Quest Magazine

By Derek Cameron

In the mid-1890's Rudolf Steiner (1861--1925) was repeatedly hurt by personal remarks made by his close friend Moritz Zitter (d. 1921). Even when recounting the incident a quarter century later, Steiner would still not admit his friend's observations contained some truth. Yet Zitter's stinging criticism forms a plausible trigger for the revolutionary psychological and spiritual changes Steiner underwent during 1896 to 1897--the period he himself described as that of his "profound transformation."

Steiner was thirty-five years old and a respected scholar with a Ph.D. in epistemology. He had edited the scientific writings of Goethe (1749-1832) for both the Kuerschner and the Weimar editions. He enjoyed discussing esoteric subjects with his more thoughtful friends and considered himself an expert on these topics who was already in possession of cutting-edge knowledge denied to lesser beings.

And then came the insults. Zitter wrote Steiner several times to the effect that he was merely intellectualizing his feelings. In fact, Zitter said to Steiner, you are so absorbed in your thoughts that you often appear to be scarcely human.

This Steiner hotly denied. The problem, he retorted, was Zitter's lack of comprehension. When Steiner appeared to be speaking intellectually, it was not that he had lost contact with the physical world. Rather, he was speaking about a world few had ever experienced--the world of spirit. And this error, Steiner explained, was the "greatest misunderstanding of my spiritual path."

To some extent Steiner was right. It was true he had already realized there was more to human experience than the world of the senses and the world of the intellect. The groundwork for this realization dated back to Steiner's childhood, when he received what he called "mental pictures"--images that conveyed nonphysical truths. When a school friend died, Rudolf unselfconsciously accompanied him into the world beyond. This spirit world was to Steiner every bit as real as the physical world.

Rudolf Steiner was also a curious child. He wanted to learn not only about the physical world but also about its inner essence. Near his childhood home was a factory. The boy Rudolf observed raw materials entering the factory at one end. He also observed finished goods emerging at the other. What frustrated him was that he could not see the processes taking place in between. What was it, behind those factory walls, that lay hidden from his gaze?

By the same token, he was also vexed by his inability to understand the source of his mental pictures. What faculty, he wanted to know, brought him these images? How did he know what he knew?

His problems were compounded by the fact that the adults around him did not share his perceptive abilities. When Steiner confided to a trusted schoolteacher the episode of having ventured into the world beyond death, he was met with stony silence. Steiner would have to construct for himself a framework for understanding his experiences. He did not find the beginnings of his explanation until he was a young man.

Around 1880 Steiner was reading Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805). In the "Letters upon the Aesthetic Education of Man," Steiner found a passage in which Schiller began by acknowledging that we can know things through our sense perceptions and we can know things through our thinking. But Schiller then went on to assert that we also have a third way of knowing things.

Most people fail to notice this third form of consciousness because it flits by so quickly. But by resisting the pull of both the senses and the intellect, said Schiller, we can cultivate this third form of knowing. It was, he asserted, a faculty that allows us to transcend the purely personal. "That which first connects man with the surrounding universe," he wrote, "is the power of reflective contemplation."

For Schiller this third state of consciousness was the aesthetic sensibility. But for Steiner, here was evidence that another human being shared his knowledge that we have more faculties than are generally acknowledged. Steiner had found a kindred spirit from whom he gathered the support and confidence he needed to continue his explorations.

Steiner found a second ally in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832). From Goethe's writings on geological processes, Steiner learned that Goethe too had had the ability to receive mental pictures. For Goethe also these intuitive perceptions could point to otherwise hidden truths.

In his essay "On Granite," Goethe described an experiential way of investigating natural history. Alone on a mountain peak, the researcher surrenders to the silence and solitude of the place and immerses himself in this experience. Images begin to form--vivid impressions of mountains rising and falling, of new mountains taking their place, of ancient seas receding and allowing life to grow in their wake.

Further encouraged, Steiner tried to write about Goethe, using the same intuitive capacities Goethe himself had used. This was the start of his conscious cultivation and development of his spiritual talents.

Moritz Zitter, however, had also been partially correct. Steiner's life before his mid-thirties had been a life of the intellect. This was the boy who had surreptitiously read Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) during high school history lessons. Large sections of Steiner's autobiography consist of detailed accounts of his subsequent philosophical reading and thinking. It was surely more than coincidence that, following his receipt of Zitter's letters, Steiner began a new practice.

In 1896 Rudolf Steiner turned his attention to the physical world. He would intentionally focus on his direct perceptions of the present moment. Likewise, he began trying to observe other people exactly as they actually were--in other words, observing without judging.

