I. Summary of Topic

This study investigates the nature of the psychological bond that occurs during the Community Building Workshopª. It will focus upon the subjective experience of adults who participate in a community building experience designed to generate such a bond. This exploratory and descriptive study will attempt to identify, elaborate and define the existential and transpersonal dimensions of a psychological sense of community as it occurs in this experience.

II. Importance and Implications

Community has been traditionally valued for its importance in supporting social and ecological stability, psychological and moral development, religious and spiritual commitment [Nisbet, 1973]. The life and social sciences have made the study of community a central concern, analyzing structural components, internal processes and the impact of its loss or disruption [Bellah, 1985].

One of the dilemmas associated with studying community is the confusion that results from a lack of differentiation of the dimensions of the community experience: community can be viewed as a multidimensional phenomenon. In section III, an attempt will be made to distinguish between the different dimensions of community. Such an approach will provide clarity about the scope of this investigation, and will help eliminate some of the confusion that accompanies discussion about community.

This study will focus upon a psychological sense of community reflected by subjective feelings of connection and belonging. In recent years community psychologists have articulated an operational definition for a "psychological sense of community" that includes four elements [Sarason, 1966; McMillan, 1986].

(1) Membership, which includes the five attributes of; boundaries, emotional safety, personal investment, identification, and a common symbol system

(2) Influence, which includes the bivalent capacity to influence and be influenced by the members of the community

(3) Integration and Fulfillment of Needs, which is the degree of (meeting of needs) among members

(4) Emotional Connection, which is described as high quality interaction sometimes including a spiritual bonding

This fourth element, shared emotional connection, is considered the definitive element for true community [McMillan, 1986]. McMillan has recommended that research focus upon shared emotional connection so that this element of community be better understood [McMillan, 1986]. This study investigates the possibility that there may be existential and transpersonal components to this element of the psychological sense of community. If such aspects of community can be experienced,

and described, this study will serve to strengthen the definition of a psychological sense of community and provide insight into how that experience might be propagated.

The existential component of a shared emotional connection can be described as a palpable experience of a shared sense of identification. This aspect of community arises when humans experience adversity together, such as occurs during a natural disaster. Such adversity breaks through structures which maintain roles and statuses which perpetuate social distance. When the crises of adversity or cultural transition occur these distinctions are stripped away and what can arise is a shared sense of identification with the human struggle with existential uncertainty. This shared sense transcends ego-identity, societal roles and structures, and traditional sociopolitical boundaries [Friedman, 1972; Peck, 1987]. This bond can be described as a sense of humankindness [Turner, 1966].

Transpersonal thought integrates psychological and spiritual perspectives that extend the psychological sense of self beyond the traditional constructs of the ego or self. It asserts that the self is an open-system extending beyond the personal identity of the individual. The transpersonal perspective thus explores and describes dynamics which contribute toward an enlarged sense of identification. Thus a transpersonal component of the emotional bond would be reflected by a palpable experience of identification with, and integration within, a larger whole.

It seems probable that there may be existential and transpersonal components of the psychological sense of community. Yet, no study of community and its existential and transpersonal elements currently exists in the transpersonal literature; thus, there is no evidence substantiating a relationship between these elements and the psychological sense of community. The field of transpersonal psychology thus lacks data important to social applications of transpersonal theory. Similarly, disciplines that currently study the phenomena of community lack the important perspective that a transpersonal viewpoint can offer.

By studying these aspects of the psychological sense of community this dissertation increases the understanding of the existential and transpersonal elements of community and lays groundwork for a transpersonal social theory. As such elements are identified, and elaborated, they contribute to a stronger definition of the psychological sense of community, and a better understanding of processes that support the quest for community renewal and psychological wholeness.

III. Background and Literature Review

For the purposes of this proposal I will limit my review of community to those disciplines and studies which are concerned with an

examination of the human sense of connection with his or her own kind.

A review of this literature necessitates a look at some historical concepts of community. This is done in Section A. Section B will endeavor to address the difficult issue of defining community. Section C will isolate and further define the particular facet of community that will be the focus of this study.

Community is a complex and multidimensional phenomenon. To know the full scope of the community experience one must incorporate both the objective and subjective components of that experience. Such an integrated approach to knowing has not always been considered valid. Section D. will discuss some epistemological considerations that will make more explicit the difficulties contained in reviewing the literature associated with this topic.

If an essential element of the human experience of community is existential, that is, a generic bond occurring by virtue of humanity's place within existence, then an attempt must be made to identify scientific observations and theory that would indicate the possibility that such a bond might exist. Section E will attempt to do so.

If a generic bond exists and is palpable then it would appear in the observations of social historians, anthropologists, sociologists, and psychologists. Section F will endeavor to identify works in these disciplines that offer further indications that such a phenomenon occurs within human social transactions.

Any bond that impacts upon, and unifies, human consciousness would have captured the attention of transpersonal theorists and the spiritual traditions of the world. Section G will review the transpersonal literature for the additional perspective offered therein.

A. Historical Conceptions of Community

Community is a term that encompasses many concepts and perceptions. How community is perceived, and what it is said to encompass, has changed dramatically over time. What community is in a given time and place may be very different from what it has been in another time and place. The concept of community has changed in response to historical crises and cultural conflicts. Thus, ironically, there is little uniformity in how community is conceived or perceived.

In this section we will contend with the contradictions that attend the fact that community is a term that has been widely used to describe a plethora of social phenomena. A vast literature chronicles the human endeavor to maintain and renew a sense of connection associated with community. In this section we will attempt to distill from that literature conceptions of community which will help contextualize our attempts to define the dimensions

of community that this study will address.

Community can be viewed as a process as well as a place or structure [Dunham,1986]. In this section we shall look at the generic needs that all community structures must address. We shall discuss several community constructs. These constructs reveal the process of community as one which generates a structure that reflects a specific organizing principle. In viewing the sometimes contradictory nature of the organizing principles that generate community constructs we will develop a better grasp of the complexity of community as a whole.

The most definitive and generalizable dimension of community is structural. All communities serve a generic set of functions. They must provide coordinated processes and methods to meet the basic human needs for survival. They must provide nurturance and socialization of the young and support for the elderly. They must provide a cosmological or ideological perspective with which members can orient themselves to the whole of existence. They must provide a sufficiently cohesive context within which a sense of identity, belonging, meaning and purpose can develop. In short, they must be whole systems endowed with the structural capacity to support the members throughout the "full round of life" [Redfield, 1955].

As we have seen, community constructs are composed structurally to provide for the basic needs of humankind. This much all community constructs have in common. The distinctions between constructs begins to emerge in the organizing principles which inform the processes by which structure is composed. We will now turn to a discussion of seven community traditions, each reflecting differing organizing principles. These traditions reflect the historical search for community in western social evolution [Nisbet, 1973]. And, they reveal the diversity of human perception about what constitutes the common good and how it should be preserved.

Kinship Community

The oldest tradition of community and most widespread form of human association is the clan or kinship community. The typical clan was historically composed of fewer than two dozen individuals who lived their entire lives in relation to each other. Clan identity and membership were based upon blood relations or personal descent. This community tradition featured a high degree of personal contact amongst its members. Structurally, kinship community was organized around an age-based hierarchy, utilizing tradition and customs to inform organizational decisions. The needs of the clan were preeminent over the needs of the individual and the behavior of the kinship community could best be described as cellular. The individual existed to serve whatever role best insured the survival of the clan as a whole.

The social contract of such a group was defined by the need to

survive. Cultural anthropologists have suggested that the cosmological outlook of such human groups might have been determined by their relationship with nature [Sanday,1981]. If nature was kind and provided for the basic needs of the group then nature was viewed as beneficent. If natural conditions were difficult then nature might be viewed as something dangerous and threatening against which the group must struggle for survival.

The organizing principles which defined community structure and life then proceeded from this primary perception. Cultural practices emerged which viewed nature either as a partner, or as an opponent to be subdued. That primary perception and the cultural practices that ensued yielded two very important community traditions, the ecological tradition of community, which we will examine in more detail later, and the military tradition of community. Kinship-based community has been in decline for the last three thousand years. Except in remote areas kinship-based communities have given way before the invading principles of the military community.

The Military Tradition of Community The military tradition of community provides one of the central organizing motifs which defines western cultural development. In service of the perception that nature is a dangerous opponent the military tradition of community emphasizes hierarchical relations, uniformity, centralized command, discipline, competition and disassociation from familial relations [Nisbet,1973]. This tradition features the institutionalization of violence as a process for insuring the survival of the community through dominance [Schmookler,1988]. The military tradition continues to provide a compelling, and dangerous, organizing principle with which survival can be assured.

