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The Psychodynamics of the ECF-Nexus: Monasticism and Psychospeciation in Western Europe, c.500-1500 C.E.

Paul Ziolo Department of Psychology University of Liverpool ************************************************************************ Abstract. The Evolutionary Context-Free Nexus comprised a group of institutions, more or less monastic in character, that arose during what S.N. Eisenstadt has called the 'Axial Age'. After defining the domain and range of this Nexus, this paper will focus on the monastic and ecclesiastical structures of Western and Eastern Europe and show how the emotional and psychological structures peculiar to Western monastic communities helped transform European culture by assisting the transition from abandoning to ambivalent child-rearing patterns. The paper concludes by discussing some of the monastic survivals still to be found in post-Christian secular society. ************************************************************************ 1. The Evolutionary Context-Free Nexus and its Basic Social functions. The Evolutionary Context-Free (ECF) Nexus comprises a group of institutions that emerged within the four oldest world metacultural areas (the Near East, Mediterranean Europe, India and the Far East) during what S.N. Eisenstadt has called the Axial Age - a period lasting roughly 1000 years, from c. 600 B.C.E. to 400 C.E1. It would be incorrect to call all of these institutions 'monastic' in the stricter Buddhist-Christian sense of the word - i.e. involving the taking of religious vows, strict adherence to a rule or living in communities geographically or psychologically isolated from (though in most cases dependent upon) their surrounding societies. These institutions included, of course, the Western and Eastern monastic orders, the Buddhist sangha (Mahayanan and Theravadin) and the Zen traditions that emerged from it, the Islamic Sufi orders, the Hindu ashram complexes (the oldest institutions of this type), sannyasin and Jaina orders (to name but a few), but also institutions of a more secular orientation such as groups within the Chinese Imperial shen-shih or civil service and later, the system of court eunuchs that was to play a significant political role during the final decades of the Ch'ing dynasty. The term ECF-Nexus, taken as defining the domain that includes all of these institutions and their component groups, expresses the fact that a) the avowed lifestyle of these groups ran counter to what was believed to be the compelling logic of human evolutionary drives - procreative sexuality, acquisitiveness and the quest for status2 and b) they were therefore perceived by members of other groups as 'different' or free from the context of sin (i.e. the 'tyranny of the flesh') and from the chaos of sociopolitical life - due to their supposed renunciation of procreative activity and its attendant anxieties3. This very 'difference' enabled them to play crucial psychological roles in relation to the

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societies in which they were embedded. Through being perceived as biologically context-free, transgenerational task-oriented groups, they were able to:

1) function as religious virtuosi4 - i.e. through complete self-identification with the dominant group-fantasy, to absorb (from national or tribal groups) the emotional anxieties provoked by group assumptions of dependency5, 2) act as poison-container - because of this dependency and the perceived sacrificial value of renunciation (being 'free from the context of sin'), the Nexus could draw out and absorb the residual psychic poisons resulting from conflicts that could not be resolved by the culture’s normal methods of intrapsychic defence - through mutual ‘gift’ exchange, guidance in necessity, confession, intercessory prayer and the 'absorption' of abandoned children - a culturally-condoned sublimation of earlier infanticidal impulses. 3) preserve, reinforce and transmit the dominant group-fantasy (i.e. through education) thereby ensuring overall group continuity and stability. The groups forming the Nexus grew from an ancient tradition whose origins lay

in the purificatory rites of shamanism6. The standardisation and institutionalisation of shamanic practices was a long process occurring in response to the gradual coalescence of kinship and clan-based groups into larger, cosmopolitan, multi-bonded groups (the later Hellenic, Persian, Ashokan and Han empires) and the concomitant genesis of transcendental religions. In such complex and potentially unstable cosmopolitan societies, the Nexus groups represented an incarnate symbol of the continuity and eternity promised by these religions and reinforced social cohesion through fulfilment of the roles listed above. In addition, the missionary activities practised by these groups led finally to the closure of the Eurasian Ecumene7 - the forging of transcultural economic and religious bonds, which contributed to the stability, and growth of the four metacultural areas encompassing the Nexus. Having defined this broader domain and identified the main groups included in its range, we will turn to the Western monastic tradition as a specific example of this transcultural phenomenon and explore some of the institutional and psychological features which enabled it to exercise a formative influence on the development of European culture. Norman Davies has referred to monasticism as "a long extinct and deeply reticent world"8. While Davies may be mistaken in supposing this world to be extinct, he is correct as to its reticence. His comment underscores the popular view that 'modern people' somehow occupy a point on the imaginary spiral of psychological space almost exactly opposite to that occupied by the monastics. Certainly, since modern 'post-Christian' society feels that it has only recently emerged from the chrysalis of Christianity, shouldn't one expect a strong psychological reaction against this world, similar to the reactive emotions experienced felt by an individual towards his or her family background as a natural concomitant to the process of individuation? Nevertheless, as we shall see, 1500 years of theocracy still weigh more heavily on the European psyche than a mere 350 years or so of experimental science9. Such 'temporal

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subjectivism' on the part of many prominent modern historians only serves to obscure the simplest and most fundamental psychohistorical question: What really happened here? 2. The Genesis of European Monasticism.

European monasticism had its roots in the 3rd and 4th century desert communities of Egypt, Syria and Palestine10. Early monastic rules were derived from the inspirational or organisational activities of the founders of these communities - in the case of the eremitic or solitary life, St. Anthony of the Caves (251-356 C.E.), and of the cenobitic or community based life, the Rule of St. Pachomius (292-346 C.E.) Eremitic ideals were more fully integrated with cenobitic principles in the Rule of St. Basil of Caesarea ('The Great', 329-379 C.E.). At the same time, the foundations of an authentically 'Christian' anthropology combining Neoplatonic and Biblically-derived ideas to establish a basis for 'inner' contemplative and ascetical training were being laid through the writings of Evagrios of Pontus and Macarios of Alexandria. The cosmological vision inherent in this anthropology was later elaborated and refined in the writings of Maximus the Confessor (580-662 C.E.) and St. Gregory Palamas and came to form the basis of Eastern hesychastic psychology (i.e. the psychology of 'inner peace' (> Gk. ΄ησυχία - 'quietness') to be described more fully below). Monastic ideals infiltrated the West gradually, reinforced by such figures as St. John Cassian and Athanasius of Alexandria. From these initial efforts, two major historical currents emerged to determine the final form, institutional structures and psychological profile of Western monasticism. Both of these currents originated at the outer fringes of the emergent culture of Northern Europe, moving inwards to gradually 'colonise' and transform the centre. The Celtic monks, whose extremely ascetic practises can be traced to Egyptian influences (they were known as the pueri Egyptiaci - the Children of Egypt), established colonies and hermitages along the northwestern rim of Europe, as far north as Iceland11. Their pastoral theology was dynamic, extroverted and process-oriented, which can be seen not only from the restlessness and initiative of their missionary work - which extended as far as Poland and Russia - but also from a close study of the illuminations in the early Irish Gospels12. Celtic abbots maintained close links with (and were often related to) ruling groups that had only recently emerged from the Bronze Age. The connection between Columbanus and the nascent Merovignian dynasty was crucial in establishing monasticism firmly within the social matrix in Gaul, and set a precedent for later close ties between monastic foundations and the emergent feudal nobility - eventually a significant contributory factor to psychogenic advance. Celtic influences persisted long after the absorption of the Celtic Church into Rome after the Synod of Whitby in 664 C.E. From the South - i.e. from Italy - came the famous Rule created by St. Benedict of Nursia (c. 480-550 C.E.) for his initial foundations at Subiaco and Monte Cassino13. Benedict's Rule became the rock on which the edifice of Western monasticism was built and is in its own right a work of profound psychological insight - one of the earliest indications of psychogenic advance. Simple and moderate in its rigour, avoiding the manic asceticism of St. John Climacus' régime at Sinai14, the Rule afforded a more humane psychosocial framework wherein those afflicted with the introjected guilt, fear of abandonment and despair symptomatic of the autistic personality of the 3rd - 7th

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centuries15 could find a measure of solace, emotional catharsis and therapeutic guidance. It served as a flexible paradigm for subsequent foundations throughout Europe (superceding the earlier Celtic models) and as a basis of reform when reform was deemed necessary. A noted contemporary of Benedict was Cassiodorus of Vivarium (c.490-c.585 C.E.) who founded a monastery and library at Vivarium near modern Squillace (Apulia) c.550 C.E. While Benedict's Rule focused on the group dynamics of community life as an aid to inner renewal, the foundation at Vivarium was less a monastery than a place of retreat for gentlemen scholars and students of the late Hellenistic era 'inclined to the Christian persuasion' and desirous of study, solitude and prayer within a cenobitic framework. Cassiodorus' single psychological treatise, De Anima, sought to re-interpret Aristotle's work of the same title in terms of a purely Christian psychology derived from canonical language (scripture), free from any 'pagan' tradition. De Anima was cited fairly frequently in the earlier Middle Ages until Aquinas' incorporation of the Aristotelian original in the Summa came to dominate later medieval Christian psychology16. Both works remain purely theoretical, with little or no therapeutic intent or value. Vivarium was an institution rooted in an older psychogenic mode that clung by its fingernails to the crumbling world of Late Antiquity, similar to the other classical schools that continued to survive for some decades in Gaul and Spain under the patronage of the Merovignian and Visigothic aristocracies17. The foundation perished along with other vestiges of Late Italic civilisation soon after the death of its founder, but the many manuscripts copied there found their way into the libraries of Europe and the Institutiones of Cassiodorus, detailing the organisational structure of his proposed school at Rome as well as Vivarium, served as a paradigm for the structuring of the monastic school curriculum and for later secular educational centres. From the time of Pope Gregory the Great (540-604) Roman influence expanded northwards and with it, propagation of the Benedictine Rule through the efforts of dedicated reformers and expansionists such as Benedict Biscop (628-690) in England (who established the major foundations of Jarrow and Wearmouth) and later, on the Continent, Benedict of Aniane (720-821) - the driving force behind the creation of the Monastic Capitulary at Aachen from 816-1718. At the same time, the influences of the north-western Celtic missionaries such as Columbanus and Columba continued to expand southwards. The confluence of both currents within the core territories of Northern Europe helped stabilise Christian culture against renewed threats of invasion by the Vikings, Magyars and Saracens during the 9th and 10th centuries. But this stabilisation came about only after the final vestiges of Hellenistic culture - the Merovignian and Visigothic court schools on the classical model - had vanished. By this time there had been a growing monastic reaction against 'pagan' learning and a gradual tendency to confine education to the training of oblates (see below) strictly within a monastic framework and specifically for the functions they would later be expected to fulfil as priests, monks and nuns. The Western 'Nexus' had now developed into a relatively stable, transgenerational, homogeneous and closely-networked task-oriented group19 which had spread out to include the entire core area of Christianity and beyond, linking diverse cultural elements from North and South into a coherent whole. The processes of

