“The Spiritual Dimension to the
Unity Model”
Psy 409b, Spring 2008, Generation 27
Dr. Leon James,
Instructor,
Section 1:
Lecture Content
Brandi Schmeling
In this
lecture sections 11 and 19 were discussed by Dr. James. Section 11 is titled The Spiritual Dimension to
the Unity Model. In this section, Dr. James reviewed how the spiritual
dimension is the basic feature of the unity model. Without it, you only have a
natural marriage. In a non-theistic view, Dr. James says that marriage has the
physical, emotional and mental aspects of marriage but does not claim anything
on the spiritual. This is why spiritual models only exist in the unity model,
because the other models only account for those aspects of the natural
marriage.
Dr.
James also discussed the positive and negative biases in psychology. He
explains that the positive bias isn’t exactly a bias but it contrasts the
negative bias. Bias means that you exclude and disrespect what doesn’t fit,
which Dr. James refers to as intellectual ignorance, or cynicism. In this
regard, freedom to think is stolen with a negative bias. The positive bias,
however, is only saying that it is
possible and that nothing should be ruled out.
The positive bias leads to a dualistic
approach and theistic psychology. The unity model based on the Writings of
Emanuel Swedenborg and is part of theistic psychology
with a positive bias. In the male
dominance and equity models couples are only able to connect on sensorimotor (S) and cognitive (C) levels. At these levels,
however, the couples are not able to reach the affective (A) levels of
conjunctions. The sensorimotor and cognitive levels
are based on the physical aspects, the natural marriage aspects of conjunction.
Dr.
James also made it a point to again address that, couples who do not find a
unity marriage on earth, in the physical world, still have a chance to do so in
the afterlife. We know this to be true because Swedenborg
had many interactions with couples who did just this in the afterlife. They can
still meet and conjoin in the afterlife, and have a unity conjunction for
eternity.
According to Swedenborg, This life of immortality is either in the
heavens of our minds or the hells of out minds. How we spend eternity is based,
not only on the traits we acquire during this life, in the physical world, but
what traits we are willing to let go of or hold on to. If we are not willing to
let go of our hellish traits, which are egotistical, irrational and selfish,
then we will fall deeper into the hellish depths of our eternal minds. If you
are, however, willing to give up your hellish traits and only embrace your
heavenly ones, you will go on to live in the heavenly eternity of the mind. The
couples that are in heaven, are kept there by mental
intimacy and unity. This can only occur if both people are only embracing their
heavenly traits.
The last thing Dr. James
discussed about this section was the impact of Swedenborg’s
reports. Although the Swedenborg reports are not
widely known, that is mostly because people tend to shy away from the idea of
God and science intertwining. What people do not realize is that this was the
first time in the history of science that a scientist was given by God, a spiritual laboratory.
In Section 19, Dr. James
focused mostly on exercise 19.2. Swedenborg claims
that people who are in a unity model marriage, when one spouse does the other
would not want to marry for the following reasons. In this section Dr. James
uses parts of Swedenborg’s book, Conjugial Love.
People
who before had lived in a state of truly conjugial love do not wish to marry again after the death of their partner
for the following reasons:
1.
Because they have been united in respect to their souls [ = affective
conjunction ] and so in respect to their minds [ = cognitive conjunction
]; and this union, being a spiritual one [ = spiritual marriage ] ,
is an actual coupling [ = anatomical conjunction ] of the soul and mind
of one to the soul and mind of the other, which cannot in any way be dissolved
[ = spiritual or eternal ]. (That this is the nature of spiritual union
we have already shown here and there previously.)
[2]
2. Because they have been united also in respect to their bodies [ = sensorimotor conjunction ], by the wife's reception of
the propagations of the husband's soul [ = affective conjunction ], and thus
by an implantation of his life in hers [ = anatomical conjunction of mental
organs ], by which a maiden becomes a wife; and conversely by the husband's
reception of the wife's conjugial love, which
disposes the inner faculties of his mind and at the same time the inner and
outer faculties of his body into a state capable of receiving love and
perceiving wisdom, a state which turns him from a youth into a husband (on
which subject, see nos. 198, 199 above).
