Spiritual Abuse

Spiritual Bypass
by Bruce Bibee

 

Charles Whitfield, author and long-time recovery counselor, coined the term "spiritual bypass," which is, according to Whitfield, the basic pitfall in all the alternative models.

In the August 1999 issue of Discover magazine, there was a provocative article on Dr. Andrew Weil, the "Alternative Medicine Man." In that article, Marcia Angell writes that alternative medicine is "not scientific or practical, but religious. Like most religions, alternative medicine has prophets..." like Weil, Deepak Chopra, and so on. What Angell apparently doesn't realize is that science itself can be classified as a religion.

Religion is "a system of thought, feeling and action shared by a group that gives an object of devotion; a code of ethics governing personal and social conduct; and a frame of reference relating individuals to their group and the universe..." (The Concise Columbia Encyclopedia). Science qualifies as a religion under this definition as its object of devotion is the scientific method; the code of ethics is the peer review process; and the frame of reference that helps each member of the group relate to the group and the universe is the array of theories about reality.

Of concern to us here is the scientific method, which, simply put, is the process of establishing a hypothesis about something, testing that hypothesis, and then inviting others to do the same in the hopes that they will find the same conclusions. The belief is that by pursuing this methodology, science can eventually establish empirical reality. The scientific bias is that true reality can be verified by the scientific method. Any supposed reality that cannot be tested by the scientific method is, by definition, not real. There is, therefore, One True Way to truth -- the scientific method. Methods of corroboration that are not scientifically based (e.g., an enlightened person verifying another's enlightenment through koan testing) is, according to a scientific zealot, pure hocus-pocus.

On the other hand, however, the scientific method does tell us something valuable about reality: all realities are rational. In other words, koan testing is a rational way of verifying enlightenment claims. Ken Wilber, a transpersonal theoretician, uses the term "trans-rational" to assert that even, or especially, in the spiritual realm rational thought is required. When rational thought is abandoned, a spiritual bypass is the usual result.

Rational thought within the spiritual realm sort of goes like this: First, I make a leap of faith (i.e., there is a God who does care about all of us). This may not seem all that rational on the face of it, but according to the rules of logic, any argument begins with a "premise." The premise, or assumption, provides those representing the opposing sides of the argument with a starting point. Most of the scientific community's difficulty with spirituality comes from the fact that they are unwilling to accept spiritual assumptions.

To continue with rational spirituality, though, I wonder what might be the process by which God's supposed "caring" could be channeled down to me here on Earth. Through hypothesis testing, I eventually arrive at an answer. Then I invite others to discover, through their experiments to test the same hypothesis, if they can confirm my observations. For example, one of the basic tenets in 12-Step programs is that one must "do the footwork and turn over the outcome." This is a hypothesis about how to get God to operate in one's life. The recovering addict/alcoholic must do everything possible to solve his/her current problem, then turn over the final solution or outcome to his/her Higher Power.

Magical thinking, on the other hand, has more to do with form (getting the incantation right), than content (hypothesis testing). A spiritual bypass is a product of magical thinking. Consider, for example, the workshop-junkie. He or she attends faithfully every workshop there is on spiritual topics and maintains a spiritual high for literally months at a time. Bouncing from one city to the next, breathing in the heady atmosphere of airy-fairy truths, swooning before the latest guru, then returning to his/her hotel room to relish the memories and gush the reflected radiance through the phone to those at home who didn't get to be here -- this addict is so up in the clouds that planet Earth is a distant, unpleasant memory. Try to bring one of them back to Earth and what you get is a barrage of rationalizations and guilt-trips about how you are trying to spoil his/her God-inspired life. "Just have faith," you are told, "it will all work out in the end." Well, yeah, it all works out in the end: we die and go to Summerland. What about right now?

Things don't just work out unless we do our share of the work. God, in the experience of the workshop-junkie, is merely another codependent Rescuer. In fact, one of the stages in the recovery process is to unravel one's codependent relationship with God (e.g., the Abuser-Victim-Rescuer dynamic that functionally defines codependency).