Over the course of that year, these practices transformed Steiner's way of being with people. He had previously been aloof, intellectually combative, and unable to listen to someone without wanting to argue with them. But now he found it easy, even natural, to be with people just as they were, observing, noting, and learning.

The observational skills thus developed proved useful in his own inner development. He would take quiet moments to observe and reflect on himself with this same objectivity.

Yet disinterested observation proved to be only a first step. In an unexpected turn, Steiner discovered that he now wanted to become more involved in the world. For the first time, he became one passionately engaged in life. His method of tranquil self-observation and contemplation he called his "meditation." Steiner learned clearly to distinguish between his intellectual activity and the underlying perceptions and feelings. He was now making practical use of the distinctions he had first gleaned from Schiller. While this "meditation" began as an activity he valued on purely intellectual grounds, he soon noted that "meditation became an absolute necessity for my inner life."

But Steiner's "profound transformation" went beyond the psychological sphere. He also began discovering spiritual truths. As one example, he noticed that problems in life are not solved by thinking about them. Problems, he observed, arise from the unfolding of events. Equally, problems are solved by a further unfolding of events. Solutions emerge. The same mysterious forces that create problems also create their solutions.

In 1898, the most rapid phase of his growth now over, Steiner went still deeper. His practices had not only reconnected him with the full richness of the world, but had also activated his higher perceptive faculties. These Steiner viewed as inner spiritual organs. He then turned these expanded faculties to the contemplation of the Christian tradition.

What he discovered was that, within the publicly available materials of the Christian narrative, there lay hidden, inner meanings. One detail will give the flavor of Steiner's exegesis. In St. John's Gospel there is a well-known pericope in which Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. For Steiner, debate over whether or not this "miracle" could really have taken place misses the point.

The real point, said Steiner, is that the raising of Lazarus from the dead is an allegory for spiritual initiation. Lazarus's death-like state is the preparation. Jesus, the initiator, then awakens him out of his spiritual slumber. Henceforth, Lazarus is an initiate. Jesus has catalyzed his evolution into a higher form of consciousness, and Lazarus is the first in a new lineage that builds upon (and is superior to) those of the ancient Mystery Schools. The insights gathered during 1898 formed the basis for Steiner's 1901--1902 lecture series, "Christianity as Mystical Fact."

The one thing Steiner had been unable to do as a boy was share his way of seeing things with those around him. As a child he felt lonely; as an adult, isolated and misunderstood. Steiner had come to believe it was safest to keep his deepest perceptions to himself--even among the relatively open-minded artists and intellectuals who were his adult friends. The decision to go public with his research would be the resolution of this issue.

In the autumn of 1900, Rudolf Steiner was invited to speak to a gathering in Berlin organized by the Count and Countess of Brockdorff. The first evening Steiner delivered a conventional lecture. Yet he sensed that this audience in particular might prove sympathetic to a deeper approach. So on a return visit he took the risk he had mulled over for several years. Steiner spoke in public, for the first time, from his personal perspective.

He had correctly gauged his audience. The Brockdorffs and their friends were Theosophists and were deeply impressed by Steiner's new manner of speaking. A whole series of speaking engagements followed. When Annie Besant (1847-1933) inaugurated the German Section of the Theosophical Society, Steiner was elected its first General Secretary. And thus began the pattern of traveling, writing, and lecturing that would occupy the remainder of his life.

People who listened with interest to Steiner naturally wanted to know the source of his material. Often he was accused of merely rehashing ancient Gnostic literature. Thus, when Steiner titled his 1901-1902 lectures "Christianity as Mystical Fact," the word he wanted to emphasize was "fact." His knowledge, he asserted, derived neither from Gnosticism nor from his imagination. He had developed methods for original spiritual research that he saw as being every bit as accurate as those of science. To prove his point, he published a series of magazine articles (later collected into Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment), revealing his techniques.

The foundation practice, Steiner taught, is to spend a few moments of each day in silent reflection. Normally the mind is a jumble of concerns about the details of our lives. But this, says Steiner, is precisely what keeps us from becoming aware of a higher perspective.

To remedy this confusion and ignorance, we should devote a few moments out of every day to reviewing our thoughts and actions as though they were those of another person. It is not that we use this time to continue pondering things, albeit at a more leisurely pace. Rather, it is our own reactions and thought processes that must become the objects of contemplation. This was the practice Steiner referred to as "meditation."

Serene contemplation of the lower self creates the opening in which the higher self can blossom. This new self, the spiritual self, can then begin to grow.

When the contemplation is over, the student returns to everyday life. Steiner emphasized that his form of meditation was aimed at those involved in the world, not those who wished permanently to withdraw from it. If a student's life was very busy, even as little as five minutes a day would have beneficial effects. Tranquil self-observation clears away the mental busyness that encrusts the higher perceptive faculties.

