|  | 
ISL�s Ritual Process, the Human Brain and Transformation
By Ruth E. Snyder
What is it about ritual process that has such a profound transformational effect? Is it merely the process or is it what happens within the process?
After all, attending a seminary may be seen as ritual process in that it has elements of the phases of separation, liminality, and re-incorporation, as well as hoped-for transformation at the end. But, at least in my experience, there is a significant difference between attending traditional seminary programs and a program like that offered by the Institute for Spiritual Leadership (ISL). What makes the ISL experience different? I believe Victor Turner�s insights and explorations into the link between ritual process and the structure of the human brain can be helpful in understanding this difference.
When Turner observed ritual among the Ndembu tribe of Africa, there were many elements involved in the process and much symbolism. According to Turner, �almost every article used, every gesture employed, every song or prayer, every unit of space and time, by convention stands for something other than itself. It is more than it seems, and often a good deal more. The Ndembu are aware of the expressive or symbolic function of ritual elements� Turner, Victor.1969. The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. (New York: Aldine de Gruyter), p. 15.
What became clear to me recently as I studied the rituals observed by Turner is that they were designed to affect the whole person. Rituals of the Ndembu tribe involved special clothing, unique foods or medicines, sacred space, special songs and prayers, and the participation by others, just to name some of the elements. In other words, a person�s entire being is involved and affected by the process; I believe this is what accounts for transformation.
ISL�s Inclusive Approach
This is true also of ISL and the spiritual direction experience. Bodywork Opportunities for stretching, relaxing, dancing, etc., Enneamotion A technique for learning about the Enneagram by enacting it in your body., and focusing are designed to help a participant learn to listen to the wisdom and memories that the body holds. Active imagination and dream work encourage one to listen to the unconscious mind. Gestalt techniques engage the body and emotions in active and revealing ways. ISL classes focus on experiencing symbols, developing a contemplative attitude, and exploring psychological, theological, and spiritual processes of transformation. Classes involve both academic and experiential learning. In other words, the ISL experience as well as spiritual direction as ritual process is designed to affect the whole person.
Shortly before Victor Turner died, he wrote an essay entitled, �Body, Brain, and Culture,� which I believe provides further insight into the transformational qualities of ritual process. Drawing from Paul MacLean�s brain research describing three parts of the brain, as well as research on the effects of stimulation to both the left and right cerebral hemispheres of the brain, Turner began to wonder how neurobiology might be impacting ritual process and religious experience. He raises some very interesting questions when he asks:
Here we could profitably compare Eastern and Western religions and their variations. Can some be described as emphasizing in their cosmologies, theologies, rituals, meditative techniques, pilgrimages, and so on, right-hemispherical properties or left-hemispherical dominance? Do some emphasize rituals while others stress modes of meditation and contemplation as their central processes of worship? Again how does this picture fit with descriptions of the varieties of religious experience that have been noted by William James and his successors? Would it be a fruitful enterprise to foster experimental work on the varied genetic and experiential structurings of human brains which might throw light on aspects of religious experience and motivation? Ibid., p. 171.
Here, in the early 1980�s, Turner was asking the questions that scientists have been exploring ever since. In fact, I now believe that the various religious experiences described by William James and others, as well as the variations of Eastern and Western religions, can be attributed to the interaction of various parts of the brain. It is my contention that the ISL process and ISL spiritual direction is transformative because it impacts a number of different parts of the brain.
The Triune Brain
To understand this process more fully requires a brief introduction to the brain�s structure, as scientists today are coming to understand it. During the 1950�s, `60�s, and `70�s, neurophysiologist, Paul D. MacLean, after extensive research comparing human brains with the brains of other creatures, determined that the human brain is evolutionary in nature and is more accurately described as three-brains-in-one, which he came to call the triune brain. McLean labeled the three parts the reptilian, the paleomammalian, and the neomammalian.
