Rose, contributes to the spreading of illusion and confusion. In the face of all this, he asks, can exact definition ever be possible? Because of the lack of consistency, even psychiatrists land on each other’s couches.
The issue of free will versus determinism is an example of where authors on psychology have given various opinions regarding the attributes of the mind. Is the choice only between total fatalism and total libertarianism? On this issue, Rose suggests living the paradox. It would be foolish, he says, to believe we are free agents, but equally foolish to think we live in eternal shackles. Perhaps the best course of action may be to assume there is room for free will within a broader determinism. The seeker can study freedom and generate a will, thereby receiving “yard privileges” in life’s prison, while non-seekers remain in their cells. Another challenge by Rose: “It all comes back to this…do we really wish to find the Truth? And how desperately?” Our original desire for Truth may dissipate, but new findings generate new perspectives and create new desires.
For Rose, scientists (this would include psychologists and psychiatrists) are no closer than laymen in knowledge of the essence of thought. Scientific study of psychology involves somatic, stimulus-reaction patterns. The endeavor is strictly mechanistic and materialistic. As an example, Rose questions the theory of thought being synaptic. Even though this “science” of psychology studies the behavior of the individual, it has “…little to do with the exact knowledge about the essence of the psyche, the essence of man, the limits of the self, or the true origins of the behavior of the individual.”
Professional concept-builders will undermine rival concept-builders using their own stock of jargon. Philosophers and transcendentalists will be attacked by psychologists, who claim the findings of the former two are nothing more than various “complexes.” Yet, as Rose points out, there may be a temporary need for such complexes. Having owned a farm where various animals were raised, he provides an apt analogy: “The chicken may have a mental aberration, yet may produce a healthy egg.” Various complexes may be simply variations of the survival drive. Here we can see how Rose applies the paradox to all situations. Additionally, complexes can be sources of energy, which, if diverted, can aid our spiritual search.
Reviewing the applications of contemporary psychology, Rose notes that it is mostly behavioristic. It is a “pseudo-science” of manipulation. The purpose of behaviorism is to control the minds of men for utilitarian purposes. There are various “types” of psychology—for such things as salesmanship, war, or the therapeutic.
Variance exists between theoretical and utilitarian systems of psychology, but conflict also exists between the various fields of applied psychology. Professional psychologists, says Rose, are “pompous alienists” who, driven by a “trade-survival urge” will utter their convincing jargon in a court of law, even though they do not know, nor would they admit not knowing, what they talk about regarding sanity and insanity. They have created their own definition of normality and sanity. But they have not defined the self, or the mind, or the essence of thought, or intelligence. This is what Rose is warning us about—his main thrust in this paper. He makes clear he doesn’t want to discourage the study of the works of various psychologists, but only wants to “separate the gold from the dross” and thereby save the seeker precious years of effort.
We’re learning to drive our vehicular body, but still don’t know our inner motivations, according to Rose. There are “blueprints”—certain laws concerning the protoplasm. Action and reaction is based on the endorsement of the pleasure-sense and rejection of the pain-sense. Reason “will find it pleasant to observe the reaction that the system of Reactions with its Perception and Memory” can survive physical death. This can be turned into something spiritually beneficial even if we do not know the after-death state, or whether it exists.
Rose once again suggests riding the horns of the paradox. “We must not legislate that it is impossible to have a will.” The human robot was programmed with implants such as desire and curiosity. We should, says Rose, use this curiosity by expending our “energy-vector” towards pursuing “wisdom while living.” It is here that he introduces his “Law of the Vector” which will be expanded upon in a later paper. By reversing the vector, we can approach a type of mind that will survive death.
Rose makes some brief but poignant criticisms concerning the confusion brought about by the “authorities.” Psychologists, as the master word-builders who create guilt-complexes, will claim that the helpless man created his own libido, even though temptation comes from the outside. On the other hand, other authorities, under the banner of behavioristic psychology, claim the “mass man” is “always right” and anything he does is normal.
Perhaps the most significant, and damning, criticism by Rose addresses conventional psychology’s insistence on relying only upon scientific, materialistic criteria. He rejects the synaptic theory as being incomplete, even though he does not deny the merits of studying the relation among memories. What, however, should one make of such phenomena as ESP, prophecy, and the apparitions of saints, astral projection, and near-death experiences?
