ANALYTICAL AND UNITIVE KNOWING

Human beings have at their disposal two primary, distinct,but interrelated, forms of knowing the world. If a person is approaching the world in a receptive frame of mind (as describe on page 5) he will naturally gravitate toward unitive knowing. If his approach to the world is instrumental he will more readily take an analytical approach.

Analytical intelligence is control-oriented and tends to dominate psychological process. It is mostly a left brain function and closely identified with the Ego. It is driven to render memory, sensory data, and material presented by unitive consciousness into logically coherent schemata or units of experience. It uses metaphor and image as tools for elaborating already determined conclusions. If a logical structure for understanding personal experience is unavailable, the analytical side will confabulate such a structure. Most dreams reflect just such a process. Relatively meaningless random memories and sensory phenomena precipitated by the neurochemistry of sleep are organized by the analytical mind into more or less coherent scenarios. Individuals who cannot make sense of their personal history because of inconsistent, irrational childhood experiences and the use of dissociative defenses will sometimes confabulate a history that will relieve cognitive dissonance by imposing an order that never actually existed.

The imaginative, metaphoric expressions of unitive knowing are more predominantly right-brain. As long as the Ego is preoccupied with verbal/analytical (i.e., left—brain) processing, it will usually be unaware of this other intelligence. However, Jeanne Achterburg (1985) has proposed that the

body and mind communicate with each other through imagery, and that verbal self-reference is a minor phenomenon in the human psyche. Most of the material that comes to mind when a person relaxes does not have the quality of a dissertation. It has the quality of daydream, color, or feeling. These are more deeply embedded, primitive, and powerful ways of connecting with personal reality, and probably of connecting with external reality as well.

Accessing the imaginistic/metaphoric gifts of unitive knowing usually depends upon the Ego being in a quiet, receptive state, such as sleep, trance, meditation, or periods of quiet reverie.

The expressions of this intelligence are experienced by the Ego as revelations from an “other” or “not I” source. It uses visual imagery and metaphor as its principal form of communication, although other sensory modalities will often be included. It will even communicate in language at times, but usually whatever is spoken is secondary to the images and metaphors.

Analytical knowing tends to be precise and exclusive (i.e., one detail at a time). Unitive knowing is more global, direct, and experiential.

Another critical distinction between unitive knowing and analytical knowing is that analysis is limited to the drawing of predictable conclusions from already known data. As long as one follows the cause and effect course of logic, the possibility of creating new insights is small. Conclusions flow automatically from presuppositions, which follow previous conclusions.

Unitive knowing has a revelatory quality. It gives fresh, startling insight which has not been gained through any process of logic, but emerges from the capacity to perceive interrelationships within the context of the whole. Many of the great scientific discoveries were a result of unitive knowing. The two processes are complimentary. However, each type of knowing has assets and liabilities. Depending on either to the exclusion of the other, greatly diminishes an individual’s or society’s ability to function effectively.

A person who emphasizes scientific or analytical processes tends to be detached; a person who respects the processes of unitive knowing tends to be involved.

Before the journey into wholeness can begin in earnest, the individual must be willing to accept unitive knowing and inner experience as real and significant. This is contrary to the spirit of scientific rationalism which permeates Western culture and most psychotherapies. The therapeutic model I am offering depends upon both client and therapist actively involving themselves in the client’s inner revelations and experiences.

The wisdom that directs the main thrust of therapy as I do it is from the client’s own Center. The inner experiences that provide the principle catalyst for healing present themselves as fully developed, richly metaphoric scenarios. Their complexity, beauty, and power far transcend anything ordinary states of consciousness and rational knowing can produce.

Analytical knowing is emphasized in Western culture. The primary tool of analytical knowing is language. Anyone who uses the analytical way of knowing follows the rules of cause and effect. The person whose approach to reality is defined by analytical knowing is a person for whom there is little sense of mystery. This person usually sees himself as being scientific.” Mystery and mysticism are considered inaccessible or inappropriate from this perspective.

The benefit of analytical knowing is that it allows one to manipulate reality. It transforms the world of experience into verbal and mathematical formulas. These can then be manipulated in a variety of ways and applied in a way that changes the world.

For instance, imagine a caveman living back in 20,000 B.C. He is tired of walking a half mile down to the creek to bring a goatskin of water to his cave. One day he sits down and thinks about the matter analytically. The stream comes down a hill which is above the cave. Every time he has seen water, it has gone downhill. Carrying water in goatskins is very tiring. The skins tend to leak or burst and the water smells bad when it is drunk later on. What can he do? Well, if water always flows downhill, maybe he can use a tree limb to dig a ditch down the hill so that part of the water will flow right in front of his cave, thus letting him drink directly from the water. No longer will he have to trudge down the hill and haul water back up again. Plumbing is invented by using analytical knowing.