[3]
3. Because an atmosphere of her love [ =
affective ] continues to emanate from the wife, and an atmosphere of his
intellect [ = cognitive ] from the husband; and this perfects the bonds
between them, and with its pleasant ambience surrounds them and unites them
(again, see above, no. 223).
[4]
4. Because married partners so united think of and yearn for eternity in their marriage, and eternal happiness for them is founded on that
idea (see no. 216). [ = spiritual marriage ]
[5]
5. Because in consequence of the foregoing they are no longer
two but one person, that is, one flesh. [ =
mental conjunction of the threefold self of the two, creating the conjoint self
]
[6]
6. Because such a oneness cannot be sundered by the
death of the other partner - a fact manifestly evident to visual sight in the
spirit. [ = anatomical cojunction
]
[7]
To these reasons we will add this new one:
7.
Because the two are not actually separated by the death of one; for the spirit
of the deceased continues to dwell with the spirit of the one not yet deceased,
and this until the death of the other, at which time they come together again
and are reunited, loving each other even more tenderly than before, because
they are in the spiritual world [ = mental
world of eternity ].
Section 2:
Presentations on
Ana Valenzuela
Chloe Yogi reported on
lecture notes 11 and 19. She discussed how
there are two types of psychology: the negative bias, and the positive
bias. The negative bias focuses on
materialism and non-theistic methods, while the positive bias focuses on
dualism and may be theistic.
Ms.
Yogi also mentions that the Unity Model of Marriage is based on the Swedenborg reports.
How he was able to have a dualistic perspective that connected the
spiritual life with the material life.
Saying also how Swedenborg met with couples
who lived a thousand of years ago, and that they were happy and their happiness
still grows. He reported that these
spiritual couples were always together, appeared as one, and spoke in unison.
She
also stated how because Swedenborg existed in the
spiritual and the material world simultaneously, he could see the spiritual
heaven and hell. Swedenborg
reported that after humans die, our bodies disappear, and then our spirits will
either go to this heaven hell. We all have in our physical body a
spiritual body. Our spiritual body holds
the sensations, feelings, and ideas.
When we are born, the spiritual body exists in the physical body.
We don’t just have physical
things that surround out body; there are spiritual things that surround our
spiritual body as well.
The
dualist approach and the positive bias are the basis for the Unity Model of
Marriage.
As a man and a woman begin
their relationship and continue to fall in love, they start through a spiritual
process and become mentally intimate. They learn to become interdependent
with each other as their mental organs learn to function with each other.
If a relationship is in the male dominance or equity level, it cannot achieve
that interdependence because they have not achieved the highest potential of
their mental organs. Only in the unity
phase can couples reach the inmost heaven with their mental organs.
If a person doesn’t find
their soul-mate in the material world, they will have the opportunity to find
him or her in the after-life. The individual’s desire to be affectively
interdependent, as opposed to independent, is the conjugial love that Swedenborg
defines. His interviews with angel couples are the base for the Unity
Model.
Hours after our death, we awaken in the spiritual
world to live there for eternity. The immortal life we live is either in
the hell of our mind or in the heaven of our mind depending on which traits we
hold in our physical life. We must let
go of our hellish thoughts if we want to be in heaven
The Unity Model of Marriage benefits women because it
allows them to clearly see why and in what ways men show resistance in their
relationships. It also shows them how men’s resistance to mental intimacy
affects her self-confidence and peace.
For unifying, the role of the woman is the focal
point and she needs to be understood by her man. The man may not to
weaken the woman’s self-confidence and he needs to give the woman her right to
affective interventions. The man must learn to control his resistance and
not punish his woman for carrying out her duty to save him from hell.
Sometimes the woman may to be angry at her man, but
it is not called anger, it is called zeal.
The woman holds heavenly traits, and anger is a hellish trait, but zeal
is a heavenly one. Men need to understand her feelings during her zealous
reactions. If the man allows his wife to influence him he is closer to
reaching intimacy and an eternal marriage.
