The three shifts of the new paradigm

3.1.5 Boundaries of 'self'

The notion of 'self' seems to be crucial to the process of creativity. Most practical courses on creativity tend to teach to somehow 'access the unconscious' to draw creative ideas from it. Some courses that integrate transpersonal notions of 'higher self' or 'universal store of knowledge' teach processes to alter the boundaries of what the 'self' is perceived to be in a certain moment. This is a process of major importance in mysticism as well as, for example, in deep ecology.

The problem of these boundaries has been, up until now, cause for controversy. For example, Peggy Wright (1995) challenged Wilber's (1977) spectrum of consciousness on this ground. The New Paradigm framework enables me to transcend this problem. The first 'shift' (toward complexity) takes the boundaries of self from a fixed and separated notion to a complex and/or flexible view, such as 'permeable boundaries'. The second 'shift' (synergistic integration) accepts both a complex view and an 'indexed' fixed view: the boundary of what I consider my 'self' is fixed at any one moment, in a certain context, yet is flexible and changes with the context and with my intent.

I have found boundaries of self to be mind constructs with which I can usefully play to face situations, resolve problems, create, and to expand my awareness. In various contexts, I can expand or shrink the boundaries of what I accept as my 'self', and thus reframe a problem or external pressure or constraint into a purposive creative opportunity. I can do the same to access what comes with expanded awareness, up to a sense of 'universal self' being part of me. The ethical behaviours that come with a systemic view of the self are clearly linked to an expansion of the self to include aspects of reality that the usual ego regards as outside of itself. If animals are 'within' my 'self', how can I hurt them without a reason of survival? Empathy seems to be an important dynamic element in human nature that fuels this play with boundaries.

3.2 CREATIVITY AND CREATION (PART II)

3.2.1 Theories of creativity

Psycho-spiritual development is generally thought to involve and develop the use of higher forms of intuition, which I see as the receptive counterpart to creativity, which is active. The various forms of intuition are well known (Rowan, 1993, p.14-19, Goldberg, 1983, or Vaughan, 1979), with the most sophisticated and reliable being 'direct knowing' or 'spiritual knowing. I see intuition as an epistemological function of the mind, receptive in nature, because it requires a looking, a listening. The idea of counterpart is supported b y the fact that the creativity of genius is known to be difficult to distinguish from active creativity.

Creativity takes many forms, and is studied more widely than intuition. Hallman (1963) analyses the commonalities and differences between the distinctions made b y various thinkers about creativity since Wallas (1926). He classifies them into five approaches: personality traits, chronological stages of the creative process (preparation, incubation, illumination, verification), conscious/ unconscious, types of thinking (integrating,

The Unconscious:

Often over-simplistically equated with the rational left-mind

In disciplines such as parapsychology, creativity research or NeuroLinguistic Programming (NLP) the term 'unconscious' is an undifferentiated notion that covers all forms of un-conscious: pre-personal as well as transpersonal, or the paranormal 'extra-personal' (Rowan's term, 1993, p. 5-13).

It contains:

Subconscious (memories, hidden motivations...), shadow, collective unconscious, id (primitive instincts), and to the 'normal' person, also the superconscious or Higher/transpersonal Self or soul (the person doesn't know of such a sense of self)... A person's field of consciousness grows to become aware of more of these.

It contains: (NLP, eg Tad James)

Limiting decisions made in the past

Habitual emotions (causing patterned behaviours) Beliefs systems

Presuppositions

Cultural assumptions

It is the source of intuition and creativity

It is often over-simplistically equated with the right-mind. (In my view this is a confusing mistake.)

Disciplines such as parapsychology, creativity research or NeuroLinguistic Programming (NLP) are not concerned with complex notions of self or psycho-spiritual meanings, but with perceivable and verifiable effects in the world -- results. Here, the 'conscious' can learn to 'draw from' or to 'program' the 'unconscious'.

synthesising functions using relational activities such as analogy or metaphor, divergent rather than convergent, etc.), and the phenomenology as described in personal reports. (I would add the relationship between creativity and mental illness, another wide field, which is now being played down). He adds motivation, kinds of creative acts, genius, and cultural influences. He organises all these ideas into five clusters of 'necessary and sufficient conditions for creativity': connectedness, originality (novelty and unpredictability in particular), non-rationality, self-actualisation, openness.

