The sense of the spirit as a form of conversation.

Spiritual experience is characterized by euphoria and a feeling of expanded, unified consciousness. Understanding this state can be aided by examining borderline personality disorder (BPD), where a 'painful incoherence' reflects a failure in the proper development of the 'self,' understood as higher-order consciousness. Both spiritual experience (a state 'larger than self') and recovery from BPD involve an ascent in a hierarchy of consciousness, suggesting a common basis. The self develops through a specific form of analogical conversation, first seen in infant proto-conversations. Symbolic play in the second year partially internalizes this relatedness through a quasi-inner conversation with an illusory other, proposed as the embryonic form of mystical communion with self and God.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Experiential evidence suggests that the main features of spiritual experience are euphoria, and a feeling of the expansion and unification of consciousness. A way towards understanding this state and how it might arise comes from a consideration of a state in which these features are lacking. Such a state is borderline personality disorder, central to which is a "painful incoherence" that is not merely "psychological" but can be demonstrated neurophysiologically. The phenomena of the borderline syndrome can be understood as failure of proper maturation of the experience of "self," conceived as higher order consciousness in a notional hierarchy of consciousness. Spiritual experience is understood as a state "larger than self." Since both the achievement of a sense of the spirit and recovery from borderline personality disorder (BPD) involve an ascent in a hierarchy of consciousness, they may have a common basis. The approach to the development of self is derived from developmental observations which suggest that it depends upon a particular form of conversation, the first form of which is shown in the first months of life as a proto-conversation. It has the characteristics of an analogical relatedness. Symbolic play arising at the second year of life, shows a partial internalization of this relatedness. Symbolic play is accompanied by a quasi-inner conversation with an illusory other who is both self and the mothering figure. It is suggested that this is the embryonic form of the "conversations" of mystics in communion with self and God.