Functional Spirituality

There is a fascinating trend in western societies that I refer to as "functional spirituality": using techniques from religions and spiritual traditions to achieve specific psychological results in the absence of religious faith.

Functional spirituality has become possible due to advances in neuroscience and accumulating research on mental, physical, and emotional well-being. Today there is an increasing number of exercises one can perform to improve one's well-being in specific ways that have been proven to work:

• calm anxiety through meditation, visualization exercises such as "responsibility transfer," and body language manipulation
• feel connectedness to other people through visualization exercises that activate oxytocin production 
• improve outlook and mood through gratitude and other mental exercises and through manipulation of facial expressions and body language 
• recover from illnesses by applying proven placebo methods

Thanks to science, it is now possible to isolate the specific benefits and techniques of various spiritual practices and reduce them to their essential components. Pareto's Law can now be applied to obtain 80% of the benefits from 20% of the effort. This was possible in the past to a degree, before anyone knew anything about neurochemicals and brain waves, but it required a great degree of experience and intuition.

Furthermore, it was very difficult to test different approaches and determine which was better. Few people went from religion to religion to test the efficacy of different prayer and meditation techniques. There was so much "other stuff" that came along with religions that one could not easily isolate the techniques from the dogmas and the social conventions.

Today, with more and more knowledge of the effects of different practices on human well-being, one can theoretically put together an effective, individualized spiritual practice based on one's personal needs and life situation. For those with a degree of conscious control over their lives, it would seem we are entering a golden age of personal spirituality.

Today it is conceivable to establish social groups that perform certain rituals together for the express purpose of obtaining the psychological benefits associated with religious activity — without any religious subtext. However, if the group espoused a particular ideology that they discussed in the context of their practice — such as "we follow the best practices offered by science" — then over time it could certainly develop into a quasi-religious organization.

But one does not have to believe in anything supernatural to do any of this. If science demonstrates that belief in the supernatural is psychologically beneficial due to "responsibility transfer," then one can simply engage in "benevolent Universe" or "benevolent supernatural Being" visualizations to obtain those benefits. One might even say, "I practice belief in order to lower my anxiety levels." The triumph of Reason over Faith is now so complete that virtually all the advantages of faith can be incorporated into a reason-based existence.

Why Socionics Is Awesome

Amidst all the angst of the socionics community and my own frequent critiques of socionics as a half-baked system not particularly conducive to scientific progress, I sometimes forget my own personal experience of socionics, which is that… socionics is awesome.

So, lest I be mistaken for another disgruntled ex-socionics junkie, let me lay out the ways in which socionics has been an extremely worthwhile and positive school for me.

1. Socionics can easily be used to improve quality of life. For over a year after learning about socionics (age 23), I experienced virtually no interpersonal distress for the first time in my conscious life. Granted, much of this was due to the fact that I was in a constant state of private intellectual discovery and thus was not as sensitive as usual to real or perceived negative interpersonal situations (disagreements and conflicts, loneliness, lack of acceptance, social awkwardness, etc.). But mostly I attribute it to the fact that I had begun applying a constructive, socionics-based approach to managing my emotional and social life, consisting of: 1) a recognition that my emotional state is less the product of my own making than the result of my social interactions; particularly 2) the quality and depth of my connections to people of various personality types; specifically 3) whether I am too emotionally connected to the wrong types or too distant from the right types; suggesting that 4) emotional life can be improved by reducing emotional investment in one set of people and increasing investment in another set.

At first this required a kind of willful restructuring of my interpersonal connections, but eventually it became second nature. This formula clearly works — if it is not too compounded by other issues. I consider it one of the most important life skills, right alongside things like learning to provide for yourself and manage money, avoiding addictions, and taking care of your physical health. Some people are raised with one or more of these skills and may never appreciate what it takes to acquire them through conscious effort. Like these other life skills, keeping your interpersonal life in order requires a certain amount of self-love. No one else is going to do it for you.

Over time my understanding of what kinds of people are "right" or "wrong" for some kind of emotional interdependency has grown to include a lot more than simply socionic type. But the foundation for this skill was laid by socionics.

Positive relationships, particularly intimate ones, impact one's life in a variety of ways. If you have an idea what you're looking for — even if it's as simplistic as "a dual relationship" — that probably increases the chances that you'll find it. I'll never know how much of my romantic success or failure has been due to socionics, but I consider myself quite fortunate considering where I was coming from and what I have experienced so far in life. It could have been a little bit better, but it could also have been far, far worse.