Arieti (1976) provides a more recent overview
of many classical theories in the field,
psychological, psychoanalytic, and

motivational. His own approach to counterbalance the 'lack of effective knowledge developed by the field' is a psychostructural one, dealing with the psychological experience, but also with the mechanisms and the underlying mental structures, with a systemic point of view. Interested in both structures and processes, he introduces the socio-cultural elements that determine individual creativity. Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi (1996) picks up on this, with a post-modernist, social and systemic view of creativity, distinguishing Creativity (with a capital C), as the kind that makes a widespread impact on the culture of the time, from lower creativity or the crafty or ingenious handiness. He considers that the judgement 'creative' attached to a person is a culturally and historically induced one: what we call creative now, might not have been called so before, or the reverse. Creativity involves a domain of human endeavour, a field (actual people and institutions), and the person. The social aspects of creativity are only a side concern for me in this study because I address the notion of 'intersubjective validation'. He defines more precisely ten dyads of paradoxical traits that are expressed at the same time and justify the label 'Creative' for a person. I have summarised them in Table7:

Table 7:
The 10 paradoxical traits (complementary sets) of acknowledged creative people
(Summarised from Csikszentmihalyi, 1996, pp. 57-76.)

Physical energy Often quiet and at rest

Smart Also naive

Playful or irresponsible Also disciplined or responsible

Imagination and fantasy Rooted in a sense of reality (grounded)

Extroversion Introversion

Humble Proud

Masculinity Femineity

Rebellious and iconoclastic (non-conformist) Traditional and conservative (having internalised a

domain of culture

Passionate about their work (attached to it) Detachment (objective about their work)

Openness, sensitivity... and pain/suffering Great deal of enjoyment (from flow)

The idea that these are paradoxical traits that exist at the same time supports my associating higher forms of creativity with New Paradigm mind, which is a paradoxical synthesis, according to my definition. Gardner, who defined the 'seven intelligences', also found paradoxicality in a trait he calls 'fruitful asynchrony'. He

"claims that creative individuals are characterized particularly by a tension, a lack of fit, between the elements involved in productive work: an unusual configuration of talents and an initial lack offit among abilities, the domains in which the individual seeks to work, and the tastes and prejudices of the current field... a powerful tension among the nodes (of the seven intelligences)." (Gardner, 1994, pp.146, 153).

These approaches are summarised in Feldman, Csikszentmihalyi, Gardner (1994). These authors embody the integrative trend in thought, by collaborating closely and appealing for more collaboration in the domain of creativity, which they believe can 'change the world'. I hope to heed this call.

Avens (1980) relates creativity to imagination and myth, presenting them as vehicles to spiritual 'illumination', which is another growing trend (eg, Harman et al., 1984). There is a large body of literature relative to imagination and myth that I reviewed earlier (Bouchon, 1998a), and which is concerned with content-meanings rather than mechanisms or structure. Imagination is often linked to artistic endeavour or psychological experience. Myth relates directly to Jung's archetypal psychology, which corresponds, in the transpersonal realm of non-ordinary experience, to only two of White's types of EEs, namely 'past lives' experiences, and experiences of archetypes such as deities. It is also now considered the basis for shamanic journeying'. Philosophical writings on imagination, even related to culture and anthropology (as in shamanism), are also outside the scope of my interest.

Willis Harman (Harman et al., 1984), who had personal experience of paranormal phenomena, is more interested in the triggers of creativity, giving clues on how to trigger 'breakthrough insights', but he also supports Avens' views. He defines a spectrum of 'creative hues', from intuitive hunches to imagination, talents, foresight, channelling, intuition, inspiration, illumination, vision, revelation, and finally the highest form of 'higher creativity': mystical insight. His point of view shows how blurred the distinction between intuition and creativity is when we tackle 'anomalous' or

'extended' abilities. He joined the Institute of Noetic Sciences soon after its creation and watched, over a decade,

"research related to the capabilities of the hidden mind...(mostly) carried out in prestigious institutions...validate in different ways the theory that whatever 'mind' may be, the 'hidden mind' is potentially far more capable than we were taught to believe -particularly in its intuitive and creative aspects." (Harman et al., 1984, p.xx).