But we then encounter a second obstacle. Socialization has blunted our ability to feel. We no longer use the full depth and sensitivity of our capacities as human beings. Here Steiner gave a series of exercises to restore this ability to feel.

To begin with, we focus intently on something growing--a plant or a tree, for example. (This won't work as a thought experiment. Some real, physical organism is required.) While observing, we are to surrender neither to the lure of the sense impressions (color, smell, and so on) nor to any conceptual conclusions about growth and decay. We focus only on the felt sense of flourishing and growth. How is that? What is it like?

This is the sort of subtle impression we usually ignore. But during the exercise, we permit ourselves to reconnect with the richness of our feelings. Cultivating both concentration and a deep and refined sensitivity, we learn to become aware (or re-aware) of the impression of something growing and blossoming. To provide the necessary contrast, we alternately focus on something decaying, such as a dying tree.

In a similar vein, when we hear an animal, we focus on the felt sense of the sound--not our reaction to that sound, but the inner condition of the being who produced it. When the technique has been mastered with simple animate and inanimate objects, we can extend it to human beings. We observe someone in a state of desire. Focus on the felt sense of one who desires something. What impression do we then receive? How is a person who is in a state of desire? And how is a person who has acquired the object of his or her desires? Similarly, when someone speaks, instead of reacting either in agreement or disagreement to what is being said, can we just listen to that person, exactly as he or she is?

The next step of Steiner's program he termed "enlightenment," by which he meant the ability to receive mental images akin to the perception of physical colors. This again, Steiner asserted, is a capacity we all possess, but few ever learn to use.

Steiner does not mean that we actually see, or even imagine seeing, a color. Rather, we feel a sensation similar to that induced by the visual perception of a physical color. A plant, says Steiner, should produce an impression akin to that of green tinged with pink. A human being in a state of desire should be comparable to seeing something "flame-like, yellowish-red in the center, and reddish-blue or lilac at the edges."

Steiner's teachings on the spiritual significance of color draw on his reading of Goethe. In the "Theory of Color" Goethe remarks that colors leave an impression on human beings, and that these impressions can be correlated with human experiencing. Yellow, for example, equates to cheerfulness.

And yet these further exercises are still only preliminaries for the real goal of Steiner's program. Calmness, self-observation, sensitivity, and "enlightenment" are preparations for the work of opening the chakras.

For Steiner the chakras are active, perceptual organs, "the sense organs of the soul." By using these higher organs we discover deep truths about the universe in general and human beings in particular. The belly chakra, for example, is the means by which we perceive the strengths and gifts of other people.

The untrained person pays no attention to mental activity that follows sense impressions. A traveler in a train, for example, reminisces on a past event, but fails to observe how this memory, and the associated daydreaming that follows it, have been triggered by some visual stimulus seen through the windows of the train.

To develop the faculties of the belly chakra, says Steiner, we must first notice, and second take control of, the process by which sense perceptions give rise to a chain of linked thoughts. We must make a practice of consciously choosing which perceptions will be allowed to enter the psyche. This formidable undertaking will eventually lead to the activation of the third or belly chakra, and the consequent flourishing of our ability to understand other people. This kind of knowledge does not arrive in the same way as intellectual knowledge produced by discursive thought. Rather it emerges, intuitively, from the depths of our being, a whispering from the soul.

It is sometimes maintained, for example by Carl Jung (1875-1961), that except for limited instances such as the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556), there has been no Western tradition of meditation. A culture that condemns introspection, says Jung, is incapable of producing a meditative tradition. And in any case, he adds, Westerners have too much unconscious material, which has been too ferociously repressed. The treatment of choice for Westerners, he concludes--without a trace of irony--is Jungian therapy.

Yet Steiner's experience refutes Jung's position. There is a Western meditation tradition, and that tradition is the tradition explored by Steiner, the tradition of contemplation. Contemplation is Western meditation and is a powerful technique because it liberates. Once you can contemplate something, Schiller wrote, it no longer has the power to control you.

Steiner was no isolated instance. Thomas Merton (1915-1968) was a pure contemplative. Like Steiner, Merton saw contemplation as "a kind of spiritual vision," "the highest expression of man's intellectual and spiritual life." Merton described contemplation as "a sudden gift of awareness." And he saw himself not as an innovator, but as the inheritor of a tradition of contemplation that ranged from St. John of the Cross (1542-1591) to the Pensées of Blaise Pascal (1623-1662). Yet unlike Steiner, Merton held that the ability to contemplate could not, and should not, be taught. "There is no point whatever," Merton wrote, "in trying to make people get excited about the kind of interior life that means so much to you."