2. Socionics is a secret weapon. My own socionics schooling — which included ruminating over the writings of Augusta (other authors' writings seemed dull in comparison), large amounts of introspection, studying my reactions to people, observing them closely and trying to identify their types under the guidance of a skilled but imperfect teacher, over a hundred hours of poring over photographs trying to recognize personality traits in facial features and expressions, and eventually meeting other socionics aficionados — brought to my awareness many things that had previously been unconscious. At the time it felt like I was acquiring a secret weapon that made my responses to the outside world less blind or mechanistic than other people's. When I realize at what level most other people think about the people around them, using conventional descriptors such as "nice," "good," "dull," etc. and assuming the superiority of their own psychological makeup, I'm eternally grateful to have undertaken a serious study of people and relationships and to have a more objective understanding of why I experience different feelings towards people.

Socionics also makes it easier to recognize and take advantage of numerous "shortcuts." Having a feel for someone's type (or at least elements of their type) allows you to build beneficial relationships quicker than otherwise, particularly if you have accumulated a large body of experience dealing with people of different types. Knowing that there is someone you will be able to confide in and rely upon to some degree may encourage you to take that risk and move to a new location that you feel will be better for you. Or, you may more quickly realize when you are in a bad situation due to the types and prevailing culture of a group you have landed in. A knowledge of socionics provides a more sophisticated feel for how much and in what ways you may be able to rely on someone and, in turn, be useful to them. This can help in choosing employers, partners and assistants, hobby groups, and roommates, not to mention romantic partners.

The caveat is that spiritual and interpersonal choices work best when they are based foremost upon feelings, not mental concepts, so it is very important that you develop an understanding of socionics that is congruous with and highlights your actual emotional experience rather than letting ideas about what you "should be" experiencing according to some interpretation of socionics take precedence over your actual feelings. This one caveat basically encompasses all the potential negative side-effects experienced by so many socionics aficionados. This is a complex problem not at all unique to socionics, and I no longer blame socionics for it. When a school of fish changes direction, it could be said that only the lead fish — the one with the strongest internal compass relative to herd instinct — is following her "true instincts." For whatever reasons, the other fish choose to repeat her movements instead of trying to access their own internal compass — at least, until a greater stimulus (e.g. predator) comes along, temporarily overriding the imperative to "follow the fish in front of you." The issue of negative side-effects of socionics is actually a fundamental and intractable "internal compass vs. external suggestion" problem. It's probably best dealt with individually by strengthening the internal compass (as if it were that easy!) and distancing oneself from the source of suggestion, if necessary. But if a person is able to do this at all, they probably didn't have much of a problem to begin with! Suggestibility exists, and it serves a function for the individual and for society. If people were insusceptible to suggestion, there would be no person-to-person learning.

3. Socionics can trigger a cascade of new intellectual pursuits. Before socionics I had less than a layman's understanding of science and hadn't seriously grappled with its big ideas. I had developed a theologically centered worldview that was clearly at odds with reality and insulated me from scientific and philosophical thought. As imperfect a scientific theory as it is, socionics suggested to me a simple universal principle that gradually undid my entire worldview: all things have their causes. I realized that up till then I hadn't really concerned myself with the causes of things, but had gone around in mental circles trying hopelessly to live up to acquired religious ideals. At first I applied this cause-and-effect idea to the emotional and interpersonal sphere (see #1), but soon began examining everything in its light. I became fascinated by thinking about phenomena divorced of moral judgments and reflecting on the likely material causes of things, eventually formulating my interest as follows: I want to know what is, not what is supposed to be. Later I formulated: the rejection of faith as a guiding principle is the very foundation of science. There's no good reason to have to stop asking "why?" — at least inside yourself — when you reach things that you or anybody else would like to be true but actually have no compelling reason to believe.