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stabilisation, standardisation and expansion that it fostered within what was to become the Western Christian ecumene culminated in the rise of the Cluniac monastic 'empire' from 950-1050. The basic institutional features of Western (and Eastern) Christianity were now fully in place. 3. Structural Differences in the Institutions of East and West. In an earlier paper20 I described how some of the doctrinal shifts emerging from the 2nd century onwards generated a more dynamic conception of the Trinity and gave greater prominence to the creative role of the Son (i.e. the Child) in Western theology and could thus be considered symptomatic of psychoclass transition. I also outlined some of the main differences between the institutional structures of the Western and Eastern Churches that contributed to this transition. I believe it would be helpful to summarise these structural differences once more before I come to explore those features of monastic formation (or training) which prompted certain key individuals to reinforce institutional support for this transition from within. While both Western and Eastern Churches were 'seeded' within a fluctuating complex of emergent feudal states, the Western Church tended towards a single, monolithic administrative hierarchy which became increasingly autocratic from the time of Pope Gregory VII (a.k.a. Hildebrand, who reigned from 1973-85). The Eastern Church on the other hand consisted of a group of autonomous or autocephalous churches, each identified with a particular ethnic or linguistic group, thus forming a single synodal family which would seek unanimous agreement on important issues through the Ecumenical Councils. The situation in the West therefore generated a far higher potential for conflict between secular and ecclesiastical authority than did that in the Orthodox East, and the conflict was translated onto the monastic plane as tension between the demands of a contemplative or active vocation. The contemplative vocation favoured the introvert and involved seeking retirement from 'the world' - i.e. from the 'turbulent ocean' of sociopolitical life - in order to pursue a path of 'inner' self-development within the context of an apophatic theology (the highly-abstracted, non-symbolised theology of negation). The active vocation favoured the extrovert and emphasised the pursuit of missionary work (i.e. fulfilment of the second and third roles listed in section 1) within the context of a cataphatic theology - a pastoral theology capable of embodiment within the symbolism (or memetic structures) of a given cultural context. The highest monastic ideal was to find a synthesis of both paths but in the West, particularly from the 12th century onwards, this was becoming no longer socially, politically or even psychologically possible. The conflict between both vocational ideals resulted in the continual fissioning and re-creation of monastic orders, their diversification and patterns of reform reflecting the changing exigencies of contemplative or active strivings with respect to the needs of successive generations or emergent psychoclasses. The fissioning process was accompanied by the 'rise of heresies' (to be discussed later) and an increasing politicisation of the active life, culminating in schism and Reformation. In the East these tensions were mitigated by the divisional system of 'white' and 'black' clergy. The former were married, fully integrated into their social milieu and fully committed to the active life - to the extent that they formed transgenerational priestly 'castes' within their

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respective societies (as was the case in the early West before the enforcement of universal clerical celibacy). The black clergy were strictly monastic and only black clergy - i.e. monks - could be elected bishops, thus ensuring 'control' of the white castes (the degree of bishop was the highest degree in the Byzantine ecclesiastical hierarchy - according to the synodal principle each bishop was fully autonomous, answerable only to the people of his diocese). Moreover the Eastern monks constituted a single 'order' based loosely on the Rules of Pachomius or Basil, the focus of which was almost exclusively contemplative - the pursuit of ησυχία or 'inner peace'. Monasteries were largely autonomous21 and idiorrhythmic - i.e. they permitted the individual a high degree of personal freedom in the choice of developmental paths, whether eremitic, cenobitic, or anchoritic (which in the later Middle Ages came to mean a solitary monk or nun attached to a church, like the West's Julian of Norwich). From this it can be seen why the West, with its instabilities, power struggles and constant fluctuations towards the edge of chaos, came to favour a more active, 'politicised' life leading eventually to the absorption of the early autonomous monastic Nexus into the social matrix - the price to be paid, as I shall show, for catalysing psychospeciation. Eastern monasticism had meanwhile arrived at a more stable resolution of the conflict between introversion and extroversion, choosing to emphasise dissociation and contemplation. The result was psychogenic arrest, or stasis. 4. The World of the Oblate within the Cluniac Empire.. Child oblation - the offering of an infant to the monastic community as soon as possible after weaning ('oblation' > Lat. oblatio: 'offering') - would appear to have been institutionalised in cenobitic monasticism from the time of the earliest communities. It was this feature which guaranteed the monastery's character as a stable group in Friedländer's sense - i.e. close control over primary institutions, in this case, of childrearing. Although this control was not absolute in that it did not extend to the critical early years - the oblates referred to as infantes did not normally enter the monastery until after five years of age - the monastery's explicit function as a surrogate family tended to absorb as well as confirm the traumatic consequences of earlier abandonment through neglect or wet-nursing, weaving these consequences into a complete ideological system of dependency. The person absorbed into a such tightly organised and transgenerational group matrix from as young as five years of age became thoroughly moulded by the character of the institution to an extent that would be unimaginable today. As Fr. David Knowles points out, although oblates were entitled to leave the monastery as soon as they had attained the 'age of reason', i.e. adolescence, "in fact it is not easy to name a recorded case"22. The surrogate function of the early Western European monastery is clear to anyone with even a cursory acquaintance with monastic history23. The monastery and convent were distilled and concentrated analogues of the 'living' Church. Even as the Church 'herself' was designated 'Holy Mother Church' with the Pope as Father (> Lat. Papa), so a great abbey or monastery is always referred to as the 'Mother House' from which may be descended many 'daughter' houses24. Recalling the definitions of apophatic (symbol-negating) and cataphatic (symbol-affirming) theologies given above, the monastery may be considered as a 'surrogate womb' wherein the male contemplative is

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encouraged to seek spiritual 'immersion' in the apophatic or thoughtless 'ocean' of tranquillity, aided in this quest for rebirth (after symbolic death by ego-annihilation) through obedience to the surrogate father - the Abbot. For the female contemplative, both House and Abbess become merged as maternal surrogate while the cataphatic image of Christ as paternal surrogate becomes accentuated to a much greater degree - an image that often took the form of the abusive father as 'Lover'25. The close familial atmosphere in both monastery and convent was reinforced by the image of the Prior (or Prioress), which contained much potential for different forms of Oedipal drama re-enactment through the 'virtual' (and, very occasionally, real) assassination of the Abbot.. The various custumals (elaborated versions of the Rule) from that of Benedict to those of Bec, Hirschau, Eynsham and Canterbury in the 11th century contain separate chapters detailing strict precautions to be taken against possible schismatic or divisive manipulations of the Prior26.

Within the group matrix of early medieval monastic life, a constant striving after the ideal of humility encouraged the gradual dissolution of ego functions27, while the custom of delation - the mutual accusation of faults within the framework of the daily chapter - served to weaken preferential interpersonal bonds and reinforce mutual feelings of dependency28. From the Bionian perspective, all three basic assumptions are constantly operative: that of dependency, the Messianic dimension of pairing (through expectancy of the ever-immanent 'Second Coming'), and that of fight/flight - vis à vis the ever-threatening wiles and temptations of the 'Evil One'29. Yet all these assumptions were subservient to a fourth basic assumption proposed by Turquet in 1974 - that of 'oneness', in which "members seek to join in a powerful union with an omnipotent force, unobtainably high, to surrender self for passive participation, and thereby to feel existence, well-being and wholeness"30. Turquet also points out that within the large group, as the ego-boundaries of the individual threaten to dissolve, the individual is forced to probe further and further back beneath the layers of past experience in a quest for patterns or templates (what I have previously called morphologies) derived from the earliest familial interactive experiences (i.e. with primary caregivers or siblings) with which to re-interpret his or her relationship within the overwhelming group situation31. As these earliest experiences were likely to involve trauma through emotional or physical abandonment, the individual encounters what Turquet describes as "the introjected vastness of his external world [as it] meets a similar external experience and by their mutual reinforcement the level of anxiety is raised, requiring a further projection into the outer large group of the now reinforced sense of vastness, only to increase the fantasied percept of the large group as now greater than ever before, not only vast but endless"32. These are the roots of the common medieval experience of accidia or accidie - a profound sense of listlessness, despair and hopelessness hypostasised in the monastic literature as the 'noonday demon' (Ps.90:6)33. To guard against this and to harness the creative potential of the basic assumptions in the service of task-orientation - the intercessory and custodial roles exercised by the monastery in relation to society - the Cluniac monk was left little time for thought. The complex and strictly-ordered liturgical régime, organised so as to absorb the individual at times of the day when psychological defences were at their weakest (i.e. early morning, or the hour of the 'noonday demon') involved constant reinforcement of the group-fantasy through a carefully structured flow

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of canonical language long committed to memory since the individual's time in the monastic school34. This was the formative world of the oblate, and therefore the way in which the monastery as 'group' sought to perpetuate itself as a transgenerational institution. As Bion points out - "the institutionalizing of words, religions, psychoanalysis - all are special instances of institutionalizing memory so that it may 'contain' the mystic revelation and its creative and destructive force. The function of the group is to produce a genius; the function of the Establishment is to take up and absorb the consequences so that the group is not destroyed"35.

The oblate participated fully in the liturgical timetable from the very moment of

oblation - the Constitutions of Lanfranc detail very special and prominent liturgical roles that had been assigned to the infantes by the 11th century36. Every effort was made to ensure that the oblates had no physical or emotional contact whatsoever with one another37. Discipline was harsh, and involved flogging acris verberibus (with 'sharp strokes')38 with pliant osier rods specially fashioned for the purpose in accordance with scriptural requirements. Hair pulling was permitted as a means of enforcing discipline, but there were strict injunctions against kicks, the use of fists or striking with the open hand39. All monks and nuns were subject to floggings - which in some institutions, despite the recommendations of the custumals, extended to the use of whips or scourges intended to lacerate the flesh. Regrettably, corporal punishment remains endemic in human society up to the present day - only recently has there been a serious ongoing effort to abolish it. As is well known, corporal punishment is an expression of power and dominance relations, involving projective/introjective dynamics and sado-masochism. Its roots lie in trauma and repressed sexuality, so it is hardly surprising it should be common among religious orders where many were unable to effect the sublimation of drives required to achieve 'inner peace' through the hesychastic path40.

