“Should you want to upset the legislation that each one crows are black, you mustn’t search to point out that no crows are; it’s sufficient in the event you show one single crow to be white.”
―William James
Many individuals stroll via the world mired within the mud of fabric actuality, unilluminated by the mysteries of the sacred. When our orientation to the world revolves solely round a chilly, exhausting, scientific materialism, stripped of the holy spark of all creation, life can really feel pointless, meaningless, and exhausting to bear. On a regular basis life can really feel like drudgery and grunt work, like the one level to existence is to be born, eat, sleep, shit, expertise numerous trauma, possibly reproduce, after which in the future, develop into annihilated into an unlimited vacancy.
All through human existence, we now have discovered methods to hunt which means past the mere materiality of this world, to make sense of our struggling and even use it for grist for progress and depth. This quest for which means and function has birthed many religions. Even those that have turned away from faith due to the numerous traumas perpetrated within the identify of faith search one thing deeper than materials actuality to clarify life’s nice mysteries. The rising inhabitants of people that establish as “non secular however not non secular” have flocked to the New Age or appropriated varied Indigenous non secular traditions or Jap philosophies like Advaita Vedanta, Buddhism, yoga, or Taoism as a solution to attempt to make sense of the world.
For billions around the globe, this tendency to hunt which means, function, and “one thing extra” by way of spirituality brings which means, pleasure, peace, therapeutic, neighborhood, ritual, celebration, and the need to be of service to a struggling world. It’s a noble quest. But it’s also fraught with landmines, considered one of which is the temptation to throw oneself right into a seek for perpetual ecstasy, like a mystic drunk on love.
The Seduction of Peak Experiences
Most of us have had at the least one numinous expertise that defies rational explanation- a second of nice synchronicity, an intuitive hit, a dissolving of boundaries in nature, a heart-opening feeling of affection and belonging within the eyes of one other, a premonition that got here true, a mystical imaginative and prescient whereas underneath the affect of psychedelics, witnessing one thing that appears to defy the legal guidelines of physics, a close to loss of life expertise, a visitation from the opposite facet, a stigmata phenomenon, a sighting of one thing that appears not from this planet, an sudden remedy from an incurable sickness, a non secular awakening. As soon as we now have traveled past the veils of stark, skeptical materialism, we can not unsee or unknow what we now have skilled instantly. To have our expertise denied by those that say it can’t be actual appears pure, complicated folly.
To get up to the notice that there’s maybe one thing greater than our mundane human existence could be the start of a lifelong endeavor to see past the veils. However what subsequent? How are we to combine and floor such experiences, resisting the temptation to reify them or use them to inflate ourselves? What are we to make of those mystical experiences that depart us feeling intoxicated on the Divine? How will we combine them into the experiences of every day life? How will we negotiate the mundane with the ecstatic, or as Buddhist trainer Jack Kornfield says, “After the ecstasy, the laundry?” When ought to we search to transcend this actuality, and when is it finest to immerse ourselves in it? After we now have glimpsed the view from the mountain, when is it time to come back again right down to the muck of life?
Many people have had peak experiences that really feel like bliss. The magical expertise of feeling your boundaries dissolve into Oneness in meditation, the synchronicity that appears like a solution to prayer from a really private universe that cares about you, the merging throughout intimate union with a romantic accomplice that appears like assembly God collectively, the sense that you just’re being guided in the direction of your sacred function and every part is unfolding as if it have been meant only for you.
We really feel glimpses of this bliss in circulate states once we’re making artwork and time melts away. We glimpse the ecstatically pleasurable coronary heart and physique opening throughout lovemaking, the second of standing underneath any icy waterfall in nature whenever you’re absolutely in your physique and every part is Technicolor and alive, the endorphin-fueled rush of a future, skinny dipping in a sizzling springs underneath a starry sky, holding a brand new pet whereas it licks your face exuberantly, gazing into the God-lit eyes of a new child. In moments like this, we really feel God/Goddess up shut and private, and it feels good.
“White Crow Moments”
These emotions could be so ecstatically transformational that they alter every part, making a sort of “earlier than” and “after” in our lives or what Larry Dossey, MD calls a “white crow second.” In different phrases, it solely takes one direct expertise of a white crow to disprove the thesis that each one crows are black. Only one crack in a single’s certainty has the facility to shatter your entire world view and open it to the infinitude of chance. Taken too far, it will possibly additionally result in a distortion of actuality that may abruptly make false or grandiose claims, equivalent to “As a result of I’ve seen one white crow with my very eyes, all crows have to be white” or “I’m particular as a result of I’ve seen a white crow, and also you’re not particular as a result of, to you, all crows are black.”