The Western contemplative tradition even predates Christianity. Marcus Aurelius (ad 121-180) is more widely remembered today for his Meditations than for the political reforms he instituted as Emperor of Rome. The aphorisms in the Meditations were evidently jotted down in response to contemplation. "Nowhere," wrote Marcus Aurelius, "can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul."

That is a sentiment with which Rudolf Steiner would surely have wholeheartedly agreed.

References

• Aurelius, Marcus. Meditations. London: Penguin Books, 1964.

• Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. Collected Works. Vol. 12. New York: Suhrkamp, 1988.

• Jung, Carl Gustav. "Yoga and the West," in Collected Works. Vol. 11. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969.

• Merton, Thomas. New Seeds of Contemplation. New York: New Directions, 1972.

• Schiller, Johann Christoph Friedrich von. "Letters upon the Aesthetic Education of Man." In Harvard Classics. Vol. 32. New York: Collier, 1938.

• Steiner, Rudolf. An Autobiography. Blauvelt, New York: Rudolf Steiner Publications, 1977.

• ——.

  Christianity as Mystical Fact. New York: Anthroposophical Press, 1947.

• ——.

  Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment. New York: Anthroposophical Press, 1975.

• Wachsmuth, Guenther. The Life and Work of Rudolf Steiner. New York: Whittier Books, 1955.

Derek Cameron studied mathematics at the University of Edinburgh and Sanskrit at the University of British Columbia. He now works as a corporate consultant in Vancouver, British Columbia. His previous article for the Quest, "Suffering on the Path," appeared in the Autumn.

By Eldon Tucker

With each new generation of members in the Theosophical Society, we find the same questions being asked. New members wonder just what this Theosophy is that they're being told about. Is it true? Was it made up by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky and her followers? What does it really say? With conflicting texts and a diversity of dissenting views among members, newcomers can be left bewildered, perhaps giving up and moving on to other groups without finding spiritual satisfaction. How did we let them down?

The spiritual effort initiated by Blavatsky and her teachers includes much more that just the Theosophical Society. There are numerous theosophical and related groups that have branched off from the initial Society. Countless individuals and organizations have been affected for the better and may still feel an influence. Looking into the future, perhaps a century or two, we may find still other specializations of theosophical work. Those specializations result from the many possible uses for the theosophical treasury of ideas by groups with differing approaches.

One specialization is the formalization of Theosophy as a well-defined system of thought, a philosophy, with distinctive terminology. This Theosophy has become an intellectual tradition that can be taught and understood by people regardless of their backgrounds. It might be called tip-of-the-iceberg Theosophy, since only the surface meanings can be studied and passed on. The heart of Theosophy requires a spiritual awakening in an individual in order to be understood, and so in this intellectual Theosophy, it may be lost. There are several variations or flavors of this formalized philosophy: (a) Blavatsky-Judge Theosophy, (b) Purucker Theosophy, and (c) Besant-Leadbeater Theosophy. The materials for any of those variations can be carefully compiled and organized, as was done by A. E. Powell for Besant and Leadbeater's materials.

The second specialization is the combination of theosophical ideas with popular thought in various ways. Huston Smith in his books on world religions shows how various systems of thought have arisen to meet the spiritual needs of their times, to revive the heart-life and compassion and the quest for wisdom of a complacent or even decadent people. When we take theosophical ideas and combine them with other ideas, relating them to the way of thinking of various peoples, we are making progress in this direction.

It doesn't take a Krishna to appear and dramatically do all the work for us. We can participate in this effort too, altering the thought and life of those around us. New religions and philosophies can arise either from an evolution of existing systems of thought or from the creation of something completely new. We can help with either of those developments. For such use of the theosophical philosophy, "purity" of the ideas is not important. The important thing is to make something new and useful. The final product--a belief system with a code of life--may not be "perfect" from our point of view, and may even be inaccurate or wrong when considered in terms of the Mystery Teachings, but it may still be a great boon to society. If the effect of a new movement is to better the life of people, leading them back to the path of compassion and the great spiritual quest, then this second specialization of Theosophy has done well.

The third specialization of Theosophy is along the line of a junior school to the Mysteries. It would be somewhat akin to the various Esoteric Schools associated with the existing theosophical groups. These future groups may evolve from the existing ones or be newly founded at some point. With these groups, the emphasis is on keeping the philosophy pure, on depth of understanding, on a living oral tradition of learning and study, by which advanced students train and pass on their knowledge to each succeeding generation. Some groups may be akin to spiritual colleges, training chelas, but not involved in public work, like Theravada Buddhism, the Buddhism of the Elders. Others may take on the trappings of exoteric religions, stress public works, and be like Mahayana Buddhism, the Buddhism that stresses extroverted compassion.