Yet despite such a seemingly harsh and self-obliterating psychological

environment and the fact that abuses did occur (canonical precautions notwithstanding), the oblate was granted a measure of stability, nourishment and protection from the schizoid violence and depression characteristic of early medieval life 'in the world', as well as being offered the possibility of education and advancement in an institution holding enormous power and influence within society at large. Neither was the oblate regarded as an 'inferior' member of the community. All were bound by the absolute vow of humility and the oblate was made to feel fully conscious of his (or in a convent, her) special place within this powerful institution. In addition to the oblate's prominent role in the liturgical cycle, the oblates as a group were granted their own chapter (general assembly, supervised, of course, by the masters) and were permitted to have their opinions heard within the context of the General Chapter since, as Benedict had already declared in the 6th century, "Saul and Daniel judged the Elders since the time of their youth" and "often the Lord will reveal to the youngest what should best be done" (Riché 1979, note 17). Riché also points out how children were seen as embodying the monastic ideal of innocence, hence the belief that pueri a puritate dicti sunt, i.e. "boys (pueri) are so called because of their purity (puritas)". Both Mary McLaughlin and Fr. David Knowles feel obliged to concur with the statement in the Custumal of Bec that "no king's son was more carefully reared than the least of boys in a well-ordered monastery"41.

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What concerns us most here is less the harshness of such a psychological régime from the point of view of modern sensibilities, but rather how, by its very nature, it could have helped catalyse a transition from abandoning to ambivalent parenting modes and precipitate the 'waning of the Middle Ages'. That it did so by providing the necessary institutional framework and support for this transition there can be little doubt. While the monasteries did not, of course, initiate the process - this came from mothers who were capable of more empathic relations with their offspring - it was the general shift in perceptions of childhood instigated by the great reformers from within monasticism that served to reinforce and propagate such new perceptions of childhood in society at large. This was reflected in the gradual evolution of a more sympathetic régime for the oblates themselves, by the encouragement of kindlier methods of instruction in the schools and by the propagation of new forms of popular devotion that gave greater prominence to the relationship between mother and child. Such changes were autocatalytic and co-evolutionary, that is, given an initial impetus, they become mutually self-reinforcing. Before we examine in more detail how this came about, I shall venture a few remarks about psychospeciation as an evolutionary event in human history. 5. Factors Influencing Psychospeciation and the Decline of Oblation. Psychospeciation - the emergence of a more empathically-directed parenting mode - is analogous in many ways to biological speciation, provided we bear in mind that the factors influencing psychospeciation are epigenetic rather than genetic, i.e. psychological and social rather than biological (in the purely Darwinian sense)42. If a caregiver, through resistance to trauma, personal insight or strong identity formation (or some combination of these), consciously or unconsciously decides to forswear a dominant, less empathic childrearing mode in favour of rearing her (or his) child in a manner that tends to encourage rather than inhibit individuation, this shift is similar to the random mutation of a gene in that various factors will converge to determine the viability or adaptive potential of the mutation - in this case epigenetically, i.e. in terms of the dominant culture of the group - leading to its enhancement (propagation) or extinction through 'swamping'. There may be many such factors, some not immediately obvious, but I wish to propose ten that seem to have been operative at the crucial time of psychogenic transition under consideration - from the 11th to the 12th centuries - and continue to be so today. Five of these factors - the 'G-group' - reflect the nature of the group matrix in which the caregiver is embedded, while the other five - the 'I-group' - refer to that individual's personal situation within this matrix. These factors are as follows: G-group:

g1: Psychoclass spectrum - what kinds of psychoclasses are dominant within the group? Is the group isolated or in contact with others? Contact between smaller group complexes (where none clearly predominate) favours change - civilisational advances tend to occur at 'bottlenecks'.

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g2: Transference-projective matrix - What dominance- or sado-masochistic relations operate within the psychoclass group? How strong are they? Strongly traumatised groups can be in a state of psychogenic arrest that inhibits change - this was the case in Russia after the Mongol conquest, but Europe was sheltered from the worst effects of Eastern nomadic invasion by the Islamic 'buffer'43, permitting stabilisation and expansion of the Christian ecumene. g3: Meme configuration - What is the basic structure of the dominant group-fantasy (i.e. theology)? Do tensions appear within this structure that permit transformation and evolution in accordance with psychological and emotional needs while maintaining the essential 'inner' meme-complexes intact or, in other words, can culturally adaptive changes occur in the cataphatic expression of the base theology? This was certainly the case with the increasing prominence given to the role of the Son (the Child) in the 'dynamic trinitarianism' of Western Christianity 44. g4: Meme propagation rate - does an effective network exist for the communication of such changes? Although they were confined at first to those groups directly affiliated with the monasteries and schools, the work of parish preachers, the dissemination of new forms of devotion and the emergence of the Orders of Friars in the 13th and 14th centuries effectively propagated these changes among a broad population base45. g5: Migration flux - what are the rates of between-group population shifts? I-group: i1: Social support - how supportive is the individual's immediate social environment (i.e. extended family and neighbourhood) with regard to more empathic childrearing? If a woman chose to follow her conscience in this respect despite family and local opinion, she could lay herself open to charges of witchcraft - or being under the spell of a 'changeling'. i2: Economic level - are there economic obstacles to providing better care? Can the individual rely on assistance from within the immediate group if necessary? Medieval families tended to be 'extended' rather than 'nuclear'. When family support existed, poverty was less of a problem than it is even today. i3: Legal constraints - Psychoclass does not necessarily coincide with social class and ruling groups are often less psychogenically advanced than legally subordinated groups. Does the legal system support or constrain more empathic approaches to childrearing? The Church was able to enact (but not enforce) legislation against infanticide and various forms of extreme cruelty, but by and large, widespread changes in perceptions of childhood came 'from below' and had to precede supportive changes in the law.

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i4: Social mobility potential - if the familial or local environment is unfavourable, can changes be made in the individual's social situation? This was less of an option in the feudal countryside than it was in the increasingly sophisticated social space of the emergent mercantile cities. i5: Emigration potential - assuming all the above factors are unfavourable, is emigration to a more psychogenically advanced group possible? During the period under consideration, it was the emergent middle classes - the product of the secular schools that had grown from monastic prototypes -that were more mobile.

It can be seen that the five factors of the G-group became increasingly propitious after the stabilisation of the Christian ecumene through the efforts of the Celtic missionaries and the propagation of a unified Rule by early reformers such as Dunstan, Benet Biscop and Benedict of Aniane. The late Iron Age nobility - a less advanced though politically dominant psychoclass - had become symbiotically bound with the monastic movement through the need to obtain intercession in exchange for gifts and endowments as well as the need to educate successors in order to stabilise, govern and establish alliances between their nascent feudal-dynastic kingdoms. Christian theology had also stabilised after the christological controversies of the 5th-7th centuries and had acquired a dynamic character through Maximus the Confessor's transformation of the Origenist creation formula from γένησις → στάσις → κίνησις (becoming → rest → movement) into γένησις → κίνησις → στάσις (becoming → movement → rest) and further in the West through incorporation of the Filioque clause into the Nicene Creed, thereby giving greater prominence to the creative role of the Son (the Child) in history 46. Communications had been strengthened and extended through the rise of Cluny and its network of daughter houses as well as by the centralising reforms of the Hildebrandine Papacy, which eventually led to the creation of an instrument for the unified propagation of shifts in orthodox group-fantasy - the Inquisition. The catalytic role of education had been crucial in strengthening and expanding the ecumene. Although the monastic schools had monopolised education since the late 8th century, as individuation and the concomitant need to establish more personal relations with the divinity began to increase, secular schools derived from Cassiodorean-monastic models began to proliferate and reinforce the emergence of a dynamic and sophisticated mercantile class.

The combined synergetic effect of these factors tended to favour those of the I-group by providing institutional (and eventually legal) support for individual aspirations and, perhaps paradoxically, it was the archaic oblate system itself that played an indirect though crucial role in psychoclass transition. The oblate system had not remained unchanged since the age of Benedict. While the Rule makes special provision for the aged and children47 and declares that they should in no way be subject to the full rigour of the Rule in matters of diet, it is recommended that the children receive less that the portions normally allotted to adults in the name of frugality48. Severe fasting was also imposed upon them as punishment in place of excommunication49. Mistakes made while reading or chanting in choir were also punishable by flogging rather than by voluntary self-correction50 and all adult members of the community were entitled to administer punishment whenever necessary51. No mention is made of any special or prominent

