The Association for Spiritual Integrity — honor code of ethics for spiritual teachers

[Carl-Richard]

42 minutes ago, Nilsi said:

Because one is a belief system and the other is a direct experience of Truth.

I agree that we need better belief systems, that's not the issue.

You're talking about the mystical experience of pure oneness. Spirituality has beliefs and practices just like religion. I subscribe to the understanding of Kenneth Pargament and Brian Zinnbauer. They both agree on their definition of spirituality: "an individual or collective search for the sacred". They disagree on the definition of religion. Pargament defines it as "a search for significance in ways related to the sacred", while Zinnbauer defines it as "a search for the sacred within a traditional context". In any case, spirituality is treated as a central sub-component of religion.

My and others' wish to revitalize religion is just to replace the collective/traditional components with something that is more relevant to current society, and attempts at establishing universalized ethics that is grounded in some of society's values is a step in this direction. The growing popularity of a hyper-individualistic spirituality is a byproduct of our culture evolving past the rigidity of old institutions, and it's only a transitory period. The end result is necessary and inevitable.

The mental and social isolation that modern spiritual people are subjected to is hugely detrimental, and that is why we flock to this forum. The insistance that individualism will keep the teachings pure or unridden from dogma is short-sighted, because it's really only a question about scale. Dogma is inevitable when people have an innate need to seek guidance and grounding from outside sources. There are only two choices — culture or cults, roughly speaking.

Edited December 24, 2022 by Carl-Richard

[SeaMonster]

9 minutes ago, zurew said:

and yet how many bad examples we can look at.

And how many bad examples would be ok for us not to bother with (since you don't like all-or-nothing philosophies?)  Like, give me a threshold percentage.

10 minutes ago, Nilsi said:

He's actually not. The way he talks about those things is how they should he talked about. Whether you agree with his politics is another issue.

You mean presents bad ideas in a palatable manner?

He is not wiser than the Tao Te Ching, which is the antithesis of his Conscious Politics.  

[Nilsi]

9 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

You're talking about the mystical experience of pure oneness. Spirituality has beliefs and practices just like religion. I subscribe to the understanding of Kenneth Pargament and Brian Zinnbauer. They both agree on their definition of spirituality: "an individual or collective search for the sacred". They disagree on the definition of religion. Pargament defines it as "a search for significance in ways related to the sacred", while Zinnbauer defines it as "a search for the sacred within a traditional context". In any case, spirituality is treated as a central sub-component of religion.

Why on God's green earth do you give these people authority in the first place?

10 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

My and others' wish to revitalize religion is just to replace the collective/traditional components with something that is more relevant to current society, and attempts at establishing universalized ethics that is grounded in some of society's values is a step in this direction. 

Totally. I'm interested in that as well.

11 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

The growing popularity of a hyper-individualistic spirituality is a byproduct of our culture evolving past rigidity of old institutions, and it's only a transitory period. The end result is necessary and inevitable.

I don't see this trend.

13 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

The mental and social isolation that modern spiritual people are subjected to is hugely detrimental, and that is why we flock to this forum. The insistance that individualism will keep the teachings pure or unridden from dogma is short-sighted, because it's really only a question about scale. Dogma is inevitable when people have an innate need to seek guidance and grounding from outside sources. There are only two choices — culture or cults, roughly speaking.

Isolation sucks.

We should create culture, social systems and individuals, that are capable of supporting you and being there for you, but we can't walk your "spiritual path" for you, that's just how it is

[zurew]

9 minutes ago, SeaMonster said:

And how many bad examples would be ok for us not to bother with (since you don't like all-or-nothing philosophies?)  Like, give me a threshold percentage.

The point is not to give a specific number, the point is to make at least some action, more specifically a structure (like an ethics code) that can lower it, without ignoring it all together and without not giving any fucks at all.

Edited December 24, 2022 by zurew

[SeaMonster]

31 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

My and others' wish to revitalize religion is just to replace the collective/traditional components with something that is more relevant to current society, and attempts at establishing universalized ethics that is grounded in some of society's values is a step in this direction. The growing popularity of a hyper-individualistic spirituality is a byproduct of our culture evolving past the rigidity of old institutions, and it's only a transitory period. The end result is necessary and inevitable.

Nah, that's all very nice talk but ultimately this is about centralized authority and power and elitism and all the same problems that plagued the old religion.  And you have no real answer for that, just that you're wiser and better than the ancients and it will all turn out better.

