Soul to Spirit: The New Spiritual Psychology

This post continues the discussion of Bailey’s Group Six who are the “cream of humanity” and becoming Integrated Personalities. The post continues to look at the typical mindset of this mostly selfish group who it is said will dominate our planet in the coming centuries. The post also talks about the Egoic Lotus petal association with this group, the use of the Technique of Integration, and the associations with Integral Amber Expert and Orange. Finally, we learn why it is so important to understand what the stage is like and how to work with it so it does not become too detrimental. 

NOTE: This book is now in the process of being edited. Once it is completely edited it will no longer be free online. As of 3/21/20 this chapter has not been edited. 

Emphasis on the Individual

As Group Five members move into Group Six, they also switch from those who enforce the rules to those who start to create them. For some it must mean a crisis in conscience. Take religion for example and the crisis of discovering that the Holy Books you invested so much of your emotional energy in, and even chastised others for not having followed carefully enough, have been all been altered or even entirely made up? What happens to your mortal soul, if suddenly you discover that those above you who you trusted and believed in, (the Group Six “Gods”), are entirely corrupt, full of hypocrisy, and breaking many (or most) of the rules you so carefully followed and made others adhere to? The crises and confusion at first must be very difficult to handle. What do you do? Self-destruct during this existential crisis? Or, transform perhaps by going through a period of secularism, agnosticism, or even atheism as you try to cope with all this “relativism.” For some in the past decades there has been one solution. Replace your old God, with a new Goddess to help you  on your journey — Ayn Rand. You see whether many people know it or not she is an intellectual whose ideas are greatly influencing many people in power today. Also, think of Rand’s book The Fountainhead, which in many ways is the Group Six new “Bible.”

For starters, the main characters in Rand’s The Fountainhead is Howard Roark who we would say begins his life in Group Five. At first afraid to let go of the rules and norms of the society he is part of, Roark breaks free of them. He is then able to shift his life out poverty into one of wealth. By rejecting the societal norms around him, Roak becomes free to think his own thoughts, determine his own path, and live by his own rules and code of ethics. This allows Roark to become a self-made man who achieves a great deal of financial and creative success. To use Maslow’s words Roark becomes Self-Actualized. To use Alice Bailey’s words, Roark becomes an Integrated Personality. What to me is most remarkable about The Fountainhead is how Roark handles the anxieties many Group Five people face when they break society’s rules. In short, Roark decides it is only “logical” and “reasonable” to do so.

Roark’s logic, turned into a philosophical system by Ayn Rand known as Objectivism, is not very logical, however, from a spiritual perspective. The problem with Objectivism is that it ignores the deeper spiritual realities of our interdependence with everyone and everything on this planet. Integrated Personalities see  the notion of interdependence like some Group Five fictional religious storyline that is used to prevent people from being all they want to be and getting all their wishes fulfilled. Yes, logically even Group Six members can look at the picture of planet Earth and realize how all human beings live within it. But, that doesn’t mean they understand the inner connection and interdependence this picture implies is there as wll. They are too materialistic and separative to see it. That is why they also glorify books like The Selfish Gene (written by famous atheist Richard Dawkins), that says humans are programmed to be selfish so just get used to it.

Greed is Good, Altruism is Evil

And, here is where things really get flipped on their head from where we have Group Five, trying to do good deeds and live according to the rules that the various groups you are in (religious, political, social) dictates — to a new philosophy that states “greed is good.” So go ahead! Get all the money you need, have all your desires fulfilled, break all the rules you want. It’s good for you. In fact, as Rand’s The Fountainhead book illustrates, good deads and “altruism” are actually the real “evils.” How could this be? For starters Rand encourages her readers to take off the (Group Four and Group Five) rose colored glasses and see things for the first time the way things really are — to see things “objectively.” Look closely and you will see Group Four and Group Five people have been manipulated for centuries to become “do-gooders” by following fictious belief systems and rules made up for millenia by the powerful who want to keep them surpressed and under control. Otherwise you will suffer the fate of another of Rand’s characters in The Fountainhead, Ellsworth Toohey.

Toohey is one of those people, the weak kind, who is busy encouraging selflessness and altruism in regards to others. Though he seems all “goodness and light” and pretends to be all selfless and kind (like the Dalai Lama who espouses “my religion is kindness”), what Rand reveals through the character of Toohey, is none of these “goody two shoes” people can really be trusted. Under the pretense of spiritual altruism and compassion these so-called spiritual leaders are really just phonies who are only trying to manipulate the “sheeples” (to use Rand’s word) who are taught to go against their best interests by handing over their money, labor, and even their lives for fictional spiritual pipe dreams. How stupid of them. That is why Rand condemns compassion and sentimentality, because in her view they only make the mind weak and compromise people’s individualism. Witness all those poor nuns, monks, and priests who end up living simple lives going around with begging bowls even — barely surviving — while Gurus, Lamas and Popes live in palaces, travel the world wherever they want, and essentially live like rock stars.