Through socionics I became interested in psychology and got a minor in the field. A couple lectures into psychology, I realized that the foundation of modern psychology was evolution. So I began reading about evolutionary psychology to mine it for important ideas, and soon read Darwin's Origin of Species for background, gaining a great admiration for scrupulous rational thought. Then I did quite a lot more reading on evolution, biology, memetics, and the philosophy of science. I literally felt my mind expanding; I could think thoughts that just a few months before had been totally out of reach. Later I would learn to appreciate philosophy in general and read widely in esoteric spirituality. Once I began developing Socionics.us and Wikisocion, socionics became a springboard for learning more about art, music, and history. All this careful thought and reading greatly stimulated my intellectual life and contributed to me later becoming a writer.

Oddly enough, I've never met anyone who experienced anything quite like this as a result of learning about socionics. To many people it sounds as strange and counterintuitive as a waiter becoming a fighter pilot as a result of ballet lessons. Clearly, my particular intellectual response was determined by the mounting tension between my acquired religious worldview and my natural disposition. Nonetheless, I will never forget that it was socionics that opened the floodgates.

4. Socionics encourages and rewards braininess. Sure, there are plenty of people in socionics with personal problems; that's what brings most people to it in the first place. There's nothing shameful about that. Why would you ridicule scrawny or overweight people who go to the gym? But most people who get into socionics are also smart, and it can become a kind of social refuge for brainy people who lack community. It's okay to be smart in socionics, to speak (write) using nerdy terminology, to defy conventional wisdom and present your own wacky ideas to be shot down by others whom you can call names like "conservative" and "orthodox." Sure, there are some people who just pretend to be brainy (just as there are people at the gym who pretend to be buff), but at least the community culture rewards braininess due to the nature of the subject. When I first got in contact with the Ukrainian socionics community, particularly publishing or researching socionists rather than aficionados, it was the first place I had been where you could be as brainy as you wanted. All the communities I'd experienced before that — even my high-achiever high school and university — still had this attitude like, "Hey now, don't get too brainy on us here, hahaha." Through socionics, I've met some really intelligent people that I wouldn't have met otherwise. This has been really valuable to me. Since then, I've found a few other places where braininess is accepted and rewarded, but socionics was the first.

5. Socionics opens the door to higher levels of objectivity, helping to weed out typocentrism and other kinds of biases from one's worldview. It allows you to see, as William James says in Pragmatism, that each man's philosophy is merely a justification of his native disposition. We will likely continue to act in typocentric ways, but at least we can begin to remove biases from our conscious values and worldview, granting other people the possibility of living a legitimate and dignified life according to our own definitions, though we choose to live differently. A study of socionics clearly suggests that 1) there are different legitimate life strategies, each with its potential pitfalls, 2) no type-determined trait can be considered a defect in any sort of intellectually honest way (i.e. such a defect is in the eye of the beholder), and 3) many of the things that bug us in other people are outgrowths, or extreme expressions, of fairly typical and basically benign qualities, thus 4) the "defect," if any, is in the disbalance or misapplication of traits, not in the underlying traits themselves. From these thoughts it seems natural to conclude that 1) each set of traits has its place and its purpose, 2) your own traits may "feel" superior, but only in some abstract ideal sense, as natural selection has decided otherwise by not granting them to everybody.

For me, these realizations have encouraged me to look beyond what works only for me and people like me and look for formulas that are more universal. At some point, I realized that philosophical acceptance of other temperament-determined strategies could itself be considered an extreme viewpoint, given that rejection thereof is a far more common occurence. Most likely, I am in fact less philosophically accepting than much of my writing suggests, and militant promoters of a temperament-specific philosophy are actually not as militant as they appear. In certain situations, I might turn out to be more vehement than them. At any rate, thanks to socionics I am able to think about these things much more clearly, recognizing potential biases as they crop up in myself and others.

So, there you have it. Socionics is awesome! Despite the lack of empirical studies and other flaws, and despite all the caveats and pitfalls. Probably, after reading this article, you will have realized that each person's response to idea systems is highly individual.

How to Create a [Socionics] Cult

(or any other, for that matter)

Nearly any psychological, religious, or ideological concept has the potential to form the basis for cult-like groups. To have a cult, you need just four components:

• a belief system that describes the way things ought to be
• the belief - whether explicit or implicit - that there is only one way to arrive at the way things ought to be
• the belief - whether explicit or implicit - that individuals cannot achieve the desired state without leadership
• a leader or hierarchy whose authority is unquestioned

The more literally these four points are taken in a given group, the greater the psychological power and destructiveness of the group. The most controlling cults leave their members unable to function normally among people outside of the group (form relationships, interact comfortably, etc.) and unable to make personal decisions or judgments without consulting cult leadership.