Which it won't, because you're not.

Edited December 24, 2022 by SeaMonster

[zurew]

3 minutes ago, SeaMonster said:

And you have no real answer for that, just that you're wiser and better than the ancients and it will all turn out better.

The argument is that the alternative is worse, and you have yet to make the argument why would it be worse than cults being totally free to trap people and to operate.

[SeaMonster]

11 minutes ago, zurew said:

The point is not to give a specific number, the point is to make at least some action, more specifically a structure (like an ethics code) that can lower it, without ignoring it all together and without not giving any fucks at all.

And do you also consider the potential unintended consequences of this action, or is it all just stuff for the better in your imagination?

Because it isn't.

[zurew]

Just now, SeaMonster said:

Because it isn't.

1 minute ago, zurew said:

you have yet to make the argument why would it be worse than cults being totally free to trap people and to operate.

 

[SeaMonster]

3 minutes ago, zurew said:

The argument is that the alternative is worse, and you have yet to make the argument why would it be worse than cults being totally free to trap people and to operate.

Wait, I thought you didn't like all-or-nothing ideas?

Who says that this is the case and that it's either this board or nothing? 

[zurew]

3 minutes ago, SeaMonster said:

Wait, I thought you didn't like all-or-nothing ideas?

Who says that this is the case and that it's either this board or nothing? 

When I say "the alternative is worse" I mean the alternative when we don't do shit, if you have better ideas, then say them.

[SeaMonster]

1 minute ago, zurew said:

When I say "the alternative is worse" I mean the alternative when we don't do shit, if you have better ideas, then say them.

Have as many codes as you like.  Let a thousand codes bloom.  Let teachers be transparent about their own code of ethics.  Allow potential seekers to compare and contrast.

Nothing to do with preventing cults.  The whole idea of a cult is that the seeker believes that the teacher knows something no-one else (including some fucking board) knows and is willing to tolerate anything to parlay that knowledge or ability into liberation.

I mean, this is sort of the case with Leo and many of his followers, e.g.  Would this code prevent Leo from having followers despite him not signing off on it? No, because they trust him and not the fucking board.

[Carl-Richard]

1 hour ago, SeaMonster said:

Nah, that's all very nice talk but ultimately this is about centralized authority and power and elitism and all the same problems that plagued the old religion.  And you have no real answer for that, just that you're wiser and better than the ancients and it will all turn out better.

Which it won't, because you're not.

The problem with old religion is mainly the mismatch with the current culture. Other than that, the rigidity could be attributed to the traditionalist and authoritarian worldview. If we replace it with liberal values, it'll probably be less stagnant, kinda like our democratic institutions.

Edited December 25, 2022 by Carl-Richard

[zurew]

24 minutes ago, SeaMonster said:

Have as many codes as you like.  Let a thousand codes bloom.  Let teachers be transparent about their own code of ethics.  Allow potential seekers to compare and contrast.

I like the "make teachers be transparent by their own code of ethics. I don't agree with the 'as many code as you like'. I think there should be a minimum number that must cover certain things like teacher-student realtionship.

24 minutes ago, SeaMonster said:

Would this code prevent Leo from having followers despite him not signing off on it?

It would make it so that teachers could be hold accountable to standards that they have given to themselves.

Edited December 24, 2022 by zurew

[Carl-Richard]

1 hour ago, Nilsi said:

Why on God's green earth do you give these people authority in the first place?

They're experts on religion, and it makes sense to me. You didn't derive your ideas on spirituality and religion completely by yourself either. Hyper-individualism has a limit ?

 

1 hour ago, Nilsi said:

I don't see this trend.

The scientific literature on secularization points to concepts like "religious complexity", which describes among other things a shift away from traditional and collective types of religion towards new individualistic types ("New Age"). So at least in countries with increasing secularization, this is a trend.

 

1 hour ago, Nilsi said:

Isolation sucks.

We should create culture, social systems and individuals, that are capable of supporting you and being there for you, but we can't walk your "spiritual path" for you, that's just how it is

You can keep telling people that, but they'll still log on Actualized.org every day.

Edited December 25, 2022 by Carl-Richard

[SeaMonster]

25 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

The problem with old religion is mainly the mismatch with the current culture. Other than that, the rigidity could be attributed to the traditionalist and authoritatian worldview. If we replace it with liberal values, it'll probably be less stagnant, kinda like our democratic institutions.