Essentially, the �whole� of the brain is greater than the sum of its parts. McLean explains that this is because �with the exchange of information among the three formations each derives a greater amount of information than if it were operating alone. Stated in popular terms, the amalgamation amounts to three interconnected biological computers, with each inferred to have its own special intelligence, its own subjectivity, its own sense of time and space, and its own memory, motor, and other functions.� MacLean, Paul D., �Evolution of Three Mentalities�, Brain, Culture, & the Human Spirit: Essays from an Emergent Evolutionary Perspective, Ashbrook, James B. ed. (Maryland: University Press of America, Inc., 1993), p. 24.
The earliest-formed reptilian brain is essentially responsible for life support and self-protection. This part of the brain includes the brain stem that connects the brain to the spinal cord and maintains the body by regulating breathing, heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature, and digestion. Newberg, Andrew and D�Aquili, Eugene, Why God Won�t Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief, (New York: Ballantine Books, 2001, p. 38. The remainder of the reptilian brain is concerned with gathering or hunting for food, making a home, forming social groups, grooming, mating, and the responses of fight, flight, or freeze. Ashbrook, James B. and Albright, Carol Rausch, The Humanizing Brain: Where Religion and Neuroscience Meet, (Cleveland: The Pilgrim Press, 1997), p. 56.
It seems to me that the ISL experiences and spiritual direction approaches that invite people to notice their body, pay attention to their breathing, and note fight or flight reactions to people or situations touches into this part of the human brain.
The paleomammalian, limbic system, or emotional mind is the next developed part of the brain. Essentially, this part of the brain is responsible for the emotional labeling of information (i.e. pain or pleasurable) related to eating, mating, and fighting for food or mates. This part of the brain also is concerned with relating to others and is responsible for nurturing, teaching, and playing in community. Ashbrook & Albright, 1997, p. 73.
Lastly, the emotional brain helps to determine what memory retains, particularly working memory which deals with the immediate past and autobiographical memory which provides a life story Ibid., p. 90.. According to MacLean, this part of the brain �provides the avenues to the basic personality�. MacLean, 1993, p. 34.
Feelings are a major focus within the ISL programs. Individuals are encouraged to notice, name, and be present to their feelings in a gentle, caring way, so as to allow the feelings to share their wisdom and become healed. Rather than repress feelings, participants are encouraged to attend to them. I believe this is essential for healing transformation.
Soon after I came to ISL, I recall a staff member saying, �It�s one thing to talk about your feelings, it�s a whole other matter to actually feel them.� It was an enlightening moment for me. I knew I had been �caught,� so to speak. Over the years in pastoral care and counseling courses, CPE, continuing education workshops, and even counseling, I had learned about feelings and knew, rather well, how to talk about them; but that day I became aware that, inside, I worked very hard to keep from feeling them. The possibility of actually allowing myself to feel my feelings and attend to them in a gentle way was revolutionary. Yet, I have discovered, it is through that very process that healing comes. I am convinced that this type of inner work is powerful and healing because it touches into this emotional brain.
Since emotional memory is retained in the limbic system, I also believe it is this part of the brain that is affected by inner child work. We touch into this middle brain when we are able to recall, feel, and dialog with those parts of ourselves that are very young.
Right and Left Brain
Lastly, there is the neomammalian brain or neocortex. This part of the brain is responsible for speech, symbolic language, reading, writing, and arithmetic. �Mother of invention and father of abstract thought, the new (neo) cortex promotes the preservation and procreation of ideas. As opposed to the limbic cortex, the sensory systems projecting to the neocortex are primarily those giving information about the external environment�namely, the visual, auditory, and somatic systems. It therefore seems that the neocortex is primarily oriented toward the outside world.� Ibid., p. 34.\ This part of the brain is often considered to be the rational or thinking brain.
The neocortex is divided into two halves labeled the right and left hemispheres. �The classic understanding is that the left hemisphere is more analytically inclined and is recognized as the center of verbal language and mathematical processes. The right hemisphere works in a more abstract, holistic way, as a center of nonverbal thought, visual-spatial perceptions, and the perception, modulation, and expression of emotions.� Newberg & D�Aquili, p. 21.
When we interpret a dream, �ground an image in the present,� make meaning out of our life story, share our reflections with another, make a plan of action, discern our future and shed tears, we are working from the neocortex.
