Perspective: Transcendence and Wisdom

Transcendence does not merely take us out of this world. It brings us back wholly transformed. American astronaut Edgard Mitchell embarked on a journey to the moon as the pilot of Apollo 14 and landed on that moon February 5, 1971. He was the sixth person to walk upon it. He stayed there for 33 hours, then returned to his home planet, the blue Earth. He defied the gravity that binds us all to our little piece of rock roaming across the universe, cast aside its shackles, and physically surmounted our universal limitations. The Latin etymology of transcendence brings together the sense of “beyond” or “across” (trans) and “climbing” (scandere). On his return to Earth, Mitchell (2016) had a profound realization:

I … was on my way home and was observing the heavens and the earth from this distance, observing the passing of the heavens. As we were rotating, I saw the earth, the sun, the moon, and a 360-degree panorama of the heavens. The magnificence of all of this was this trigger in my visioning in the ancient Sanskrit that’s called samadhi. It means that you see things with your senses the way they are, but you experience them viscerally and internally as a unity and a oneness accompanied by ecstasy. All matter in our universe is created in star systems. And so, the matter in my body, and the matter in the spacecraft, and the matter in my partners’ bodies was the product of stars. We are stardust and we are all one in that sense. (0:44)

In 1973, Mitchell founded the Institute for Noetic Sciences, whose goal is to reveal the interconnected nature of reality through scientific exploration and personal discovery. The term noetic comes from the Greek root noētikos, the meaning of which relates to knowledge and the activity of the mind. Mitchell’s conception of the noetic takes into account William James’s (1902) idea that spiritual states are states of knowledge:

They are states of insight into depths of truth unplumbed by the discursive intellect. They are illuminations, revelations, full of significance and importance, all inarticulate though they remain; and as a rule they carry with them a curious sense of authority for after-time. (p. 371)

Transcendence leads to inner wisdom; that is, the discovery of a bedrock knowledge that cannot be expressed discursively but can be felt in sudden insights. Jung (1960) called this “absolute knowledge” (para. 931), a form of knowledge unbound to the ego, a knowledge that traverses the ego in transcendental experiences.

Transcendence, however, is not without dangers. It can be toxic and lead to spiraling into endless chaos when the ego identifies with it and then can’t find its way back to its individual limits. The puffed-up, inflated ego then experiences a one-sided feeling of righteousness that lacks any sense of deeper perspective. “My way is the only way” is the motto of the politicians Mitchell (1974) perhaps had in mind with a colorful description of the sense of global consciousness he expressed when he returned to earth:

You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics looks so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, “Look at that, you son of a bitch.” (para. 1)

Not everybody has had the chance to go to space and walk on the moon. Not every astronaut experienced samadhi when they did.

Transcendence comes in many forms. Psychedelics, for instance, like MDMA or psilocybin, may chemically induce transcendence. In his article, “The Therapeutic Use of Psychedelics Agents: An Overview,” Lionel Corbett (2023) reported on a woman who produced the following testimony under the influence of psilocybin:

Suddenly I became aware of a presence that was enormously powerful and nurturing. It/She reassured me that I could surrender to the experience. I had an odd sensation of separating from my body, and suddenly felt myself floating, exquisitely light and free. I seemed to exist as pure consciousness within brilliant light and felt blissful peace and joy. I became aware of two beings composed almost entirely of light. We discussed my path in life, significant events and their relevance to my life’s purpose. The deep wisdom and compassion of these beings helped me understand and accept several painful life events and feel forgiveness towards people who had hurt me. I felt relief and emotional healing. Next, they led me to a golden platform that ascended seven levels, like a stepped pyramid. At the top was a blaze of brilliant, diamond light, radiantly clear, sparkling with flashes of color. I was awed and sensed that this was a divine presence. The light coalesced into the form of a goddess with an Asian face. No words were exchanged, just unspeakable reverence and devotion on my part, and unfathomable love on hers. I knew her to be Guanyin. She smiled at me, then turned her gaze at what appeared to be the earth far below, surrounded by the darkness of space. As I looked at the planet, I saw countless drops of light, which I knew represented every living being on the earth. My heart opened as I experienced an incomparable love for all life, and the deepest compassion I have ever known. I felt unconditional love for all, including rapists and murderers, whom I loved with the sadness of one who sees their suffering. I knew them as lost souls who had forgotten their true nature, and I felt a deep desire to help guide each one towards their birthright. Looking at Guanyin, I realized that my experience was simply a reflection of her divine nature, shared with me at this moment (pp. 25–26).