I don't understand how you could have arrived at that conclusion given any reasonably diligent observation of the current "liberal values" culture (i.e. Green postmodernism.)

Post-modernism is pretty much obsessed with perceived power imbalances which may result in abuse and attempts to redress it, but it is woefully lacking in the ideas of self-responsibility, heroic overcoming and in general what you deride as hyper-individualism.

So you get a sort-of castrated spirituality which as you said "does no harm" but potentially prevents any kind of good along the way.

Because, you know, sometimes a teacher may need to convey some harsh truths to a student that may hurt some fee-fees and violate a code.

So this is another version of your "liberal values" safe space culture.  There really isn't a way to guarantee a safe space spirituality because by its nature what one WANTS to hear on the spiritual path isn't always what one NEEDS to hear.

Edited December 24, 2022 by SeaMonster

[Carl-Richard]

15 minutes ago, SeaMonster said:

I don't understand how you could have arrived at that conclusion given any reasonably diligent observation of the current "liberal values" culture (i.e. Green postmodernism.)

Post-modernism is pretty much obsessed with perceived power imbalances which may result in abuse and attempts to redress it, but it is woefully lacking in the ideas of self-responsibility, heroic overcoming and in general what you deride as hyper-individualism.

So you get a sort-of castrated spirituality which as you said "does no harm" but potentially prevents any kind of good along the way.

Because, you know, sometimes a teacher may need to convey some harsh truths to a student that may hurt some fee-fees and violate a code.

So this is another version of your "liberal values" safe space culture.  There really isn't a way to guarantee a safe space spirituality because by its nature what one WANTS to hear on the spiritual path isn't always what one NEEDS to hear.

Point out which of the 24 codes you find problematic.

Edited December 24, 2022 by Carl-Richard

[SeaMonster]

5 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Point out which of the 22 codes you find problematic.

C'mon, you can't possibly be serious.

Firstly, they are so vague as to be entirely subjective in application and interpretation, even to the point of one point contradicting another.

It's just feel-good pabulum.  You may as well just say, "hey students, look out for evil teachers who want to control and exploit you and stick to good teachers who want to help you."  That's how effective the code is in my opinion -- but it sure creates a centralized authority to be exploited by evil forces later on.

[Carl-Richard]

21 minutes ago, SeaMonster said:

C'mon, you can't possibly be serious.

Firstly, they are so vague as to be entirely subjective in application and interpretation, even to the point of one point contradicting another.

It's just feel-good pabulum.  You may as well just say, "hey students, look out for evil teachers who want to control and exploit you and stick to good teachers who want to help you."  That's how effective the code is in my opinion -- but it sure creates a centralized authority to be exploited by evil forces later on.

Vague? Maybe in some places. Simple? Sure. But we still see those kinds of violations happening. History tells us that. We're simple creatures, and people who adopt teacher positions are certainly very often not saints. The fact that the codes are "obvious" and that the violations are taboo creates very nefarious dynamics for when the violations do happen: the social stigma and the reputation risk around speaking up, real victims not speaking up or not being believed, etc.

Edited December 25, 2022 by Carl-Richard

[Razard86]

6 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

 

 

This is exactly why spirituality and cults go hand in hand. Once you separate spirituality from all notions of social responsibility, you need to reconstruct the needs that society fulfills outside of society. Instead of doing that, see the needs for spirituality and the needs for safety and integrate them.

Society is a cult, every society ever made is a cult. Spirituality actually isn't a cult because it does not encourage group think but individual sovereignty and literally spirituality teaches that the highest wisdom is to treat others with the equal love and respect you have for yourself. It also holds that in times of crisis that being able to sacrifice yourself for others as a virtue. 

The only time spirituality becomes cult-like is when it starts to mirror society. Cults are not anarchy, for a cult to exist and persist it needs stability. Cults only seem like anarchy to other cults, no different than how the United States and other countries try to tell other countries how to run their country under the guise of knowing what social responsibility is.

[BipolarGrowth]

This thread is somewhat hilarious. Someone is like “maybe we shouldn’t allow spiritual teachers to abuse students”, and everyone is like “nah, fuck that. Unbridled abuse ftw, but only for the sake of the purity of awakening teachings”.