The easiest kind of cult to imagine is a religious cult that believes there is only one specific way to get to heaven, and that only the group's leadership has the authority to guide people along this path.

Other ideologies can also form the basis for cult-like groups. Tightly-knit groups of followers of psychological theories and practices can at times look and act like cults. So can adherents of idea systems. And, of course, totalitarian governments create mass "cults" based on political ideology, nationalism, or adoration of leaders.

Cult genesis

Cults always, or almost always, form around an individual with an unusually high level of personal conviction. This person strives to create a group and become a teacher figure to the group. The teacher's conviction and categorical worldview move him to weed out people who are interested but do not accept all the teachers' views and values. As soon as there is a stable group of adherents who accept the teacher as the ultimate authority, a small cult is born. From here on the group simply needs to replicate itself effectively.

A socionics-based cult?

Unfortunately, there are a number of socionics groups in the former Soviet Union who display marginally cult-like behaviors. Perhaps by writing about this possible "application" of socionics, I can help weaken the influence of such groups in the future.

Socionics itself is not a cult, just as people who get together to read the Bible are not a cult. However, socionics, Bible study, or nearly anything else can provide the context for the emergence of a cult-like group.

One variety in socionics is the authoritarian teacher who possesses a special technology for identifying types that no one else has or is able to use properly. They claim extremely high accuracy in type identification (sometimes 100%) and scoff at all other socionists, who are "completely in the dark." All these socionists seem to have a low convergence rate with other socionists in their typings of famous people.

Often, students of these socionists have no idea that their teacher is a poor representation of socionics as a whole. They are not aware that the socionist's convergence with others is low, that the socionist's approach is criticized by mainstream socionics, and that their teacher has little or no credibility in the professional community of socionists.

Students of these teachers are gradually "infected" with their teacher's views. They believe that the socionics community is "all messed up" and that their teacher has given them the only version of socionics that really works. They feel hostility towards other socionics groups who speak a somewhat different language than their own. They can even acquire the persecution complex of their teacher.

A milder version of cult-like behavior in socionics is the typical socionics "school." When you hear or read the phrase "our school believes..." or "our school considers...", you have probably found one of these groups. These groups are typically somewhat more intelligent than the first kind, but there is still the sense of group beliefs overriding personal ones. Adherents of the school feel and act like spokesmen of the school when interacting with people from other socionics schools or groups.

The views school adherents express are usually not truly their own (or else they would speak in the first person). "So-and-so says..." is not yet cult-like behavior, since the person is simply quoting a recognized authority. Within socionics "schools," people typically have a sense of group belonging and adherence to the common viewpoint that comes through in their speech (e.g. "we believe..." or "our school says..."). They become unwitting spokesmen of the teacher's convictions.

In certain cases this may be quite harmless - particularly when the "spokesman" feels like he is participating in the discovery and formulation of new principles and technologies being developed in the school and is thus truly competent to speak for the group. In most cases, however, this independent view is lacking.

Readers should be aware of this kind of behavior in socionics and in many other spheres of life in order to not be fooled or manipulated.

More Insights on Communities from "The Economics of Religion"

A blog reader gave me this link with an interesting discussion titled "the economics of religion." It's over an hour long, but provides a viewpoint that complements what I have written about religions, teachings, and movements at this blog.

First of all, let me say that economics is basically a view of human behavior. The core assumption of economics is that human behavior is fundamentally rational (i.e. serves a useful purpose). Economics takes a few basic working ideas and discovers many applications, while fields such as socionics have complicated ideas with few applications :)

Generalizing from religions to communities
The speakers demonstrate quite well that from a functional standpoint, religions are not much different from other forms of closely-knit communities. Each long-standing, closely-knit community takes on certain habits, language, and values that distinguish its members from other communities. "In return" for adopting these key features - which often involve sacrifices of some kind - members of the community gain emotional and material rewards. They obtain a social "safety net" that satisfies their need to belong, can count on others' comradery and loyalty, and often even receive much-needed material assistance at crucial moments. This is true not only of religious congregations, but also of closely-knit academic, ideological, and professional communities.