Recovery is difficult work: the personal work is all about disentangling oneself from one's survival system. God's part in this equation has more to do with putting people, events and problems in one's way so that the entanglements become obvious to the recovering person. In codependent recovery, difficult people, events and problems are historically dealt with by trying to control outcomes. Each time controlling is attempted, the "outcome," we eventually discover, is worse; when the outcome is "turned over," we learn that a better outcome is the final result. It is primarily through this process that we learn that there actually is a God and we learn how that God works.

The basic fact of human life is that we are in the midst of an enormous struggle that is symbolized in the taiji (the yin-yang symbol). This symbol reminds us that, in our universe, everything is known by its contrast with something else. At the sub-atomic level, a photon can be a wave or a particle depending on what the observer is looking for. In synopsis form, that is our struggle: do we see good or evil, light or dark, up or down, right or wrong, somebody doing it to us or somebody acting out their own pain, and so on. After we give up trying to control outcomes, we can stop choosing sides in this conflict and admire the complexity of the struggle itself -- for it is because of this struggle that the myriad of created forms are manufactured, the explosion of the creative diversity is triggered, and through these creative projects, the Goddess is known as the birth-mother of it all.

A spiritual bypass, like all addictions, is an attempt to free oneself from this struggle. A spiritual bypass, then, can occur at each of the levels defined above: 1) at the controlling outcomes level; or 2) at the choosing sides level. When one has developed the practiced ability to neither control outcomes nor choose sides, one is operating from warrior mind-set.

Spencer (The Craft of the Warrior, 1993) explained that the reason "warrior" is the most accurate term to define Spiritual Warriorship is because warriorship has to do with struggle. "There are many struggles to be engaged in -- struggles against self-importance, against blinding habits, against the state of sleep most of us take for waking -- and the battle ground [is] our own psyche." In the spiritual bypass, what is really bypassed is oneself, and since the vehicle (battleground) we have to achieve Enlightenment is the ego-self, the spiritual bypass is doomed to abject failure.

Bruce Bibee is a Master of Kung-Fu San Soo. He also holds a Master of Transpersonal Psychology and works as an abuse recovery counselor.

Spiritual Path and Practice
by Jackie Kosednar

 

On the spiritual path, success is measured in a different way.

I have recently met quite a few people who claim to be walking a spiritual path and yet don't know what that means. The other day I was counseling one of my students on the phone. She was complaining about how bad her life was. Recognizing the familiar cry of "me-me-me," I suggested that maybe this was an opportunity to practice her spirituality and face her selfishness. The voice on the other end fell silent. Her words "What selfishness? I'm not selfish?" hung empty in the air between us.

Selfishness is the most common character defect there is. We all have to work on it. I had been working on my own selfishness; that's why I could spot it so readily in my student. The way out of selfishness is to become self-less, by becoming more conscious of others than you are of yourself. It is simple. Instead of thinking about yourself, think about or help someone else. When we are totally wrapped up in ourselves we can't see others, but service to others will always cure selfishness.

Enlightenment is not how much spiritual information you can spout, how many of the secret teachings you have read, degrees you have attained, seminars you have attended or how long you have been in Bible study. Enlightenment is about what kind of a person you are, how much compassion and wisdom you have developed, and how honorable you are. How quickly we forget the honorable part! But without honor, how can you have any self-esteem or be walking a true spiritual path? The walk is in the practice and there is no enlightenment without tons of practice.

The goal of a spiritual practice is to make spirituality and truth a part of your being so you cannot forget to be honest. Reading spiritual information or studying the Bible may give you lots of spiritual thrill. (Indeed, that's the way we can get addicted to it.) For that information to integrate into your life, however, spirituality has to be lived and practiced day by day in all situations. The more difficult the person or situation, the greater the gains from the practice.

What is a spiritual practice?
The 10 commandments in the Bible are spiritual practices. The Alcoholics Anonymous principles are spiritual practices. Meditation and prayer are spiritual practices. Any practice that leads you to become a more honorable, loving, peaceful and wise person is a spiritual practice. To be close to God, you have to be like God.

Spiritual practices are necessary for enlightenment as well as direction through the dark night of your soul or the narrow, mountainous turns of your path. Spiritual practice grounds spirituality into your life and accelerates your growth into higher consciousness.