MacLean summarizes the triune brain well when he writes,
In describing the functions of the triune brain metaphorically, one might imagine that the reptilian brain provides the basic plots and actions; that the limbic brain influences emotionally the developments of the plots; while the neomammalian brain has the capacity to expound the plots and emotions in as many ways as there are authors. MacLean, p. 40.
What is clear in this research is that the whole brain is required to make us fully human. I believe that what makes ISL unique and transformational is that it draws on the whole brain in order to facilitate healing and growth.
In recent years, through the use of brain imaging, scientists have been able to track the parts of the brain that are involved in various forms of religious experience. What they have basically discovered is that, depending upon the type of religious experience involved, different parts of the brain are affected. For example, studies have demonstrated that religious practices involving meditation, that result in extraordinary relaxation, as well as rituals that use drumming, dancing, and chanting, result in significant changes in heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing�all of which are controlled by the reptilian brain. Newberg & D�Aquili, p. 39-42.
Studies also have indicated that the limbic system is involved in religious and spiritual experiences. �Electrical stimulation of the limbic structures in human subjects produces dreamlike hallucinations, out-of-body sensations, d�j� vu, and illusions, all of which have been reported during spiritual states. Ibid., p. 42.
On the other hand, it appears that the creation of myths requires the higher functioning neocortex in order to make meaning and purpose of the world. Furthermore, the ability to tell the story is a function of the left hemisphere of the brain. Ibid., p. 60.
Whole Brain Wisdom
Basically, religious experience in various ways employs all three parts of the brain. This is also what makes ritual especially powerful. It touches our basic life functions, our emotions, and our meaning making.
This is the primary function of religious ritual�to turn spiritual stories into spiritual experiences; to turn something in which you believe into something you can feel. It�s why dervishes whirl, why monks chant, why Muslims prostrate themselves, and why primeval hunters, hoping to win the favor of the great animal spirits, donned the skins of bears and wolves, and danced reverently around the fire. In every time and culture, it seems, humans have intuitively found ways to tap the neurobiological mechanisms that give ritual its transcendent power, by bringing their most important myths to life in the form of ritualized behaviors.� Ibid., pp. 90-91.
Ever since the 1500�s, the Western world has placed its focus upon the scientific revolution and intellectual thinking. Believing in our evolutionary superiority, we in the West have tried to operate out of our left-brain, and essentially ignored the wisdom that is contained in the whole brain. For the most part, theological education and pastoral training also have operated from this mind-set.
Today, however, we are beginning to see the limitations of this approach and are beginning to expand our thinking and seeing of ourselves and of the world. Consequently, we are moving toward greater wholeness and an understanding of interdependence rather than independence. This is transformation.
Learning to appreciate and participate in ritual process is one way in which we can experience the whole wisdom contained in our brains, our bodies, our souls, our communities, and our world. It is my belief and my personal experience that the ISL program and the ISL method of spiritual direction is, essentially, ritual process which engages the whole person�the triune brain, body, soul, and spirit with the end result being personal transformation for mission into the world.
Turner, Victor.1969. The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. (New York: Aldine de Gruyter), p. 15.
Opportunities for stretching, relaxing, dancing, etc.
A technique for learning about the Enneagram by enacting it in your body.
Ibid., p. 171.
MacLean, Paul D., �Evolution of Three Mentalities�, Brain, Culture, & the Human Spirit: Essays from an Emergent Evolutionary Perspective, Ashbrook, James B. ed. (Maryland: University Press of America, Inc., 1993), p. 24.
Newberg, Andrew and D�Aquili, Eugene, Why God Won�t Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief, (New York: Ballantine Books, 2001, p. 38.
Ashbrook, James B. and Albright, Carol Rausch, The Humanizing Brain: Where Religion and Neuroscience Meet, (Cleveland: The Pilgrim Press, 1997), p. 56.
Ashbrook & Albright, 1997, p. 73.
Ibid., p. 90.
MacLean, 1993, p. 34.
Ibid., p. 34.\
Newberg & D�Aquili, p. 21.
MacLean, p. 40.
Newberg & D�Aquili, p. 39-42.
Ibid., p. 42.
Ibid., p. 60.
Ibid., pp. 90-91. | |
