Get a second view from someone who knows both sides
Talk the experience through with someone who can reason carefully and who also has real contemplative experience.
Why it works
Wilber’s point is that pre- and trans-rational states look alike to the "untutored eye", which implies that telling them apart needs someone familiar with both. A purely rationalist listener tends toward the reductive reading and an enthusiast toward the elevating one. James notes that the long tradition of discerning experiences in Christian mysticism needed "all the sagacity and experience of the best directors of conscience". A listener who holds both capacities can catch what you cannot see from inside.
How to do it
- Think of someone who argues carefully and also has years of contemplative or spiritual practice; if no one comes to mind, look for an experienced teacher, director, or therapist open to spiritual experience.
- Describe the experience concretely before giving your interpretation, so they can form their own read.
- Ask them directly: does this sound to you like something that includes ordinary reasoning or something that goes around it?
- Notice whether you find yourself arguing for the interpretation you wanted. That reaction is useful data.
Evidence
The "untutored eye" phrasing is from Wilber’s 1982 abstract. James (1902, Lecture I) describes discernment of visions and trances in Christian mysticism as relying on experienced directors of conscience before finally resting on the fruits criterion. No study tests whether a second view improves this kind of discernment. (anecdotal)
A second view is only as good as the person giving it, and anyone with a strong theory — including Wilber’s — may read your experience through it. Seek someone who will tell you when they do not know.
Sources
- Wilber, K. (1982). The Pre/Trans Fallacy. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 22(2), 5–43.
- James, W. (1902). The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature. Longmans, Green. (Lecture I, "Religion and Neurology".)
Common mistake
Asking only people who already share your interpretation. Agreement from one camp feels like confirmation but leaves the other kind of error unexamined.
Practice this with IX Coach
More practices for Ken Wilber’s Pre/Trans Fallacy, Made Practical
- Check whether an experience includes reason or bypasses it
Ask of a non-rational experience whether it still has room for your reasoning, or only works when reasoning is switched off.
- Audit for elevationism
Check whether something you call spiritual is a pre-rational comfort that has been given a higher name.
- Audit for reductionism
Check whether you are dismissing an experience only because it does not fit rational explanation.
- Test an insight by what it does in ordinary life
Judge a non-rational insight by its effects on your conduct and relationships over months, not by how it felt at the time.
- Name the X before you judge
Work out which capacity an experience is "pre" or "trans" to, so the question becomes concrete.
- Consider the spiral reading before calling it regression
Before deciding that resurfacing early feelings mean you are going backwards, weigh Washburn’s view that growth can loop back through them.
Related concepts
- Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory (AQAL), Made Practical
Five elements for catching what your view of a situation leaves out, held as a map rather than a truth
- Non-Dual Awareness, Made Practical
Effortless mindfulness and the recognition of open, aware presence
- Holons, Holarchy and “Transcend and Include”, Made Practical
Growing past who you were without throwing away what that person could do
- The Dark Night of the Soul: John of the Cross
John of the Cross’s map of spiritual desolation and the practices that navigate it
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