These white crow moments can have nice worth on the non secular path. I’ve had my share of them, they usually can shake you out of a set, inflexible, materialist view of the world and open the doorway to One thing Bigger, to curiosity, to thriller, to surprise, to awe.
The Disappearing Harp
Psychoanalyst, researcher, and UC-Berkeley professor Elizabeth (“Lisby”) Lloyd Mayer had simply such a white crow second. At some point in 1991, Lisby’s 11 year-old daughter Meg’s handmade harp was stolen from the theater the place she was taking part in. For 2 months, Lisby tried every part to recuperate the harp. The police bought concerned. She contacted instrument sellers everywhere in the nation. A CBS TV information story even aired. However nothing labored. The harp was misplaced.
Then a pal of Lisby’s mentioned, “Should you really need that harp again, you need to be keen to strive something. Attempt calling a dowser.”
Lisby was skeptical. All she knew about dowsers was that they have been made up of wierd individuals who walked round with forked sticks telling you the place to drill wells.
However Lisby’s pal advised her that basically good dowsers may discover not simply underground water, however misplaced objects. At a loss, Lisby figured she had nothing to lose. She contacted the president of the American Society of Dowsers, Harold McCoy in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and defined {that a} harp had been stolen from Oakland, California. She requested Harold if he may assist her find the harp.
Harold mentioned, “Give me a second. I’ll let you know if it’s nonetheless in Oakland.” He was silent for a second after which mentioned, “Nicely, it’s nonetheless there. Ship me a road map of Oakland and I’ll find that harp for you.”
Lisby overnighted Harold a map of Oakland. Two days later, he referred to as to offer her the tackle of the place the harp was situated. Lisby had by no means heard of the road he named, however she handed the data alongside to the police. The police shook their heads. They couldn’t problem a search warrant based mostly on a hunch. So Lisby determined to drive over and submit flyers inside a two block radius of the tackle Harold had given her, providing a reward for the return of the harp.
Three days later, her telephone rang. A person mentioned that his neighbor had not too long ago confirmed him the precise harp the flyer was describing. He promised to offer it to a teenage boy who would ship it to her within the rear parking zone of an all-night Safeway.
Despite her personal skepticism, Lisby confirmed up on the appointed time and place, the place a younger man loaded the harp into the again of her station wagon. That’s when Lisby got here to the identical conclusion Don would have come to if he had accepted what had occurred with he and his roommate. This modifications every part.
Lisby went on to put in writing an exquisite guide about white crow moments, and each the science and lack of science to clarify such phenomena. It’s referred to as Extraordinary Knowing: Science, Skepticism, and the Inexplicable Powers of the Human Mind. Despite having many white crow moments of my very own, I used to be extraordinarily skeptical of Lisby’s guide, till the individual I belief most on the planet advised me that she knew Lisby personally, that she was the one who advisable Lisby name Harold McCoy, and that, and I quote, “Lisby is a quintessential scientist. If Lisby wrote, I imagine it’s true.” I borrowed my mentor’s belief and wrote so much about Lisby’s analysis findings in my guide The Fear Cure.
The Psychic Roommate
Tosha Silver additionally writes so much about white crow moments. In her guide Outrageous Openness, Tosha Silver writes about her straight-laced, highly-skeptical, economics professor pal Don, who appreciated to introduce Tosha as his “wacky, psychic pal with a level from Yale.” At some point, Tosha requested Don, “Actually Don, complete reality. Has something ever occurred that made you surprise in the event you had the total image? Something ever rock your good little rational world?”
Don went on to inform her about one night time when he was in school, when he went to sleep earlier than his roommate had come residence for the night time. At 3am, Don awoke with a pounding coronary heart and heard his roommate calling his identify, twice. However the room was empty. He stumbled out to his VW Bug, placed on his garments, walked to his automobile in a sort of daze, and began driving. He mentioned it felt extra just like the automobile was driving itself to the facet of the street, a number of blocks away. Like a magnet, Don was drawn to a spot ten blocks away, the place he discovered his roommate buried underneath a snowbank, drunk, disoriented, and freezing.
Tosha was fascinated. “Man, you gotta be kidding me. This didn’t change your life in any respect?”
“No manner,” mentioned Don. “I needed to see all of it as a coincidence. If I hadn’t, I might have needed to query every part.”