One aspect of religion that an economic approach - as well as my socionic approach - does not address is the specific content of religious and other teachings. In other words, these approaches can say nothing about which religious teachings are better than others, which academic or ideological hypotheses are more correct, etc.

Community superiority
An attribute of all close-knit communities is that their members tend to believe that their community is better than others. This can be a feeling of intellectual superiority, a sense that one's group is more emotionally cohesive or more powerful than other groups, or a belief that one's community provides the single possibly way to heaven/good health/a drug-free life/an optimal psychological state/etc.. Community members, having "chosen" their group over competing groups, must establish some rationale for their choice. No one wants to feel like they're members of a random community. Fanatical communities simply take this feeling of superiority to a greater level than the average group.

Transcendent community experience
The speakers mention the "transcendent" aspect of religions and many other communities - for example, sports fans. People often have a transcendent ("trans-personal," or "supra-individual") experience at sporting events as they watch the game. For some reason, people have a need to be a part of something greater than themselves.

Some people might add that one can experience transcendent feelings without belonging to any community - as a result of personal religious practice or other personal experiences. In this case, you're experiencing not oneness with other members of the community, but with the divine, with nature, with the universe, etc. I can't argue with this, but it seems that most people are drawn to experience oneness with other people more than with these other things. Such people form the core of nearly every community.

Competition between communities
In the case of most communities and religions, if my team wins, yours loses (or, if my religion is true, yours is false). This is called a "zero-sum game." In addition to serving members' needs, communities are also units of external competition that try to withstand the pressure of competing communities and maintain and extend their own influence. We can probably assume that if for some reason humans did not believe in God, they would still form communities of adherence, commitment, and mutual assistance that would functionally differ little from religions.

I found the hypothesis interesting that a free society - where people are allowed to establish communities as they please - spawns "more competitive" religions (and by analogy, communities of other types) than closed societies where communities are established by the state. This seems intuitively to be the case, and it is clear that western religions have been much more successful in entering the post-Soviet and Asian markets than have Asian and Eastern European religions in opening up the American market.

Communities' different routes (or information aspects?)
Another interesting statement in the discussion is that all these communities provide similar "services" to their members, but use different means to do so. It's like filling the stomach: some people do it through complex hunting rituals, some people carefully grow different kinds of plants, and some people practice medicine in exchange for food. Religious and other closely-knit communities also differ markedly in the way they satisfy members' needs to belong, be provided for, and transcend the limits of their own ego. I think my descriptions of the socionic aspects of religions and spiritual teachings reflect these different routes pretty well. The economists mentioned different routes, but they did not describe them in any kind of structured way as socionics can.

Community founders and leaders
Another important aspect is the role of the community founder or leader that I discussed in a previous post. Founders of communities such as religions, teachings, or movements seem to have a more incessant need to do things their own way than other people. The need is strong enough that these people are able to do and say things differently even if they are the only ones doing it. Perhaps they have less fear of ostracism, are less considerate of others, or are more self-absorbed than the average person. These leaders draw others who like the way he or she does things, but might not have dared to do it, or wouldn't have thought of doing it, on their own. Some of the followers are leader types themselves who drop by to learn before continuing on their way.

This kind of leadership I'm referring to isn't necessarily a quality that society looks up to or even approves of. A "leader" in the common, positive sense of the word is not the same thing as a person who creates a new community. Nice folks like Carl Rogers and Mother Teresa were founders or leaders of communities, but so were hard nuts like Ayn Rand and Stalin. Each of these people ignored the status quo and did their own thing, taking away territory from existing communities in the process.

Your average manager at work is probably not a person who founds a new community after his own image and likeness. Communities can be of any size, and he might lead a community of friends who gets together to fish on Sundays, but here we're talking about larger-scale communities that bring together strangers. The stronger one's need to do things one's own way, the larger the community one creates.

Speaking of "incessant needs," we're obviously referring to qualities related to one's leading functions. These are the areas where one is most likely to insist on satisfying one's needs in original ways. Try finding a type who is conservative in and insistently creative with to the point of creating a based community. It doesn't happen. A type with a strong interest in or talent for typically things might create a niche in a community, but he won't create the community in the first place.

For an example from socionics, we can look at Gulenko's "Humanitarian Socionics" community. Gulenko himself is LII, but his community seems like it would be centered on ethics, but that's just the name of his school. In reality, the whole spirit of the community is .