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liturgical role assigned to the children nor are they granted a separate chapter, although in all fairness it should be said that absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence - Benedict himself explicitly states that "the whole of just observance is not contained in this Rule"52. The greatly enlarged Constitutions of Hirschau, Bec and that of Lanfranc at Canterbury expand considerably on matters pertaining to oblates. The Lanfranc Constitutions are based in largely on that of Bec, monastic home of St. Anselm (1033-1109), an nonoblate who, like Hugh of Lincoln (himself an oblate) in the next century, displayed a particular empathy towards children. These Constitutions represent the Norman reform of monasticism in England after the Conquest. They state that the children should not be expected to fast, but on the contrary, should have their diets supplemented53. Greater supervision in matters of discipline and corporal punishment is recommended, only the Abbot, Prior or Chief Cantor having the right to advise or administer punishment54. The children have by this time been granted their own chapter, which was also the only context in which serious infractions were to be punished55. The special roles of the children in the liturgical cycle are laid out in considerable detail, and although the custumals as such do not contain liturgical calendars, Pierre Riché and Mary McLaughlin cite a number of sources describing the great feast-days on which the oblates were entitled to officiate and even perform their own liturgical dramas56. Notable shifts in the perception of childhood have therefore taken place during the five hundred years separating the Rule of St. Benedict from Anselm of Bec's celebrated statement strongly condemning all forms of corporal punishment and recommending empathy as the key to effective teaching57. Little is known to date of the views of other monastic personalities as regards childhood prior to the time of Anselm. In this respect, Anselm represents the first clear evidence of a transition (within the monasteries) from the masochistic personality of early Christianity to the borderline-depressive of the later Middle Ages. Despite a strong empathy for children and a capacity for distinguishing childhood as a distinct phase in human development with needs that require special care, Anselm's general theological outlook was of the old order, firmly based on faith. Nevertheless he appears historically as the source of a network of powerful thinkers and reformers - the first dense, transgenerational group of individuals in Western Europe linking both monastic and university networks whose members are related to each other through affiliation, acquaintance or opposition and through which it is possible to study the dominant, evolving group-fantasy in the process of transformation - in this case, the first phase in the transition from theology to science, as can be seen in Randall Collins' major study of philosophical networks considered as transgenerational task-oriented groups (Collins 1998)58. Collins' study focuses mainly on the scholastics - the network centred around Peter Abelard in Paris during the early 12th century. The entire network connecting the monasteries, universities and the schools that embodies the transition from monastic to scholastic theology has yet to be investigated. It comprises an earlier group of personalities than that studied by Ralph Frenken59 and a psychobiographical survey of the total network, applying some of the methodologies developed by Frenken, should be the subject of a future study60. For now, Fig.1 below shows the earlier phase of this network centred around Anselm and represents the monastic component not covered by Collins:

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In sum therefore, apart from the generalised psychospeciation factors discussed above, five historical factors contributed more specifically to the erosion of the oblate system per se: 1) shifting perceptions of childhood on the part of the reformers, which as we have seen, led to an increased relaxation of the oblate régime, 2) spontaneous changes in parent-child relations, which were encouraged and supported by the propagation of new forms of personal devotion, 3) the monastic quest for a more rigorous and personalised process of self-discovery within the context of monastic formation - this led to the refinement of hesychastic psychology (see below) through the Cistercian and Carthusian reforms, 4) the growth of secular schools on the Cassiodorean-monastic model and 5) increased opportunities for younger children to escape the restrictive inheritance laws and join the emergent mercantile class. Oblation, already on the wane in England at the close of the 11th century was officially discontinued in Europe by the end of the 12th century and a ruling of the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 expressly forbade the practice (the Cistercian abbeys in England had already ceased to take in novices younger than 15 years of age since the foundation of Rievaulx in 1132). The main impetus for institutional change in England came from the Norman (and later Cistercian) reforms following the Conquest, as can be seen from Fig.1. However, erosion of the practice did not mean its complete cessation, as we shall see.

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6. Hesychastic Psychology and the Process of Monastic Formation. The central question of this study is as follows: what changing psychological factors within monasticism aided the process of reform and transition? Fig.1 shows that the vast majority of reformers were not oblates, but individuals who experienced personal conversion to the monastic life and subsequently underwent the process of monastic formation. Very few competent psychoanalytic studies to date have thrown much light on the transpersonal psychologies of this 'deeply reticent world', or on the process of formation itself. The comparative dearth of such studies can be attributed to a number of factors, of which the most important would appear to be; 1) the cataphatic-scholastic bias of Western theology, 2) the fact that many of the best-known Western 'mystics' (including Frenken's group) appear to have been 'arrested' at early stages of the formation process, 3) a lack of direct experiential knowledge of the process among psychoanalysts, 4) the theologically-based language of monastic sources involving a terminology whose psychoanalytic equivalents have yet to be determined - with the resulting linguistic barriers often reinforcing hostility and denial, and 5) the vagaries of modern 'scanning' behaviour61 - the desperate search for new forms of 'mysticism' to address what is felt as a psychological 'void' - the social anomie endemic within all complex societies. In most contemporary studies, this results in a general confusion of authentic hesychastic psychology62, extravagant 'mysticism' and various kinds of 'altered states of consciousness', whether spontaneous or artificially-induced (through drugs). Monastic formation is a sober, apophatically-based and down-to-earth process in which extreme religiosity, ecstatic 'mysticism' or 'altered states of consciousness' are more often than not symptoms of distraction or illusion (Slav. prelest) which must be distinguished from reality by the trained use of discrimination (Gk. diakrisis, Slav. rassuzhdanije). The 'science' of hesychastic psychology evolved in European monasteries (of both East and West) from the 7th to the 14th centuries and is a direct result of the transition from the masochistic personality of early Christianity to the borderline-depressive of the later Middle Ages and Renaissance. The goal of this psychology is to attain the fullness of self-knowledge and the preferred embedding of the formative path within the experiential framework of a community is intended to obviate the serious dangers inherent in its often spontaneous and personal character - as Kenneth Wapnick has pointed out in his comparative study of St. Theresa of Avila and the schizophrenic patient Lara Jefferson63. The transcultural nature of the process will be apparent from the range of sources I have consulted in order to attempt a preliminary analysis. These sources include: Primary Sources:

1) The Greek Philokalia, 4 Vols. G.E.H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard & Kallistos Ware (eds.), Faber & Faber 1983-98.

2) Starets Siluan (The Life of the Elder Silouan - in Russian), International Centre for the Publication of Orthodox Literature, Danilovskyj Monastery, Moscow 1994.

3) Igumen Chariton of Valaam, 'Askietism I Monashestvo' in K Svetu, Pskov Monastery of the Caves, Moscow, 1993 pp.5-20.

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4) Maximus the Confessor, The 10th Ambiguum in Migne, Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Tom 91 (Maximus Abbas) pp.1106-1206. This crucial but difficult text requires a close analysis of the structure and lexical roots of the Greek original. The only extant English translation (with commentary) is found in Louth, A., Maximus the Confessor, Routledge, London & New York 99.94-154.

5) Works by Aelred of Rievaulx, including the Speculum Caritatis and De Vera Amicitia. Works of the English 14th century mystics, including the anonymous Cloud of Unknowing, the Relevation of Divine Love by Julian of Norwich, the Incendium Amoris by Richard Rolle and the Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis (various editions).

6) Lives of distinguished reformers, in particular of Anselm of Bec, Hugh of Lincoln and Bernard of Clairvaux.

7) Norbu, Namkhai, The Cycle of Day and Night: An Essential Tibetan Text on the Practice of Contemplation, Station Hill Press, 1987.

Secondary Sources and Studies: 1) Guenther, H., The Matrix of Mystery, Shambala, Boulder & London 1984.

Both this study and the following include analyses and commentaries of various rDzogs-chen texts - the Mahayana doctrine from which modern Zen later evolved. These studies are psychoanalytically and philosophically sophisticated and constitute an invaluable psychohistorical resource.

2) Ibid. From Reductionism to Creativity: rDzogs-chen and the New Sciences of Mind, Shambala, Boston/Shaftsbury 1989.

3) Feuerstein, Georg, The Essence of Yoga: A Contribution to the Psychohistory of Indian Civilisation, Rider & Co. London 1974.

4) Leclerq, Jean O.S.B. 'Modern Psychology and the Interpretation of Medieval Texts' in Speculum, Vol.48 (1973) pp.476-490. A psychohistorically sophisticated study by a monk from the modern abbey of Clairvaux.

In addition, I have selected four psychology papers from Woods, R. (ed.) Understanding Mysticism (see note 63 below): 1) Deikman, Arthur J. 'Deautomatization and the Mystic Experience' in Woods

op.cit. pp. 240-60. 2) Ibid. 'Bimodal Consciousness and the Mystic Experience', pp. 261-69. 3) Ornstein, Robert E., 'Two Sides of the Brain', pp.270-85. 4) Wapnick, K., 'Mysticism and Schizophrenia', cited above.

From the above sources, it is possible to venture a 'plan' or overview of the

hesychastic process as comprising six distinct phases:

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Stage I: Conversion (‘metanoia’ - µετανοία) - the 'breakthrough of transmarginal consciousness' (James) or spontaneous awareness of the existence of an authentic, socially-suppressed self. Stage II: Renunciation - Deautomatisation (Deikman) or gradual detachment from cathected objects/relationships/situations in the external social environment - freeing oneself from the defences erected against the anxieties that accompany individuation. Stage III: Illumination - withdrawal of cathexis leads to an initial amplification of sensory modalities, creating feelings of illumination or euphoria - often misconstrued as ‘enlightenment’ and becomes a stage of arrest for many practitioners of so-called 'mysticism'. Stage IV: The ‘Dark Night of the Soul’ - fragmentation of the ego due to encounters with early neural catastrophes induced through trauma. Disintegration of these early defences and subsequent dissolution of the internalised superego leads to breakdown of the schizoid barrier and precipitation of the defenceless psyche into the ‘Abyss of Being’ - a sense of utter emptiness. This may be followed by stages of mourning (Miller) or in hesychastic language - the Gift of Tears that is the beginning of transition to Stage V. Stage V: Regeneration - the attainment of ησυχία or 'inner peace' - consciousness becomes infinitely and diversely connected to the surrounding world (metacomplexity) - intuition and perceptive capacities are greatly enhanced. Stage VI: Return - the ability is recovered to engage fully in πράξις - to interact maximally with the external social environment without being psychically ‘absorbed’ by or attached to it. From this it can be seen that hesychastic formation has a certain affinity with modern psychoanalysis, a point that has not gone unnoticed by scholars such as John O. Meany in his analysis of the teachings of Simeon the New Theologian64. In each case the goal is confrontation and, wherever possible, elimination of the barriers created by early trauma (Stage V). The self-understanding gained during the process may or may not fully eliminate the consequences of trauma, but will hopefully enable a reorganisation of the individual's psychic economy so as to permit a more effective participation in the social environment. Yet the historical contexts of the medieval monastery and the modern therapeutic consulting-room are quite different. Ideally, the aim of hesychia was not stasis or withdrawal but the evoking of a more extroverted dynamic equilibrium within the psychic economy that was nevertheless free from the projective or introjective tendencies towards entities or persons in the external environment utilised by traumatised personalities as forms of psychic defence. However, the conflict between 'active' and 'contemplative' lifestyles involved the question as to whether hesychia as stasis or quiescence was an end in itself, or whether the true goal of the hesychastic path involved Stage VI - the implementation within society of that which had been learned or acquired during stage V. The reformers took different paths - the Carthusians pursued quiescence,