The Political Tradition of Community

The military tradition of community can be seen as the archetype for the evolution of the political tradition of community and the formation of the modern state [Nisbet, 1973]. The organizing principles which inform the political tradition of community can all be found in Plato's perception of a unifying ideal [Nisbet, 1973]. In service of Plato's desire to preserve this ideal, force is monopolized by a centralized and sovereign power. The sphere of influence of this power is territorialized and all intermediate authority or autonomy is displaced by the authority of the state. Laws are prescribed which replace tradition and custom. Citizenship is created, and rights and obligations are conferred. Bureaucracy evolves to regulate the state's control over the affairs of its members.

This tradition has evolved under the influence of other social philosophers. As it evolved political community has come to

represent a solution to economic, social, psychological and spiritual needs. It continues to be perceived as the source for a degree of popular participation in government, on a scale wider than anything ever known before. Political community defines and protects rights, equalities, and liberties. It is also the source of centralized bureaucracy and collectivism which have undermined cultural diversity, led to the alienation of the masses, and generated the loss of a sense of self [Tooney, 1957].

The Religious Tradition of Community Another fundamental community tradition derived from the human concern with the appropriate relationship with the divine is the religious tradition of community. Reflecting the human need to infuse the crises of existence, occasioned by birth, death, famine and disease, with meaning and purpose, this community tradition focuses forthrightly upon the human preoccupation with cosmological purpose. The concept of religious community encompasses a spectrum of community experience that extends from the particular sect or cult to universal religions such as Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

The tradition of religious community had two distinct dimensions. The first, the visible community, defined by what is commonly held as sacred, by dogma, by rites, by religious hierarchy, and by eccliastical or canonical law. The second, the invisible community, which is defined to include all true believers.

The tradition of religious community is organized by the perception of a great chain of being ranging from the simplest organism at the bottom all the way up to God at the top, with each link deemed vital in the divine chain. Each individual in this chain gives and receives what his or her functional place in the order demands. The whole order is preserved by individuals serving the community to which they belong, and communities serving the function reserved to them by the larger unifying objectives of the divine as embodied by religious community [Nisbet, 1973].

The three remaining community traditions bear similarities with each of the four traditions we have discussed thus far. Those we have examined may be considered the traditions which have had the greatest impact upon the evolution of western society. Each of the subsequent modes of community have emerged relatively recently. They represent responses to crises and conflicts springing from the decline or decay of the predominant traditions. Each incorporates characteristics of the previous;ly described modes of community while offering alternative perspectives about what can be considered a just or good society.

The Revolutionary Tradition of Community

The revolutionary tradition of community is the most potent and most modern of the remaining modes. This tradition flows from the belief in some form of goodness lying in human nature, or society, that requires the liberative action of revolutionary violence to become manifest. This belief, or mythos, must be so absolute that any institutions or authorities which dominate men may then be considered evil. Any acts of terror or destructive violence against such authority is then justified and considered good.

This tradition is invariably elitist. When it evolves structure revolutionary community is hierarchical in nature and highly centralized. The revolutionary tradition of community is totalistic; no other form of association or allegiance is recognized as viable. In this respect it embodies many of the characteristics of political and military community. This tradition provides a sense of belonging, meaning and purpose which is tied to the assertion of its ideological perspective, and its religiopolitical mission of affirming that perspective.

The Ecological Tradition of Community

In contrast to the centralizing tendencies of the military, political, religious, and revolutionary traditions of community stand the ecological and pluralistic traditions of community. These community constructs embrace diversity and emphasize the interdependencies of humankind's relationships with other humans and nature. The objectives of these traditions are primarily peaceful. Their modes of action are noncoercive; they seek fulfillment through example and vision eschewing force and the centralization of power. The traditions emphasize spontaneity of association and a veneration of the diversity manifest in natural and human life.

The ecological tradition of community is characterized to a large extent by the idea of community achieved through the processes of withdrawal and renewal [Nisbet-1973]. This community tradition springs from the perception that the larger society suffers from forces which have corrupted the true character of human nature and that it is important for human beings to renew nature by forming associations free from the corruptions of the larger society. The organizing principles of this tradition of community involved a reverence for the inherent, "natural," or un-interfered with, unfolding of human beings. This includes an interest in creating forms of relationship which were in accord with human nature and nature as a whole.

The ecological tradition of community springs from concerns similar to those embodied in the religious tradition of community. The lineage of this tradition of community can be traced back to early monasticism. Since then "utopian" social experiments, both religious and secular, have emerged which embody the process of withdrawal for the sake of renewal.

The Pluralist Tradition of Community Finally, we come to, the pluralist tradition of community. This tradition is derived from the philosophies of a unitary system that dominate western social development. This tradition, like the ecological tradition, distrusts the unitary models of reality and finds reality to lie in the particular, in multiplicity, and in the many instead of the one. In this respect this tradition offers an alternative model of a just basis for political community.

The pluralist tradition is best envisaged by the term communitas communitatum, that is, community of communities. This reflects this tradition's esteem for diversity, de-centralization, autonomy, and local traditions and customs. This tradition views the freedom of association as fundamental to the well-being and functionality of individuals. It values intermediary forms of authority and believes those intermediary forms should be rooted in a local sense of place. This tradition represented the effort to affirm structures which diversify authority thus mitigating the centralizing tendencies of western cultural development and preserving cultural and social variety.

To summarize, in this section we have surveyed seven community traditions which have evolved constructs of the just or good community. In doing so we have seen the contradictory emphases these traditions embody. Without elaborating the tensions between models which extoll unitary or pluralistic organizing principles, and employ either institutional violence or noncoercive processes, and which emphasize legalistic or traditional methods for regulating human behavior, it is evident that these tensions exist. This process has revealed how complicated a phenomena community is and highlights the irony associated with the use of this term. Community refers to what is held in common. And, the term community encompasses widely diverse associations.

It is clear from the preceding discussion that community is a phenomenon which includes many contradictory and paradoxical elements. To categorize comprehensively the complete spectrum of phenomena associated with the human experience of community would be a massive task. Fortunately, the focus of this study does not require such scope. This study must attempt to contend with these contradictions only in so far as they are relevant to the particular enquiry that is being made. In the next section we will discuss the specific difficulties associated with defining community and will attempt to narrow our focus to the particular aspect of the phenomena of community which this study addresses.

B. Defining Community

The ambiguous and multidimensional nature of "community" presents a formidable challenge to anyone seeking to define it. Community is a

biological, social, and psychological phenomenon. Having been studied objectively and experienced subjectively, community suffers from an abundance of definitions.

When sociologist George Hillery attempted, in 1955, to ascertain the extent of agreement among definitions of community, he concluded, "When all the definitions are viewed, beyond the concept that people are involved in community, there is no complete agreement as to the nature of community" [Hillery, 1955]. In Hillery's study, which surveyed ninety-four definitions of community in which sixteen different concepts were employed by the definers, he found at least two authors, in each case, who had presented conflicting definitions. In classifying these concepts the only basic agreement that he found was that community consisted of persons in social interaction, within a geographical area, with one or more common ties [Hillery, 1955].

In the intervening years the advent of ecological and systems perspectives has added to the variety and complexity of usages of the term "community." This study will not endeavor to encompass and integrate the full spectrum of historical accounts, sociological theories and studies, ethnographic and anthropological observations, biological and ecological data, and firsthand reports that comprise the story of the human experience of community. No attempt will be made to resolve the dilemma of the lack of a definitive description of the parameters of community.

A focal point for this investigation is the existential component of the community experience. For the purposes of this study the term "existential" will be employed within the classical or traditional meaning of the word, that is, based on existence [Flexner,1987]. The existential component of community then refers to the experience of humankindness, a sense of shared identity, that occurs when humans mutually experience the vulnerability, insecurity, and uncertainty that accompanies awareness of the dilemma of human existence.

Hillery's study (1955) revealed that "consciousness of kind" was a factor in delineating community identity both within a geographical area and within a set of social interactions. His authors defined "consciousness of kind" as the phenomenon of a population conscious of its homogeneity in at least certain aspects. Hillery found that aspects contributing to a homogeneous consciousness of kind were common ends, means or norms. "Consciousness of kind" as defined by Hillery's study thus depends upon commonly employed structures for implementation of shared goals and values.

Hillery's definition contrasts with "consciousness of kind" as employed existentially. Consciousness of kind in this sense would extend to all humanity regardless of differentiating factors such as race, gender, ideology, social status, or age. In essence, the existential variation of this concept suggests that wherever humankind exists geographically, with whatever circumstances and

beliefs, there is an intrinsic or generic bond, a consciousness of kind,that unites all mankind. Consciousness of this bond is most readily experienced in times of natural disaster or cultural crisis.

