A body-based hypothesis to explain the bias

§ 1. Instrumental vs. receptive phases of consciousness

I speculate that gender differences do not show up in imaging studies on MSCs because in both male and female practitioners mystical union relies on a neural substrate more resembling to that associated with the female than to that associated with the male sexual response. For males, this would mean different patterns of activity within the hypothalamus and other sex hormone receptor containing structures (when compared to “normal” male sexual response), changed testosterone-to-estrogen and sympathetic-to-parasympathetic ratios etc.

These changes might result in behavioral and perceptual patterns associated more with the opposite gender.²⁴ Hence, then, the feminine identification of male mystics.

In coming to explain what I mean it is useful to start from Arthur Deikman’s functional analysis of meditative states.²⁵ Deikman’s approach is based upon distinguishing between two basic phases of consciousness – instrumental and receptive. Instrumental consciousness is the manipulative, active, “Yang-type”

state of consciousness from which one operates when, say, driving a car through heavy traffic.²⁶ Neurologically, it would probably be the function of the dominant hemisphere and its ANS correlate would be the sympathetic-aminergic response. In essence, any state that involves actively intervening into or acting upon the environment can be described as instrumental.

Receptive consciousness is the type of consciousness involved with taking in from and perceiving the environment (rather than acting upon it).²⁷ As an example of a receptive state, Deikman offers the state one is in when indulging in a hot tub.²⁸ One might hypothesize that this type of consciousness resides in the nondominant hemisphere. On the autonomic level, receptive states would be associated with the parasympathetic-cholinergic response.

24 That something like this might, indeed, be involved becomes evident from an intriguing report by Tobias Esch and George Stefano – falling in love leads to a sur-prising pattern of release of testosterone. Its concentrations vary in opposite directions in the two sexes. Intriguingly, men in love demonstrate decreasing testosterone levels, but women produce more testosterone (Esch & Stefano 2005, 184). It is as if in love males come hormonally closer to females and vice versa. Recall that MSCs depend on the motivatory sequence resembling erotic love. Hence, such hormonal shifts in relation to MSCs would not be surprising.

25 Deikman, Arthur J. A Functional Approach to Mysticism. – Cognitive Models and Spiritual Maps: Interdisciplinary Explorations of Religious Experience. Edited by J.

Andresen and R. K. C. Forman. Thorverton and Charlottesville, Imprint Academic, 2002. Pp. 75–91.

26 Deikman 2002, 79–80.

27 Deikman 2002, 78; 80–82.

28 Deikman 2002, 79–80.

The main differences between instrumental and receptive phases of con-sciousness can be summarized as follows:²⁹

Instrumental Consciousness

(Example: driving in heavy traffic) Receptive Consciousness (Example: soaking in a hot tub) Intent To act on the

environment Intent To receive the

environment

Self Object-like, localized,

self-centered Self Undifferentiated,

world-centered

World Emphasis on objects,

distinctions, linear causality

World Emphasis on process,

merging, simultaneity

Communication Language Communication Music, art, poetry, dance Evolutionary

The importance of this schema for the present discussion consists in the insight that MSCs are characteristically receptive states. In fact, Deikman argues that all authentic spiritual states are fundamentally receptive in that they involve a shift in intention away from controlling and acquiring and toward acceptance and observation.³⁰ As he puts it, “At its most basic, the spiritual is the expe-rience of the connectedness that underlies reality. The depth of that expeexpe-rience depends on the capacity of the individual to set aside considerations of self, thereby gaining access to connection.”³¹ This seems to be a sound conclusion.

Think, for example, of Jesus’ words in Gethsemane, “[R]emove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want” (Mark 14:36).

In other words, MSCs can be viewed as intensely receptive states during which the ego does not exert active, full control over the psyche and during which one is actively open to the “wholly Other”. This idea is in line with classic views on the nature of MSCs – William James has also noted, in pre-senting his famous four-partite definition of mystical experiences, that one of the distinctive features of MSCs is that they are passive (i.e., receptive).

Although one can consciously facilitate their generation, one cannot actively elicit them.³²

29 The table is based upon: Deikman 2002., 80–82.

30 Deikman 2002, 78. This may hold not only for spiritual states. Think, for example, of claims made by poets, composers and writers that they are not really creating poems, pieces of music or novels – they are, so to speak, receiving them from the “ether”. In other words – they feel that the poems and pieces of music are already somewhere “out there” and they are merely the receivers picking the “signal” up.