Don will not be the one rationalist to comb underneath the carpet an anomalous expertise that didn’t match into his world view. If he had allowed himself to understand that he had come face to the face with the sort of thriller, surprise, and awe that doesn’t jive with scientific materialism, he may need confronted a threatening realization, that maybe his worldview isn’t massive sufficient to embody the mysterious phenomena that basically do occur to some folks.
Some folks may take that mysterious expertise and made up a grandiose story about it. “I’m psychic. Don and I’ve a twin flames telepathic relationship. God selected me to avoid wasting Don’s life, so I have to be a guardian angel.” Others, like Don, may compartmentalize the entire expertise and faux it by no means occurred, in order to not take care of the cognitive dissonance between what really occurred in his direct expertise and the dogma of his rationality.
The Neurosurgeon Who Quits Educating As a result of He Can’t Inform Med College students Why His Sufferers Hardly ever Die
One story Lisby shares in Extraordinary Realizing is the story of a celebrated neurosurgeon with impeccable credentials and an uncanny means to carry out probably the most harmful surgical procedures. Despite how life-threatening his surgical procedures have been, his sufferers by no means appeared to die. However this neurosurgeon stored getting migraines, and commonplace therapy wasn’t working, so he went to see Lisby.
She helped him pinpoint precisely when the complications started. It seems the complications began proper when he stopped instructing medical college students and residents on the college hospital. Why did he cease instructing? He was reluctant to inform her, however he lastly confessed.
The neurosurgeon admitted that his success charges are so excessive as a result of he waits till a white mild surrounds the affected person’s head. Then—and solely then—he is aware of it’s secure to function. However how can he train this to medical college students? Certainly he can’t practice residents to search for halos round folks with mind tumors and aneurysms?
As a result of he felt like he needed to conceal the magical experiences that assist him information his sufferers safely via surgical procedure, he stop instructing, and maybe the discord inside him led to migraines. The neurosurgeon was caught. He felt he couldn’t inform anybody on the college that he sees white lights no one else sees. Certainly, it will damage his repute. By betraying what was true for him, he was getting migraines. It’s a conundrum many face once we deny our personal expertise of actuality as a result of it doesn’t match with our neat little world views.
Actually Or Mytho-Poetically Actual?
Whether or not white crow moments come from mystical expertise in meditation, near-death experiences, psychedelic journeying, boundaryless merging in nature, lucid dreaming journeys to the galactic chamber, visitations from alien beings, the expertise of channeling one other being, or interpersonal edge-walking with the airplane of affection with a Tantric lover, these transcendent moments could be lovely moments of true awakening, of glimpsing past the veils. Whether or not such experiences are actually actual or not could also be much less necessary than the influence they’ve on the experiencer.
My accomplice Jeffrey Rediger, MD, MDiv spent a few years aiding the notorious Harvard psychiatrist John Mack, MD, the topic of Ralph Blumenthal’s biography The Believer: Alien Encounters, Hard Science, & The Passion of John Mack. John was infamous for interviewing individuals who claimed to have been kidnapped by aliens. He did psychiatric evaluations on these of us and claimed he believed that their tales have been actually true, that he believed folks have been actually having intercourse with aliens, and that they weren’t hallucinating, psychotic, or delusional.
This assertion bought him blackballed at Harvard, and regardless that he received a lawsuit over it, he misplaced his credibility amongst most official docs and scientists. Whereas Jeff didn’t go as far down the rabbit gap of true believer standing as John did, Jeff took the place, as a psychiatrist and somebody who had skilled a number of white crow moments himself, that these mysterious experiences should be heard, honored, and validated. He considers them at the least mytho-poetically actual, even when they’re not essentially at all times actually actual. They’re very actual for the experiencer- and which may be sufficient to vary somebody’s life ceaselessly. He sees psychiatrists and therapists as authority figures who can assist somebody combine such experiences, whereas additionally conserving them grounded and avoiding reifying the experiences.
It was this curiosity to raised perceive and explain- or at the least verify- non secular experiences that fueled Jeff’s 17 years of analysis on sufferers who claimed to have been cured of incurable diseases. Whereas allegations of alien abduction can not simply be verified as reality or fiction, claims of non secular therapeutic can at the least be verified with earlier than and after medical data, which is what Jeff sought out and revealed in his guide CURED. (Should you’re curious to study extra, you’ll be able to study extra within the on-line program Jeff and I did together- The Mysteries of Spontaneous Healing.)
