The Exceptional Human Experience Process

[Guest guest]

A friend of mine just published a very interesting article in the

International Journal of Parapsychology (Vol 11, No 1, 69-111). 

Although one has to wade through a bit of professional jargon,  it's

well worth it.  )

As I see it, the general idea is that it is important to accept our

experiences as positive forces, and incorporate them into our lives,

rather than to try to deny them or treat them as symptoms of illness

(as, alas, do so many in the medical community.)  

It starts with an outline of 5 developmental stages worked out by Rhea White of the EHE Network:

1. The initiating event/experience

2. Search for reconciliation

3. Between two worlds

4. In the experiential paradigm

5. A new way of being in the world. 

Suzanne V. Brown has taken these stages further, saying that "within

each of the stages there are qualitative sets of attributive

characteristics that could be used to distinguish (more or less) one

stage from the others."

So each stage is divided into 12 sets of characteristics, ultimately forming a matrix of 60 cells.

1. Definition

2. Examples

3. Search focus

4. Questions asked

5. Cognitive dissonance

6. Depotentiating activities

7. Results of depotentiation

8. Potentiating activities

9. Results of potentiation

10. Challenges

11.  Critical juncture

12. Crossroads to next stage.

To give an example of how this works, the "Questions asked" (#4) for various stages are as follows:

Stage 1:  The Initiating Event/Experience

4.  Questions Asked:  What just happened? How can I explain this? Am I

crazy? Possessed? losing touch with reality? Who can help me

understand?

Stage 2:  Search for Reconciliation

4.  Questions Asked: How and where do I find truth? Who else has had

my experience? What other avenues are there which can explain what

happened to me? Am I (my experience) unique or special?  Am I just

another weirdo?

Stage 3:  Between Two Worlds

4.  Questions Asked:  Which world is real? Where do I fit in? How do

my experience and what I have learned about it sustain and fortify

me? What was that experience all about anyway in the grand scheme of

things (life, reality)?

Stage 4:  In the Experiential Paradigm

4.  Questions Asked: Where do I go from here?  Who else envisions the

world as I do? How will I recognize them? What are our possibilities

and extensions? How do we manifest them and share them with others?

How do I get back to "that place?"

Stage 5:  A New Way of Being in the World

4.  Questions Asked: How do I best align myself/my purpose/my calling

with Universe? How can I best serve given my collection of unique

talents/abilities/gifts? How can I contribute to overall evolution of

consciousness, including my own?

**********

The article is a real eye/mind opener! 

The other sections are equally interesting.  If people are interested

in hearing more, I'll type up the other sections.  Let me know!  )

Love, Hillary

[Guest guest]

Hi Hillary and others,

I became intrigued by the term, (new to me), "Exceptional Human

Experience", and did a search on the web and came up with a great web site,

http://www.ehe.org with a lot of fascinating material. I had never heard of

Rhea White before, but apparently she has been studying and writing about

Exceptional Human Experiences for years. She has a lot of worthwhile

articles on this site, and I have printed off a long one to read later.

David

 

 

At 09:34 PM 11/17/00 -0500, you wrote:

>Dear List,

>

>A friend of mine just published a very interesting article in the

>International Journal of Parapsychology (Vol 11, No 1, 69-111). Although one

>has to wade through a bit of professional jargon, it's well worth it. )

>

>As I see it, the general idea is that it is important to accept our

>experiences as positive forces, and incorporate them into our lives, rather

>than to try to deny them or treat them as symptoms of illness (as, alas, do

>so many in the medical community.)

>

>It starts with an outline of 5 developmental stages worked out by Rhea White

>of the EHE Network:

>

>1. The initiating event/experience

>2. Search for reconciliation

>3. Between two worlds

>4. In the experiential paradigm

>5. A new way of being in the world.