Welcome to the Spiritual
Mind, Body, and Soul
This is Report 6
Co authors:
Psy 409b, Spring
2008, Generation 27
Dr. Leon James,
Instructor, University of Hawaii
Section 1: Lecture Content
By: Jennifer
Lee
In this weekÕs lecture notes, we discussed about the
spiritual dimension of the unity model and the examples of the Anti Unity
Values. We discussed in the beginning of the semester that psychology
exists in the negative bias and the positive bias. People with negative
bias donÕt have an open mind, and needs facts to find a research believable,
leading to a non-theistic and materialism psychology. Someone with a
positive bias has an open mind, and finds a way to understand what is trying to
be taught, leading to the terms, dualism and theistic psychology. The
unity model is based on a dualist approach, and therefore people need to have a
positive bias when understanding the model.
Emanuel Swedenborg is the discoverer of the Swedenborg
reports, which leads to the Unity Model of Marriage that he, created. He
claims that if the couples are in the unity phase, they can achieve the
greatest love, a conjugial love, in heaven till eternity, which is endless
marital happiness and joy. (Conjugial love began to evolve around 1763,
the age of enlightenment.) We are born with two different types of body, our
physical body, which is our physical features, and our spiritual body, which is
our sensations, feelings, and thoughts. The afterlife involves a mental or
spiritual world, and our physical body does not enter this world, only our
mental body.
In class, we discussed that for us to understand the
spiritual dimension, we need to have positive perspectives, which means
negative bias needs to be non-existence. When both persons are devoted to
each other, they begin to form a bond that consists of their mental organs
functioning together, and they become interdependent in their mental organs
with the sensorimotor, cognitive, and affective conjunctions. When we
enter the spiritual afterlife, we continue to live the immortal life in the
mental world with the spiritual body that we were born with, also called heaven
in eternity.
Personal thought:
I feel that everyone should have an open mind to
everything. Nobody is forcing you to believe what they think is
right. The Swedenborg reports might be realistic, and it might not, but
itÕs enlightening to learn about new beliefs, and there could always be
something positive that can be adapted from it. I have an open mind,
because it doesnÕt hurt me on not believing it. It would be spectacular
on being with the one you love for eternity, because that is the main goals in
life is to spend the rest of your life with happiness forever, with the person
you admire and love.
Immortality in the minds of heaven or hell
The way people live and the traits they accumulated
determine if you will be living in the world of heaven or hell. If you
are not willingly able to let go the negative traits, such as being ego-biased,
then you will be living with the hellish traits/ mind in the afterlife.
However, if you acquire the positive traits, such as loving your partner and
being eternally happy, then you will be directed towards the heavenly world.
If one has any slight of hellish traits, one begins to sink deeper into an
irrational mental hell. Depending on the negative characteristics, there
are different levels within the hellish world. Swedenborg observed that
the conditions within the hellish minds were filled with stench-like habitats
and darkness. Couples in this world constantly try to control each other
and live in an abusive relationship. However, people who are living
within the heavenly minds are kept together by harmony and mental unity, which is
the greatest and highest level of affective intimacy a married couple can have.
My personal thought:
From reading about what Swedenborg observed, I
willingly have an open mind to all of his reports, but there are certain things
that I still have questions on. It seems that to determine if one is
going to live in the heavenly or hellish world, Swedenborg only pertains it to
the husband. One example of a heavenly trait is Òloving your wifeÓ.
I feel that women should also be the ones who are loving and caring to their
partner, not just men. I also thought that this heavenly mental world is
only for people that are married. Can there be a way for just Òcouples,Ó
who follow the unity phase partake in this eternity and afterlife that married people
live in? I know it was stated that to be in a spiritual marriage, they
first need to be in a natural marriage, but what if something drastic happens
and before they could get married, one person passes? I feel that if both
partner agrees to follow what Swedenborg wrote, and commits to the unity model
of marriage, then I feel that they should carry on in the afterlife with the
greatest and highest point of conjugial love.