This experience was important in the personal development of this woman who had been abused and shamed by her mother. Corbett (2023) added: “Guanyin is the archetype of a loving, compassionate, divine mother, of the kind that she did not have as a child” (p. 26). Her ascension to an elevated place where she met the divine mother and from which she could see the earth far below parallels Mitchell’s transformative journey. The seven levels remind one of the ascent through the seven planetary spheres of the alchemists, which, according to Jung (1970), “meant something like a shedding of the characterological qualities indicated by the horoscope” (para. 308). In pre-scientific times, the influence of the stars was as determinant as our modern heredity and neurophysiological constitution are today. These experiences are life-altering. As Jung characterized such a journey: “anyone who has passed through all the spheres is free from compulsion; he has won the crown of victory and become like a god” (para. 308). This indicates the psychic nature of transcendence that needs to be integrated into the earth-bound personality of the person who experienced it.

Transcendence may be experienced spontaneously. Starting with an uncontrollable laugh, life abruptly encroaches on the thin veil of our contemptuous attitudes. The ridiculous ranges from insignificant things—in which knowledge leads to the “wisdom of the small” (Gellert, 2007)—to the most elevated matters we tend to worship. I imagine the Austrian mathematician and logician Kurt Gödel had a good laugh upon completion of the logical demonstration of his incompleteness theorems. At the turn of the 20th century, mathematicians hoped that mathematics could be set into a complete formal system that mirrored the model of Euclid’s (2002) Elements. Thereafter, all possible theorems would be mechanically derived from a consistent finite set of axioms using logical laws of inference. Such was the dream of David Hilbert, one of the greatest mathematicians of all time. However, the young Austrian (he was only 25 at the time) pierced that bubble and proved that “any consistent formal system S within which a certain amount of elementary arithmetic can be carried out is incomplete with regards to statements of elementary arithmetic. There are such statements which can neither be proved, nor disproved in S” (Franzén, 2005, p. 17). In other words, he asserted that mathematical truth was not steadfastly provable within a formal system. An endless number of true arithmetical statements transcend any formal system. This sort of transcendence is certainly annoying for those who believe in a rational world based on a finite number of rules or laws. Gödel also proved that “for any consistent formal system within which a certain amount of elementary arithmetic can be carried out, the consistency of system S cannot be proved in S itself” (p. 34). What this means is that we cannot know whether a formal system is consistent if we consider only what is logically derivable from this system. We need transcendence—something outside of this system. It is even wisdom to accept rationality’s insufficiency. Rationality itself demands it.

Kurt Gödel immigrated to the United States prior to the beginning of World War II in 1939 and accepted a position at the Institute for Advanced Studies (IAS) in Princeton. He was close to Albert Einstein, who often sought his company. Economist Oskar Morgenstern, another friend of Gödel’s, said that in his later years Einstein did not much care about his research work, and he went to his office at IAS simply for the pleasure of walking back home with Gödel (Yourgau, 2005, p. 2). Gödel had many accomplishments under his belt, including a proof using Einstein’s general relativity’s equations that proclaimed how, under certain conditions, travel in space and time could lead us to the past! Einstein dismissed this solution to his equations, arguing that the conditions Gödel imagined were unrealistic. He had previously argued against the existence of black holes, but was proven wrong. The future will tell us whether time can possibly form a loop like a serpent biting its tail, as Gödel envisioned. As Einstein (1955) wrote to the family of his long-time friend Michele Besso after he passed away in 1955: “For people like us who believe in physics, the separation between past, present and future has only the importance of an admittedly tenacious illusion” (para. 6).

A sobering story around Gödel’s transcendental mind transpired when Gödel became an American citizen in 1947:

As witnesses for the ceremony he brought along Morgenstern and Einstein. He had already alarmed the former by confiding to him, in consternation, that he had discovered an “inconsistency” in the Constitution. Apprised by Morgenstern of the danger ahead, Einstein took it upon himself to distract his friend on the way to the swearing in, entertaining him with worn-out jokes and twice-told anecdotes. … The strategy proved unsuccessful. When judge Philip Forman, who only a few years earlier had ushered Einstein himself into the land of liberty, asked Gödel casually, “Do you think a dictatorship like that in Germany could ever arise in the United States?” he received a spirited reply in the affirmative. Gödel launched into an account of how the United States Constitution formally permitted just such a regime to arise. Shrewdly, however, the judge cut off the great logician before he could hit full stride, and the ceremony came to a peaceful conclusion, leaving Gödel’s new homeland to fend for itself against the opening he had discerned in its founding principles. Years later, asked for a legal analogy for his incompleteness theorem, he would comment that a country that depended entirely upon the formal letter of its laws might well find itself defenseless against a crisis that had not, and could not, have been foreseen in its legal code. The analogue of his incompleteness theorem, applied to the law, would guarantee that for any legal code, even if intended to be fully explicit and complete, there would always be judgments “undecided” by the letter of the law. (Yourgau, 2005, pp. 98–99)

Sticking to the letter of the law only leads to conflicts between opposite positions. Their final resolution necessitates an irrational step that provides a transcendental perspective illuminating of the whole situation. The law always needs new interpretations.