The inventor broke the process into parts, thought about it, derived conclusions, and applied the conclusions successfully. His life is now easier.

Analytical knowing allows an individual to manipulate external reality and internal reality as well. An individual may find that every time a certain person walks by he gets flustered and jittery. He wonders what is going on with himself. Maybe he is attracted to that person. So, he decides that the next time that person comes by, he will say “Hi” and smile a lot. If that person responds and his feelings intensify, he can carry the relationship a little further to see what happens.

This is analytical knowing acquired from internal processing. Anything that can be experienced, can be analyzed in a variety of ways with various practical outcomes. People who do not pay attention to analytical knowing will greatly reduce their capacity to effectively impact the External World.

Another benefit of analytical knowing is that it balances out any tendencies people may have to accept data without question. If a local guru or expert says that red is black and pink is blue, people do not immediately exclaim, “Wow, what an insight.” They think about what was said. What does he mean by this? Is he using some kind of ambivalent concept of color? Is he wanting to teach something? They analyze it and decide whether the person is misleading them or whether he has something to teach. They can think about what is being taught, apply the rules of logic, and decide if it is or is not consistent and appropriate. Analysis can protect people from flaky experts.

Another very important use for analytical knowing is that analysis and language allow individuals to communicate with some precision. Unitive awareness can be communicated by doing a dance or painting a picture, but one does not have available the precision that is part of analytical knowing.

The problems with analytical knowing are important, but are usually ignored in Western culture, which tends to overemphasize it. Western culture frequently assumes that analytical knowing is the only way of knowing that works, and logic is the only way to encounter reality with any reliability.

Anyone who accepts that words and logic are the only way to encounter reality is caught in a contradiction. Words are nothing more than symbols - obligatory symbols chosen to represent different aspects of external and internal reality. Those who believe that analytical knowing, is the best way of comprehending reality will never know reality with any immediacy, because the words are a stumbling block that stands between the speaker and reality.

Built into every language is a set of assumptions about the nature of reality. Every time a person speaks, she is acquiescing to numerous attitudes, ideas, and ideals without even knowing it.

A certain American Indian language does not have words for future or past. The people, therefore, are not able to understand these concepts very well. This leads to obvious implications for the way they live and schedule their lives.

Each language focuses a person’s attention in different ways. Analytical knowing is bound by language, which both serves and limits it. Language encircles reality and confines the experience of it.

When it is significantly detached from the unitive consciousness, analytical knowing loses its creativity, becomes emotionally detached or numb, and is insensitive to physiological processes and holistic perceptions. It can’t see the forest for the trees. This kind of unbalanced disconnection from the unitive side of the mind is not unusual among individuals who have been emotionally traumatized.

Another major problem with analytical knowing is that it is a controlled way of knowing. It can be used to break down reality into parts. Then, in order to arrive at appropriate conclusions, one puts these parts back together according to the rules of logic. It is a way of controlling experience and other people, which is a typical activity of the Ego. Language and Ego mutually support and limit each other.

Finally, if a person focuses only on analytical knowing he will lose touch with the vast world within the psyche. Inner phenomena transcend logic. They come as a given to be accepted or rejected. They do not come because the individual wanted it that way. One can consider the data afterwards, but it is impossible to create revelation. Inner knowing cannot be controlled.

No one can fully express in language all the data that comes from within. An individual does not decide, “I am going to have a dream experience about a particular topic.” It is rare that anyone can create a dream by making up her mind to do so. Intuitions do not come from chosen intentions. They come to life on their own, according to their own timing, bringing data that sometimes the person had no idea she even needed. But, if she listens, the data will frequently make a significant difference in her life.

Analytical knowing is best suited to dealing with external reality and the externals of oneself. Unitive knowing usually expresses a person’s inner truth, and the more profound aspects of reality in general. It is a very different way of approaching human reality than Westerners are accustomed to.

An individual who attends seriously to unitive knowing is a person who prefers experience over analysis. He would choose direct experience of himself or the world over the linguistic interpretation of the experience. A person who respects unitive knowing respects intuition as well as various other spontaneous internal phenomena. These include dreams, visions, fantasy experiences, and deep emotions that come in response to music or art. Profound relationships are also a part of this person’s life. The benefits of self-awareness through unitive knowing are many. The first is that it reveals the entirety of the person - all of her aspects, both known and unknown. It discloses things that she could not possibly see without it. It is comparable to hearing somebody describe a room in words, as opposed to being in the midst of the experience of the room.

Secondly, unitive knowing does not depend on language. It uses internally generated experiences as its primary vehicle to transmit awareness. For instance, the analytical mind might say that God is all loving and is deeply concerned about each individual. The unitive presentation of that same message might allow the person to be immersed in a mystical experience in which she feels the powerful light of God’s love all around her. She experiences herself being transformed and washed clean, and knows that she is unconditionally accepted. This experience does not need language and, in fact, many of the more powerful experiences of this nature cannot be put into words. They transcend the limitations of words and the cultural assumptions woven into language.

