Redeeming Christ, Part I, Chapter 2: The Perplexing Power of Paradigms

In light of this community’s interest in philosophical, religious and historical topics, I’ve decided to serialize and publish here a book that I've been writing for some time. Below is Chapter 2.  Please be sure you’ve read the Indispensable Introduction and Chapter 1 before proceeding.   

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So often times it happens that we live our lives in chains, And we never even know we have the key.  --The Eagles

The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window, or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work, when you go to church, when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes, to blind you from the truth…that you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else, you were born into bondage, born into a prison that you cannot smell or taste or touch. A prison for your mind.  --Morpheus, The Matrix

For now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face.  --The Apostle Paul

Man's task is to become conscious of the contents that press upward from the unconscious.  --Carl Jung

When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate.  --Carl Jung

Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.  --Frank Outlaw

Fittingly, the word “paradigm” is Greek in origin. It is used today in scientific circles to mean a model, or theory or frame of reference. However, for purposes of this book, the word “paradigm” refers figuratively to the lens or matrix through which we “see” the world, albeit "darkly". By "lens" and "matrix", I mean all of the unconscious history, knowledge, biases, attitudes and beliefs which filter reality and cause our subjective minds to interpret it in highly individualized ways. 

The concept of a simple paradigm can be illustrated by contemplating this image.

(Image source:  Wikipedia)

Some people’s paradigms will cause their minds to unconsciously focus on the negative space (the white space), and they will see a vase or chalice. Other’s will unconsciously focus on the positive space (the black space), and they will see two faces in profile examining each other. But...which interpretation is correct?

Neither, either or both. The diagram is just ink on a piece of paper. It's only our individual backgrounds, experiences, mental habits and biases (i.e., our paradigms) that cause our minds to effortlessly and unconsciously interpret the lines as either a vase or faces, or perhaps even something else. We don’t have to work at it.  We don’t have to think about it.  It just happens. In most cases, we are completely unaware of the process.  Because we are so unaware of the effects of these paradigms upon our day to day lives--of how they cause us to interpret or even distort "reality"--they can be, almost literally, a "prison for our minds".  

The Perplexing Power of Paradigms 

Some years ago I had a series of experiences that awakened me to the influence of paradigms over my life: In college I came across a translation of a book originally written in the Far East. The book explained how various inanimate objects emit different types and levels of undetectable energy, called “chi”. It went on to explain that the nature of an object’s chi varies depending upon its shape, color, composition, and other factors. It further described how some shape and color combinations emit a soothing energy, others a frenetic energy, and it even went on to suggest that the energy emitted by some objects can be so negative as to adversely impact one’s health!

Reading this document through my Western eyes, the idea that inanimate objects somehow emit mystical chi energy that influences the world seemed silly. I arrogantly dismissed the document as unscientific nonsense from an ancient, superstitious era. 

Sometime months later, I casually mentioned the document and my reaction to a friend. She told me that it was quite common in Asia even today to believe that objects emit energy that influences us. This is, I was told, the very basis behind the common Chinese practice of Feng Shui (which has become popular in the West in recent years). She asked why I had dismissed the concept out of hand. I replied, “You don’t seriously believe there’s anything to that superstitious nonsense, do you?” She responded by asking if I thought that several thousand years of Asian culture was nonsense. My only reply was, rather embarrassingly now, “it sure sounds like it to me.”

Sometime later I attended an undergraduate level psychology class. One day the professor gave a lecture in which he mentioned numerous studies performed on the human psyche’s reaction to different colors, shapes, etc. This has lead to field of color psychology. 

Studies in color psychology have demonstrated, for example, that it is more difficult to stop a person’s bleeding if he or she is treated in a red room verses a room with more soothing colors. Similar studies have confirmed that certain colors stimulate our appetite, while others are known to suppress it. Finally, others have indicated that our immune systems react to certain shades of green in adverse ways, while responding positively to other colors. 

Because the psychology lecture was presented using the words of the “Western” paradigm that had unconsciously shaped my worldview—that is, because the professor explained how our psyches react to certain colors, rather than how colors act upon us, I didn’t think twice about his conclusions. They seemed perfectly rational. 

It was not until many years later that the obvious finally dawned on me:  As a practical matter, there is no difference between the Western view that we react to certain colors and shapes in predictable ways, and the Eastern view that certain colors and shapes emit or reflect energy (light?) that acts upon us in similarly predictable ways. Both models, or paradigms, adequately describe the same phenomenon, the same reality, for all practical purposes. For years, my absolute immersion in the Western paradigm prevented me from seeing this now obvious fact. 