When Gödel speaks of a “certain amount of arithmetic” in his incompleteness theorem, he means the entire series of whole numbers and its operations (addition, multiplication, etc.) are part of this formal system. In other words, this system is open to the infinite. Being open to the infinite means being open to transcendence. In Memories, Dreams, Reflections, Jung (1989) spoke beautifully about a life related to transcendence:

The decisive question for man is: Is he related to something infinite or not? That is the telling question of his life. Only if we know that the thing which truly matters is the infinite can we avoid fixing our interest upon futilities, and upon all kinds of goals which are not of real importance. … In the final analysis, we count for something only because of the essential we embody, and if we do not embody that, life is wasted. … The feeling for the infinite, however, can be attained only if we are bounded to the utmost. The greatest limitation for man is the “self”; it is manifested in the experience: “I am only that!” Only consciousness of our narrow confinement in the self forms the link to the limitlessness of the unconscious. In such awareness we experience ourselves concurrently as limited and eternal, as both the one and the other. In knowing ourselves to be unique in our personal combination—that is, ultimately limited—we possess also the capacity for becoming conscious of the infinite. But only then! (pp. 380–382)

Paradoxically, we need something “other” in us, a transcendent perspective, in order to know. The unconscious is a dark unknown, open to infinity like the cosmos surrounding the earth. We are wise when we recognize the frailty and limits of individual consciousness, as well as the confines of this tiny blue orb in the heavens that is our only home. Both are insignificant yet meaningful. We are only that!

In this issue of Psychological Perspectives, various connections between transcendence and wisdom are explored. In “Transcendence and its Shadow: A Depth Psychological Inquiry into Transcendence, the Transcendent Function, and Spiritual Bypassing,” Maura Toussignant studies the relationship between the experience of transcendence and the transcendent function in depth psychology. In particular, she illuminates the dangers of spiritual bypassing; that is, the non-integration of the experience of transcendence, providing the perspectives of several depth psychotherapists.

“Wonder and Wisdom: Wandering through Space and Time” embarks us on a discovery journey of the Western wisdom traditions from Greek antiquity to modern depth psychology. Our guide, Bessie Karras Katsilometes, wanders around in a circuitous path of wonders to help us integrate ancient ways with modern practices. The survival of our planet may well depend on learning about our past.

Thomas Elsner then expounds on an unsuspected form of wisdom in “The Wisdom of Not Knowing: Psychotherapy and Life.” “Not knowing” appears to be the opposite of wisdom, since wisdom is traditionally associated with knowledge. However, remaining in uncertainty and doubt also keeps us open to imagination and the unknown. As Elsner shows, a venerable tradition centers on the wisdom of not knowing, which continues in modern days with the psychology of the unconscious and conscious work on dreams. Elsner also describes some of the collective aspects of this wisdom occurring in modern politics.

In the essay “In Dreams I Am a Person of Color,” Naomi Ruth Lowinsky spells out in her inimitable style the role that spectral and ancestral presences play in her dreams and poetry. “Poems are story tellers from the other worlds,” she writes, “weavers of the mysteries, knowers of the unknown, seers of the unseen.” They tell us of the transcendent, which, in her soul, connect her Jewish roots to kindred Black spirits.

Evans Lansing Smith offers us an extraordinary account of Leonora Carrington’s descent to the underworld in “Leonora Carrington: Alchemy, the Underworld, and the Goddess.” It is rare to find in literature a feminine nekya,¹ and Carrington’s psychotic breakdown reveals profound connections to alchemical and mythological imagery as carefully detailed and studied by our author.

“Barn and Badger” tells a delightful nonfiction story of a family’s alpine land in Switzerland and its barn that needed restoration. First a source of discord, the barn ultimately brings the family together.

In “Crossing the Rivers of the Tartarus: The Grief Process among Combat-Related PTSD Patients,” David Potik provides a depth psychological conceptualization of trauma-focused treatment for patients with combat-related PTSD, focusing on the final step of this treatment, which involves a grief process and a journey of recovery. Potik illustrates this step with mythological imagery and clinical vignettes.

Finally, we round out this issue on transcendence and wisdom with the poetry of our featured poet, Teresa Williams, introduced in an essay by Naomi Ruth Lowinsksy, followed with a poem by Miles Beller, a book review of Donna Glee Williams’ The Night Field by John Valenzuella, and a film review of Legend of the Fall by Arlene Tepaske Landau.

On the cover: Mark Steven Greenfield, Collateral (detail), 2020. Gold leaf and acrylic on wood panel, 30 × 56 in. Courtesy of the artist and William Turner Gallery. On the back cover: Hilma af Klint, Altarpiece No. 1, Group X, 1915. Paper, tempera, 72.83 × 59.84 in. Courtesy of the Hilma af Klint Foundation, Stockholm.

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Notes on contributors

Christophe Le Mouël

Christophe Le Mouël, PhD, is executive director of the C. G. Jung Institute of Los Angeles and co-chief editor of Psychological Perspectives.

Notes

1 In ancient Greek cult-practice and literature, a nekya is a rite by which ghosts were called up and questioned about the future.