Rose cites the accounts of historical figures, such as Swedenborg, William Crookes, Eliphas Levi, and Aleister Crowley. In our contemporary times, there is the field of parapsychology. Researchers such as J.B. Rhine have studied aspects of psychology not accessible to the five senses. But as is the case with those contemporary psychoanalysts who employ eastern meditative techniques, Rhine’s research is clearly out of the mainstream. Clairvoyancy is considered aberrant. Rose’s assertion of forty years ago applies today, namely that for psychology as currently practiced “…phenomena that are not explainable by materialistic standards are non-existent.”
When one considers the rather considerable historical literature regarding mystical experience, and the reports of psychics, both of which describe phenomena not accessible to the senses, why is mainstream psychology so reticent upon sticking to a materialistic, scientific criteria? It would seem, intuitively, that a strictly scientific and materialistic criteria is actually a limitation. This is because, as Rose points out, the senses are imperfect, and some phenomena are not visible. We do not really know where memories are stored.
Unfortunately, though, psychology operates under Burke’s law, where complexity breeds experts at complexity. Both reason, which is projected through the consciousness, and intuition, which is without projection, needs to be employed. This is not what is happening in the field. Here is Rose’s verdict, in his own words:
“My quibble with modern psychology is that it not only poses with inquisitional authority, but also reneges on the basic job of at least approaching the mind. It tries to make of Psychology a materialistic and mechanistic science and in the ensuing efforts, abort the very meaning of psychology. It now investigates only protoplasmic and sensory reactions. The physical senses are part of the body which is visible while the mind and its projections are not. Of course, the modern psychologist gets around this by issuing an encyclical…’Either the mind is physical or it does not exist.’”
In this vein, Rose criticizes psychological works dealing with mental illness, but which do not define the mind. Of particular mention is A.P. Noyes and his book Modern Clinical Psychiatry. Noyes claims mind has to do with the function of the organism and environment. In other words, mind is something strictly biological. Rose vehemently disagrees with this judgment. Further, he deplores Noyes claim that the mystic’s “exaltations” are psychotic. Rose believes there are cases involving people who were cured of their so-called “insanity”—that they were aware of their affliction, but could not communicate it.
He thought the detached witness to their suffering was the mind and the final observer, though not the final mind. Noyes is held to be a prime example of a “biological mechanic” who makes sanity a matter of “public mandate. How, Rose asks, would he treat possession, mediumship, and telepathy? He warns: Beware of the over-simplifying methods of psychology. Psychiatrists are simply mechanics and “somatic electricians.”
Regarding the final observer, Rose says it “…is such that it presumes the observer to have neither need of mundane perception or memory to BE. It has a different perspective when the body is negated, or removed, in that it no longer particularizes, for one thing.” He compares our memories and personality to characters projected onto a movie screen. When we come out of the theater, there is the “chilly shock of the out-of-doors reality.”
Finally, in the section titled Romance and Terminal Cases, Rose explains that the sciences are interdependent, and consequently, the fallacy of one science will be rooted in the mistakes of another. For example, science postulates man as not only being the observer, but the doer. But Rose asks us to look at the looker. He cites the hypothetical case of the young romantic who believes himself responsible for his own abilities, and reminds himself of this by a “drama” featuring himself as an individual, or as a nation and race. He fancies himself as the conqueror, or a Romeo, or a saint.
The movie industry panders to these sentiments. Yet, as Rose points out “…death is hidden from the stage… What happens to the Galahad of a thousand jousts with the windmills when the bell tolls?” Death is awaiting all of us, and all of the cosmetics placed on the dead body at the funeral home cannot cover up the fact that we have played a game of make-believe.
We still want to escape this fact, but as an alternative, Rose encourages us to seek self-definition. “If the last burst of energy is not wasted on thoughts of escape, the mechanism might, by shutting off the disturbing environment, and with the automatic decrease of sensory impulses, bring about at least one chance in its lifetime to coordinate all circuits in the memory-bank and come up with a startling discovery.”
For the time being, Rose says, we should examine psychology with the assumption we can talk about it, and also assume we are the observers.