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the Cistercians remained ambivalent while the Orders of Friars opted for praxis. The post-Cluniac monastic environment sought to create a rudimentary and empirical form of therapy whose goal was to enable the individual to participate more fully in the tasks of the group - effective evangelisation and pastoral care. The monastery created a basic group-therapeutic environment - but one where individual access to the therapeutic process was also encouraged through transference and counter-transference relations with the abbot, confessor or 'spiritual father'. The transference relation was evoked more explicitly in the Eastern Orthodox world where each individual was normally assigned a 'spiritual father' (or 'mother') who would normally be a person recognised as possessing particular therapeutic gifts by virtue of having achieved hesychia. This person would not necessarily be the abbot (Archimandrite) or abbess, whose primary tasks were administrative. Lay people could also participate in this process and even become 'elders' in their own right. Tendencies in this direction in England can be seen from the works of the 14th century Yorkshire mystics - works that are apophatically and hesychastically-oriented, yet intended primarily for lay people. They represent the gradual popularisation of hesychastic psychology following the Cistercian and Franciscan reforms - a popularisation that went hand in hand with new devotional forms, liturgical art and dramas that sought to express more intimate and empathic relations between mother and child and thus helped consolidate psychogenic advance. As I have said, extreme religiosity and 'ecstatic' mysticism had little to do with the 'nuts and bolts' of authentic hesychasm65. The apophatic approach sought to avoid the cathexis of emotions onto symbols of any kind. In the contemporary West, it is Buddhism, in particular as expressed in its more explicitly 'atheistic' Zen tradition, through which this type of psychology has become more familiar. Yet it is often said that if one were to overhear, in no particular order, a pair of Zen masters in conversation and then a pair of Athonite Elders, it would not be possible to tell which was which.

The transcultural character of the hesychastic process is evident in that ultimately, various forms of it have been articulated by all the Nexus groups at one time or another. But in what way are intuitive and perceptual capacities enhanced during Stage V? What cognitive import can be drawn from this experience? Very few sources attempt a coherent analysis of this stage, involving as it does the extension of human consciousness beyond the borders of chaos in a manner that transcends the constraints of socially and culturally-based language. Guenther (1989) has attempted a structural digraph of the 'five pristine cognitions' - the basis of 'originary awareness' as described in the rDzog-chen texts - relating them to their origin within a 'trimodal' (or 'trinitarian') consciousness and showing how they act as 'vectors' for cultural creativity (Fig.2):

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A full description of these dynamics would require a paper specifically devoted to the subject. The point at issue here is that a careful analysis of the 10th Ambiguum of Maximus the Confessor based on the structure, argument and lexical basis of the Greek original reveals a striking congruence. No evidence of contact has been found between the two traditions (although I repeat before what I said about absence of evidence) - and Maximus' more explicit 7th century version definitely antedates the more diffuse rDzogs-chen sources (mostly 13th-14th century). Yet here too we see the trimodal basis ('dynamic trinitarianism') of five 'contemplative modes' with their vectorial extension into cultural potentiality (as a basis for action) and executive praxis (Fig.3):

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The upper level of each digraph shows the underlying trimodal (trinitarian) origin of the five 'pristine cognitions' (Tib. ye-shes) or 'contemplative modes' (Gk. tropoi). The oedipal figures they represent - that of Father, Child and Mother, are linked by symmetry transforms, i.e. the three hypostases (personalised entities) transform one into the other, forming a single unity (Guenther's 'triune dynamics') in which the individuality of each hypostasis is nevertheless preserved. In the Tibetan terminology, these three hypostases are highly abstracted entities - existential concepts rather than persons (i.e. they are expressed apophatically), while in Christianity they are more directly and cataphatically personalised as Father, Son (Child or Logos - that which speaks) and Spirit (Mother). Fig.4 shows the relationships between the multiple Tibetan terms and their Christian counterparts. The basic equivalences are those of Foundation (The Father), Lived Experience (The Child) and Nurturance (The Mother). It is the Child whose existentiality is the source of all subjective experience and is thus linked directly to Being (Ousia) in the Maximian digraph (Fig.3) and to its Tibetan equivalent, the 'meaning-saturated pristine cognition' (Tib. chos-kyi dbyings-kyi ye-shes) in Fig.2. The centrality of Child-as-Being is quite unambiguous in both traditions - the chos-dbyings is described as "this irreducibly open, as yet virtual cognitiveness [which] is primary in the sense that it is Being itself" (Guenther, 1984 p. 85) while Maximus unequivocably states that "Being

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Utter Openness ← Stong-pa ↕ Facticity ← Ngo-bo ↕ Superdiaphaneity ← Ka-dag ↕

→ Sheer Lucency ← Gsal-ba ↕ → Actuality ← Rang-bzhin ↕ → Spontaneous Presence← Lhun-grub ↕

→ Excitatory Intelligence Rig-pa ↕ → Resonating Concern Thugs-rje ↕ → All-encompassing Totality Kun-khyab ↕

Fig.4(a): Triune Dynamics of the Holomovement (Tibetan). Being ← ↕

→ Existence ← ↕

→ Experience ↕

Fig.4(b): The Three Basic Existential Phases (Tibetan). Meaning-saturated ← Gestalt (Prethematic) Chos-sku ↕

→ Scenario Gestalt ← (Domain of Preforms) Longs-sku ↕

→ Display Gestalt (Actualisation) Sprul-sku ↕

Fig.4(c): The Field of Enlightenment (Kun-tu bzang-po). Ground ← Gzhi ↕ Formal Gestalt Sku ↕ Knowledge Level I

→ Path ← Lam ↕ Authentic Utterance Gsung ↕ Knowledge Level II

→ Goal 'Bras-bu ↕ Vibrant Spirituality Thugs ↕ Knowledge Level III

Fig.4(d): The Sentient Being as Process. Father ← Hesychia ↕ Faith ←

→ Son ← Logos ↕ → Hope ←

→ Spirit Charisma ↕ → Charity

Fig.4(e): Christian Equivalents Fig.4: Dynamic (and Existential) Trinitarianism in the rDzogs-chen and Christian Traditions - horizontal and vertical elements form a closed symmetric group.

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is the teacher of theology" ("Oíon tēn mèn ousían theologías didáskalon" - PC. p.1134, 148b). The remaining four cognitions are energised by the Child's existentiality (Tib. Rang-bin ye-shes, Gk. Logos) through Being to form a fivefold interactive symmetry group(pentad). Analysis of the often complex and obscure definitions of each mode presented in the original sources - together (which often helps clarify matters) with their opposites, i.e. the 'pollutants' or inhibitors ('sin' in the Christian sense) - allows us to suggest some psychoanalytic equivalents for each of these modes. The second mode or cognition within this five-group is called in Tibetan the "quasi-mirroring" pristine cognition (Tib. me-long lya-bu'i ye-shes) or in Greek simply "movement" (kinesis). Essentially, this mode enables one to perceive the extents and limits of individual autonomy with respect to other sentient beings - as Maximus says "through it we behold the unvarying sameness of each of the things that have come to be according to its being and form and similarly its inviolable mode of existence, and understand how everything in the universe is separated one from another in an orderly manner in accordance with the logoi in which each thing consists by the ineffable One who holds and protects everything in accordance with unity" (Louth 1996, p.113). In other words this mode defines and delimits what we would call our ego boundaries with respect to others. We are 'mirrored' in our fellow beings, yet distinctly bounded in relation to them. The rDzogs-chen 'pollutant' is "a globally-embedded irritation" (Guenther 1984, p.90) that destabilises the perceptive horizon. The third mode is called in Tibetan the "auto-reflexive identity" or "compatibility" pristine cognition (Tib. mnyam-pa nyid-kyi ye-shes) - in Greek, diaphora or 'difference'. This mode would appear to reflect a general capacity for empathy. In knowing our boundaries with respect to others, we ideally come to appreciate the several needs, strengths and weaknesses of others with respect to ourselves and understand how these aspects integrate fully in complementarity with our own to form the 'matrix of Being'. As Maximus says "difference…teaches us…the natural power of the individual logoi in a way proportionate to their underlying being" (Louth 1996, p.113) - but in a way that does not involve judgementalism, but rather an appreciation of the educative powers of providence, the 'As-Is'. The rDzogs-chen commentaries stress the perception of communality that underlies variance (individuality). The respective 'pollutant' is described as a "globally-embedded arrogance" or "hatred/aversion" arising from "the delusional nature of ego-operations" (Guenther 1984, p.91). The fourth mode is the "specificity-initiating selective mapping pristine cognition" (Tib. so-sor rtog-pa'i ye-shes) - in Greek, krasis or 'mixture'. This enables us to discern the relative ethical valence of each lifestyles open to us and make a morally appropriate choice - "any ensuing action has an intentional structure in that it is directed towards an end through which projects of meaning are fulfilled" (Guenther 1984, p.86). Maximus adds that this mode is the expression of our own moral propensities and helps us discriminate between activities on this basis - "Mixture…is a symbol of our inclination" (Louth 1996, p.114). The equivalent 'pollutant' or opposite is "the arcane