C. Epistemological Considerations

In this section we will examine the two coexisting world views that currently define what science considers knowable. We will view each form of knowing and assess each perspective in relationship to this study's focus upon a generic bond uniting humanity. We will show that the postmodern paradigm provides a context wherein a generic bond or an integrative force is probable. Then we will view evidence from the study of natural systems which supports the likelihood that integration and interconnection are intrinsic elements of natural systems, and that these elements reflect the purposefulness and design of the evolving universe. We will conclude with a logical assertion of the general systems viewpoint that elements existing at other levels of natural systems must also permeate human systems. This will enable us to consider human systems from a perspective that allows for the possibility that those systems might have cultural practices which reflect integrative processes common to natural systems.

1. Modern Science

The modern scientific paradigm rests upon the foundation laid in the sixteenth century by French philosopher and mathematician Rene Descartes. Descartes asserted that mathematics was the epitome of pure reason and that reasoning was the essence of human activity [Berman, 1981]. To Descartes, the human mind possessed a certain method, it confronts the world as a separate object and it applies purely mechanical mathematical reasoning to "know" that world. This mode of knowing distinguishes between the observer and the observed, with subject and observer always seen in opposition to one another.

Descartes' method has been referred to as "atomistic," meaning that knowledge is gained by subdividing an object into its smallest component parts; an object then consists of the sum of its parts, no more no less. With this method Descartes could arrive at certainty, and he viewed certainty as equivalent to measurement. With precise mathematical measurement Descartes' method would then validate or invalidate hypotheses about the nature of reality.

The Cartesian paradigm essentially asserts a mechanical philosophy that holds that the reference points for all scientific explanations are matter and motion [Berman,1981]. The mechanistic scheme presupposes a conception of matter that assumes that ultimate particles exist in the same manner as large-scale objects. According to this perspective processes

accessible to human senses are secondary processes that are derived from events that occur on an atomic scale. These atomic events were considered the objective reality and the source of all action; all phenomena then are reducible to the actions of atomic material.

This atomic materialism, which is the norm of the reductionistic approach, can be used to explain the phenomena of life. All human experience is understandable in terms related to the physics of matter. With atomic materialism matter is the source of all action, the cause of all effects, with life, mind and consciousness as by-products.

To summarize, the reality construct that emerged from the scientific revolution excluded consideration of consciousness and mind as valid objects of study in natural phenomena[Augrus, 1986]. The universe was perceived as a collection of inert matter moving around endlessly. This world view set the stage for the Industrial Revolution. The tools of quantifiability and scientific experimentation, combined with the view of nature as an distant abstraction justified the manipulation of the environment and the technological philosophy that prevails today.

Today science retains the reductionistic and mechanistic features of the Cartesian paradigm. It is still widely believed that with a complete knowledge of physics, chemistry, and biology one can explain the phenomena of life. The materialism and dualism that characterize this world view continue to define and limit knowing and knowledge to only those categories of phenomena that are quantifiably certain and objective. The net effect of this world view is that phenomena that do not lend themselves to this method of knowing cannot be validated; they simply do not exist. As science historian Morris Berman points out,

The logical end point of this world view is a feeling of total reification: everything is an object, alien, not me: and I am ultimately an object too, an alienated "thing" in a world of other equally meaningless things. The world is not of my own making; the cosmos cares nothing for me, and I do not really feel a sense of belonging to it. [Berman, 1981, pg.3]

The history of the evolution of modern science then is the story of the progressive eradication of consciousness and mind from participation within the phenomenal world. It is also the history of the progressive degeneration of the psychological sense of community. A fundamental sense of connection or relatedness between human beings is impossible in the world view of the modern scientific paradigm.

2. Postmodern Science

The limitations of the modern scientific paradigm have been known

for some time [Berman, 1981; Augros, 1988]. The shortcomings became evident when the field of quantum mechanics disclosed that the subatomic world did not adhere to the tenets of the reductionistic perspective. Relativity and quantum theory made clear that the causes of human and biological action could not be resolved to material forces alone [Margenau, 1984]. Mind came to be viewed as a source of action. Science now takes into account two ultimate realities, mind and matter [Dyson, 1988; Augros, 1986].

The postmodern perspective reveals a subatomic world which is potential, incomplete until an observer collapses all the probabilistic possibilities into an event [Margenau, 1984]. In this realm all events are linked intimately via relationship with, or the participation of, consciousness [Dossey, 1989]. The universe is seen as imbued with consciousness, as participative, and as existing with a purpose [Margenau, 1984; Augros, 1986].

The purpose of the universe remains a mystery. Theoretical physicists, however, are pointing toward evidence that mind is responsible for the origination of matter and that "reference to the human mind as a goal of the universe can explain many physical constants, from the subnuclear to the cosmological, that are otherwise inexplicable" [Barrow, 1986]. This assertion, called the "anthropic cosmological principle," incorporates the fundamental features of the postmodern paradigm. The universe of matter has co-evolved, with mind as the primary teleological agent, moving in an integrated fashion toward production of conditions that support emergence of a self-reflective life form such as humanity [Barrow, 1986].

The structure of modern science has now incorporated a new paradigmatic perspective [Augros, 1986]. This perspective views mind (consciousness) as permeating the universe and providing an integrative force that acts in concert with matter. This has important implications for the investigation into the existence of a generic bond linking human beings. From the postmodern vantage point it is possible to attribute meaning to the patterns of interconnection and integration found in the natural universe. More importantly, from the viewpoint of this study, it is logical to assume that evidence of such integration in natural systems would imply that human systems are subject to the same evolutionary forces.

D. The Existential Bond in Natural Systems

The epistemological pattern that shapes a world view has a tendency to become an ethic for living in the world. The Cartesian paradigm institutionalized the dualistic way of thinking that separated subject from observer, holding that each was opposed to the other.

Scientific perceptions of natural systems have been characterized by the ethic of competition that is a by-product of this dualistic assumption.

The competition model of nature became an ethic for survival during the last two hundred years. This model provided justification for the economic and social ruthlessness of progress in the industrial age. But, like the paradigm from which it has emerged, the competition model suffers from limitations similar to those of Newtonian physics and the mechanistic model.

Modern ecological studies and genetic research show that Darwin's key assumptions, about population growth, competition, and accumulation of slight differences are in conflict with the evidence [Augros, 1988]. Field studies have found no evidence of competition between species or even between individuals of the same species [Andrewartha, 1954] [Colinvaux, 1978]. Instead evidence shows that Nature avoids competition through a variety of methods including geographical isolation, ecological niches, food specialization, spatial and temporal division of habitats, periodic migration, sequential flowering and feeding, and specialized predation techniques[Augros, 1988] .

What has been found indicates that perhaps the oldest, strongest, and most fundamental force in nature is the urge to form partnerships and to live in collaborative arrangements. Nature neither creates nor supports any solitary, free-living creatures [Thomas, 1980]. Every form of life is dependent upon other forms: there is no animal alive that does not have a symbiotic relationship with at least one other life form [Perry, 1983]. The evidence is so great for a noncompetitive model of nature that a precept of modern ecology is that Nature avoids competition so that life will not destroy itself [Augros, 1988].

The noncompetitiveness of nature is evident in the harmonious design that characterizes Nature. Unlike Darwinism's hypothesis of struggle the new biological evidence discloses that organisms do not fight the environment, they work with it or around it [Augros, 1988]. No organism confronts its environment head on; none contradicts its habitat, each living thing is attuned to its environment. Effort is minimal instead of maximal because each organism is so well designed [Augros, 1988].

Starting from the evidence of noncompetition that is abundant today, the new biological perspective is examining the previous assumptions about the origin of life and evolution. A new biological and evolutionary synthesis is emerging [Augros, 1988]. It attempts to integrate the current evidence for a noncompetitive model of Nature with a fossil record that shows how evolution actually proceeded.

The fossil records show that organic forms have an internal cause; genetic material systematically develops the organic form [Britten,

1971]. Evidence indicates that in each living form there is something analogous to human art. Each variation represents a new theme and is designed to allow species to adjust ecologically and to head toward a predetermined goal or niche. This movement in the history of life suggests purpose.

The new biological paradigm views purpose as permeating every aspect of life and as essential to the very definition of life. Organism's actions are seen as regulatory and as operating either to maintain a goal already achieved or moving towards one which is not yet realized. Life, therefore, tends toward the realization of a developmental path or goal; the whole of nature is ordered by purpose [Sinnot, 1961; Jacob, 1973].

Since things lacking intelligence do not act for a purpose unless directed by intelligence, the self-directive development of life, reflecting the reality of purpose, argues for a mind behind nature [Augros, 1988]. Thus the new perspective emerging through biological, ecological and genetic research gives indications that there is a unitive or integrative force that permeates life.

In summary, evidence from physics, chemistry, and cosmology suggests that our universe, its history, and its material laws are uniquely suited to life in general. In fact the goal of life has been used by many of todays most prominent physicists to illuminate the history of the universe and its most fundamental properties [Barrow, 1986]. Physicists faced with compelling experimental evidence, have been moving away from strictly mechanical models of the universe and toward a view that sees mind as playing an integral role in all physical events, as a force acting throughout the universe.