31 Deikman 2002, 84. Deikman’s italics.

32 James [1902] 1964, 292–294.

An interesting implication of this line of argumentation is that Ultimate Reality – however it would be conceptualized by a particular tradition – cannot be encountered in instrumental consciousness at all. This implication starts to get intriguing when one relates Deikman’s dual schema to similar schemas developed by other thinkers. Ashbrook and Albright, for example, make explicit what one can only “faintly scent” behind Deikman’s ideas – that the differences between the two basic types of consciousness are related to the hemispheric lateralization of functions. Making this link, as Albright and Ashbrook note, is a

“slippery” enterprise (in that it involves drawing metaphorical and analogical associations). However, they say, in analyzing complex issues (such as human consciousness) it provides a convenient and workable strategy for sense-making.³³

Now, consider the following excerpt from Ashbrook and Albright’s table that is designed to characterize the nature of the consciousness each hemisphere generates and their metaphorical associations:³⁴

Left hemisphere Right hemisphere

Expression Perception of patterns

Linguistic Kinesthetic Propositional Visual

Logical Synthetic Verbal Visuospatial Knowing by argument Knowing by experience

Technical reason Ecstatic reason

Agency Communion (relatedness)

Power Love Digital communication Analogic communication

Sun Moon Light Dark Yang Yin One can easily see that Deikman’s concept of instrumental consciousness is a

seamless fit to the “Yang-type”, left-hemispheric “approach to reality”. And the concept of receptive consciousness clearly reflects the “Yin-type”, right hemi-spheric functions. The two schemata are complementary. But if so, then Deikman’s concept of receptive consciousness automatically acquires a “female polarity” (the associations with the principle of Yin, darkness and the Moon) – albeit on a purely metaphorical level. Ashbrook and Albright’s further characte-rization of left and right hemispheric “approaches to reality” lends further support to this reading – they describe the left-hemispheric consciousness as having a “spire-like” and the right hemispheric consciousness a “dome-like”

quality.³⁵ This is quite intriguing, given that MSCs are states of profound

33 Ashbrook & Albright 1997, 127.

34 Based on: Ashbrook & Albright 1997, 126.

35 Ashbrook & Albright 1997, 128–129.

receptivity and given the feminine identification of male mystics discussed above.

The argument I want to make from this is that the “femininity” of receptive, right hemispheric states in these schemas is, in the particular case of MSCs,³⁶ not only symbolic – it has a biological, evolutionarily conditioned basis. The capacity for MSCs evolved from states associated with sexual response. But the male sexual response is different from the female sexual response. In humans, the difference is less marked (bigger brain, more freedom!). But in animals it is quite clear. And animal responses are evolutionarily continuous with the hu-man. In rats, for example, the male sexual response is characterized by what is referred to as mounting behavior. The distinctive feature of the female sexual response in rats is lordosis.³⁷ Mounting is “instrumental” (in Deikman’s catego-rization) – an active intervention. Lordosis is “receptive”. Hence, in rats one can posit the following correlations in sexual response: mounting-instrumental-male; lordosis-receptive-female. To the extent the origin of loving interactions can be traced into sexual behavior, this suggests that in many species “erotic love” is for male individuals associated with instrumentality and for female individuals with receptivity.³⁸

The latter point might sound sexist. I therefore hurry to add that it is not uncommon for female rats to also mount and for male rats to display lordosis.³⁹ The main idea, however, is that since human experience is fundamentally embodied and since the body “remembers” its evolutionary history – the receptivity necessary for the generation of MSCs⁴⁰ is associated more with the type of parasympathetically conditioned (dorsal vagal complex mediated)

“immobilization” characteristic of sexual response in female rats than with the sympathetic “mounting” characteristic of sexual response in male rats.

36 NB! I am talking about the particular case of MSCs only! The argument developed below is not to be understood to mean as if all receptive states were dependent on the neural substrates of female sexual response.

37 Lordosis is a mating posture that in rats is characterized by immobilization, rigidly extended hind legs, elevated rump and diverted tail (Komisaruk et al. 2006, 235–237).

For a thorough commentary, see Komisaruk and colleagues’ text.

38 There are clues that, to some extent, this might hold in humans, too. If one compares Holstege and associates’ PET results on the male orgasm (Holstege et al. 2003) with Georgiadis and colleagues’ PET results on the female orgasm (Georgiadis et al. 2006), then the most striking difference is that while the male orgasm is mainly characterized by activations, the female orgasm is better characterized in terms of deactivations.

39 Södersten, Per, Larsson, Knut. Lordosis Behavior and Mounting Behavior in Male Rats: Effects of Castration and Treatment with Estradiol Benzoate or Testosterone Propionate. – Physiology and Behavior, Vol. 14, No. 2, February 1975, 159–164.