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poison of globally-embedded addiction…a craving for and attachment to that which has been singled out…an obsessive inordinate possessiveness reinforced by ego operations" (Guenther 1984, p.91). This mode therefore strengthens us not only against physical addiction, but also all forms of psychological addiction, including obsession, reaction-formation and cathexis as well as harmful or inappropriate forms of transference, projective identification or introjection. The fifth mode is called the "task posed and accomplished pristine cognition" (Tib. bya-ba grub-pa'i ye-shes), or in Greek, thesis ('position'). This mode embodies the courage to pursue or implement one's chosen path free from distraction or envy of others, as Maximus says: "Position is the teacher of the character that is chosen by inclination, steadily holding an opinion concerning the good and training those who oppose what is against it, and accepting only on a rational basis any kind of change [i.e. in disposition or inclination - my note]" (Louth 1996, p.114). According to rDzogs-chen sources, this mode involves "the spontaneous manifestation of a nurturing concern for…the value recognised [i.e. by the previous mode - my note]" (Guenther 1984, p.86). The corresponding 'pollutant ' is "a globally-embedded envy", a tendency to be distracted and to interfere judgementally in the affairs of others (Guenther 1984, p.91). The latter four modes taken together plus the first - the 'meaning-saturated pristine cognition' linking them to the existential energy of the Child - all interact synergetically to evoke a tranquil and stable sense of wonder - defined as a vibrant, empathic appreciation of the infinite potentialities of Being. This in turn directs culturally-appropriate behaviour at the level of planning (Tib. ji-lta-ba or 'potentiality', Gk. sophia or 'wisdom derived from contemplation') or action (Tib. ji-snyed-pa or 'forecast of cultural gestalts', Gk. praxis or 'action'). Certain ambiguities are evident in Guenther's interpretation of the sources. In Guenther (1984) he places me-long (the "quasi-mirroring pristine cognition") in the centre of the pentad group, but in Guenther (1989) he revises the model, placing chos-dbyings (the "meaning-saturated field") at the centre. This later revision is more congruent with Maximus' description of ousia ("Being"). Both Guenther and Maximus differ somewhat as to which cognition modes are linked to the dyad "contemplation-action" (rDzogs-chen: "potentiality-cultural forecasts"). For Guenther, the "meaning-saturated field" (chos-dbyings) and "compatibility" (mnyam-nyid) are linked to "potentiality" (ji-lta-ba) while the remaining three connect to "cultural forecasts" (ji-snyed-pa). For Maximus, the "compatibility" equivalent (difference - i.e. the empathy factor) joins with Being (the Tibetan chos-byings) and movement (Tib. me-long - the "mirroring" factor) to connect with contemplation (the equivalent of "potentiality") while the other two connect with action (the equivalent of "cultural forecasts"). These ambiguities are of little significance given the fivefold interactive symmetry of the cognition group and are to be expected, given the fact that these sources represent an early empirical phase of psychoanalytic enquiry, using a terminology and metaphor structure bound within the linguistic and psychohistorical context of the time. Moreover, hesychastic psychology was based on direct interpersonal experience rather than any

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coherent body of theory drawn from clinical case studies. We may as well ask ourselves - is modern psychoanalysis entirely free from ambivalence? The 'pollutants' per se carry no connotation of guilt or expiation, either in the rDzogs-chen sources or the 10th Ambiguum - which is concerned more with self-transformation or transfiguration (Gk. metamorphosis) than with any masochistic reparation for 'sin'. The pollutants are considered rather to be the 'negative polarities' of a natural fluctuation between mental states which occurs by virtue of being human - in some way analogous (but not identical to) the fluctuations in Kleinian theory between depressive and schizoid positions. In rDzogs-chen terminology, this fluctuation is between high-level and lower-level states of awareness. The pollutants, sharing a common origin with the 'higher' cognition modes in the unified basis of Being (the human person) are not therefore 'dark forces' to be fought against, 'given up', transformed or sublimated - such efforts only intensify the fluctuation. Rather, they are to be accepted as a necessary concomitant of the human condition and, through an awareness of their true origin, 'liberated into their own condition'66. In Christian patristic tradition the pollutants are likened to the flames surrounding the three children, Shadrach, Mishach and Abednago, condemned by Nebuchadnezzar to the 'burning, fiery furnace". Although the flames are all-encompassing, the children are continually bathed, together with an 'angel' sent to protect them - traditionally considered a prototype of Christ - in the 'cool, whistling wind' of perfect contemplation (Dan. Ch.3: 1-97). Sexuality per se in the broader context of hesychastic development is not at issue. The question is: will an individual's expression of sexuality enhance or inhibit that person's hesychastic goal? In the East, even during the older epoch of the Egyptian Thebaid, it was not unusual for a monk or hermit to seek spiritual guidance from a lay (married) Elder. The vertical triads of Figs.2 and 3 - Creativity→Geometrisation (play)→Adornment and Non-duality→Morphologies→Gestalt Embodiment (in the rDzogs-chen formulation) are equivalent to the Maximian triads of Faith (Inner Equilibrium)→Hope (Orientation)→Charity (Compunction) and Theological Philosophy→Ethical Philosophy→Natural Philosophy. They correspond to stages of what we might call perception of potentialities, conscious planning and implementation. Maximus, in an extended and complex argument, seeks to give a more explicit account of how these processes relate to the cognitive modes. For the sake of simplicity I have condensed Maximus' argument into the series of digraphs shown in Fig.5:

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In Fig.5(a), difference combines with position and movement with mixture to give the condensation67 of Fig. 5(a) shown in Fig.5(b) - a tripolarity by which both new dyads are linked through Being to connect with the existential power of the Child - the Logos. In Fig.5(c) the pentad group, experienced from the perspective of Being alone, condenses into the vertical triad of Theological, Ethical and Natural Philosophy. In Fig.5(d), if the pentad is experienced from the perspective of position, this latter mode has a transitive relation to Ethical Philosophy via Theological, and to Natural Philosophy via Ethical. In Fig.5(e), when the pentad is condensed from the perspective of difference, the paths to Contemplative Wisdom and Practical Philosophy (the Contemplation-Action dyad) emerge. In Fig.5(f), if the pentad is condensed from the perspective of mixture (discrimination), the three modes of difference (empathy), movement (ego boundaries) and position (activity) flow through the 'discriminatory filter' to express the authentic self whose potentialities reside prethematically in Being. 7. The Impact of Hesychastic Psychology on Psychospeciation. The 'abiding sense of wonder' - that vibrant empathic appreciation of the infinite ppotentialities of Being - signified a purposeful regression from the constraints imposed or induced through the socialisation process in order to recapture the primary, context-free experiential modes of childhood - what was termed originary awareness, the expression of an authentic, uninhibited self. It was of course impossible to 'return' to

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childhood in the literal sense. The goal was rather to fuse the wisdom, memories and skills of adulthood with experiential modes uncontaminated by adult categories. A truly empathic care-giver must regress to childhood to a certain degree and empathically re-experience and re-live the perceptions, hopes and fears of that stage in human development in order to protect the child from any consequences of trauma as well as help and guide the child more effectively through the unavoidably painful process of maturation. Monastic reformers such as Anselm of Bec, Hugh of Lincoln and Aelred of Rievaulx were capable, through a natural disposition to empathy that was reinforced by the hesychastic path, to discern and empathise with the hopes and fears of oblates and young students to a far greater degree than was normally possible for the borderline personality of that epoch. The result was a 'vibrant, empathic appreciation' of childhood as a distinct phase in life with specific needs that must be met in order to realise the 'infinite potentialities' of future human development. They also understood that metanoia or 'conversion' was a necessary prelude to a fuller, more personal and intimate relationship with the 'sources of Being' (hypostasised as the Logos) and was not something that could be forced upon or induced within, an immature psyche through immersion in the group. The psychology and decision-making processes of the reformers had, through the hesychastic discipline, attained metacomplexity - a level of extremely flexible, multidimensional and highly-integrated information-processing68 which enabled them to re-evaluate their world and initiate wide-reaching socially-adaptive reforms. This is why the vertical triads in Figs.2 and 3 are linked by the so-called Hausdorff Transforms which - simply stated - are processes through which highly complex, multidimensional manifolds are 'mapped' onto one other. The flexibility of metacomplex thinking therefore allows complex or simple solutions to be selected and implemented according to the optimal adaptive requirements of a situation. 8. The Legacies of Hesychastic Psychology. Hesychastic psychology became a far richer, more complex science in the Orthodox and Buddhist East, yet failed to initiate any cultural transition on the scale achieved in the West. Why was this so? The reasons are many and complex, but for the moment, we should note that the eastern territories under consideration were situated much closer to the Eurasian Nomad Basin and hence endured the worst effects of nomad incursion. The political dominance of most of these territories by a succession of Asiatic overclasses who continually imported the psychogenic ethos of the steppe69 inhibited the formation of stable educational institutions developed through affiliation with older cultural traditions - i.e. there was no corpus of cultural capital readily available upon which to construct and re-interpret group- fantasies - and contributed to psychogenic 'arrest'. As has been noted, these very territories shielded the West from the worst effects of these invasions, thereby permitting a 'cascade' of psychogenic advance to proceed in Western Europe without serious interruption. This cascade led eventually to the emergence of the world's only purely scientific-technological culture - God had become Machine. The Nying-ma-pa, oldest of the four Tibetan monastic orders70 and guardians of the rDzogs-chen doctrines found themselves increasingly marginalised after the second Buddhist conversion of Tibet in the later 11th century as the monastic orders came to be dominated by the more politicised Kar-gyu-pa. It was Temüjin ('Ghengis Khan') who

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actually consecrated the head of this order as the first Dalai Lama - the 'Ocean of All-Encompassing Wisdom'. The rDzogs-chen doctrines preserved by the Nying-ma-pa were carried eastwards where they became the foundation for the more recent traditions of Zen. Tensions between the two orders continue to exist and have been recently exacerbated by the current Dalai Lama's wish to restore the Nying-ma-pa to a more eminent position. In the West, in consideration of Norman Davies' comment about a 'long-extinct and deeply-reticent world' monasticism is often thought to have failed. It did not. Absorption into the surrounding social matrix was the price paid for having catalysed the transition. The institutional structures and the evolved, 'internalised' legacies of monasticism continued to influence educational, political and university collegiate systems and can still be found in many aspects of modern organisation and corporate culture. Oblation waned as a cultural institution but did not disappear altogether. The Cluniacs and Canons Regular continued to receive a small number of oblates until the end of the 14th century despite the Lateran Edict, and the various Orders of Friars were accused of attempting to renew the custom of recruiting, adopting or abducting very young children into their ranks71. By the 15th century however, oblation had ceased among the orders but had meanwhile become institutionalised in the emergent public school system - Winchester, Charterhouse and their successors. Thus the system endures to the present day - albeit in mutated form - in the English public schools where children are 'boarded' from an early age, repositories for the abandoning mode practices of ruling élites whose family dynamics still represent an archaic survival from the medieval period72.