Through nature the actions of mind become palpable. The postmodern paradigm no longer rests solely upon the abstract calculations and theories of the theoretical physicists. The field observations of biologists, ecologists and those who specialize in studying living systems now show that nature is a cooperative system. The history of life indicates that nature has proceeded much like a master artist creating organic forms, diversifying and exploring the themes latent in each form, and then leaping to a new and more complex themes that subsume the traits of the previous ones while manifesting completely new characteristics [Miller, 1978]. The movement toward greater complexity indicates a teleological intent, that nature is self-directed.

Science historians have pointed out that the scientific paradigm emerged in a Western European culture that was intent upon escaping the confines of feudalism, a culture in which emerging capitalism made a profound alteration in social relations. Science was a method of knowing that was well suited to the needs of the time.

The possibility of a new postmodern ethic now emerges from the realization of the epistemological errors of the scientific revolution

[Bateson, 1972]. With the advent of a new scientific perspective it is possible to assert that mind and consciousness are active in nature [Bateson,1979]. The postmodern viewpoint asserts that organism and environment form a unity in which consciousness participates.

It is the intention of this investigation to follow this assertion. If a postmodern world is more than an abstact idea then connection and inclusion may be palpable experiences to human consciousness. If humans can mutually experience an awareness of inclusion and belonging and describe the characteristics of that experience then it might be possible to study the characteristics of such an integrative experience. And, in doing so it might be possible to begin describing the effects in human systems.

E. The Existential Bond in Human Systems

The previous discussion of epistemological perspectives and their impact upon the search for an integrative force, or generic bond, was a necessary precursor to the following discussion. We have established that the nature of scientific knowledge now includes evidence which suggests that mind operates in natural systems. General systems theory holds that human systems are natural systems which incorporate all of the characteristics intrinsic to natural systems [Miller, 1978]. It is now credible to assert that the existence of a generic or existential bond should manifest itself in human systems.

The following discussion of human systems is not intended to be comprehensive. This discussion will attend only to collective systems wherein mutual benefits are experienced as derived from a shared sense of identification with a human system.

Social thought has been given shape by the longing for community and the desire to preserve it in all of its diversity [Nisbet, 1973]. Community has been alluringly associated with images of security, belonging, moral certainty, and a sense of purpose [Boyte, 1984; Keyes, 1973]. It has also been feared for its potential for fascism, dehumanization, and denial of human rights [Nisbet, 1973]. Clearly community is a complex phenomena.

This study investigates only a particular facet of this complex phenomena. By focusing upon processes, either natural or induced, which create collective access to the existential dilemma of human kind we hope to shed light upon how this experience contributes to a sense of psychological community. Examining such experiences will enables us to describe the existential and transpersonal elements, if any, that contribute to that experience.

To accomplish this it is necessary to differentiate out of the entire community context the strata this study will address. This can be done by offering a multidimensional model of community that incorporates as part of the model an emphasis upon the existential and

transpersonal dimensions of community life. Such a multidimensional model of community must 1) differentiate and define succinctly the dimensions it proposes, 2) relate them to one another, and 3) provide insight into the processes and dynamics that generate, support, and undermine community. 1. A Multidimensional Model of Community

In 1966, cultural anthropologist, Victor Turner developed just such a multidimensional model from the observations he had made during cross-cultural studies of indigenous peoples [Turner, 1966]. Turner's unique interest in ritual and ritual symbolism led him toward the observation of collective rituals in a variety of cultural settings. These experiences soon engendered in him the perception of indigenous cultures as having developed a rich and complex capacity for maintaining, renewing, and transforming their collective identity [Turner, 1966].

By observing the impact of collective rituality upon the societal aspects of these indigenous cultures Turner was able to formulate and define the model described in Table 1 [Turner, 1966]. This model enabled Turner to explain the dynamics that underly and support the structural cohesion and adaptability of a given community. The model also provides a context through which Turner could elaborate an essential dialectical process, between collective ritual and social structural integrity, that he observed in his field studies [Turner, 1966].

The cross-cultural nature of Turner's model lends itself well to the subject of this inquiry; it provides a perspective required to distinguish between essential components of the community experience and relates these components to one another. By referring to Table 1 on page 24, the reader will notice that Turner has posited a three-tiered model of community. He labels these as normative community, ideological community, and existential community [Turner, 1966]. To highlight the area where this study will focus I have further differentiated the third dimension, existential community, in to two components Turner has named liminality and communitas [Turner, 1966].

Table 1Turner's Multidimensional Model of Community

STAGE, DEFINITION, STRUCTURAL CHARACTER

NORMATIVE COMMUNITY Examples:

Republic/State City Corporation Neighborhood

Family Perduring social system or organization which under the influence of time mobilizes and organizes resources and establishes social control amongst its members in pursuance of its goals

Highly structured complex differentiated, Hierarchical system Well defined roles Status classifications Institutionalized juris-political system Strong kinship bonds

IDEOLOGICAL COMMUNITY Examples:

Religious commune Monastery Utopian or Ecological Commune Political party Healing Communities

Attempt to institutionalize social structures that optimize conditions that support Communitas (see below). These attempts are often transitory and in rare instances endure.

Structured Semicomplex to complex Differentiated hierarchical structure Structural affiliations supercede or eliminate kinship bonds

EXISTENTIAL COMMUNITY "Liminality" Examples:

Social Crisis Natural Disaster War Rites of Passage

Experiential Workshop Transient state of emptiness existing between fixed states of role or status. This state emerges where structures do not exist, it occurs spontaneously or is ritually induced during transition periods.

Antistructure Occurs in the interstices of cultural strucure. Atemporal, in and out of time, Structure is simple, undifferentiated, and homogenous

EXISTENTIAL COMMUNITY "Communitas"

Examples: Collective Rituals Experiential Workshops Retreats Pilgrimages

Temporary state that occurs during liminal or transition experiences which entails an experience of a generic social bond that transcends ego-identification and socio-political boundaries

Anti-structural Egalitarian social cohesion that occurs in the interstices of

cultural structure and that infuses that structure with cohesion and renewed or transformed meaning

a. Normative Community

Turner sees normative community as the social structure that a culture created in order to fulfill the essential tasks that would support that culture's physical and cultural survival. This always entails "the need to mobilize and organize resources, and the necessity for social control among the members of the group in pursuance of the group's goals" [Turner, 1966]. As a culture ages it grows increasingly differentiated, becoming more norm-governed, institutionalized, and abstract [Turner, 1966].

Turner further observes that as cultures grew into complex societies the nature of social structure became highly differentiated with hierarchical systems of political-legal-and economic positions. The social structure is then many-leveled containing chains of command, bureaucratic ladders, and systems of promotion, rules, and criteria for status elevation and degradation. Social structure, as Turner sees it, is ordered by many types of evaluation, which inevitably separated its members in terms of "more" or "less" or "upper" or "lower." The social structure inevitably provokes competition and conflict despite the fact that it restrains public expression of these sentiments [Turner, 1985].

Turner's description and observations about the social structure of normative community concur with the observations and analysis of modern sociology. The structural and functionalist perspectives of modern sociology share common concepts of superorganic social structures that contain institutionalized arrangements of positions and statuses, all having evolved in the natural course of events,that continue with modifications that are more or less gradual over time [Gould, 1964]. The concept of "conflict" has come to be connected with the concept of "social structure" as the differentiation of parts becomes opposition between parts, and scarce status becomes the object

of struggle between persons and groups [Turner, 1966].

What Turner calls normative community is a culture's essential development of norm-governed methods devised to insure the survival of the culture. As these methods grow more institutionalized through time they invariably separate individuals and created relations that are increasingly governed by institutional necessities.

The result of this is that all public relations and most private relations are conducted between social personae [Turner, 1966]. He concludes that, although relations between social personae are essential to the survival of the whole, such relationships inevitably undermine the sense of connection between individuals and erode the communal fabric of the culture [Turner, 1966].

b. Ideological Community

The second tier of Turner's model is called ideological community. This designation stems from Turner's observation that as cultures grew increasingly specialized, with progressively refined distinctions between social and political statuses, institutionalized attempts were made to optimize conditions that would preserve ideological perspectives [Turner, 1966].

These ideological perspectives had often been derived from transitional experiences that occured outside of, or between, the normal sets of statuses or roles. The perspectives, and the perceptions that engendered these perspectives, could not be easily maintained in the normal cultural categories, so new structures were derived to sustain and protect the integrity of these perspectives. In short, ideological community represents the attempt to institutionalize the experience of communitas (see below) which occurs among individuals who experience transitional states together [Turner, 1985].