To try it, take one practice such as: "Today, I will tell the truth in all situations, at all times, to all people." Do you think it would be easy to practice this? Or do you feel a little shame just thinking about it? Many people run from such exercises since it reminds them of all the recent lies they have told. Fear, shame and denial are enemies of the spiritual path.

I recently experimented with dropping the word "sin" into my conversations with people. I soon noticed a predictable occurrence. On saying the word sin, many times I saw people physically squirm and shrink proportionately to how much sin they believed they are carrying. Automatically we hide from punishment or any exposure that makes us feel the shame we carry. The more unholy a person feels, the more they will attack holiness. Why do you think Jesus got crucified?

The word sin is really quite harmless. It simply means we have made mistakes that have harmed ourselves, others or our planet. We have all made mistakes; the temptation to be dishonest is everywhere. The growth comes in learning from our sins.

When we are made aware of our denied guilt and shame, our reaction is to attack, hide and/or punish ourselves. Fear of retribution is a large unconscious fear we all carry. Something inside of us keeps score of every transgression. We may consciously be in denial about our unloving thoughts and actions, but the body doesn't lie. Disease is the result of the lies and illusions we believe. Denial is probably the biggest challenge to the spiritual path. We can exalt ourselves to be above sin even while we are doing it. The commitment to spiritual life involves taking regular, fearless moral inventories and making amends wherever we can.

We will fail many times in our spiritual practice. Unfortunately, being humbled is the fastest way to humility. This is also the way we develop spiritual discipline. We will be fooled by the mass hypnosis of our culture, created by the media that promises "whoever has the most toys wins." At times we may find ourselves striving with no seeming purpose to our striving. This is called struggle.

On the spiritual path, success is measured in a different way. When spirituality dominates our life, we measure success by the accumulation of integrity, love and wisdom, not the accumulation of things. We also tend to forget our truth in the face of so much daily temptation. There is no need to self-punish. Just keep practicing and observe yourself. You might remember, too, that the more righteous you feel, the less you probably are.

As a serious student of the spiritual path, you may want to go over to the other side of the polarity and forgive every enemy. Make sure your ethics are in line, however, and that you are completely honorable. You could also practice doing "random acts of kindness". Dedicate your life to doing as much good as you can whenever you can and turn your spiritual path into a highway.

Jackie Kosednar is a Body-Mind Therapist specializing in personal growth. She is the publisher of Alaska Wellness Magazine and author of the book, "One Miracle After Another."

Spiritual Abuse
by Bruce Bibee

 

Spiritual assaults function to undermine one's spiritual connection, one's faith, one's hope, one's sense of spiritual adequacy, and one's deep knowing that we are all children of God.

The Continuums of Abuse (Purdy & Nichols, 1981) has long been the standard for defining abusive behaviors, especially as those behaviors relate to domestic violence. There are four categories or continuums: emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, and social abuse. Emotional abuse includes name-calling, put-downs, ridicule, labeling, crazy-making, isolation, and so on. Physical abuse is, well, physical: hitting, pushing, choking, restraining, and so on. Sexual abuse is the most difficult to discuss or even think about as it includes rape, affairs, forced prostitution, and so on. Social abuse is the most misunderstood as it comes in two varieties: 1) society's reinforcement of a man's right to punish his wife and children in order to control them; and 2) emotional or physical abuse perpetrated either through a third party or in front of a third party (such as making a false police report, for example).

The Continuums of Abuse does not list the type of abuse that has come to be known as Spiritual Abuse. This category of abuse, however, is becoming more obvious to those of us who work with abuse dynamics. It's probably time, then, to start a serious discussion about this topic so we know what we're talking about. To start with, we will need some kind of definition for spirituality. Wade Clark Roof, University of California at Santa Barbara religion professor, surveyed middle-aged Americans and reported that: "In the truest sense, spirituality gives expression to the being that is in us; it has to do with feelings, with the power that comes from within, with knowing our deepest selves and what is sacred to us, with, as Matthew Fox says, 'heart-knowledge.'"