Women know that the process of her man to let
go AUVs will take time and work to realize.
Unity is the affective intimacy between wife and husband, equivalent to a
spiritual marriage and a conjoint self
AUV is an anti-unity value which is anti-intimacy between partners or the resistance
of the husband to affective intimacy
Examples of Unity values:
Examples of AUV’s:
In class, Praew O’Connell
covered Susan
Ventrucci’s “My Understanding
of the Unity Model of Marriage” from Generation
23. She discussed a response to a question:
Q: Contrast
the four views of gender relationships expressed by Tannen in Gender Issues,
Schlessinger in The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands, Coleman in The
Lazy Husband, and James in The Unity Model of Marriage.
A: Ms. Ventrucci states the
Tannen’s view on the differentiation of communication between men and women is
not a result of biological gender
differences but a consequence of societal and contextual factors.
According to Tannen, he holds that the reason men and women communicate the way
they do is because that is the way society expects it. It truly depends
on those two factors because in other societies the genders do communicate in a
diverse fashion.
Dr. Laura Schlessinger’s ideas are embedded in
biological differences between men and women. From her perspective, she
conveys the males are to be accepted and treated as dominant and females are to
be submissive to men. Men are the head of the strength and women are the
caretakers. However, Schlessinger shows that even though men hold a
biological nature specifically in how they conduct themselves, they do care
about the women.
In Dr. Coleman’s, The Lazy Husband, he leans towards male dominance similarly to Dr.
Schlessinger. His stance, however, is that men and women are equal but
work differently.
According to Dr. James’ Unity Model of Marriage, men
and women are different, but because they are reciprocals, not one dominating
over the other. He doesn’t say that men and women adjoin, but that they conjoin
because of their reciprocity. Without a
trace of approval towards male dominance, the Unity Model suggests that the
husband always agrees with his wife.
Ms. O’Connell provided a chart summarizing
stances of the different authors on certain issues:
|
|
Believes gender
relationships are based partly or entirely on biology |
Believes gender relationships are partly of all on
society |
Believes one partner exerts dominance over the
other |
|
Tannen, “Gender Discourse” |
No |
Yes |
No |
|
Dr. Laura Schlessinger, “The Proper Care and
Feeding of Marriage” |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Dr. Coleman, “The Lazy Husband” |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Dr. James, “The Unity Model” |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
From the chart, one can see
that the authors only concur on the aspect of society playing a role in gender
relationships.
Section 3. Team Presentation on Exercises
By: Allison Ozaki
a) The main idea
presented by the team was the basis for conjunctive conversation. They
explained the four rules for conjugial conversation
and described what happened when they asked their friends about the approached.
They also discussed a video about a boy and a girl going out on a date and the
differences in the preparation for it. After, they
also explained their friend’s reaction to the description of the video.
b) The team asked
their friends about how they felt about the four rules and the video. They
interpreted their reactions to the limited knowledge of the Unity Model of
Marriage. Also, they are in natural relationships and do not know yet about conjugial marriages.
c) The ideas they
present were good and well explained. They could have given more depth into
explanations for their friend’s reaction to the four rules and to the video,
but overall I thought the presentation was satisfactory.
d) The team had
mixed results. When they explained the four rules and video to their women
friends, they responded positively and said the video was pretty accurate. But
their male friends were less receptive. Some went on to say that the men were
“whipped” or had no backbone and said that the video exaggerated the behaviors
of men.
e) The procedures
and instructions were pretty descriptive and easy to understand. I see no need
for improvements.
f) The
limitations of these types of exercises were the people the team asked. They
had no understanding of what the Unity Model of Marriage was and therefore
could not have given any answer except the one expected.
g) My results were
representative of the team’s results. The women were much more receptive and
the men were less enthusiastic about following the suggestions in the steps.
The men also looked at the examples as weak and whipped, not giving them much
respect, but this is due to the lack of understanding of the Unity Model of
Marriage. The people I asked also had a hard time.