It may take a few generations for the theosophical movement to differentiate or specialize into these different efforts to improve the lot of humanity. Meanwhile, there may be growing tension in theosophical groups over the future direction of the groups. The existing groups appear already to have started on these specializations. The United Lodge of Theosophists seems to have made a good start at promoting a formalized intellectual theosophical philosophy. The Adyar Theosophical Society (ours) seems to have made a good start at melding theosophical ideas with popular thought and thereby planting the seeds for future religious directions. The Pasadena Theosophical Society seems to have made a good start at being a spiritual-training group. All of those groups are, to be sure, more complex and diverse than this generalization.

A key idea with theosophical groups is the freedom of belief that members enjoy. Because of that freedom, it is possible for the membership to entertain many different ideas about the nature of Theosophy and what should be done with it. This freedom is fine for one's personal study, but it can create problems at the organizational level. The way any organization operates and its resources are used depends on the ideas one has about its nature and goal.

Can theosophical groups be democratic? Democratic procedures in arriving at decisions can be healthy and good, just as freedom of belief and expression is also desirable. But for both there must be limits, as expressed in a mission statement, a purpose for the Society. Some members may want to carry forward that purpose and so become workers; other members not in accord with that purpose can find other avenues of expression. As the theosophical movement continues to develop specializations, the selection of groups to belong to and the materials to study will multiply. There will be places where we feel strongly "at home," and other places where we may feel like aliens or outsiders.

A theosophical group is not true to its mission if a surge of new members can vote to throw overboard the old purpose and to do something entirely different. There is plenty of opportunity to found other groups and efforts, and to work side-by-side with other groups, so redirecting existing groups is unnecessary and counterproductive to the work.

This is not to say that existing groups are doing everything they could or are doing things in the best way. There is room for improvement, but that improvement should be evolutionary, not revolutionary.

What is it that is the purpose of our Theosophical Society? The three objects--brotherhood, study of comparative religions, and investigation of the unexplained and latent--fall somewhere between the extremes of a pro-Krishnamurti anarchism where all spiritual authorities (except himself) are rejected and a dead-letter worship of the writings of Blavatsky that would make fundamentalist Christians seem liberal by comparison.

If I could define Theosophy for the Theosophical Society, I'd say that it is a distinct body of esoteric doctrines derived from the Mahatmas, given to us by Blavatsky and perhaps a few other initiates. These doctrines are subject to human error in expression, but are more accurate than the ideas of the homegrown philosophies of those who are uninitiated in the Mysteries. We should teach, promote, and have as a significant goal the keeping of these original fragments of Mystery teachings in their pristine, untainted form. I'd want any theosophical group I join and support to affirm this viewpoint.

The Theosophical Society in America has a large turnover in membership. Is that because people are sampling it and deciding it's not right for them, or because we're doing something wrong, and need to change our approach? From the standpoint of the specialization of the theosophical movement, I'd say that we just need to find something good to do for the world, as a Society, and do it the best we can, and leave it to others to serve the many other needs that the world has.

The Internet is something new. People working with computers, or in college, have had the opportunity to learn about and use it. Others are left wondering what it's all about. It will be helpful in the future to have show-and-tell presentations of what's out there and how people can benefit from it. Even without a computer of one's own, it's still possible to get free e-mail and use a computer at many public libraries, if one is aware of what's available.

There are a number of uses of the Internet that could be looked into. There could be more online publications. There could be an online news-only mailing list, perhaps moderated, with timely information without the high volume of chat and less-nice traffic of typical mailing lists that leads people to unsubscribe. There could be online audio theosophical lectures (using the Real audio encoder program). It's even possible to make online slide-show presentations of Theosophy with associated sound tracks.

Any changes that are made in our Society, I think, should be gradual, evolutionary, arising out of cooperative projects where we all get together to promote Theosophy or better the world. Increased communication among members would arise through a day-to-day interaction, through doing things together, through working for a common purpose. No grand plan, petition, document, constitution, or finished product of thought will evolve the organization. The coming together of members in mind and heart would arise because everyone would be helping formulate, organize, and carry out the work of the Society, rather than in imposing their approach on others, requiring others to do work someone else's way.

Do we want to change the Society? Do we want to work for the philosophy in and through the Society? Then we need to start doing our work, building bridges of cooperation between ourselves and others in the Theosophical Society. There's bountiful work to be done, both in and outside of the Society. Let's simply find something good to do and get going!