What is learned through a mystical experience is incomparably more profound and convincing than anything one might read in theology. One can discover more about God’s will through internal revelation than one will ever know through words.

On the other hand, the unitive side of the mind, when detached from the analytical, will believe nearly anything uncritically and is capable of accepting as fact, experiences or assumptions that are radically incongruous. In its most extreme form, this is what Orne (1959) calls trance logic, which is the ability to uncritically maintain two mutually exclusive experiences simultaneously.

Those who exclude the analytic tend to be superstitious, gullible, and easily manipulated by anyone who presents himself in a convincing, powerful fashion. Unitive knowing is very dangerous if it is all that is used. If an individual does not make consistent use of logic and relies only on dreams, visions, intuitions, and revelations, in a relatively short period of time she will lose her mental balance. Even psychosis can be precipitated by an unbalanced embrace of unitive knowing. Usually, however, both sides of cognition are much better connected to each other in both waking and sleeping states than in the extremes just described. The flow of Ego awareness is generally the outcome of a dynamic interaction between both cognitive functions.

Rossi (1986) has hypothesized that the mind has an hour and a half natural rhythm which is expressed during sleep in the nightly rhythm of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. After approximately one and a half hours of relatively quiet sleep, most people experience 20 to 30 minutes of REM sleep, during which they dream.

Rossi noted that after one and a half hours of focused attention during ordinary wakefulness, people tend to have difficulty maintaining their concentration. They experience lapses in memory and make uncharacteristic errors. Rossi has observed that if an individual has an opportunity to take a break and rest or daydream for 20 to 30 minutes, he will be able to return to his task with renewed vigor and attention. He has called this pattern the ultradian rhythm. Ideally, the flow of ego awareness seems to involve both sides of consciousness functioning as a team. Analytical consciousness predominates for about one and a half hours, then unitive consciousness takes the lead for 20 to 30 minutes, if the Ego is willing to relinquish its investment in analytical functioning.

During both ordinary wakefulness and sleep, the psyche’s natural inclination to move toward unitive dominance is often thwarted by the Ego’s heavy investment in maintaining control by clinging to the analytical style. Even during sleep, a strong Ego predisposition toward analytical consciousness seems to influence an individual’s dream life. According to Hunt (1988), 80% of dreams are what he calls realistic dreams. They are little more than random memories of recent events given an imposed order by analytical consciousness. Sometimes these realistic dreams are the springboard for the unfolding of unitive perceptions. Dreams influenced by unitive consciousness often contain extraordinarily potent metaphors and insights. These reflect a person’s inner needs, conflicts, somatic problems, external life concerns, and problem solving. It is also the channel through which personal spiritual realities are experienced as opposed to merely being known about or analyzed. All of these gifts of unitive consciousness are also available during ordinary wakefulness. The Ego has only to invite unitive dominance through meditation, trance, daydreams, or quiet restfulness.

The ideal is a combination of rigorous scientific thinking combined with sufficient humility and openness to accept the value of unitive knowing. Intuition and revelation can point the way and break new ground. Critical analysis can test its validity and be a very helpful tool for implementing information that is useful.

Some Eastern psychologies say that the External World is illusion. Therefore, logical analysis, which is primarily used for control and manipulation of the External World, is merely playing with language and illusion. Due to this attitude, millions of people have suffered needlessly, because they have never made serious attempts to develop their technology. Analytical thinking, and the technology which flows from it, could greatly improve the quality of life for these people.

The direct, experiential knowing that is typical of dreams and visions has no more claim on absolute truth than does scientific knowing. However, for communicating emotions and dealing with intrapersonal issues or interpersonal conflicts, it is a far more effective tool than verbal analysis.

Truth or reality is probably unknowable, no matter what type of thinking is used. When people claim that some fact is proven to be true, they are not discussing a reality but the relative accuracy of their hypotheses. A hypothesis is an approximation of reality, not reality. When more data is collected, new hypotheses can be developed that will become more precise and accurate. In other words, the logical, verbal constructs humans build of their Internal and External Worlds only approximate reality. The model they offer may become more and more accurate over time, but the two will never be identical. The symbol system and that which is symbolized will always be two separate things.

People who are true experts in analytical knowing readily acknowledge that they do not know anything for sure. This is known as scientific humility. The people who are only fairly good at analytical knowing think they know everything. They are very foolish because their certainties prevent them from coming closer to what is real by not allowing them to discard what are really only hypotheses.

There will always be mystery in human experience. The search for understanding, like the search for God, is an infinite process that leads to ever increasing levels of fulfillment, but never to completion.