Don’t Care What Others Think

Then there is Rand’s character Dominique Francon, an idealist, who as a Group Five person first despises Roark and follows Toohey. Finally, she wakes up and starts to exercise her mind enough to objectively see what is going on around her and how Toohey and his altruism are really only holding people down. Dominique wakes up and is at last able to claim her own independence and find true happiness by refusing to care anymore about “respect” and her “reputation.” She learns to “grow up” and no longer give a damn anymore what other people think. After all “what you think about me is none of my damn business.” So just tell people who don’t like you or understand you to “F-off.” That is what Roark does who has become so insensitive to other’s opinions of him, he almost glorifies his capacity to be selfish, rude, and obnoxious to others. Following Roark’s lead, Dominique likewise becomes insensitive and pursues a scandalous (by Group Five standards) relationship with Roark despite the considerable negative public opinion she faces.

Dominique reminds me of the real life stars who were alive when Ayn Rand was such as Elizabeth Taylor and Ingrid Bergman. Elizabeth Taylor, the beautiful and beloved child star, grew up to upset quite a few of fans with her numerous affairs. An especially the affair was with then married man Eddie Fisher. At the time Fisher was married to the equally famous star Debbie Reynolds. From then on Taylor became known as a “man stealer” (in the eyes of Group Four and Five types). Not caring about what her public thought, Taylor defiantly embraced her man stealer role going after another married man — Richard Burton — her co-star in the blockbuster film Cleopatra. Then there was Ingrid Bergman, the beloved beauty of the timeless film Casablanca, who had even played the role of a nun in the Bells of St. Mary’s. When Bergman got involved with the married director Roberto Rossellini, and later married him after his divorce, the mostly Group Four and Group Five public couldn’t accept it. Bergman’s was exiled to live in disgrace with her Rossellini in Europe where for a long time her acting career stalled. At the time the public must have thought, “It was one thing for a vamp and “man-stealer” like Elizabeth Taylor to do such a thing. How  could Bergman, one of our sweet little nuns had done something similar?

What is intriguing is comparing Rand’s philosophy with Bailey’s writings on how we are supposedly in the process of seeing the emergence of Group Six (associated with the Aryan race and Integrated Personalities). Rand’s Objectivism philosophy almost seems custom made to coincide with Group Six’s rise. But, more significant is how Rand, in her book The Fountainhead, helped give those in Group Five a pathway to cross over into Group Six with greater ease. Rand showed Group Five people how to let go of their repressed guilt and cognitive dissonance. She showed them it was not only acceptable to drop the religious and societal rules they had once adhered to so ferociously, it was courageous of them. Rand gave Group Five members a mythos, or story, of how to Self-Actualize so they could become individuals and live more freely at the Group Six level. After all what other choices did Group Five members really have? Should they just commit suicide like Javier did in the Les Miserable story because the cognitive dissonance got the better of him? That doesn’t seem like much of a choice. Better to not give a damn what other people think, give them the finger, and live like the Gods or Goddesses you were meant to be. For those shifting from Group Five to Group Six both in Rand’s time and our time as well, the choice was clear. The rope was  too painful. The finger? Much simpler.

Honor Your Own Self Interests

Though Group Six members at this level like to pretend that they are totally self-directed and live by their own rules they are not totally being honest. They do tend to gravitate to certain philosophical ideas that influence how they think and are in alignment with their selfish tendencies. I mentioned one example of this previously in Chapter Nine when I spoke of the book The Selfish Gene written by famous atheist and former Oxford professor Richard Dawkins. When I attended a major public university, even though my major was totally unrelated to biology, we were all required to take a class where we had to read Dawkins book. Though I was only 18 at the time I first read it, I have kept the book because I wanted to look back over the years and re-read all the notes I had scribbled in the margins arguing how off base I felt Dawkins writings were. I bring up Dawkins because just like the writings of Ayn Rand, these two people were part of the Group Six playbook trying to influence my early education (in high school and university). Whether people are aware of it or not, a lot of our universities, business and financial institutions, our entertainment industry and governments live by a new set of rules (much as Group Five does), whether they choose to admit that they do or not. So what are some of the new guidelines for living? Consider the following quotes:

Quotes from Ayn Rand.