I find it that SwedenborgÕs reports and observation is
very interesting, and I hope that my relationship can follow the unity model of
marriage. I believe that it will greatly improve my relationship, because
having my boyfriend not acting through the male dominance phase; I would not
suffer as much mental abuse and have a greater mental intimacy with him.
Hopefully he will at least consider what needs to be changed, and at least give
Swedenborg a try.
Illustration on the Spiritual Sun:
Dr. James drew a diagram that described the Spiritual
Sun. The Spiritual Sun starts off at the top, and is divided into two
categories, the Good and the Truth. The good side is directed with Heat,
while the Truth is directed with Light. Each of the Good and Truth has a
branch that targets a mental organ; Good going towards the Affective organs,
which evolves into feelings, and Truth going towards the Cognitive organs,
which evolves into thoughts. The Affective organs are the receptor of
Heat, and the Cognitive organs are the receptor of Light.
In the beginning, the C and A (feelings and thoughts), it
is mandatory that the women do all the work, otherwise the woman and man would
be just friends. Women have no choice, because if they try to dominate
the men, they would just leave and find some other women to have control over.
_______________________________________________________________________
Lecture
11 and Lecture
19
By: Lisa Ha
(Lecture 11)
Theistic psychology exists in positive bias, which addresses that there
is more importance than just life and death in itself, emphasizing on the
connection between this life in time-space and the afterlife in eternity.
The discovery of the Swedenborg Reports are facts based on theistic psychology. Emanuel
Swedenborg discovered that achieving conjugial unity is living in heaven.
ÒCelestialÓ couples have claimed their endless marital happiness and joy
increases forever when they have reached the Unity Model of Marriage.
The dualist approach in the positive bias of science, defines the afterlife of humans exists in the
mental world in eternity where we are born with a spiritual body, but at the
same time we exist on earth with a physical body.
A spiritual process begins, when a man and a woman who are
in love form a union of love and friendship together. In synchrony, their
mental organs become interdependent in the spiritual body.
Interdependence
occurs at the sensorimotor (S) and cognitive (C) levels in the male dominance
and equity phase of the Unity Model of Marriage. The mental organs in these two
phases are not considered heavenly until conjunction occurs at the affective
level, which lies in the final stage of marriage, the Unity Phase.
Conjugial love
requires that you have a desire to be interdependent affectively with your wife
as opposed to being independent. Each couple is unique and communicates mentally with one communal mind.
The life of immortality is either in the heavens of our mind
or in the hells of our mind. What determines the path we go down depends on the
traits that we possess while living in this life. The organic law of creation states that we can
choose to let go of our hellish type traits and experience the kind of heaven
we can live in with the heavenly traits we have. This type of trait involves
loving oneÕs wife and giving to the community. There is no in between.
One way to determine whether you are committing to the unity
model or not is you have to first ask yourself before your actions is, ÒIs
this from heaven or from hell?Ó
The idea of eternal marriage in the unity model gives women
the opportunity to achieve three important things:
Ÿ It
allows women to see more clearly where and why men are resistant in their
relationship.
Ÿ Women
can see more clearly how the manÕs resistance to mental intimacy affects her
own peace and confidence.
Ÿ Women
can see more clearly where they can use rationality to apply mental pressure
towards the man to encourage him to get ride of his resistance and join her in
mental intimacy.
Process of Unification—WomenÕs role Vs. Men roles
A womenÕs role is central and needs to be understood by the
man, and a manÕs role is to stop resisting and weakening the womanÕs
self-confidence in her process to get them to reach the unity model of
marriage. It is considered a self-sacrificing altruistic act when a woman loves
her man and wants him to unite with her.
Zeal is the passion
that a woman has to help her man reach affective intimacy. It is sometimes
misunderstood as anger, but the difference between the two is that zeal is from
heaven, anger comes from hell. A real man will remain gallant and be
considerate of his wifeÕs feelings during her explosive reactions from zeal. If
he cooperates and lets her influence him, it is one step closer to affective
intimacy.