Individuals who expertise white crow moments are sometimes determined for validation, for another person to inform them they’re not loopy, that they imagine what they’re being advised is true and actual. The world of scientific materialism has such a robust maintain on the Western world that it’s very complicated if somebody has a world view-shattering expertise. With out acceptable grounding, assist, and validation of their experiences, white crow moments could be so ungrounding and bewildering that folks have psychotic breaks from actuality. After which they’re much more more likely to really feel invalidated, as a result of now somebody has locked them in a psych ward and labelled them with a DSM prognosis.
Those that deny such experiences could take pleasure in staying extra grounded, of resisting the potential for inflation. However in addition they lose out on the constructive features of mysterious experiences, the lifting of the veils to see a extra expansive non secular chance that may give life which means, function, and pleasure.
The Dangers & Advantages Of White Crow Moments
Whereas white crow moments have the potential to be therapeutic, to shift world views, to open your eyes and coronary heart to a higher potential for awe, surprise, pleasure, and thriller, to awaken you spiritually, such mysterious experiences may also be perilous. It may be seductive to tackle the specialness of non secular experiences, to really feel uplifted, to really feel grandiose, to really feel like God has chosen you, singling you out from the plenty to offer you a present that has been denied to others.
In case your most cancers is cured otherwise you remedy another person’s most cancers, in case you are used as a vessel of Divine love to avoid wasting another person’s life, in the event you channel probably the most lovely poetry ever written, in the event you get a psychic imaginative and prescient that helps shield another person, you probably have a close to loss of life expertise that reveals you a glimpse of the opposite facet, if some shaman tells you that you just, and also you alone, are right here to meet a grandiose function, or in the event you train your non secular superpowers to influence actuality in some unmistakable manner, it’s pure that a few of our elements may take that on and inflate us.
The issue comes not in discerning what’s or will not be actual, however what tales and which means one makes from such experiences. Folks are inclined to get in bother once they get an ecstatic rush of narcissistic or manic grandiosity as the results of non secular experiences, they usually lack good facilitation from a non secular counselor or transpersonal psychologist or therapist who is aware of the best way to glean the gold from such experiences whereas minimizing the dangers. Additionally they get in bother once they assume such moments of awakening are the vacation spot, slightly than the start of the journey.
It’s Regular To Want Validation
It’s pure to have actual wants for feeling validated, chosen, adequate, and particular to at the least a particular somebody, like a caregiver, partner, or finest pal. Particularly if our caregivers in childhood made us really feel deflated, not particular, unchosen, unimportant, “lower than,” it may be particularly intoxicating to really feel spiritually excessive, to really feel “higher than,” to really feel chosen by some particular deity, to really feel like our life has which means and we’ve been singled out from the opposite 8 billion folks on this planet to do or be or develop into somebody…effectively…particular.
One the plus facet, if one grew up feeling disempowered, unloved, unspecial, nugatory, uncared for, rejected, non secular experiences is usually a balm for all that ache, loneliness, rejection, and insupportable emotions of worthlessness, helplessness, powerlessness, and hopelessness. In case your present life doesn’t have sufficient secure, loving intimacy, in the event you’re not feeling particular to a accomplice or chosen by a bestie or at the least on prime of your sport in your profession, a non secular expertise can develop into an alternative to that very official want for validation, which might have a constructive influence in your psychological well being.
These moments also can verify our instinct that we’re greater than our our bodies, greater than our ideas, greater than our feelings, greater than a separate self in a world of different separate selves, vying for survival and maximizing self-interest as a solution to get forward of all the opposite separate selves. These moments shatter the knowledge of scientific materialism and dogma, leaving us within the thrust of the thriller with out rationalization, with out certainty, however filled with awe, surprise, and ecstatic pleasure.
When “Particular” Turns To “Higher Than”
There’s nothing mistaken with peak experiences, with awe and surprise, with moments that really feel magical and raise us out of the doldrums of the mundane features of human life. The issue is that, with out acceptable humility, mystical experiences and white crow moments could be non secular cul de sacs that inflate us and result in grandiosity, one of many hallmarks of narcissism. We will reify these experiences and make up tales about them that place us as higher than, extra enlightened than, extra “no matter” than others who haven’t glimpsed past the veil. The issue is that, the minute we raise up ourselves or different “non secular” folks, meaning we put another person “one down,” positioning ourselves because the particular “Hogwarts witches and wizards,” whereas viewing those that won’t have had white crow moments as “lower than,” unspecial, boringly-grounded-in-3D actuality Muggles.
We noticed numerous this in non secular communities in the course of the pandemic, the place folks bought a success of specialness by claiming to know the “reality” about Covid- and spun off into harmful conspiracy idea territory. By being “within the know,” by feeling a rush of belonging with conspiracy theory-touting non secular leaders who seduced followers (and cashed in on delivering “insider information,”) it was simple for some trauma survivors to handle the uncertainty and anxiousness of the pandemic by changing into full on delusional, bordering on psychotic, and brainwashed by non secular leaders who preyed upon this vulnerability all the best way to the financial institution.