By Chris Hoffman

At the climax of his great healing vision, the nineteenth-century Lakota medicine man Black Elk glimpsed the breathtaking wholeness of the universe. As poetically summarized by Black Elk's interviewer (Neihardt 36; cf Holler xx-xxi, 1, 7, and DeMallie xxii, 129-30), Black Elk saw that he was "standing on the highest mountain of them all, and round about beneath me was the whole hoop of the world. And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being. And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children of one mother and one father. And I saw that it was holy."

The essential holiness or wholeness of the universe that brought healing to Black Elk, and to his people, appeared to him through the visual metaphor of the Hoop and the Tree. This image of the Hoop and the Tree is not accidental. It appears not only in Lakota mythology but also in various forms throughout the great wisdom traditions of the world—and indeed in modern psychology and systems science—as an image of the deep structure of wholeness and health both in the universe and in the human soul. It is an image of the beauty at the heart of everything.

The Hoop and the Tree represent two dimensions of the soul, which must be fully developed and in balance with each other for wholeness. Their combined image crystallizes the essence of our collective wisdom in a practical way that helps us to understand how we can grow toward psychological and spiritual wholeness. It also acts as a key to the great variety of spiritual and mythological ways within our human diversity. To understand the wholeness in the combined image, we must look at the separate meanings of each dimension.

The Hoop

The Hoop or circle has to do with all aspects of relationship. When people gather to eat together as a family, to sing songs, or to sit at the knee of a storyteller, they spontaneously form the shape of the Hoop. We speak of our inner or family "circle." Thus all mandalas ("magic circles") and other images of the Hoop are traditional symbols of relationship.

Native Americans honor all their relations through Hoop-shaped medicine wheels and sweat lodges. Taoists use the well-known Hoop of the yin-yang to represent being and "flowing" in right relationship with the way of nature. Psychologists do their healing within the "sacred circle" of the therapeutic relationship. The Hindu Wheel of Rebirth is the Hoop of Relationship viewed through time: I am related to you not just because we are brothers or sisters in this life, but because you may have been my great-grandfather in a previous incarnation and you may be my great-granddaughter in a future incarnation. The Hopi people honor Spider Woman, the Earth Mother, whose web makes the shape of concentric linked Hoops. We are all part of her web--humans, animals, mountains, trees, rivers--and if you touch any part of the web, the whole web will quiver.

The Tree

The Tree has to do with what the poet Robert Bly calls "vertical longing." The psychic dimension of individual growth, aspiration to a high place (something "to live up to," a "higher calling"), and profundity (the "depths of the soul") is a vertical dimension. Jung says that in order to develop one must forge a link between the upper and the lower, the conscious and the unconscious aspects of the psyche (Fordham 76-7). Traditional wisdom, as well as contemporary spiritual and psychological practice, associate this dimension with the imagery of trees, mountains, ladders, and pillars.

Traditional Tree imagery includes the Christian Tree of the Cross, the Scandinavian Yggdrasil or world ash, the Jewish Tree of the Menorah, shamanic ascent and descent via trees and roots, and the spiritual ascent of the Prophet which is the inner reality of Islamic prayer, one of the five Pillars of Islam. Development in the Tree dimension includes ascending for psychological "peak experiences" or contact with the Divine, and growing to become fruitful in our lives. It also includes descending to explore our cultural and psychological "roots." A tree can grow tall only if it has sturdy and far-reaching roots.

Hoop and Tree Together

All the great wisdom traditions teach about the importance of right relationship (Hoop) and also about the importance of individual aspiration toward some state of enlightenment or connection with the Divine (Tree). Some traditions emphasize the Hoop and others emphasize the Tree, but most point to a model of psycho-spiritual wholeness that is Hoop and Tree together.

Christianity, for example, has as its central image the Tree of the Cross, which powerfully represents ascent to connection with the Divine. According to tradition, Christ also descended from this Tree into Hades "to the extreme of its depth" in order to bring healing. Tradition also says that Christ brought the Tree of the Cross to Hades and planted it there as a witness to truth. So the Christian Tree is the axis of the universe, which runs from Hades to Paradise.

Yet the principal sacrament of Christianity is a Hoop ritual. In Holy Communion, the consecrated bread and wine are shared among all. Although the Roman Catholic Church places some restrictions on participation in this sacrament, the early Christian church and the non-Roman denominations all tend to emphasize inclusion and participation. Theologian Harvey Cox says, "Communion is like a family meal, the gathering of old and young, sick and well, around a common table and reminds all those who participate that the goods of the earth should be shared, not hoarded" (Cox 404). Holy Communion and the Cross form the Hoop and Tree of the Christian world.

Jesus Christ himself taught the Hoop-and-Tree way to wholeness. When asked about the best way to live, Jesus replied, "Love the Lord and love your neighbor" (Mark 12.30-1). That is a summary of the Tree and the Hoop teaching--the Tree aspiration to the Lord, and the Hoop relation to the community. Accept Divine love (ascent/descent along the Tree axis) and then give this love to the world (Hoop).