Women do not expect men to stop their anti-unity values and
habits all at once. What a man needs to do to show her he is cooperating is to
show that he is committed to achieving the unity phase. To reach this success,
a man must begin self-witnessing acts and use it as a tool for observation and
classification.
Spiritual Marriage
can sometimes be mistaken as Òlove without sexÓ or sometimes people use it to
refer to a relationship between God and the soul. As Swedenborg has reported,
couples who are in spiritual marriages are enjoying their conjugial love, which
is also called marital sexuality.
(Lecture 19)
Anti-Unity Values (AUVs)
The media exploits couples living together unmarried, which
can have its disadvantages. Living together before marriage can make it
difficult for a couple to move from the equity to unity in their mental
intimacy. A woman is less influential on her man while he resists to reach the
unity phase with her since they are already living together.
Our culture depicts the image that its ok to agree and
disagree on thing such as family, sports and politics. However, this promotes
the acceptance of separate attitudes which will result in a lack of conjunction
and intimacy. To reach the unity phase, partners must discuss their opinions
and beliefs in a helpful way until they can resolve what they disagree on.
If you watch couples on television, it often promotes the
idea that you should never try to change your partner, rather accept then
unconditionally for their faults. This is considered an anti-unity value
because both partners should cognitively and affectively influence each other.
In the Unity Model, the wife is always trying to understand
her husbands humor, preferences, etc. By doing this it makes her feel attached
to him and makes him happy. The husband makes an effort to not do anti-unity
acts, instead he cuts out behavior and traits that upset her and lets her
influence him into behaviors that she does like.
If a husband is more influenced by the culture of
anti-unity, he will put a limit on how close and intimate the two can grow
together.
Section 2: Presentation on Readings
By: Praew OÕ Connell
Here is the question 2 from the student report.
(a) Contrast the four views
of gender relationships expressed by Tannen in Gender Discourse, Schlessinger in The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands, Coleman in The Lazy Husband, and James in The Unity Model of Marriage.
(b) Your analysis should also include a chart or table that shows the
differences between the four books in a systematic way.
(c) As well, give your personal opinion on the elements or entries in
your chart.
(d) How do your own views compare to whatÕs in the chart?
(e) How are your ideas influenced by each of these four three different
perspectives on marriage?
This the chart that the student created on their own based on their
understanding of the 4 authors and 3 models of marriage.
|
|
Author believes gender relationships are based partly or all on biology |
Author believes gender relationships are based partly or all on society |
Author believes one partner exerts dominance over the other in some
form |
|
Tennen ÒGender DiscourseÓ |
No |
Yes |
No |
|
Dr. Schlessinger ÒThe proper care and feeding of husbandsÓ |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Dr. Coleman ÒThe lazy husbandÓ |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Dr. James ÒThe unity modelÓ |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
Tannen in The Gender Discourse
Throughout TannenÕs book, she perceived that gender
differences in communication are not caused by biological different between
sexes but rather by situational and society factor. She works to falsify that
males and females are communicate in stereotypical ways because of how they
brought up and society expectation.
Tannen views gender as something that we simply are, but it
is not the core reason for how we communicate. Although, she admits that gender can lead to different,
common ways of communication from a male or a female based on what society
expects from them. It is important
to note here that she attributes this common form of communication from a
gender to environment, not biology. So from the chart that it is not base on
biological but society.
What I think
is that in this class that we read gender discourse book. Her book is really
difficult to understand and confusing because this book is based heavily on
linguistic theory so it is hard for a person who does not have prior knowledge
of linguistic. This book does not discuss much about marriage but from my
understanding, it can be related to marriage in the way that communication is
the part of three-fold self. Tannen says that in some societies one gender
tends to dominate conversations. It depends on what kinds of society you are in
that shape your characters.
Dr. Laura ÒThe Proper Care and Feeding of HusbandsÓ
Dr. Laura Schlessinger has a very set opinion about gender
relationships. She bases her ideas
strongly on sex, that is, biology of the male versus the female.