In a previous study, I showed how the Cistercian mystic Joachim of Fiore (c.1132-1206) created an apocalyptic vision of future history that deeply influenced the later social and political philosophies of Western Europe73. An examination of the 3rd Figura presented in this paper - Joachim's Dispositio Novi Ordinis or 'Configuration of the New Order' - will reveal that the five interactive groupings of the viri spirituales who are to govern this New Society correspond in fact to the pentad of cognition modes discussed above and illustrated in Figs.2 and 3. For the sake of clarity, I have included another version of the Configuration with the cognitive pentad superimposed, together with the dyadic 'vectors' directed towards potentiality and planning - the Clergy symbolised by the Dog (Canis) and cultural implementation - the People as symbolised by the Sheep (Ovis) (Fig.6). Within the pentad, the 'men of perfect contemplation' as symbolised by Columba (the Dove) represent the 'meaning-saturated field' of Being (Ousia), the group devoted to Learning as symbolised by Homo (the Man) represent the 'mirroring' pristine cognition or Movement (kinesis), those devoted to Knowledge as symbolised by Vitulus (the Calf) represent the empathic power of 'compatibility' or Difference (diaphora), those devoted to Wisdom as symbolised by Aquila (the Eagle) represent the 'specificity-initiating' pristine cognition, or Mixture (krasis) and finally, the group devoted to Courage in Adversity as symbolised by Leo (the Lion) represents the 'task-posed-and-accomplished' pristine cognition - that of Position (thesis).

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Fig.6: The New Order of Joachim of Fiore as an Implementation of the Hesychastic Process.

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Echoes of the hesychastic process can be discerned in contemporary film, especially those that reflect a personal journey or group odyssey in quest of 'rebirth'. Paramount among these is Stanly Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, the favourite film fantasy of rebirth and transformation among those raised under the influence of science fiction (especially the messianic visions of Arthur C. Clarke) during the Apollo era. As I understand it, the stages of hesychastic formation are reflected in the various stages of the movie's plot as follows: Stage I: Withdrawal - the decision to embark on a space voyage (to Jupiter).

Stage II: Renunciation - psychosis and disablement of the Hal 9000 - an 'artificial' intelligence representing the 'Ego' of scientific-technological society with its structured, discursive and dichotomising modes of thought.

Stage III: Illumination - entry into and journey through the Star Gate.

Stage IV: The Dark Night of the Soul - isolation and death of the residual ego within the confines of the alien hotel room.

Stage V: Regeneration - rebirth as 'Star-Child'. Stage VI: Return - Dave's return in the 2010 sequel. 9. Conclusion. Monasticism as an institution is of course by no means extinct - if anything, in the Western World, it is currently on the increase. But as a transgenerational task-oriented group, the problems faced by the institution today are quite different from those of the 11th and 12th centuries and cannot be solved without a re-evaluation of the psychogenic structures of our time. As W.W. Meissner points out, without renewal of an all-embracing vision (i.e. group-fantasy) that could catalyse, in contemporary terms, the available potentialities for cultural praxis on a large scale, the tendency within monastic groups will be to seek withdrawal and isolation. In other words, in most cases self-preservation as an institution will become paramount and psychological groups of the Bion type will tend to predominate, discouraging the efforts of truly creative personalities74. This paper has explored certain psychological events within the context of their time, seeking to render these processes, and the systems through which they were implemented, more readily accessible to the contemporary reader. Attempts on the part of cults or fundamentalist groups to tear these systems from their historical context and re-implement them today are doomed to failure75. Such attempts represent a resurgence of archaic psychoclass modes and can only lead to psychogenic arrest or regression since the gods they seek to re-incarnate are no longer the same. As hypostasised group-fantasies, gods are real entities, but have no independent existence apart from the groups of faithful that believe in them. This is why they are often depicted in the Hindu tradition as beings with multiple heads, arms or legs - the 19th century Madhyamika logician and Advaita-Vedantic master Sri Vivekananda pointed to this 'virtual' type of incarnation

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within the minds of believers when proposing a monistic system wherein the entire human race is hypostasised as a single deity whose life is bounded and co-extensive with the life of the species. Gods are therefore shared memetic constructs that are transmitted across the generations, and as such are born, grow, evolve and die. They cannot undergo resurrection but they can become culturally transformed, although in so doing, they are no longer the same entities - this is in fact the basis of most problems in academic theology. What I have outlined here however is not a religious system but an empathy-inducing process of mental development congruent with, although not identical to, psychoanalysis. The underlying psychodynamics of this process are transcultural, i.e. they are capable of multiple 'cataphatic' translation in a variety of contexts in social space and time, and as such merit closer psychohistorical study and, if possible, reformulation. The fact that the process is conducive to metacomplexity of thought makes it useful as a possible tool of training for psychohistorians. This 'inner' dimension of psychohistorical training is recognised by those who strongly recommend that psychohistorians undergo analysis, although as Saul Friedländer points out, analysis in itself can generate its own problems76. What is also needed is training that can develop the perspectives of metacomplexity, the capacity to appreciate multiple potentialities and to implement new forms of praxis. The breakdown of empathy in modern educational systems is a case in point. This is a matter of grave concern. The fostering of empathy among children, educators and those in the 'caring' professions is a major task requiring institutional support on nationwide scales. This paper has shown that without such support, 'helping' or 'empathic' modes of childrearing cannot be effectively stabilised, encouraged and promoted. Some methodologies for accomplishing this are suggested in Paulo Freire's study The Pedagogy of the Oppressed76, which points out that most of us in the 'liberal' West are involved, consciously, subconsciously or unconsciously, in the psychology of oppression increasingly promoted by global capitalism and corporate culture. The 'vibrant, empathic appreciation of the infinite potentialities of Being' that was the integral basis of hesychastic psychology from the 11th to the 13th centuries did not lead to aloof self-isolation and quiescence, but evoked the necessary energy and personal humility to engage with the oppressed on an equal basis and help them develop the capacity to transform themselves and their surrounding culture effectively and without violence. Such a path, re-evaluated and transformed in terms of the present, offers us one viable mode of praxis through which history can be more authentically humanised. The process is complex and involves labour across the generations, but the past has taught us that history truly can be transformed - slowly and with great effort. Correspondence concerning this article should be directed to Paul Ziolo, Department of Psychology, University of Liverpool, Eleanor Rathbone Building, Bedford Street South, Liverpool L69 7ZA, U.K. Email: m.p.ziolo@liv.ac.uk.

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1 Eisenstadt, S.N. 'The Axial Age: The Emergence of Transcendental Visions and the Rise of Clerics', Archives Européenes de Sociologie 23 (1982) pp. 294-314. 2 Hypostasised in monastic language as lust, greed and pride against which are set the 'virtues' of chastity, poverty and obedience. 3 The word monk is derived from the Greek monachos meaning 'alone' or 'solitary' in the sense of being without kin, while the Slavonic word for monk is inok - i.e one who is 'innyj' or 'unlike the rest of us'. The 'chaos of sociopolitical life' is often referred to in the Slav literature as 'zhitiejskoje morje' - the 'turbulent ocean of life'. 4 See Silber, Ilana Friedrich, Virtuosity, Charisma and Social Order: A Comparative Sociological Study of Monasticism in Theravada Buddhism and Medieval Catholicism, Cambridge University Press, 1995. 5 Bion, W.R. Experience in Groups and Other Papers, Tavistock Publications, 1961 pp. 166-87. The ambivalence of this role in the West - divided as it was between Church (the 'secular' priestly order) and Monastery, lay at the root of the conflict between 'active and 'contemplative' ideals (see below). 6 This is especially clear in the case of the Nyingma-pa order of Tibet who represent an earlier phase of the Buddhist missions to that country and claim links with the ancient shamanistic religion of Bon. See Norbu, Namkhai, The Cycle of Day and Night, translated and edited by John Myrdhin Reynolds, Station Hill Press, 1987 pp. 7-8. 7 McNeill, William H., The Rise of the West: A History of the Human Community, University of Chicago Press, 1963. 8 Davies, Norman, Europe: A History, Pimlico, London 1997 p. 199. 9 Binion, Rudolph, After Christianity: Christian Survivals in a Post-Christian Culture, Logbridge-Rhodes, Durango, Colorado 1986. 10 The derivation of these communities from earlier Jewish ascetic groups such as the Essenes is clear, but too complex an issue to relate here. 11 Mention of Celtic hermitages is found in the Icelandic 'Book of Settlement' - the Landnámabók. 12 Especially in the Book of Kells, on continual view at Trinity College, Dublin and available in the form of reproductions. Of particular interest are the pages of the Resurrection and (as expressing distance in the relationships between mother and child) the Nativity. 13 An accessible modern version with introduction, glossary and notes is Dysinger, Dom Luke, O.S.B. The Rule of St. Benedict, Latin & English, Source Books, Trabuca Canyon, California, 1996. 14 See the hair-raising description of the monastic 'prison' at the Monastery of St. Catherine, Mt Sinai, described in the first chapters of Luibheid, Colm, John Climacus: The Ladder of Divine Ascent, Paulist Press, 1982. 15 On this point see DeMause, Lloyd, Foundations of Psychohistory, Creative Press Inc. New York, 1982, pp. 142-43. 16 See O'Donnell, James J., Cassiodorus, University of California Press, Berkely & Los Angeles, 1979, also available on the website http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/texts/cassbook.html. 17 Riché, Pierre, Écoles et Enseignement dans le Haut Moyen-Âge: Fin du Ve - Milieu du XIe siècle, Aubier-Montagne, Paris, 1979 pp. 11-48. 18 Lawrence, C.H., Medieval Monasticism: Forms of Religious Life in Western Europe in the Middle Ages, Longman, London & New York, 1984 pp. 50-74. 19 See Friedländer, Saul, History and Psychoanalysis: An Inquiry into the Possibilities and Limits of Psychohistory, tr. Susan Suleiman, Holmes & Meier Publishers, Inc. New York & London 1978 pp. 35ff and Bion (1961) - note 5. Monasteries of this epoch formed a relatively stable and homogeneous group due to their unifying ideology, comparative absence of social distinctions within the monastery and high degree of control over primary institutions (i.e. child-rearing) due to the early ages of oblates. They were also closely-networked due to their international character (frequent exchanges of scholars, copyists, talented individuals etc.) and monopoly of the Latin language. Stability and homogeneity were lost after oblation was discontinued in the 12th century (as we shall see). 20 Ziolo, M.P., Joachim of Fiore and Apocalyptic Immanence (in press). 21 Many great Lavras (Abbeys) and some smaller monasteries were in fact stavropigial - i.e. they owed allegiance to none save the Ecumenical Patriarch. This did not imply autocracy - the allegiance was purely nominal. The Ecumenical Patriarch in fact had no more authority than the local Archimandrite (Abbot) or Igumen (Prior). Despite conflicts with tsarist autocracy in Russia after the Nikonian Reforms of 1652, the

