Audit for elevationism

Check whether something you call spiritual is a pre-rational comfort that has been given a higher name.

Pourquoi ça marche

The elevating form of the fallacy treats everything non-rational as higher. In Wilber’s reading this is the error he attributes to Jung; his own earliest model, which he later revised, had pictured spiritual growth as a return to the undivided oneness of the newborn. The pull toward it is understandable: a regressive state can feel warm, total and free of doubt, which is easy to mistake for transcendence. Naming the possibility directly gives a person a chance to see it.

Comment faire

1. List the beliefs or practices you treat as spiritual, especially the ones you turn to when things are hard.
2. For each, ask: does this help me face the situation, or does it mainly make the situation feel unnecessary to face?
3. Ask: would I accept this kind of reasoning — signs, omens, "it was meant to be" — if someone used it to make a decision that hurt me?
4. Keep what survives the questions; mark the rest for the slower test of how it plays out in daily life.

Données probantes

Wilber’s 1982 abstract describes the error of elevating prepersonal events to transpersonal status. Jakonen (2009) reports that Wilber uses Jung as the illustrative case of this elevationist version, and that Wilber revised his own early model, which had cast development as a return to the newborn’s oneness. The audit questions apply that idea and have not been tested. (anecdotal)

Assigning the elevationist error to Jung is Wilber’s interpretation; Jungian and transpersonal writers, including Washburn, read early and deep layers of the psyche more positively. Comfort is not a fault in itself — the audit is about naming, not about giving up whatever soothes you.

Sources

• Wilber, K. (1982). The Pre/Trans Fallacy. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 22(2), 5–43.
• Jakonen, J. P. (2009). Beyond postmodern spirituality: Ken Wilber and the Integral approach. Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis, 21, 92–109.

Erreur fréquente

Turning the audit into contempt for everything non-rational. That swaps elevationism for its mirror image, the reductive error, rather than discriminating between them.