Her view is that the male is the dominant one and the female is the
submissive one. She believes male
and female relationships today should, to a lesser degree, mimic ideas from
caveman times, that is, they should play on each genderÕs biological
predispositions. The man should be the breadwinner and provide for and protect
his family while the woman should stay at home and care for the husband, kids,
and household. The male should
conquer while the female should nurture.
Along with these ideas comes the idea of the dominance of the male with the
female submitting to him. In
gender relationships according to Dr. Laura, the female needs to be guided by
the male and is dependent on him not only to provide financially for the
family, but to make the major decisions.
In Dr. LauraÕs theory on gender relationships, the male and female care
about each other very much and they both are very supportive of each other, but
in very different ways. How they
care for and support the other is based on biology and innate tendencies of the
different sexes that go way back in the history of humans.
My Personal Opinion
From the chart, the author had to think a little for what to put in the
societal influence category and she put yes here because while Dr. Laura does
have a lot of ideas that stem from biology, she also does mention what it means
to be a ÒladyÓ and to feel like a real woman or a real man. My interpretation
is that a good husband for Dr. Laura means he is be able to support the family
financially and has no affair. A good wife means that she does a good job of
taking care of the house, her husband and children. She also refers to gender
stereotypes in these situations as set by societal standards.
Dr. Coleman ÒThe Lazy HusbandÓ
In the book the Lazy Husband, Dr. Coleman offers a similar view to Dr. Laura
in that he sees the husbands with an overall advantage in a power struggle
between him and his wife. However,
he does not believe that the husbandsÕ advantage is based on biology; rather he
says it is based on the fact that our society has put women in a submissive
role for so long. Being that he
sees men as women as essentially equal, he believes women can challenge men and
bring themselves up to the same level.
Dr. Coleman says that men and women are equal and therefore both or either
should provide an income for the family and they should have an equal say in
decision-making. However, he does realize
that while men and women are equal, they can still operate in different
ways. He believes that men and
women communicate very differently and tend to have different ideas of what is
appropriate and fair and what is not.
The focus of his book thin is an approach for women to better understand
men and efforts they can make to relate to their man in a way that he will
understand and efforts they can make to get him to change and treat her more
equally.
My personal Opinion
While Dr. Coleman seems to believe that men and women are equal, his book
still has undertones of male dominance. For example, the whole book is directed
towards women and puts the task of change all on them while expecting the man
is going to resist change the whole way.
This does not sound like equity.
Dr. James ÒThe Unity Model of MarriageÓ
Dr. James offers a unique idea about gender
relationships. He offers the Unity
Model of Marriage. This model puts
men and women as equals and sees them as opposite and reciprocal. That is, innate differences between men
and women are recognized and seen as necessary for a relationship to work. However, these differences do not put
one gender in a position of power over the other. In the Unity Model, the man aligns himself with the woman
not because she is in a position of more power, but because he wants to. He is choosing to be in this kind of
relationship.
In the Unity Model, the man and woman care about each other
very much and want to try to align their feelings and ideas and support each
other. Unlike Dr. Laura that she based biology different in which men have more
power rather than reciprocal.
While this is how gender relationships work in Dr. JamesÕ
ideal Unity Model, he acknowledges that all relationships start in the dominance
model with the male exerting power over the female and the couple works up to
the unity model from there.
In Dr. JamesÕ Unity Model, the gender relationship is a
result of the coupleÕs choices and efforts. They are there because they want to be there with their
partner. They are not there
because of societal influences or their biological tendencies as a certain sex.
My Personal Opinion
First
impression for most people that I try to explain about the unity model is that
they said that it seems like the women tried to control and become dominance
over the men. So far that I learn from this class and I tried to tell people
the true meaning of unity model. The man often conforms to the womanÕs ideas
and feelings, she is not dominating him.
The man is choosing to do this because he wants to. The woman cannot make him. He has to want to.
Section 3: Team Presentation on Exercises
By: Nicole Salviejo
(a) Summarize
the main ideas presented by the team.
Class exercise presenters discussed the lecture notes
from 16c, which included suggested rules of conjugial conversation for
husbands. The rules are as
follows:
All in all, Nacapoy felt that the first two rules
were doable, but still feels that he needs more time in order to be able to
practice the last two rules in his relationship with his girlfriend.