That’s when the “particular” experiences develop into harmful, once they unground you from actuality in ways in which hurt you and probably hurt others. Then you definitely develop into a puppet underneath the strings of manipulative, calculating, predatory, narcissistic non secular leaders who callously exploit your vulnerability for their very own private acquire. (The Middle For Digital Hate listed 12 folks, lots of them on-line influencer physicians, because the supply of 65% of Covid disinformation, so sure, “Disinformation Dozen,” I’m speaking about you.)
Subsequent factor , individuals who bought swept underneath the spell of this sort of indoctrination from disinformation-spreading docs, angel channelers, and individuals who claimed to be benevolent aliens right here on a rescue mission for earth are abandoning their households, becoming a member of on-line cults, and refusing to cooperate with public well being measures meant to guard probably the most susceptible amongst us. That is when the narcissistic inflation of non secular experiences can hit the bottom working and develop into severely problematic.
Getting Help For White Crow Moments
So how are you to wrestle with your individual white crow moments with out getting swept off observe in your non secular in search of quest? Discovering a superb transpersonal psychologist, somebody accustomed to the best way to assist folks combine non secular experiences, is usually a good place to begin. The Spiritual Emergence Network, began by Dr. Stan Grof, has sources that may assist. In case it’s useful, right here’s an article about spiritual emergency and “kundalini awakening” that I co-wrote from one of many leaders of the Non secular Emergence Community, Dr. Ted Esser about how white crow moments can destabilize and unground people- and the best way to get the enable you to want.
In upcoming posts, I’ll be speaking extra about non secular experiences, trauma, and the best way to take pleasure in the advantages of spirituality whereas avoiding the hazards of “non secular bypassing.’
Should you’re eager about studying extra about spirituality with out non secular bypassing, think about:
- Changing into a paid subscriber on my Subtack, the place we go deeper into this matter
Subscribe here - Inside Household Techniques founder Richard Schwartz and I did a stay on-line group therapeutic for folks with spiritually bypassing elements in 2020. Should you’re curious to get to know your spiritually bypassing elements, watch this free video. Should you resonate with approaching IFS as an antidote to non secular bypassing, you’ll be able to go deeper into the IFS strategy to recovering and off-ramping from non secular bypassing in a collection of on-line courses I created to satisfy that tender want. It’s not simple to understand that you could have been fed numerous hurtful, oppressive nonsense within the identify of spirituality, however IFS provides us a mild solution to love and prolong compassion, even to our non secular bypassing elements.
- You may register for Spiritual Bypassing Recovery 101, an IFS-informed on-line program I taught all through the pandemic to assist individuals who have been struggling to off ramp from non secular bypassing tendencies with out dropping the advantages of non secular life and follow. This was the primary in a collection of three. This program featured the rapidly dwindling group of non-bypassing, trauma-informed, anti-racist academics that I trusted and discerned have been secure sufficient to take heed to their teachings, all whereas many of the different academics have been self-destructing throughout Covid. Visitor academics included: Dick Schwartz, Thomas Hübl, Rebekah Borucki, Karla McLaren, Tosha Silver, Shiloh Sophia, Carol Penn, and my sister Keli Rankin.
- You may register for Spiritual Bypassing Recovery 2.0, the observe as much as Non secular Bypassing Restoration 101. Every IFS-informed class is a stand alone class, however 2.0 does construct upon 101 and goes extra deeply into the implications of a wide range of widespread non secular teachings- and the hurt they will trigger, not solely to you, however to folks in oppressed teams. Visitor academics included: Resmaa Menakem, Anasuya Godis, Steve Hassan, Jeffrey Rediger, Shiloh Sophia, and Rachel Carlton Abrams.
- As soon as we’ve recognized the muddy and even racist bathwater of non secular bypassing perception programs and practices, we’re left with the mom lode question- “What’s the child within the bathwater price conserving?” In different phrases, how will we keep away from simply ditching spirituality altogether, as soon as we understand we could have been conned, spiritually abused, and fed oppressive perception programs meant to maintain us from protesting when oppressive non secular leaders attempt to dominate us? IFS founder Dick Schwartz and I tackled this deep query in a provocative class filled with rumbles: Spirituality Without Bypassing.
I’d love to listen to what comes up in you once we contact the topic of non secular bypassing.