Through a Glass Darkly...

Through the exercise of awareness and will, simple, harmless paradigms can usually be placed under our conscious control. For instance, in viewing the vases/faces image linked above, most of us have no problem “shifting our paradigm”, or changing our perspective at will, to see either a vase or faces. 

But, as my story above illustrates, we are almost always unaware of the most powerful paradigms, those that most influence our worldview. And it is our ignorance of them that gives them their power.   As the eminent psychologist Carl Jung recognized in Man and His Symbols:

[Contemporary Man] is blind to the fact that, with all his rationality and efficiency, he is possessed by “powers” that are beyond his control. His gods and demons have not disappeared at all; they have merely got new names. They keep him on the run with restlessness, vague apprehensions, psychological complications, an insatiable need for pills, alcohol, tobacco, food—and above all, a large array of neoroses.

"Gods and demons".  What an apt descriptions of the power of these paradigms.

Each of us believes that we see the world as it is—that is, that we are objective. But psychologists have demonstrated beyond any doubt that we see the world not as it is, but as we are. Said another way, we see the world as our egos, regulated by our unconscious paradigms, are conditioned to perceive it. 

...But Then Face to Face

To the extent we continue to remain unaware of our paradigms, we don’t live in reality and we are not free to follow our true will. Rather, we exist in a make-believe world of our mind's own creation. We make decisions on autopilot as dictated by our paradigms. Said poetically, we “live our lives in chains”, directed by “powers beyond our control” that appear from our subjective perspective to dictate our fate. As Morpheus noted, until we recognize that we are “born” into a “prison for our minds” which we “cannot smell or taste or touch”, we are blinded to the “truth” that we are “slaves”. (The observant reader may begin to recognize how this understanding that we are born into bondage is both very similar to, and yet completely different from, the Literalist Christian teaching of “original sin”.)

It follows from the above that we can perceive truth with greater clarity if we bring our unconscious paradigms to light.  Simple recognition of their existence decreases their distortion substantially. Hence, the more conscious we become of our hidden paradigms, the freer we become. 

Consciousness is therefore the key. Consciousness is truth. Consciousness is life. Consciousness is the way. Consciousness is freedom. It is not by accident that Lady Liberty, the United States' symbol of freedom, holds a light, the universal symbol of consciousness, over her head. 

As You Read, Notice Your Feelings!

But how do we become conscious of unconscious paradigms? Fortunately, one of the most effective methods is also one of the easiest, and it doesn’t require the assistance of others. It involves simply recognizing our emotions and considering their source. Anytime we experience significant emotions we can know that unconscious paradigms are implicated. Emotions are really nothing more than the physical manifestation of unconscious thoughts, ideas, attitudes, and biases.  By noticing and analyzing them, our paradigms slowly but surely surface into consciousness. 

As previously stated, the balance of this book will challenge the most fundamental paradigm of Literalist Christianity--that of historicity. As a result, it’s sure to cause an avalanche of feelings and emotions in many who read it. To the extent this may happen, I hope the reader will understand it’s not me or the words in this book that cause the feelings, but rather the reader’s own unconscious beliefs, assumptions, and biases (i.e., the paradigms) that are triggered by my words. 

The powerful emotions that result from implicated paradigms should not be resisted or ignored. Rather, they should be recognized and fully experienced. By experiencing these feelings rather than suppressing them, and by meditating upon their cause, much information previously hidden will be brought to consciousness where it can be analyzed in the light of the facts described herein and otherwise known to the reader. 

After subjecting a given paradigm to this scrutiny, the reader is free to retain those that prove valid and useful in light known facts.   However, every rational person must be prepared to sacrifice any that don’t, no matter how sacred the cow. Once brought to light, no sane, intellectually honest person is free to retain a paradigm that is inconsistent with reality. As Sam Harris has noted: 

We have names for people who have many beliefs for which there is no rational justification. When their beliefs are extremely common we call them “religious”; otherwise, they are likely to be called “mad,” “psychotic,” or “delusional.” (Sam Harris, The End of Faith, at 72)

If the reader is prepared to “seek the truth, come whence it may, cost what it will”, then proceed. But understand in advance that truth costs dearly. And understand further that: 

This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes. (Morpheus, The Matrix)

If the reader is prepared to proceed down the rabbit-hole, it’s time to ponder how a single unconscious paradigm, the paradigm of historicity, has shaped our understanding of the Bible, of Christianity, and of our world for the last 1600 years.

(More to come in Chapter 3)