Ideological community relies upon the modalities of normative community to attempt to preserve the effects of existential community [Turner, 1966]. In this respect ideological community can be seen as representing an intermediate phase in social-structural development. In Turner's model, ideological community reflects innovative attempts to preserve and integrate alternative social realities [Turner, 1985].

Ideological community is like normative community in that it is structure-bound, although its structure is often less complex and hierarchical. However, it maintains many of the features of social structure such as division of labor, differentiated statuses and roles, and precepts and honor codes that regulate social relations, attitudes and behaviors.

Ideological community suffers from the same malaise that afflicts normative community. That is, structural roles inevitably lead to contractual relationships based upon utility and exchange [Turner,

1966]. Relationships are mediated by role expectations, status, and the ideological standards of the particular structure within which they occur, and, they are governed by precepts and norms, thus taking place between idealized social personae. While such forms of relating serve to preserve alternative cultural possibilities they consequently diminish the immediacy of contact and egalitarian qualities that characterize existential community [Turner, 1966].

c. Existential Community

Existential community, in Turner's model, is comprised of two categories of experience, liminality and communitas [Turner, 1966]. In Turner's community model these are inseparable experiences. For the purposes of our thesis, they have been separated to make the elements of this dimension of community more explicit. Existential community refers to the experience of a social bond that arises when a group, or community, has a vivid encounter with human uncertainty, imperfection, and vulnerability.

1. Liminality

The term liminality was selected by Turner to describe the phenomena he observed that were associated with transition states, rites of passage, and collective rituals [Turner, 1966]. He adopted the term from the work of anthropologist Arnold van Gennep. Van Gennep had focused his attention upon the important place ritual initiation and the enactment of rites of passage had in traditional cultures. [Gennep, 1909]

Van Gennep defined rites of passage as "rites which accompany every change of place, state, social position and age" [Gennep, 1909]. Van Gennep had shown that all rites of passage are marked by three phases: separation, margin (or limen, signifying threshold in latin), and aggregation. [Gennep, 1909] The first phase, separation, signified the detachment from a point in the social structure, or a set of cultural conditions (states), or both. Van Gennep referred to the middle stage as the "liminal phase." During this phase the ritual subject, be it group or individual, is ambiguous, meaning it occupies for a time a cultural realm that has few or none of the attributes of the past or the coming state. In the third stage the passage is consummated, the ritual subject resides in a relatively stable state once more, assuming again the rights and obligations, norms and ethical standards that are associated with social status within a structural system [Gennep, 1909; Turner, 1966].

Turner places particular importance upon the liminal period in transition rites. He sees liminality as a cultural format that provides opportunities for periodic reclassifications of reality and man's relationship to society, nature, and culture. It is his perception that liminality incited thought and action by stimulating the ritual subjects at many psychobiological levels simultaneously [Turner, 1966].

It is Turner's assertion that, during the liminal phase, ritual subjects experience a "moment in and out of time" and "in and out of the secular social structure" which releases them from the restraints of their social personae, discloses the fragmentation associated with social constraints, and reveals a generalized social bond [Turner, 1966]. Turner contends that the liminal experience, with its conditions of emptiness, structurelessness, statuslessness, and ambiguity, provides access to a "strong sentiment of humankindness, a generic social bond between all members of a society" [Turner, 1966]. It is this bond that Turner refers to as Communitas.

2. Communitas

Communitas, as it emerges in the liminal period, is an unstructured and undifferentiated community or communion of equal individuals who submit together to the rigors associated with having no status, no role, no mitigating or mediating structure to temper their encounter with the human dilemma [Turner, 1966]. Communitas has an existential quality in that it involves the whole man in his relationship to other whole beings, and in his encounter with the uncertainties associated with human existence [Turner, 1966].

Communitas, like the liminal state in which it occurs, is held to be sacred or holy. Communitas dissolves the norms that govern the structured and institutionalized relationships and is accompanied by unprecedented potency. Turner recognizes that relationships between total beings are generative; comparisons, symbols, metaphors, art and religion are the products of such relating. This contributes to his perception that cultural renewal and transformation are attributable to the impact of communitas upon collectives [Turner, 1966].

d. The Dialectic Process

Turner observed that indigenous cultures had developed ritual methods for renewing their sense of community. He saw a dialectical process occuring in which collective rituals were periodically enacted to infuse the social structure with connection and cohesiveness [Turner, 1966]. In essence, two communal notes sound together to create a cultural oscillation between structureless communitas and structural society.

In such a process the opposites constellate one another and are mutually indispensable [Turner, 1966]. Communitas infuses the social structure with social cohesion and revitalizes that structure with renewed or transformed meaning. The immediacy of communitas then gives way to the mediacy of structure. Communitas cannot stand alone. The material and organizational needs of human beings must be met. The social structure serves to provide for those fundamental survival needs and, in so doing, gradually erodes the vividness of the communal

connection. The social structure cannot stand alone. Without communitas it grows increasingly rigid and dehumanizing [Turner, 1966].

Turner's model provides a dynamic representation of cultural processes which foster and undermine social cohesion and a sense of community. Turner's description of how liminal revelations can lead to ideological perspectives, which can then harden into zealous social systems, reveals dynamics which could easily lead to the abuses of collectivity that accounts for the ambivalence often evoked by the idea of community.

The dialectic process which he describes provides a dynamic context that integrates the complexities of social systems and the often divergent perceptions of disciplines that focus exclusively upon a single aspect of the phenomena. Turner's model also provides this study the context which makes it possible to explicate further the need for focusing upon the single dimension of existential community. e. Implications and Importance Turner's model suggests that the possibility of experiencing a fundamental or generic sense of community exists in any social milieu. It further suggests that the experience of such a bond is palpable. His observations indicate that collective experiences of such a bond impact the efficacy with which society functions to support communal well-being [Turner, 1966].

Turner's field observations and descriptions of an existential dimension to community support the need for this study. His observation that liminal processes create a context for experiences of communitas require corroboration. If such experiences are replicable then a significant tool may be available for renewing the sense of community, infusing institutional life with greater social responsibility, and increasing the understanding of an integrative dimension of human experience.

2. Accessing the Existential Dimension in Human Systems It was Victor Turner's contention that communitas existed in every cultural context [Turner, 1966]. His assertion that communitas "breaks in through the interstices of structure, in liminality" requires explication and corroboration [Turner, 1966]. If liminal situations and processes can be identified then the potential exists for studying the elements and impact of the existential dimension of community.

a. The Elements of Liminality

A careful reading of Turner's observations about liminality disclose the following elements as central components of the transition experience:

1) Timelessness - immediate and spontaneous2) Structurelessness - undifferentiated and homogenous 3) Socially egalitarian and inclusive 4) Experienced as sacred or holy5) Stimulating at many psycho-biological levels 6) Impermanent and transitory

By defining these elements more thoroughly it may become possible to evaluate cultural processes that generate liminality and to classify those processes which are most likely to produce an experience of existential community.

Liminality is an experience "in and out of time" [Turner, 1966]. This means that the past and future recede as they are obscured by the immediacy and profundity of the moment. Liminality annihilates measurable temporality in order to reinstate now as the pre-eminent focal point [Turner, 1975]. What was once perceived as a series of moments punctuated by structured activities gives way, through the antistructural aspects of liminality, to a sense of the eternal moment. Spontaneity is a signature attribute of the atemporality of liminality [Turner, 1966].

Liminality is antistructural or perhaps more accurately stated interstructural. It occurs outside of, or between, social structures. It negates all positive structural assertions [Turner, 1966]. Thus liminality is frequently associated with emptiness and chaos [Turner, 1966]. The usual characteristics, or conventions, of social interaction are nullified or made ambiguous at best. It thus eliminates the normal actions, rights and obligations that establish identity, distinctions, and social distance.

During the liminal experience the participant becomes structurally ambiguous. Individuals are stripped of all the social distinctions that accompany structural status or roles, [Turner, 1966] and become structurally and functionally equal. This status levelling eliminates social personae and creates functional anonymity [Turner, 1966].

Participants have no rights and exercise no obligations, they are essentially "naked and unaccommodated" [Turner, 1966].

Liminality is experienced as profound and sacred [Turner, 1966]. It is charged with a sense of connection with an unbounded, limitless, and infinite energy. The moments spent in such a passage are infused with magical and religious properties. There is a sense of immanence and transcendence that is often associated with a deity or superhuman power [Turner, 1966]. This has the effect of humbling the participants and increasing self-reflection.

Liminality stimulates the participants completely, activating the whole person as he, or she, encounters the otherness of this experience and struggles to integrate the paradoxical and nonrational aspects that it entails [Turner, 1966]. The chaotic, ambiguous and disorienting components of the experience excite a state of hypervigilance. This can be very stressful and may create a receptivity that is amenable to instruction.