40 Again, I am only referring to MSCs. MSCs biologically rely on sexual responses. In their case, engaging the context of animal sexual behavior is justified. But it is not justi-fied in the case of receptive states unrelated to sexual responses.

§ 2. From rats to humans

There are ways to support the receptivity-parasympathetic-female and instrumentality-sympathetic-male correlations in human sexual responses as well. For starters, it seems that human males tend to “treat” their genitalia instrumentally – the phallus is expected to perform (hence the success of drugs such as Viagra). Seldom is it experienced as a means for relating and/or com-munion. In fact, Goss argues that males have an instrumental understanding of sexuality in general. The genitalia are perceived as “separate” from the body, as

“tools”. This results in a phallocentric perspective in which there is little room for embodied pleasure and which is under the “tyranny of ejaculation”.⁴¹ As to females, Joe Kramer writes amusingly, “Most women are more parasym-pathetic; they’re more relaxed, and that’s why they can have multiple orgasms and go much longer. The heart is involved with the parasympathetic, which includes things like getting a soothing massage or lying in a hot tub or cuddling with a lover. Men have to learn the skill of integrating the parasympathetic more.”⁴²

Naturally, the latter is not a statement of scientific truth. However, Kramer’s easy-going and loose statement can be backed up to a rather surprising degree.

And a good thing about it is that it affirms a female superiority and is very far from degrading the female in any way. Barry Komisaruk and colleagues have provided substantial evidence that in females – in addition to the neural “inputs”

and “outputs” men and women share – there is an additional pathway from the internal sex organs to the brain via the vagus nerve.⁴³ From the viewpoint of the present thesis this is highly significant. I already pointed out that tracing the evolutionary history of the vagus nerve may help to explain the origin of emotion.⁴⁴ And the vagal-vaginal link can be used to clarify in what sense female sexuality is more “parasympathetic”, right hemispheric and hence more receptive than male sexuality.

The vagus nerve provides parasympathetic innervation to most internal viscera.⁴⁵ To say that the female sexual response is more parasympathetic, then, is a loose way of saying that there is an additional vagal pathway at play in females during sexual behavior – beside those shared by males and females.

Thus, Kramer’s rather esoteric statement on female sexuality being more para-sympathetic may actually carry out, although in technical nuances his wording is misleading. Moreover, the additional vagal link also backs up his further claims on females having a closer heart-genital connection.⁴⁶ As was pointed

41 Goss 2002, 60.

42 Kramer, Joe. Sexual Healing: Healing the Heart-Genital Split in Men. – Sex and Spirit: Exploring Gay Men’s Spirituality. Edited by R. Barzan. San Francisco, White Crane Press, 1995. P. 34 (cited via: Goss 2002, 66).

43 Komisaruk et al. 2004, 84–85.

44 See the discussion of the polyvagal theory in Chapter VIII and: Porges 1998.

45 Starr & Taggart 1989, 340.

46 Goss 2002, 61–68.

out in Chapter VIII, the vagus nerve also plays an important role in regulating cardiac function and its evolutionary history may explain the origin of love.⁴⁷

The female-only vagal link could be used to argue for the possibility of qualitatively different types of orgasm in women – clitoral orgasm (that would closely resemble male orgasm because of involving the same neural pathways), vaginal orgasm and blended ones (unparalleled in males).⁴⁸ This would be interesting in several ways since an orgasm mediated by the vagus nerve might be considered to be more “spiritual” – if one takes into account the functions and connections of the vagus. It may very well turn out that it is precisely this additional pathway that provides the best starting point for constructing an adequate evolutionary explanation of the human capacity for MSCs.

The lack of the vagal “element” in the male sexual response might account for the absence or weakness of the spiritual (receptive) dimension in males in relation to making love. This is what the Kramer’s suspected lack of heart-genital connection in males is all about. The added female-only component in the neurophysiological “upwiring” of sexuality is vagal (parasympathetic) and since the neural link is present via the uterus and vagina, it is characteristically female. Plus, since the link is present via the uterus and vagina, it is receptive and “Yin-like” par excellence.

Connecting this information with the above discussed idea that MSCs are processed via the right hemisphere is a bit more tricky. According to Motofei, parasympathetic responses are strongly influenced by testosterone and sym-pathetic responses by estrogens – in both females and males.⁴⁹ At the same time, according to Simon Baron-Cohen, testosterone influences the right and estrogens the left hemisphere more.⁵⁰ From this follows a conclusion that the right hemisphere is associated more with the parasympathetic and the left with the sympathetic system – a link d’Aquili suspected all along.⁵¹ If so, then the added vagal (parasympathetic), distinctly “wombly” element in the female sexual response relates more to the right than the left hemispheric consciousness (i.e., more to receptive than instrumental consciousness).