With this definition we can see that there are two sides to the dilemma of spiritual abuse. On the one hand, the spirit, by definition, cannot be abused. It is, after all, spirit, our connection to the All. It is the God-within, and there is nothing external to it. Therefore, there can be no abuser or victim, for those dichotomies collapse when we are dealing with the All. In other words, our spirits are immune to abuse simply because they are Spirit.

On the other hand, however, our spirits produce feelings of sacredness within us -- feelings of awe, wonder, mystery, reverence and joy; feelings that can produce for us what the Navajos call "walking in beauty." Additionally, spirituality is a doorway to power, "the power that comes from within." Spiritual power is the agency or energy that all living creatures possess that enables us to fulfill our own creative destiny. It is the power that an acorn has that pushes it to become an oak tree. It is the power that fuels what Jung called the "individuation process" in humans, the process from a pre-conscious infant to a fully self-conscious adult.

In both these categories (feelings and power), then, we definitely could have abuse. Let's examine each.

Feelings: Awe, wonder, mystery, reverence, joy and "walking in beauty" -- imagine what would happen if you wandered around in your life with these as your dominate feeling-states. Ridicule would probably be the least you could expect from the passersby in your life. Comments such as, "What's wrong with you?" or "What have you been smoking?" or "Get real" would be common. Without an observable right to that difference (no saffron robes, no baby in your arms, no bouquet of roses delivered to your desk), you would most likely, very quickly, become an object of suspicion, ridicule and scorn, if not actual assault -- no bad guy is going to let somebody like you remind him of his deep unhappiness without some kind of punishment. But even if you feel these "spiritual" feelings only sporadically and "appropriately," you still might not be safe. Close friends, spouses, co-workers are not going to let you get away with feeling that good if they are in a bad mood, especially justifiable bad moods that they want to hang onto so that they can play victim for a while longer. Your good mood will be like sandpaper on their delicate sensibilities.

Power: In physics, power is defined as the ability to do work. So, power is the energy source for getting anything done. The major thing each of us usually wants is to successfully accomplish our developmental processes. When we get that completed, we are functionally adult. Well, codependency cannot be played with adults. That game is age-appropriate from about age 5 to age 12. It is then that the abuser-rescuer-victim game appears as the developmental challenge that needs to be met and overcome. If you grew up in a healthy family system, you outgrew codependency and arrived at interdependency in your teens. If you didn't, you may still be stuck in the codependent game. That game, when played by adults (in the chronological sense) is all about the abuse of power. It is all about dis-empowering others and controlling them, manipulating them, using them. Abuse is accomplished by others compromising one's inherent power-base. Abuse is also accomplished by interrupting or denying another's unfolding and/or individuation process.

Spiritual abuse, then, is possible in at least two major categories: assaults on one's feelings of the sacred, and assaults on one's personal power. In both cases, assaults function to undermine one's spiritual connection, one's faith, one's hope, one's sense of spiritual adequacy, and one's deep knowing that we are all children of God. These assaults rob us of the peace and confidence that comes from that deep knowing. The assaults range on a continuum from mild to terrible to life threatening. The exact progression and definition of these attacks have yet to be agreed on. I think it is important to begin that work. It is important because one cannot solve a problem that has not been defined. By defining the problem, whatever it is, a solution can be found. Without a definition, denial, discounting, ignoring, and just plain ignorance is the "solution."

Obvious items on our list of spiritually abusive behaviors can be garnered from the above brief discussion. For example, ridicule, put-downs, and so on, which are already on the emotional abuse continuum, can be made to do double-duty when they are used to punish a person's spiritual expressions. At the other extreme would be cult-groups that feed off the personal power of the individual cult members. How would we define that? What is the difference between a cult and a sangha, for example? That one is pretty easy: a cult strips its members of their individuality in service of the cult-leader's ego; a sangha encourages the member to evolve past his/her individuality in service of Enlightenment. But the issue here is how to define the difference in real terms, behavioral terms, verifiable terms that gives helpers a starting point for the recovery process. When we have that kind of leverage, we can aid our clients in getting back to their inborn immunity to spiritual abuse -- since it doesn't, indeed cannot, exist.

Bruce Bibee, MTP, is a counselor in private practice. He is also the owner/instructor of the Kung-Fu San Soo Center.