Liminality is by definition a transitory experience that accompanies those moments which occur between status incumbencies [Gennep, 1909]. Extended periods of liminality, such as cultural transition or warfare can occur, but a new and stable state eventually concludes the experience. The experience punctuates, and for a brief time stands in stark contrast to, the everyday demands of life in human culture.

These liminal characteristics produce a vivid experience for those who are subject to such a transition. The general effect is an experience of being "betwixt and between" "structurally invisible" and "naked and unaccommodated" [Turner, 1966]. Where this experience is shared what transpires is a rudimentary liminal social structure [Turner, 1966]. Having relinquished their institutionalized roles the participants confront each other integrally (they can be themselves) and they experience a comraderie that leads to familiarity, ease, and mutuality. The ordeal aspects of such a passage invoke the uncertainties and insecurities of the human condition and lead directly to a sense of communitas experienced as humankindness [Turner, 1966].

b. The Search for Communitas: Communes and Group Intensives

The anthropological perspective of Victor Turner becomes more meaningful when its implications are applied to the search for community in our modern day society. His assertion that existential community exists outside of the social structure, and is accessible during periods of transition, suggests that a sense of community can be achieved that is independent of geography, social relations, and even shared value sets.

Such a possibility has important implications in a social milieu which, by its complexity and highly differentiated roles and statuses, exacerbates the distance between its members. The experience of a

bond that supercedes the structure-bound relations that perpetuate alienation and anomie could contribute enormously toward increasing trust and cooperation. And, at the very least, a shared experience of the "common-ness" of the human dilemma would be no small achievement.

In this section we will review the goals and achievements of modern social experimentation with intensive groups and intentional communities. We will examine these experiments for the occurence of the elements of liminality, and we will also assess their impact as agents for increasing the sense of community. This will provide additional insight into the nature of the existential social bond and methods with which it might be accessed and experienced.

The decade that extended between 1965 and 1975 was a period in which renewed attention was given to the cultural quest for community in the United States. A collective search for new styles of living and association became evident through the contemporary communitarian movement and what became known as the encounter movement. This was an era in which a wide variety of social experiments were carried out with the intention of creating alternatives to the dehumanizing aspects of the industrialized social system. Such experiments also attempted to create "the immediate ecstatic experience of oneness with other people," which represents a "recurrent human longing" [Kanter, 1972].

During this decade it had become clear that the cultural basis for residential community had been eroding under the forces of dislocation and social mobility [Zablocki, 1978]. Sociologists were noting the cultural elusiveness of community [Zablocki, 1976]. A shift from geographical to nongeographical based communities was under way [Coleman, 1971].

The communal and encounter movements can be seen as intentional responses to the waning of residential community. These social movements expressed the need for experimentation that accompanied the life cycle needs of unprecedented numbers of society's members. Demographic studies showed that the vast majority of those experimenting with alternative lifestyles were people facing developmental life stages that required experimentation; these included: the glut of baby-boomers who were caught in the period between adolescence and adulthood [Coleman, 1971], those suffering from an increasingly common event-- the end of a first marriage [Goode, 1965] and, a smaller group facing retirement and the end of child-rearing [Hochschild,1973]. The large numbers of the population falling into these categories challenged and exceeded the nations capacity to socialize, employ, and otherwise integrate them [Zablocki, 1978]. These factors, along with an increasing sense of the isolation and decay of the nuclear family, led to an increased desire for alternatives [Laslett,1972].

These movements represented attempts at collective innovation concerned with familial, religious, and neighborly relationships, and

the creation of alternative definitions of roles and organizational activity. They experimented with new forms, or alternatives, to the traditional family. The solutions proposed by these movements reflected disagreement with the dominant structural arrangements and cultural norms: that is, they reorganized the traditional boundaries separating religion, family, and neighborhood [Ellison & Marx, 1973].

The intensive group experience played a fundamental role in supporting and sustaining the social experimentation which occurred during this period. Researchers, studying both intentional communities and intensive groups, found a high degree of interest in encounter techniques [Zablocki 1978]. The intensive group movement created mechanisms for group interaction and self-discovery that were an expression of this renewed search for community [Back, 1978]. The two movements placed a common emphasis on the sharing of personal emotional intimacies [Ellison & Marx, 1973]. Involvement and participation in intensive groups became a life-style: participants became long-term, part-time, members of quasi-communities [Ellison & Marx, 1973]. That is, for a time, the members of a group belonged together as they shared an experience of being known and accepted.

Researchers noted that the groups, be they residential commune, marathon intensive, or on-going encounter group, all shared a mutual cause: they sought to compensate for self-difficulties in the culture [Ellison & Marx, 1973]. In the 1960s and 1970s the the human potential movement and the popularization of humanistic psychology led to an increase in psychological awareness accompanied by an growing interest in personal well-being [Veroff, 1981]. Anxiety and uncertainty about important and enduring relationships also increased significantly [Veroff, 1981]. Americans were having difficulty in finding an authentic self [Bellah, 1985]. The intensive group movement was one manifestation of a larger cultural phenomena referred to as the culture of "seekership." [Kanter 1976]

As social invention intensive groups and intentional communities represented social experiments that served the transitional needs of a significant proportion of the population during a time of cultural malaise. They served as cultural and social mechanisms designed to provide individuals insight into themselves, and into the culture in which they were located. The movement introduced people to their "real selves" and provided opportunities "to open up in the face of others all aspects of oneself" [Coulson, 1972].

In this respect intensive groups fulfilled the task of an individual rite of passage. They responded to the psychological need for a sense of self. They provided psychological insight and perspective. They inculcated psychotherapuetic values and provided a method with which "the beleaguered individual could develop techniques for coping with the contradictory pressures of public and private life" [Bellah, 1985].

The modern encounter movement was, however, ineffective as an agent of

community. The encounter movement was overrun by the cultural need for a sense of self. The search for an authentic self created a demand for short-term, intensive, growth experiences. The "culture of seekership" was highly individualistic: it emphasized self-actualization, human perfectability, self-disclosure, the "here and now," and personal sensation [Kanter 1976; Smith,1976].

Group experiences were seen as servicing the growth and fulfillment of the individual. By cultivating the energy and the spontaneous expressions of selves, and placing so much emphasis upon the goal of self-actualization of individuals, intensive groups became primarily therapeutic. Intensive groups as agents of community were impaired by their association with the human potential movement and psychotherapy; the values of interdependence, and commitment to others gave way before the emphasis upon self-actualization, the goal of personal growth [Smith, 1976].

Group encounter and intentional communities served as valuable social arenas for reclassifying cultural norms and seeking broader and more flexible categories that better suit social needs [ Kanter, 1972; Zablocki, 1976]. They also tended to reiterate the American ethic of expressive individualism which impedes the development and maintenance of a sense of community [Bellah,1985]. Thus, it is fair to say that these movements, although otherwise successful, failed to provide an adequate response to the challenge of community [Smith,1976; Fernandez, 1976].

The reasons for this can be better understood when viewed from a cross-cultural perspective. Intensive groups can be seen as cultural artifacts having analogs, with long heritages, in indigenous societies [Back, 1978; Fernandez, 1976]. The anthropological literature reveals that in traditional cultures the recreation and maintenance of community depends upon periodic "rituals of intensification" [Fernandez, 1976]. Rites of intensification are ceremonies that usually accompany a seasonal change in the interaction rate of a community [Chapelle & Coon, 1942]. The ceremonies or rituals involve highly coordinated interaction, sustained over periods of time, in which individuals encounter themselves, and each other, as parts of a highly significant whole [Fernandez, 1976]. The emphasis of these rites is always squarely placed upon the well-being of the whole.

Where encounter groups achieved this kind of coordination of group energy they could be considered effective agents of community [Fernandez, 1976]. The transitional qualities of intensive encounter groups were, however, primarily utilized to serve the individual pursuits of those who participate.

The focus of these groups then differed significantly from that of collective rites of passage as described in the anthropological literature. Put simply, the modern encounter group sought meaningful contact with the significant self. The collective rituals of indigenous cultures were oriented toward the sacred encounter with the

significant other in service of the whole [Fernandez, 1976] . As one critical observer of modern encounter groups put it,

The experience of self-dissolution in communion is indeed sought, but as an experience, a transcendental high, rather than a confirmation of hard-earned and committed relations between real and complex people. Individual finite selfhood is [considered] an inferior state to be transcended, but it is transcended in a mystical (and individual) experience of merging with the All, not in caring and concrete relations with finite others [Smith, 1976].

c. Liminality in Intentional Communities and Intensive Groups

It is now evident that the intensive group phenomena embody many of the transitional elements associated with rites of passage. These may include many of the liminal characteristics associated with such rites [Kanter, 1976]. They can be leveling, stripping, humbling, spontaneous and anonymous [Moore, 1983]. Participants can be constrained to a limited arena of interaction for long periods of time and enjoined to relate to each other honestly and lay aside the roles they have assumed in the cultural structure [Fernandez, 1976]. Taboo behavior can be sanctioned that violates social rules [Moore, 1983]. Encounter groups can intensify body and emotional affect [Moore, 1983]. They can emphasize achieving wholeness by releasing parts of the self suppressed to adapt to structural or systemic priorities [Moore, 1983].