To summarize – on the basis of the foregoing it can be hypothesized that MSCs resemble the female (rather than male) sexual response which is more

47 See: Porges 1998, 837.

48 See: Komisaruk et al. 2006, 9–10.

49 Motofei 2008, 531.

50 Baron-Cohen, Simon. The Essential Difference: the Truth about the Male and Female Brain. New York, Basic Books, 2003. P. 99; 104–109. The idea goes back to Norman Geschwind’s fetal testosterone hypothesis that was developed to explain why regions of the right hemisphere are larger in males of many species than in females. It states that the growth rate of the hemispheres depends on the prenatal levels of testo-sterone: the more testosterone, the faster the right hemisphere develops and, correspon-dingly, the slower the left hemisphere develops (Baron-Cohen 2003, 99). For the original theory, see: Geschwind, Norman, Galaburda, Albert M. Cerebral Laterali-zation. Cambridge (Massachusetts), The MIT Press, 1987.

51 D’Aquili 1986, 156.

vagal, more right-lateralized, results in larger left (sympathetic-dependent) de-activations, is more receptive and is heart-related via the vagus nerve. It is not difficult to see, then, that the female-specific “vagal bias” hints at the depen-dence of MSCs on the neural substrate of the female (rather than male) sexual response. This explains the feminine identification of male mystics and leads to the estimation that females might have a physiological advantage in learning to attain MSCs. (Moreover, some intriguing predictions could be made. For example – if the above is correct, then hysterectomy – because it severs the vagal pathway – might lead to changes in spirituality. This should not be diffi-cult to test using paper-pencil methods.) That the receptive states associated with the female sexual response and MSCs have a specifically “wombly” (and hence feminine) quality is why males run into cognitive and affective diffi-culties in relation to them. Simply put, males lack the bodily structures that would aid “making sense” out of experiential contents of the type involved in MSCs in a way that would not be homoerotically conceived.

§ 3. Gender, embodiment and mystical talent

At this point, two notes of clarification are needed. First, the above may leave an impression as if I were claiming that deeply receptive states presuppose one’s having a vagina and intensely instrumental states presuppose one’s having a phallus. This I am, emphatically, not claiming (it would be an absurd claim any-way). What I am saying is that having a female bodily structure (and a cor-responding experiential history) may aid one in aspiring for and attaining MSCs.

It is in this sense that the femininity of receptive states is more than a metaphor.

Second, the above analysis might leave an impression as if I were suggesting that males use mostly instrumental and women mostly receptive consciousness.

Again, this is not what I am saying. I am only talking about basic sexual responses. There are lots of extremely instrumental females and a lot of very receptive males. However, I do insist that – perhaps due to the influence of testosterone on the brain during early developmental phases – men have more difficulty in making contact with and operating from their receptive conscious-ness. Exposure to large quantities of testosterone seems to result in a brain that has, on average, significantly worse interhemispheric connections. As Kimura notes, the posterior part of the corpus callosum and, especially, the anterior commissure has in males a smaller cross-sectional area.⁵² Interestingly, the brains of homosexually oriented males are, in such parameters, often closer to the female than to the male average.⁵³ This may mean that gay males might find it more easy to be receptive. Hence a prediction that gay men may be more prone to having MSCs.

52 Kimura 2000, 132–135.

53 Kimura 2000, 130.

One could say, then, that in a sense MSCs are “discriminating”. Due to the hormonally conditioned differences in the brain and the body one should expect that, statistically, females would have more MSCs than males. Some people, thus, are more talented at mysticism due to their better interhemispheric con-nections and/or their bodily structure. For average, heterosexually oriented males, this means trouble. First – due to the somewhat worse communication between their cerebral hemispheres, straight men have more difficulty at co-ming in contact with their receptive “side”. But second, due to its “wombly”

quality, average heterosexual men are seriously abhorrent of receptive con-sciousness.

Now, this is clearly a culturally introduced attitude. Men are not born incapable of being fully receptive. There may exist a biological disposition favoring instrumentality in males (at least in sexual interactions) but the fear of effeminacy is culturally induced. Our culture favors attitudes such as men

Now, this is clearly a culturally introduced attitude. Men are not born incapable of being fully receptive. There may exist a biological disposition favoring instrumentality in males (at least in sexual interactions) but the fear of effeminacy is culturally induced. Our culture favors attitudes such as men

Im Dokument of Sexual Response? (Seite 193-0)