Each summer in the high plains of North America, hundreds of people gather in four-day ceremonies, to pray to a sacred Tree and dance around it in a sacred Hoop. As part of these Lakota sun dances, the dancers carry the spiritual renewal obtained from the Tree out to the wider Hoop of community.

People of European descent come to these dances from as far away as Australia and Germany. It is no wonder the dances resonate for them. For hundreds of years ancient Europeans danced this Hoop-and-Tree pattern in religious observations every spring. Maypole dances were performed not only in England, but also throughout Europe, from Spain to Scandinavia, though the timing of the festival varied, depending on the latitude. The Maypole itself was originally a Tree, freshly cut for each festival and paraded into town with great rejoicing. In a great Hoop round that Tree, the people danced merrily to music, celebrating a great healing--the renewal of life. In this way the Hoop and the Tree shaped one of the most important religious festivals of pre-Christian Europe.

The ancient Greeks centered their world on Mount Olympus (mountains being symbolically cognate with trees), with Zeus ruling from above and Hades from below, while the whole cosmos was bounded on the horizontal plane by the Hoop of Oceanos, who encircled the world at its outermost limits, continuously flowing back on himself in a circle.

The Tree in the Buddhist story is the bodhi tree, under which Buddha attained enlightenment, after which he carried the blessings of his achievement out into the community. His initial work of teaching is known as turning the Wheel of the Dharma, the Hoop. There is a form of shrine, widespread in the Buddhist world, called a stupa. The stupa acts as a reminder of the shape of wholeness. It is said to be "an abstract image of the state of enlightenment attainable by all beings" (Landaw and Weber 42). This shape of wholeness takes the form of a Hoop (mandala) extended upward along the Tree axis.

Judaism includes the Hoop and the Tree in the mystical practice of Kabbalah, which presents a route to the Divine called the Tree of Life, or Otz Chiim. One may follow this path to wholeness by meditating on the fruits of this Tree, called Sefiroth, literally "spheres," depicted as circles (Hoops) on the Tree. In the Kabbalistic story, the primordial ideal human, Adam Kadmon, was patterned on the Tree of Life with its Sefiroth. Thus the ideal image of wholeness has Hoops in balance on the Tree.

The Sufis of Islam actually move the shape of wholeness into the body through the celebrated dance of the "whirling dervishes" of the Mevlevi order. The dervishes start whirling slowly, spreading their arms like wings, the right palm turned upward toward the sky to gather divine grace, and the left palm turned downward to give it to the earth. The dancers whirl faster and faster to a supreme moment of union. Each dancer turns full 360-degree circles, experiencing the Koran's teaching that "wheresoever you look, there is the face of God." Here we have clearly the shape of the Hoop--the whirling--and the shape of the Tree--the upright bodies together with the hands passing grace from up to down.

The Tantric teachings of Hinduism describe the fully developed self with a Hoop-and-Tree model. According to Tantra, the human body has a set of energy centers distributed along the spine. These energy centers are called chakras, a Sanskrit word meaning "wheel." Since Hindu symbolism depicts the spine as a Tree, Tantra represents wholeness with these wheels or Hoops in alignment on the Tree.

The San Bushmen of the Kalahari practice a remarkable technology for healing and spiritual growth, which exemplifies the Tree growing within the Hoop. This practice is the !kia-healing dance (the exclamation point representing one of the four clicking sounds in their language). Within a Hoop of singers and musicians, the practitioners of !kia experience a spiritual ascension along the Tree axis toward the divine. During !kia, a practitioner may perform cures, handle fire or walk on it, have x-ray vision, see over great distances, or converse with supernatural powers. Like the good shaman or Buddhist bodhisattva, the !kia master ascends the Tree for the benefit of the community. The point is not so much in experiencing transcendence as in bringing back its fruits. To experience !kia without doing any healing would be seen as a misuse of the !kia-related powers. Here the Tree grows within the Hoop for the benefit of the Hoop.

Someone once asked Sigmund Freud to say what a healthy person ought to be able to do and do well. Freud's answer was pithy: "to love and to work" (lieben und arbeiten). Now if we understand "to work" in the sense of working toward something, then Freud's definition of health was the Hoop and the Tree: the Hoop of relationship and the Tree of aspiration.

Carl Jung was even more explicit. He analyzed thousands of dreams in his lifetime and digested an almost unimaginable amount of the world's literature on mysticism, religion, and philosophy. One of the fruits of this prodigious labor was Jung's concept of the archetype of the Self, a model of psychological and spiritual wholeness.