The social experiments of the 1960s and 1970s incorporated these elements into experiences that served individuals seeking accommodation in the culture. By adopting the psychological tenets of the psychotherapuetic and humanistic psychological perspectives and employing the transitional qualities of liminality solely for the benefits of the individual they reinforced the cultural propensity for individualism. Thus, the encounter and intentional community movements were ineffective proponents of community.

3. The Community Building Experience

The intensive group experience failed as a collective vehicle for achieving communitas. The movement did not sufficiently recognize the value and significance of the encounter with otherness. Nor was interdependence adequately valued as a component of psychological well-being. The movement lost impetus and gave way to the "age of narcissism" that it had helped to spawn [Lasch,1978].

Discouragement was widespread in the 1980s. The growth of giant institutions, the influence of the mass media and consumerism, the widening gap between the "haves and the have nots," the increased peril associated with the arms race and the impending environmental crisis all further eroded the ground of community life [Boyte,1984]. As one sociologist wrote,

We live in a culture of brokenness and fragmentation. Images of individualism and autonomy are far more compelling to us than visions of unity, and the fabric of relatedness seems dangerously frayed....We have all but lost the vision of the public [understood as] our oneness, our unity, our interdependence upon one another. [Palmer, 1983]

These conditions were the backdrop for the development of a new kind of intensive group experience. In 1984, Scott Peck M.D., with a small group of colleagues, formed an organization called The Foundation for Community Encouragement [Peck,1987]. This Foundation was created to encourage community by educating the public about the stages of community development that Peck had discovered in his experiences with group intensives [Peck,1987]. The primary service the foundation rendered was an intensive group experience, based on Peck's model, called the Community Building Workshopª.

This workshop was derived in part from the Tavistock model of group development that referred to the stages of group life as forming, storming, norming, and performing [Peck,1987]. The process entailed meeting, struggling with the diversity in the group, establishing agreed-upon norms of behavior, and utilizing those norms to accomplish the task of the group. This model reflected the problem-solving, task-oriented and utilitarian applications of group process technology in organizational settings.

Peck reformulated the model in accordance with what he had experienced in groups where a sense of community had been achieved. He and the foundation define community "as a group of two or more people who, regardless of the diversity of their backgrounds (social, spiritual, educational, ethnic, economic, political, etc.), have been able to accept and transcend their differences, enabling them to communicate effectively and openly and to work together toward goals identified as being for their common good" [Atkisson, 1991]. His model of community development includes four stages; psuedo-community, chaos, emptiness, and community [Peck,1987]. Table 2 describes these stages, defines the attributes of each stage and the developmental task associated with movement from stage to stage.

Table 2

THE COMMUNITY-BUILDING MODEL Stage Definition Attributes Dynamic Task

Psuedo-Community Group behaves congenially toward one another

Relations pleasant Good manners observed Conversation couched in generalized terms Pretenses maintained by withholding feelings and truth Differences are minimized and/or ignored Conflict avoided Group must learn to allow and encourage

individual differences

Chaos Unstructured period in which the group attempts to deal with differences and struggles to establish group norms.

Differences are in the open More honesty Conflict and disagreement occur Despair and anger become evident Experience is considered non-constructive Attempts are made to obliterate differences thru; fixing healing

converting and manipulation attempts are made to assert leadership and to establish some

organization Group must empty itself of barriers to com-munication, such as, expectations and pre-conceptions.

Emptiness Un-structured period of letting go of expectations, pre-conceptions prejudices, ideological solutions and the need to prevail through willfullness or control Members experience the limits of their individual viewpoints

Increase of silence in the group Increased experience of fear, doubt, uncertainty and "not

knowing" Increased sense of vulnerability Members experience a kind of "group death" and enter into the

unknown together. Members must begin to know themselves and each other more completely

Community A safe and inclusive group where responsibility and commitment to maintaining the group is shared and leadership moves around

Differences are mutually honored and appreciated Conflict occurs gracefully There is no coercion Sense of "we-ness" prevails Palpable sense of connection occurs which permits an

extraordinary range of sharing of emotions, insight, and love Group can address any task and collaborate effectively

The community-building process is described, in Table 2, as a linear progression. In the actual community building experience groups might have dynamics that overlap the various stages. Groups might also move into chaos and then retreat back to psuedo-community. Similarly, an ongoing community might find itself cycling through the stages in response to changes in group membership, in individual members, or in the situational dynamics.

As seen earlier, encounter groups tend to allay the anxiety associated with otherness by focusing upon self-disclosure and self-actualization. Peck's community-building model focuses upon otherness and the dilemma provided by such an encounter. The model restricts structured interventions by the facilitators. This allows tension to build within the group. This structurelessness evokes the full range of defenses employed by group members' to eliminate the uncertainties associated with multiple competing perceptions of reality. The subtle and overt intolerance of differences becomes explicit in members behaviors and attitudes. By persevering for a sufficient time in the tension inherent in this experience the group members begin to experience how their own reality constructs create and maintain separation.

The transition between chaos and emptiness is the crucial stage in the community-building process. Stress, anger, and despair arise as the members begin to realize just how separated they are by their world views. The pain associated with such a vivid experience of aloneness and isolation is difficult for many. It is during this phase of the group's development that the members begin to relinquish their certainty about themselves and life, and begin to share with one another their self-doubts, inadequacies, imperfections and longings, in a word, the uncertainties that accompany human existence. As individual members initiate this emptying process the group is led into a common experience of the unknown, a renewed sense of how vulnerable and dependent human beings are. This process becomes a doorway into the experience of interdependence and equality that characterizes community.

The Community-Building Workshopª may be a contemporary example of a collective "rite of intensification." The Community-Building Workshopª embodies many of the liminal characteristics described by Turner. It is distinct from other forms of group intensives in that it focuses on the encounter with otherness, and utilizes this encounter to enable an emerging sense of the larger whole. By not emphasizing the individual's experience, and by not encouraging organization as a means of minimizing conflict, the Community-Building Workshop allows the existential dilemma to be made explicit. Thus, it provides participants with the potential for an experience of existential community.

By exploring the experiences of people who have participated in the

Community Building Workshopª we may provide insight into the existential dimension of community. Such an exploration might help to identify factors which contribute to an experience of this dimension. It might disclose whether such an experience would contribute to a psychological sense of community. It might also point toward a better understanding of the transpersonal characteristics of communitas and their relationship to liminality.

We can conclude this section by reiterating that the search for community during the last three decades has emphasized group technologies. These technologies have employed liminal applications as part of social experimentation. Where these applications have been made in conjunction with an emphasis upon the group as a significant whole, there is evidence that a bond occurs which then serves as an integrative force in the life of the group and its members.

This evidence concurs with the observations Victor Turner made while studying the collective rituals of indigenous cultures. This evidence, if supported by the findings of this study, would also suggests that there may indeed be cultural practices which disclose the actions of an integrative force in human systems. Collective liminal experiences may then provide access to the integrative influences of Mind.

F. The Transpersonal Perspective

Transpersonal thought provides a perspective rich with implications for the student of community. The literature integrates psychological and spiritual perspectives which extend the psychological sense of self beyond the traditional constructs of the ego or self. Asserting that the self is an open system extending beyond the personal identity of the individual, transpersonal thought points toward dynamics which contribute toward an enlarged sense of identification.

The value of this extended sense of self in relationship to a psychological sense of community is not however readily evident as one views the literature: an emphasis upon the concerns and evolution of the individual dominates the literature. This emphasis reflects the central concerns of the western psychological tradition from which the transpersonal perspective has emerged. Struggling to establish itself as a valid perspective within this tradition, transpersonal psychology has tended to define itself, and the value of its perspective, by referring to the individual.

This section focuses upon four transpersonal themes, applied to the evolution of the individual, which contribute to a better understanding of community. These themes are: 1) psychological development, 2) consciousness, 3) spiritual development, and 4) wholeness. This approach highlights the compelling nature of transpersonal thought while disclosing the limited application of that thought to interpersonal and community concerns.

1. Psychological Development

A major tenet of the transpersonal perspective involves the evolution of the sense of self toward identification with ever greater orders of reality [Vaughan, 1985]. The transpersonal view of human development holds that as human beings mature, the sense of self expands [Wilber, 1980].

The concept of transpersonal identification is inclusive of a larger whole [Fox, 1990]. As one identifies with a larger field of being, one includes the contents of that field within one's sense of identity. This process of extending identity toward the larger whole has important ramifications for the psychological sense of community. A fundamental component of community is inclusivity [Peck, 1987]. Psychological dynamics which enable an individual to achieve a more inclusive sense of self, in a healthy manner, contribute toward strengthening communal bonds as well as individual development [Freidman, 1983].

