Transformative existential encounter

Enacting Transformative Integral Thinking through Playful Elegance (Part #8)

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Meaningful encounter: There is a curious characteristic in the quest for integrative insight in a world marked by a multiplicity of fragmented frameworks. That is the undeclared importance attached to meaningful existential encounter. This may be implicit in ensuring the presence of a charismatic keynote speaker, skilled in the capacity to manifest presence -- although only the privileged few in the audience may then have the possibility of interacting directly with such a person. This pattern is echoed in the cultivated relationship to a "guru -- whether the "guru" is spiritual or otherwise. Mediators and facilitators may aspire to this capacity.

The pattern may emerge quite differently in an encounter between two people, where its significance is experienced as extraordinary in some way, irrespective of the relative status or reputation of either.

Integration through the other: In both cases it would appear that a degree of integration is felt to be implicit through the other -- through the whole body presence of the other, or through projections onto the other. In the more symmetrical case the transformative nature of the experience has been celebrated in the writing of Martin Buber (I and Thou, 1923).

Whilst the other may well be experienced as multifacetted, there is a sense in which the other provides a form of integration to these facets -- a degree of integration that is otherwise inaccessible. The other provides an embodiment of integration, integral connectivity, acting as a form of Rosetta Stone between different languages -- otherwise mutually incomprehensible. Such encounters give focus in the present to emergence of the potential of the future. (Presenting the Future, 2001).

Potential conversation: Participants in an integrative symposium may acknowledge such experiences to a degree, representing potential conversations across the space of discourse and the universe of knowledge. However this may be accompanied by a sense of existential tragedy through the intuited potential of the multiplicity of conversations which will never happen -- "paths not followed" in the terms of Scott Peck. The experience may be more characteristic of interfaith dialogue but may be more dramatically independent of any particular cognitive framework.

Psychopomp and muse: Within a psychoanalytical framework, when associated with an engagement with myth, an "other" encountered in this mode may be recognized as a psychopomp, namely a mediator between the unconscious and conscious realms. It may be symbolically personified in dreams as a wise man (or woman), or sometimes as a helpful animal. In many cultures, the shaman also fulfills the role of the psychopomp -- as leader of souls to the Underworld. To the "underside"? The role may also be catalytic of the emergence of the new. More prosaically, but potentially experienced as deeply significant, is the role in the creative arts of a muse. This may be variously related to that of the daimon -- to be distinguished from the demonic -- as previously discussed (Interweaving Demonic and Daimonic Associations in Collective Memory, 2008). Its transformative potential is powerfully acknowledged in the experience in Iberian cultures of duende, most notably associated with flamenco (as discussed below). The role of the muse may be effectively embodied in the facilitation traditionally offered by the geisha.

Mirroring: The integrative function of the "other" emerged variously in relation to boundary crossing. One concern was how the human-animal relationship could be reframed with respect to sustainable development (John van Breda, The Implications of a New Social Ontology of Irreduction for Transcending the Disciplinary Divide, 2010). This was discussed in relation to mirroring, notably the implications of the mirror test as a human evaluation of the capacity of integrative self-consciousness -- whose significance may yet be challenged by the application of a test of the capacity of the human species to recognize how it is itself mirrored in the environment (Self-reflective Embodiment of Transdisciplinary Integration (SETI): the universal criteria of species maturity? 2008; *** specification). Might there be an appropriate test of participants in an integrative symposium to determine the degree to which they could perceive themselves in each other -- the above-mentioned theme of The Conference of the Birds? A 30-fold mirroring? Why integrative "optical" system is required to enable such complex mirroring?

Provocatively it was recognized that the integrative operation of a human body, or finger, was beyond the current comprehension of specialized knowledge, whatever the integrative framework. It was in that sense that integrative theory needed to be challenged by the statement figuring on the back of The Last Whole Earth Catalog: We can't put it together.It is together.

An important degree of mirroring can then be variously understood in relation to the global environment (My Reflecting Mirror World: making Joburg worthwhile, 2002; En-minding the Extended Body: enactive engagement in conceptual shapeshifting and deep ecology, 2003; Human Intercourse: Intercourse with Nature and Intercourse with the Other, 2007; Stepping into, or through, the Mirror: embodying alternative scenario patterns, 2008; Existential Embodiment of Externalities: radical cognitive engagement with environmental categories and disciplines, 2009). These papers refer to various authors emphasizing a degree of cognitive participation in the environment, such as (Henryk Skolimowski (The Participatory Mind: a new theory of knowledge and of the universe, 1995). The mirror metaphor has been widely used, notably by F. David Peat (Looking Glass Universe: the emerging science of wholeness, 1986; Turbulent Mirror: an illustrated guide to chaos theory and the science of wholeness, 1989).

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