Our knowledge of these higher human capabilities is yet very rudimentary, but what the scientific community (or part of it) is now acknowledging more and more is that "We humans limit ourselves to a far greater extent than anyone can comfortably believe." (Harman et al., 1984, p.xx). This notion is spelled out by writers in various fields, including Tart (1991) under the name 'consensus reality', this culturally ingrained, collective 'hypnosis' that limits what we can perceive of reality.

Robert Fritz (1984) takes a practical direction, showing that creativity can be applied to all areas of life, not simply to art, invention or science. This goes in the direction of my point: There are ways to 'create our reality', the reality of our daily living. He challenges Harman's view of 'breakthrough insight', suggesting that creativity is an attitude in life. He makes a distinction I have found extremely useful. The conventional person mostly 'reacts' to life in automatic and unconscious ways, and responds to life with a feeling of depending on Life's whims. The creative person, on the other hand, responds actively and creatively, to an environment that is perceived more adequately, and has a feeling of mastering life better. The first type corresponds to how the 'normal' modern person lives. The second corresponds very well with the transpersonal idea of an integrated personality. Fritz's distinction, and their correlate in psychology, are perfectly explained with my New Paradigm framework.

3.2.2 Present trends of thought

People in general --and it is my own view as well--, tend to equate the human potential attached to the High Self with the state commonly called 'Awakening' in New Age literature or the first step of what transpersonal psychology calls 'self-realisation'. My own process of discovery has led me, from the question: 'What is Awakening?", seeking to understand a fixed state, and to find clear-cut conditions to bring it on within myself, to a more subtle understanding of a type of higher experience that can take many forms, and is intimately linked to the way we use brain, mind and body. Jean Houston's (1997) latest 'passion for the possible' and Harman's 'higher creativity' (1984) epitomise well the present trend that is bringing humanistic psychology closer to transpersonal psychology, through human potential, but including far more the other fields as well. The study of the correlate phenomena in brain and body (such as 'brain synchrony' or 'cell memory'), and of how we use them in learning, is a promising integrative direction. This field of learning is attracting growing interest partly because of its relationship to the idea of 'transformation', so central to spiritual literature, and to the ideas of change and learning that are suffusing our society now. These are part of my next step of reviewing the literature.

The latest trends in the study of creativity can be summarised as taking into account:

the innate and purposeful element of creativity (as in Bohm, 1998),

the cultural co-creation element,

the implications of the notions of learning, change, and transformation,

the skills for dealing with complex experience, which Jean Houston (1982) calls 'multi-tracking' (her Foundation for Mind Research involves brain research),

the skills of awareness or attention often called 'openness', which appears in creative moments as well as in peak experiences (or 'flow'). Csikszentmihalyi writes: "The most important message we can learn from creative people (is): how to find purpose and enjoyment in the chaos of existence." (1996, p.20). His work on flow experiences (1992) is central to this remark and is the major supporting theory I used for my study of 'business flow'. I will still use it in the future because it fits the experiential side of creativity, and my whole experience. This aspect provides clues on how to link inner experience, mind and how to thrive in the world.

The possibilities of the combination of this kind of mind, with its sense of self, and its experience of the body and of life energies (such as emotions, empathy, and other more 'subtle' energies), is what Jean Houston (1982) has called the 'possible human'. The energetic aspect of higher 'mind' functions does not seem to be studied academically in its application to creativity, but it is addressed b y authors such as Tad James or S. K. King, who are psychologist and Ph.D.s., but do not publish in academic journals. It will be one area for me to study.

Krippner (1996*), who is interested in 'psi research', has proposed to approach the 'human brain's "reserve capacities" 'from the point of view of chaos theory, a direction I am beginning to explore (1998e), together with complexity theory. It is promising in the area of 'transformation', this sudden kind of evolutionary experience of learning, change, or healing, or its other form, the chaotic 'shift' of consciousness involved in insight (of knowledge, of creativity or of psychological healing).