2. Consciousness

The transpersonal literature places a special emphasis upon the study of consciousness. By altering consciousness, and investigating the attributes of specific states of consciousness researchers have extended knowledge of the human capacity for consciousness [Tart, 1972].

Researchers and transpersonal theorists have developed models of consciousness which integrate psychological development with specific states of consciousness [Wilber, 1980]. They have shown that as the transformation of self-concept proceeds, and more inclusive representations of the self evolve, these include, more subtle perceptions of consciousness [Vaughan, 1985]. In essence, the transpersonal perspective maintains that as the sense of self expands it incorporates new sensitivities, expressed in terms of an increase in consciousness or awareness, and new sensibilities, derived from an integration of the self within a larger whole of which it is an integral part [Maslow, 1970; Wilber, 1981]. Awareness develops which includes the experience of states that transcend ordinary space/time limitations and ego boundaries [Tart, 1972]. These states, glimpsed first in meditation or as peak experiences, are often experienced as illumination or states of unity consciousness.

Consciousness research has also shown that mystical or unity states operate in a reality that may be aptly described in the languages of quantum physics and of the eastern spiritual traditions [Capra, 1975]. This has led to an interesting convergence between the new scientific perspective and the meditative and contemplative insights of the world's great spiritual traditions. Thus transpersonal thought places a strong emphasis upon Mind, whether described via the attributes of quantum reality, or through the experience of enlightenment [Dossey, 1989].

Here we meet one of the shortcomings of the transpersonal literature. The sense of "oneness" that is described in the literature represents an extension of identity beyond the personal but seldom beyond the individual's experience. There are very few accounts, and even fewer studies, of collective states of unity consciousness. Social applications of transpersonal theory, therefore, tend to focus upon the creativity, development, and integrity of the individual within the organizational setting, or ecosystem.

As shown previously, anthropological evidence indicates that the collective rites of indigenous cultures often include collective experiences of liminal states with characteristics identical to the contemporary descriptions of altered and mystical states [Turner, 1966]. Further research on collective states of consciousness is needed to enhance the understanding of this essential dimension of the community experience.

3. Spiritual Development

A central characteristic of the transpersonal approach is its emphasis upon the benefits and necessity of spiritual development. Transpersonal thought sees spirituality as an essential ingredient of the integrated individual. Transpersonal thought thus incorporates and includes the spiritual texts and psychological teachings of the world's great spiritual and religious traditions.

Transpersonal thought focuses upon spiritual practices, such as yoga and meditation, which make explicit the limitations inherent in the ego. Transpersonal thought also emphasizes spiritual disciplines that encourage the emergence of awareness which transcends the normal boundaries of ego identification [Walsh & Vaughn, 1980].

With the psychology of the individual serving as the primary concern of transpersonal literature those aspects of spiritual development are emphasized that are in accord with the psychological nature of the field. It is important, however, to recognize that many of the spiritual traditions from which these practices emerge place an emphasis upon community as an essential component of spiritual development. The attempt to integrate spiritual development as an important component in the transpersonal perspective requires us to consider the spiritual traditions view of community.

There are many spiritual traditions and teachings that guide transpersonal thought toward an awareness of the importance of community. Sangha, often translated as the community of practitioners, is one of the three pillars that support Buddhism [Batchelor, 1982]. The "mystical body of Christ" is a Christian metaphor describing the community of those who believe in the Christian mysteries and participate in the sacraments [Fox, 1988; Berry, 1990]. Native American spiritual traditions, such as those of

indigenous peoples everywhere, emphasize the community of life expressed in their tradition of honoring " all my relations" [Neihardt, 1961]. These are just to name a few.

In recent years the confluence of transpersonal thought with environmental concerns, ecological perspectives, and the emphasis of spiritual traditions upon the unity of all sentient life, has led to the re-emergence of an emphasis upon the interrelatedness of all sentient life. This can be seen in the development of the green Buddhism and deep ecology movements [Macy, 1990; Halifax, 1990; Naess, 1989; Fox,1990] that emphasize community. They represent an important development in the maturation of transpersonal thought and human consciousness.

4. Wholeness

Transpersonal thought asserts that it is possible to realize a greater wholeness than that of the individual being, that is, an identification with all that is. Consider the condition of mystical unity referred to as having "no boundaries," [Wilber, 1979]; the unity of the self as a wholeness that has no parts, [Roberts, 1982]; and, wholeness described as having access to all patterns, or states, of consciousness [Mindell, 1989].

By emphasizing wholeness, transpersonal thought asserts that self-realization is all-inclusive. The psychological sense of community then must be considered an essential characteristic of psychological wholeness. Put more simply, this means, that an individual's sense of wholeness is dependent, to some extent, upon a capacity for identification with otherness.

5. Summary

The transpersonal literature contains a broad vision of human possibility. It incorporates theory, practices and mechanisms designed to transform the individual's journey toward self-realization and wholeness. The literature is steeped with pschological insight and spiritual tradition. The psychologically oriented aspects of the literature maintains the emphasis upon individuation and self-realization, while the spiritually oriented aspects of the literature offer perspectives that eclipse the more mainstream psychological concern with the individual.

In an address to the International Transpersonal Association in 1989, Jungian theorist Arnold Mindell stressed his hope that the transpersonal field was ready to shift its emphasis from the individual toward relationship and community [Mindell-1989]. In stressing his concern for global processes he pointed out that social concerns seemed to represen the developmental edge for the discipline.

This observation is substantiated by the most striking characteristic of the transpersonal literature, that is, the paucity of references to community, or such related topics as group dynamics, collective practices, or interpersonal relations. The literature is preoccupied with the concerns of the individual. The potential that transpersonal thought holds for transforming relationships, group dynamics, organizational and community life still lies largely untapped.

There are, however, some transpersonal practitioners now devoting their attention to developing social applications of transpersonal theory. Relationship theory is emerging that focuses upon the collective attributes of relationship and relationship field dynamics [Levine, 1988; Mindell, 1989; Hendrix, 1988]. Group relations are being enumerated from the perspective of archetypes and anthropomorphic fields, feminist spirituality, collective consciousness, dream theory, and the uses of emptiness [Mindell, 1990; Peck,1988; Slater, 1966; Starhawk, 1989]. Network and communication theory is producing models of community that have transpersonal attributes [Hine, 1977; Mindell, 1989]. These contributions represent a burgeoning awareness in the transpersonal field that the discipline has something critical to offer the community at large.

G. Summary of Literature Review

The contemporary context within which this study is being conducted is unprecedented in human experience. The human capacity to destroy all life through a cataclysmic use of our nuclear, chemical, and biological arsenals remains. We have come to recognize the extent of human impact upon the degradation of the planetary biosphere. There is great uncertainty about the survivability of humankind.

These nuclear and environmental realities reflect on the macro level what exists on the micro level of day to day human relations. They are indicative of the degree of alienation that inhabits our human systems. These are the terrible and untenable truths which provide the context and the impetus for this study.

Our review of the literature has shown that, despite the evidence of our historical milieu, there is reason to consider that a bond may exist that unites humankind and the cosmos. Science now includes the possibility that mind can be seen as a source of action. The natural sciences have begun to show how mind has operated throughout evolution. Modern biology and ecology provide evidence that mind operates to enhance cooperation: nature designs for organismic responsiveness to the environment.

There is evidence that suggests that mind operates in human systems. Anthropologists have observed traditional cultures practicing ritual methods for accessing collective states of consciousness. These practices and the states they generated appeared to contribute to a

renewal of communal bonds and the infusion of the social structures with a sense of cohesiveness. Modern group intensives have been shown to provide a potential for access to such unity experiences.

The nature of our times make the exploration and explication of collective processes and states of psychological and emotional unity a matter of some urgency. The problems that humanity faces are problems generated by the lack of human relatedness, to self, other, and the cosmos. They are problems that will remain insoluble until humankind can find the way back into appropriate relationships.

The historical preoccupation with community as the social container within which values, meaning, place and purpose were conveyed continues to this day. The complex physical and cultural demands of our modern era however, essentially preclude the possibility of community such as was once known. The necessity of survival requires the emergence of an experience of community which transcends the extrinsic categories of geography, common values, and lengthy association, by which community has formerly been defined.

It may be that no species has ever before faced the responsibility for evolution that humankind must assume in this era. The fate of the earth and its life forms are inextricably bound with that of humanity. The choices made now and in the coming years are crucial. The existential distrust which now afflicts mankind's relationship with existence makes it seem likely that choices similar to those of the recent past are going to be made. If, however, an experience of a bond with an integrative force is possible, then the possibility is enhanced for choices that are responsive to the needs of the whole.