Jung found that symbols of the Self appear universally in dreams, visions, active imagination, and works of art, particularly spiritual or religious art. What does this symbol of psycho-spiritual wholeness look like? The Hoop and the Tree. Jung said, "If a mandala [Hoop] may be described as a symbol of the Self seen in cross section, then the tree would represent a profile view of it: the Self depicted as a process of growth" (Jung 253).

The world's wisdom traditions offer countless other examples of the Hoop-and-Tree pattern of wholeness. Perhaps this is because even the helix of our DNA carries the shape of an extended Hoop spiraling around a Tree axis. The pattern is coded in the very basis of life.

Complementary Dimensions

The Hoop and the Tree are two dimensions of wholeness, neither of which is complete in itself, neither of which is "better" than the other. They are different and complementary. The Hoop has a female tone, the Tree a male tone. The meaning of the Hoop is relational; the meaning of the Tree is aspirational. Together the Hoop and the Tree offer a model of integrating community and individuality, a way to increased understanding between men and women, and an image of what is needed for a person, or a society, to come into balance and wholeness.

We can say that the Hoop is the image by which self talks to self about the Greater Self in which we all are connected. It is through the Hoop that we connect with other living beings, with the rocks, the soil, the air, the green and growing things, the dying and the dead that fertilize new life, the person we once were, and the person we will be. The Hoop has to do with hearing the beat, getting with the rhythm, feeling the music of what is, and skillfully entering in with just the right amount of effort. The Hoop is oneself as the process of relating.

This also means that from the Hoop perspective, psycho-spiritual wholeness consists of being in relationship appropriately, imbalance is incomplete or inappropriate relationship, and healing occurs when one is restored to appropriate relationship. The Hoop says that the heart of the universe cleaves fast to your own heart, as close as lovers' hearts one to the other. We have only to stop, perceive, and be. Practice of the Hoop dimension begins the end of loneliness and alienation.

Whereas the Hoop is the affiliative aspect of wholeness, the Tree is the autonomous aspect. The Tree is a double metaphor. It stands for the great central axis of the entire cosmos, around which everything revolves, and it stands for the central axis of our own psychological and spiritual being, around which our individual experience of life revolves.

To the psyche, the Tree represents the growing core of the whole self; it is the emphasis on individual development. The Tree is the valiant sprouting of each individual life force, and each individual's urge to bear fruit. The Tree is the image by which self talks to self about its interior growing core, the core that aspires to skill, wisdom, and contact with the Divine—the core that knows where it stands in the world and that is able to draw nourishment from its ancestry and from sleep, dreams, and unconscious processes. Practice of the Tree dimension roots us in the universe and gives us strength to reach our highest ideals.

An Image of Healing

Though we live in an era of shriveled Hoop and truncated Tree, the Hoop and the Tree together give us a robust model for healing ourselves and our society.

One example of a Hoop-and-Tree approach to healing is the twelve-step recovery program pioneered by Alcoholics Anonymous. In this program you ascend the Tree by turning your will and life over to the care of the Divine, and descend into the darkness of the Tree's roots through a searching and fearless moral inventory. Then you work on mending your Hoop through making amends to all. The twelfth step is a classic Hoop-and-Tree integration: "Having had a spiritual awakening [Tree] as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to others, and to practice these principles in all our affairs [Hoop]."

As the wisdom traditions show, the Hoop-and-Tree model is yet more profound and robust than the powerful twelve-step model. As just one example, the Hoop dimension relates us to all the universe, not just to other human beings. From the Hoop perspective we cannot be fully whole unless we act in right relationship to the entire living planet and all of its peoples and creatures by reducing, reusing, and recycling. The Hoop-and-Tree image also teaches the good news that at our best we are all ecological beings. We all belong here, we are home.

References

• Cox, Harvey. "Christianity." In Our Religions, ed. Arvind Sharma, pp. 357-423. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993.

• DeMallie, Raymond J. The Sixth Grandfather. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1984.

• Fordham, Frieda. An Introduction to Jung's Psychology. Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1968.

• Holler, Clyde. Black Elk's Religion: The Sun Dance and Lakota Catholicism. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1995.

• Jung, C. G. Alchemical Studies. Collected Works 13. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967.

• Landaw, Jonathan, and Andy Weber. Images of Enlightenment. Tibetan Art in Practice. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publications, 1993.

• Neihardt, John G. Black Elk Speaks. New York: Pocket Books, 1972.

Chris Hoffman has facilitated human change processes in therapeutic, business, and educational settings for more than twenty years. He is the author of numerous professional articles and poems and is currently finishing a book on the Hoop and the Tree. His web site is www.hoopandtree.org .