3.2.3 'Power of Creation'

I take the position that creativity can be all these things. Creation is a complex function of the 'whole-person-inthe-world'. I view 'creation' as a 'higher' function of the '~ew Paradigm mind' (or the 'BodyMindSelf'), and it is involved with intuition, conventional creativity, perception, memory -- long- and short-term --, etc. My attitude is akin to William James' 'acting as if' there were a higher reality or potential and, making this assumption, I study the process of developing a conscious ability to 'create my reality', what favours it and what impedes it. All the aspects above are an integral part of the process.

Used by the left mind, creativity allows us to create ideas and theories to formulate, understand and explain what intuition let us know without words or images; we create structures and systems to organise, classify, measure, and function in acts (eg, institutions, business). Used by the right mind, creativity lets us create the

* Article downloaded from http://goertzel.org/dynapsyc/1996/stan.html

painting, dance, symphony, or new product: both artist and entrepreneur bring their creation into the world. What no theory seems to acknowledge is that creativity can develop into an ability to create not only ideas and visions that we then bring into the world, using our body, or its extensions, tools and machines. There is a potential ability to alter not only our subjective experience, but the very phenomenal world we perceive, directly, without the crafty means our body gives us. The kind of 'creativity' that can act upon reality directly, I call 'creation' and the human capability to do so, I call 'power of creation'. It is an inner power of mind and body, to 'create' anything, ideas, inventions, business strategies, and even circumstances and events. (I put the term 'create' in quotes because the process seems far more complicated than a dualistic cause-and-effect relationship).

This 'power of creation' of the human mind is an ancient human ability. It is said to be explained in a number of coded sacred writings or oral traditions, notably the Hawaiian Huna shamanic tradition (Freedom Long, 1953), and the Judaic tradition. It is still known, and is revived, and taught b y Westerners. Some of these courses are audio-taped and teach the skills of 'creating reality' (with no better rate of success than any other method of learning, healing, therapy or transformation, but with just as good results). Some of them are Serge Kahili King's 'Advanced Shaman Training', the '@elphin System', Richard Welsh's '@ ynamic Brain Management', Tad James's 'Creating Your Future' (see Websites list, in References Cited).

However, my efforts to understand what favours or impedes this human activity is not rooted solely in books and tapes; it is also grounded in personal experience of synchronicity. I have documented in particular striking experiences of what I call 'flash-thoughts'. (see EE#2 in Appendix 3.3). I could find in the literature no description that could fit this kind of instantaneous, unformulated thought that is immediately related to external events, but I did receive confirmation of the existence of such thoughts from an email correspondent, Barbara Stone, a mentor at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology in the USA, who experiences them as well. I could also find no trace in the literature of scientific studies openly focused on this particular aspect of creativity.

I found general statements such as in a report on the 6th Mind & Brain symposium: Graham Martin (1996) noted, reporting on Mary Midgley's address: "Epiphenomenalism denies the utility of consciousness, its ability to affect the world." Charles Laughlin proved to be the closest statement I could find:

"The most recent concern in biogenetic structural theory has been to understand how the human mindbrain may interact directly with the quantum universe. This step has been necessitated by the anomalous evidence in quantum physics, parapsychology and the ethnology of alternative states of consciousness -- evidence that suggests that human consciousness is capable of causation at a distance and communication through telepathic means. One answer to these anomalous experiences is that the human brain operates somewhat as a quantum computer and is able to translate patterned activity in the quantum sea of energy into information, and conversely to transform information into patterned activity in the quantum sea." (Laughlin, 1997)

This echoes a series of experiences I had in which I felt I could somehow 'sense' this quantum level of 'reality' (see EE#3 and 4 in Appendix 3.3). Another promising direction of research I found is that of the 'zero point field' fundamental form of light studied by Bernhard Haisch (quoted in Holland, 1998). When meeting massless electrical charges, it 'creates an appearance of mass, of matter'. This could explain inner perceptions of 'Light' in spiritual experience and could be a good basis for explaining how the 'power of creation' functions, since it is now acknowledged that our thoughts influence micro-processes in body and brain (in mind-body medicine for example). I will now present the view I have of how 'creation' involves the mind.