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basic autonomy of the great Lavras was not seriously violated until the years of the communist régime after 1917. 22 The Monastic Constitutions of Lanfranc, translated with an introduction and notes by Fr. David Knowles O.S.B., Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd. London & New York, 1951, Introduction p. xviii. Although seven was generally considered the minimum age limit for oblates, the Canons Regular of Porto were said to have admitted children "three or four years after they had been weaned" - see Coulton, G.G. Life in the Middle Ages, Cambridge University Press, 1954 Vol. IV p. 98. This book is actually a collection of original documents selected, translated and annotated by the author and as such is an excellent 'signpost' for a variety of source materials. 23 This function is far less apparent in Eastern Orthodox monasteries - perhaps due to the fact that they were less specifically task-oriented and more idiorrythmic in character. 24 See my paper 'Joachim of Fiore and Apocalyptic Immanence' (in press), section 8. For examples of the geneologies of great foundations, see Knowles, Fr. David, O.S.B. The Monastic Order in England: A History of its Development from the Times of St. Dunstan to the Fourth Lateran Council 943-1216, Cambridge at the University Press, 1949, Appendices pp. 720ff. 25 As is suggested in the lives and writings of female mystics such as Hildegard of Bingen, Julian of Norwich, Catherine of Siena and St. Theresa of Avila. 26 For examples, see the Rule of St. Benedict (op.cit.) Ch. LXV pp. 154-57 and the Constitutions of Lanfranc (Knowles 1951) pp. 75-77. 27 Rule of St. Benedict (op.cit.) Ch. VII pp. 34-49. 28 Coulton op.cit. p.100 and Knowles (1951) Introduction p. xix. 29 Bion, W.R. Experience in Groups and Other Papers, Tavistock Publications, London 1961. 30 Turquet, P.M. 'Leadership: The Individual and the Group', in G.S. Gibbard, J.J. Hartman and R.D. Mann (eds.), Analysis of Groups, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco 1974 p. 357. 31 Ibid. 'Threats to Identity in the Large Group', in L. Kreeger (ed.), The Large Group: Dynamics and Therapy, F.E. Peacock Publishers Inc., Itasca, Illinois 1975 p.117 32 Ibid. p.118 33 Wenzel, Siegfried, The Sin of Sloth: Acedia in Medieval Thought and Literature, Chapel Hill, The University of North Carolina Press 1967 p. 33 cited in DeMause, L. The Emotional Life of Nations, Ch.8 (to appear). 34 For a more detailed discussion of the origin and structure of canonical language see my paper 'Joachim of Fiore and Apocalyptic Immanence', sections 2-5, JOP (in press). By far the longest sections of all custumals (including Benedict's Rule) are given over to the ordering of the annual liturgical cycle. 35 Bion, W.R. Attention and Interpretation, Tavistock Publications, London 1970 p.82. 36 The Monastic Constitutions of Lanfranc, pp.5, 7, 24 and 28. 37 Instructions to prevent such contacts are found in all custumals, but see in particular the Constitutions of Hirschau (c.1000 C.E., in Migne, Patrologia Latina, Vol.150 pp.939ff). 38 The Rule of St. Benedict, Ch.XXX pp.80-81. 39 The Custumal of Bec, cited in Coulton op.cit. Vol. IV p.100. 40 See Scott, George Ryley, The History of Corporal Punishment, Senate, London 1996 Ch. IX pp. 91-97. 41 The Custumal of Bec, in Dom Martène O.S.B. (ed.) De Antiquis Monachorum Ritibus, Bassano, 1788 p. 230 - lib. v,c. v, sect. iii, cited in Coulton op.cit. pp. 98-101. See also McLaughlin, Mary Martin, 'Survivors and Surrogates: Children and Parents from the Ninth to the Thirteenth Centuries', in The History of Childhood: The Evolution of Parent-Child Relations as a Factor in History, Lloyd DeMause (ed.), Souvenir Press (Educational & Academic) Ltd. London, 1976, Ch.3 pp. 101-181, p. 171 n.182 and n.186 (on changing perceptions of children's sexuality). This is the best source study to date on all aspects of the transition in question. 42 See DeMause, L. 'Childhood and Cultural Evolution', In The Journal of Psychohistory, Vol.26, No.3 (Winter 1999) pp. 647-51. 43 Ziolo, M.P. 'The Hidden City of Kitiezh: Trauma and Psychogenic Arrest in Russia', in The Journal of Psychohistory, Vol.27, No.3 (Winter 2000) pp. 308-330. See also Montgomery Watt, W. The Majesty that was Islam: The Islamic World, 661-1100, Sidgwick & Jackson (London) and St. Martin's Press (New York) 1974 pp. 257-60. As I have stated, although Christianity was menaced by Viking, Magyar and Saracen invasions, these invasions were finally contained, and the first two absorbed within the Christian ecumene.

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44 Ziolo, M.P. 'Joachim of Fiore and Apocalyptic Immanence' in The Journal of Psychohistory, Fall 2001 (in press). 45 McLaughlin op.cit. pp.133-34. See also my paper on Joachim of Fiore. A study of meme propagation based on genetic algorithms can be found in Lynch, Aaron, Units, Events and Dynamics in Memetic Evolution, at <http://www.mcs.net/~aaron/memetheory.htm>. 46 See Joachim of Fiore and Apocalyptic Immanence (note 44). 47 De Senibus vel Infantibus - The Rule of St. Benedict, Ch.37 p.95. 48 Ibid. "Pueris vero minori aetate non eadem servetur quantitas, sed minor quam maioribus, servata in omnibus parcitate", Ch.39 p.98-99. 49 Ibid. "ieuniis nimiis affligantur" Ch.30 pp.80-81. 50 Ibid. "Infantes autem pro tali culpa vapulent" Ch. 45 pp. 108-109. 51 Ibid. "pueris per omnia ab omnibus disciplina conservata", Ch.63 pp. 146-47. 52 Ibid. "De hoc quod non omnis iustitiae observatio in hac sit regula constituta", Ch.73 pp. 168-69. 53 "Post tercium sumant mixtum pueri…. qui ieiunare non possunt", Constitutions of Lanfranc (ed. Knowles) p.49 (see note 22). See also McLaughlin op.cit. p.194 n.195. 54 "In choro praesente abbate nisi praecepto eius nullus eos percutiat, nullus exuere faciat. Absente eo cantor de iis, quae sui officii sunt, eos castiget. Prior uero de caeteris, in quibus se leuiter habent", ibid. pp. 116-117. Regarding abuses, see McLaughlin op.cit. p.171 n.185. 55 "In capitulo suo vapulent, sicut maiores in maiori capitulo", ibid. p.116. 56 Christmas and the Feast of the Holy Innocents were of especial importance in this respect - see Riché op.cit. (note 17) pp. 698ff. 57 The Life of St. Anselm by Eadmer (Latin & English). Edited with Introduction, Notes and Translation by R.W. Southern, Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd. London & New York, 1962., I, xxii, pp.37-39. See also McLaughlin op.cit p.131 and p.175 n.192. 58 Collins, Randall, The Sociology of Philosophies: A Global Theory of Intellectual Change, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts & London, 1998 - for a survey of the post-Anselm generation see in particular pp. 462-68. An additional study of this network is found in Evans, G.R. Anselm and a New Generation, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1980. The study of the emotional dynamics of this type of group and the evolution of its basic assumptions over time within the context of historical events is still in its initial stages. A basis for such study can be found in the work of Collins above, but particularly in Lovie, A.D. Context and Commitment: A Psychology of Science, Harvester Wheatsheaf, New York & London 1992, and of course in the well-known classic: Kuhn, T.S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, University of Chicago Press, 1962. 59 Frenken, R., 'Changes in German Parent-Child Relations from the Fourteenth to the Middle of the Seventeenth Century' in The Journal of Psychohistory, Vol.27, No.3 (Winter 2000) pp.228-272. 60 Only by a considerable increase in the base and sampling rates for the period in question, including correction for locality and scale, can the true shape of this transition be detected. 61 See Tainter, Joseph A., The Collapse of Complex Societies, New Studies in Archaeology, Cambridge University Press 1988, p.210. 62 I call this type of psychology hesychastic (>Gk. hesychia: 'inner peace') since many (but not all) of its most concise descriptions come from Greek sources. 63 Wapnick, K., 'Mysticism and Schizophrenia' in Richard Woods (ed.) Understanding Mysticism, The Athlone Press, London 1981 pp. 321-337. 64 Meany, John O., 'A Mystic as 'Psycho-Analyst'', in Diakonia, VI (1971) pp.99-118. 65 This is why the works of Richard Rolle and Margery Kempe are often considered more pathological than instructive. 66 Norbu, Namkhai, The Cycle of Day and Night, III (23) p.79ff. 67 For the rules governing condensation as well as transitive and equivalence relations in graph theory, see Hage, Per & Harary, Frank, Structural Models in Anthropology, Cambridge Studies in Social Anthropology 46, Cambridge University Press 1983, pp.43-44 and 70-71. 68 Streufert S. & Satish, U., 'Complexity Theory: Predictions Based on the Confluence of Science-Wide and Behavioural Theories', in Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 1997, 27, 23, pp. 2096-2116. 69 Ziolo, 'The Hidden City of Kitiezh', (note 43) pp. 309-310. 70 I prefer to define these groups as orders rather than sects since each order was the custodian of certain doctrines but none claimed to be the guardian of Absolute Truth.

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71 Berlière, U., 'Le Récrutement dans les Monastères Bénédictins aux XIIIe at XIVe Siècles', in Académie Royale de Belgique, Classe des Lettres, Memoires, XVIII, fasc. 6 (1924), pp. 176-21, cited in McLaughlin op.cit. p. 170 n.179. 72 Orme, Nicholas, English Schools in the Middle Ages, Methuen & Co. Ltd., London, 1973. 73 Ziolo, P., 'Joachim of Fiore and Apocalyptic Immanence' (in press) - see notes 20 and 24. 74 Meissner, W.W. (S.J.), Group Dynamics in the Religious Life, University of Notre Dame Press, 1966. 75 Feuerstein, op.cit. pp. 195-203. 76 Friedländer, Saul, (1978) op.cit. (note 19), pp.123-24. 76 Freire, Paulo, The Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Penguin, The Continuum Publishing Company, New York, 1993.