1. “Man—every man—is an end in himself, not a means to the ends of others; he must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself; he must work for his rational self-interest, with the achievement of his own happiness as the highest moral purpose of his life.”
2. “The worst evil that you can do, psychologically, is to laugh at yourself. That means spitting in your own face.”
3. “The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.”
4. “Achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life, and that happiness, not pain or mindless self-indulgence, is the proof of your moral integrity, since it is the proof and the result of your loyalty to the achievement of your values.”
5. “If any civilization is to survive, it is the morality of altruism that men have to reject.”
6. “Every man builds his world in his own image. He has the power to choose, but no power to escape the necessity of choice.”
7. “Do you know that my personal crusade in life (in the philosophical sense) is not merely to fight collectivism, nor to fight altruism? These are only consequences, effects, not causes. I am out after the real cause, the real root of evil on earth — the irrational.”
8. “I am not primarily an advocate of capitalism, but of egoism; and I am not primarily an advocate of egoism, but of reason. If one recognizes the supremacy of reason and applies it consistently, all the rest follows.”
9. “What is greatness? I will answer: it is the capacity to live by the three fundamental values of John Galt: reason, purpose, self-esteem.”
10. “I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”

    

11. “To say ‘I love you’ one must first be able to say the ‘I.’”
12. “Wealth is the product of man’s capacity to think.”
13. “Man’s unique reward, however, is that while animals survive by adjusting themselves to their background, man survives by adjusting his background to himself.”
14. “Ask yourself whether the dream of heaven and greatness should be waiting for us in our graves – or whether it should be ours here and now and on this earth.”

These quotes highlight the way Group Six people strive to live (until they get to the Aspirant level). What I am trying to reveal here, is not whether it is a right or wrong way to live your life. No matter what our initial reaction to Rand’s quotes might be, we need to remember that Group Six represents the next step in our evolution. They are the first group to develop a larger measure of mind. (Note: We will explore more what mind is when we get to the chapter that introduces the Mental Plane). There is value in being able to think with more of a critical mind. The problem as I see it, is that this “mind” that Group Six Integrated Personalities possess, is still kāma-manasic. Their minds are still orientated towards kāma, or desire. They just are better able than most to have most of their money, pleasure, power desires fulfilled. Eventually they will learn through the fulfillment of those desires that philosophies like Rand’s are not all they are cracked up to be. (Note: Bailey, who believes in reincarnation, asserts that people spend 3 — 11 lifetimes in this stage before they move on and become Aspirants. See Esoteric Psychology, Vol. II, p. 16). Which, brings me to the next section on “illogical logic” below.

Illogical Logic

Ironically, despite all her efforts to promote happiness, especially at the expense of others, Ayn Rand herself ended her life depressed, bitter and mostly alone. She especially felt wounded by Nathaniel Branden, her real life much younger lover, who seemed to her to be much like her character of Howard Roark in The Fountainhead, and who was the direct inspiration for her next book Atlas Shrugged. Though Rand advocated being selfish and doing what you pleased, she was livid when she discovered that Branden had not only had an affair on Rand, but even went so far as to marry another woman much closer to his age behind Ayn Rand’s back in secret. Wikipedia states that, “Rand published an article in The Objectivist repudiating Nathaniel Branden for dishonesty and other ‘irrational behavior in his private life’. Branden later apologized in an interview to ‘every student of Objectivism’ for ‘perpetuating the Ayn Rand mystique’ and for ‘contributing to that dreadful atmosphere of intellectual repressiveness that pervades the Objectivist movement’.”

Branden later went on to write a number of best-selling books on Self-Esteem and even later became part of the Integral movement. (I heartily recommend the audio series, Atlas Evolved: The Life and Loves of Nathaniel Branden found through Integral Life). As for Ayn Rand? She died mostly bereft, having never quite recovered from the “betrayal” by Brandon, who tried to remain kind to her till the end of her life despite her poor treatment of him. Ironically, Brandon had ony done what Rand had taught all along when he exercised the courage and will to live the life he wanted. For me, Rand’s emotional reaction proves that despite how Group Six integrated Personality people profess to live according to “logic and reason,” they often do not mainly because so much of their “logic” is flawed. Is it really a form of “logic and reason” to only get along with people who come to the same “logical” conclusions that you do? Is it really “logical” for all human beings to live on a planet where everyone is living according to a selfish agenda to fulfill only their own needs and desires? Is it “logical” and “reasonable” to belittle, ridicule and revenge upon anyone who disagrees with you or obstructs your selfish agenda? How ironic that Rand, who promoted Objectivism, didn’t have the “objective” capacity to look at her own emotional reaction to Brandon wanting another woman than her. Instead, of seeing that it might be logical and reasonable for a man substantially younger than her to want another woman closer to his age (or to want another woman period as many men do), Rand turned into the stereotypical vindictive and highly emotional scorned woman. She even acted as a Group Five rule enforcer attempting to ostracize Brandon. (In fact, Rand may have dropped under stress back to the Group Five level).

Rand’s “illogical” logic to me is characteristic of those who still reside on the Emotional Plane, which is why I have put Group Six people here. Instead of mastering their emotions, they are simply using their “logic and reason” to manipulate their emotions in a way to justify their selfish desires and behaviors. Having said this there is a “reason” both The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged remain some of the most popular books in the world. Rand gave voice and purpose to the Group Six thrust of human evolution. At the same time as more Aryan and Group Six types emerge, I just hope that these “Masters of the Universe” won’t cause too much destruction before they “fountain” their way up even further on the evolutionary scale.

Go to Part One

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