(b) Describe what they did and how they interpreted
it.
Team presenters briefly discussed each rule then
provided their own input and related the rules to their own personal
experiences. They also discussed
the lecture notes with family and friends to see what they thought about the
four rules of conjugial conversation for husbands. Presenters felt that some of the rules were relevant to
their lives while others would be more difficult to practice everyday in their
own relationships.
(c) Describe some of the ideas that needed a better
justification or greater amplification.
I felt that the exercise presenters did a great job
in explaining the rules of conjugial conversation as well as used relevant
examples that everyone could relate to.
If any changes were to be made, perhaps the group could have provided
more general examples of the rules and tips on how men can make their
relationships with their girlfriends better and more intimate.
(d) What was the success of the approach they used?
One success I saw was in their use of real-life
examples that were relevant to the class material. Their examples were all
experiences that we all could relate to.
(e) What improvements are needed in the procedures or
in the instructions?
No improvements needed. The presenters did a great job in presenting the
exercises.
(f) What are the limitations of these types of
exercises?
The only limitation of these types of exercises that
I saw was how they all seem to be discussing the same material each week. If anything, perhaps a change in the
lecture notes would be great. It
just seems like we are discussing the same things over and over, with the only
exception being that the title of the topic being changes each week.
(g) Describe what happened when you did some of the steps
of the exercises.
When I practiced the exercises
myself with my own family and friends, I found that the people I spoke to also
agree with the presenterÕs own responses to the material. My family and friends found some of the
material relevant to their own lives and others not so relevant, especially the
last two rules of conjugial conversation, which are a little hard to adhere to
day in and day out.
Section 4: Annotated Web Links
By: Lisa Ha, Jennifer Lee, Nicole Salviejo, Praew OÕ Connell
1) Positive and
Negative Words
This website helps
marriage couple work out their differences by communicating in a more
conjunctive way, rather than practicing anti-unity values.
2) Chris Rock: View on Love
& Relationships
Comedian, Chris Rock, shares a comical perspective on
love and relationships that relate towards Dr. SwedenborgÕs description of men
and their refusal to have conjoined intimacy with their female partners.
In order to transcend to the next level of unity, a man must be more open and
more flexible towards his partner.
3) Nagging Wife
The ÒNagging WifeÓ is a
commercial that serves as an example of the first two levels of conjunction as
described by Dr. Emanuel Swedenborg, in which the husband displays cognitive
disjunction by ignoring his wife and her needs. The husband in the commercial
doesnÕt wish to be bothered by his wife while he is working on his laptop, so
he presses a button on his computer to get ÒridÓ of her.
4) Want
a Happy Marriage? Be Nice, DonÕt Nitpick.
Susan Boon, PhD, is a social psychologist teaching about
interpersonal relationships. Her secret to a happy marriage is to save the
battles for the big issues. Also, if you follow her advice, you can distinguish
yourself as being zeal instead of being angry.
This is a website for men and women to remind each other how
much one truly cares about the other. It is a good way for men to remind their
spouse that they want to be in the unity phase, and are willing to work with
their partners to do so. By doing different things to show the man wants mental
intimacy, it will give the woman encouragement into keep trying to reach it
with him
6) Creating a spiritual marriage
This website helps aid people in having a spiritual
marriage. It shows 12 different ways on helping your marriage improve and
build it to a spiritual level.
7) A Perfect Marriage is Possible
The author explains that it is possible to have a perfect
marriage with the one you love. He gives a definition of his ideal
perfect marriage, and gives his insights on what is needed for an ideal perfect
marriage.
9) Spiritual
Beliefs and Marriage: A National Survey Based on ENRICH
This article uses a survey to see the relationship between
spiritual beliefs and marriage and how the spiritual beliefs lead to successful
marriage.
10) GottmanÕs
Marriage Self Help and Tips
This website is by Dr. John Gottman, and he helps married
couples with their relationship. He gives advice to the couple to help fix
their marriage when theyÕre on the verge of divorce.