I'm beginning to ramble, so I'll end here.

Typing Religions, Teachings, and Movements: Gurdjieff

Gurdjieff is a "whole different animal" than western religions like Mormonism, which I discussed below. He came from an eastern mystic tradition with probable roots to ancient Christianity, but quite unlike anything in existence in contemporary western Christianity. I have typed Gurdjieff as SLE (here's a bio from Wikipedia). Let's look at his teaching from a socionic perspective.

The personality of Gurdjieff himself has been absolutely central to the Gurdjieff movement itself, notwithstanding the widespread influence of his teachings (The Matrix, for instance, is full of echoes of Gurdjieff). He was a charismatic, internally driven, demanding force who could easily be considered a cult leader.

Gurdjieff's own spiritual quest, which occupied the first 40 or so years of his life, involved traveling large distances across mountains and deserts, conquering great external obstacles, and experiencing brushes with death. These were the aspects of his spiritual quest that he emphasized the most, and he tried to convey to his followers that any spiritual progress was to made at the cost of great efforts, even at risk of death or harm. He likened achieving higher states of spiritual development to making an escape from prison with the help of other prison mates - slowly and painfully digging their way to freedom with a few hints from those who had escaped before them.

Gurdjieff was a demanding teacher who consciously put his followers through all sorts of trials to test their resolve. His decisions often seemed rash or arbitrary, but were actually aimed at preserving an atmosphere of tension and extreme effort that he considered necessary for spiritual growth. He was often critical to the point of ridicule, but this was likely done to "create obstacles" and "test" followers, rather than simply being an expression of irritation or disgust. As we can see, this closely follows the ideas of a centered teaching as described in a previous post.

Gurdjieff lived a long life that involved frequent travels and starting over from scratch in several different countries. After he died, there was no formal successor, since Gurdjieff didn't establish a formal organization, much less a church. Instead, there were scattered followers and groups of followers in many different countries. A few attempts were made to join forces, but they haven't led to anything so far, perhaps because Gurdjieff himself gave no compelling reason to have a common organization (such as a belief in a divine organization).

The organizations and groups that do exist seem to have largely morphed from a emphasis to a one. While still retaining the sense that spiritual development is a hard journey that requires great effort, these groups seem more focused on following or studying the "canon" of teachings that Gurdjieff left behind. In reality, there seems to be no one to submit followers to type tribulations as Gurdjieff once did. This is another example of how an extraverted founder left an ultimately introverted movement behind him.

I don't know Gurdjieff's teachings as well as Mormonism, but I'll try to look at how different information aspects are valued in the teaching.

: The concept of a spiritual search is given considerable emphasis in Gurdjieff's teachings, but the substance of it is actually . In other words, one already has a very good idea of the goal of the search (as opposed to an open-ended search), and the key is to make up one's mind and press forward despite the obstacles. Searching for the sake of searching seems to be viewed as a frivolous occupation.

: In addition to what I've already said, Gurdjieff's focus on living in the here and now and not troubling oneself with irrelevant thoughts (worries about the future or regrets about the past) also contains a emphasis.

: I would say this aspect is completely ignored. If any work is performed, it is only to provide another test of participants' strength and resolve.

: Gurdjieff's extensive work with music and dancing (including his famous "Gurdjieff movements") can be seen as partly an expression of emotional coalescence with the divine and with other participants. Mormonism, which I just discussed below, as well as quite a few Protestant religions, has no such group rituals that involve external emotional expression.

: Quite a bit of emphasis. Gurdjieff himself practiced hypnosis for a long time and seems to have used trance-like states in his teaching. It could be argued that many of Gurdjieff's teachings that he got from other sources - such as concepts like the "ray of creation" - were meant to be understood symbolically and could be associated with .

: I'm not aware of much emphasis at all. Nowhere does Gurdjieff espouse a particular diet or philosophy of consumption of food or water. Also, the idea of striving for a relaxed, balanced physical state doesn't mesh well with the concept of "super efforts" and accessing one's "reserve batteries."

: Heavily emphasized, at least in the early period of Gurdjieff's teaching, when he introduced a complex conceptual system (basically, the equivalent of "doctrine" in religions) that followers were expected to think about and discuss actively.

: Fully suppressed. Gurdjieff felt that "being nice" encouraged "sleep," and that it was necessary to be harsh and blunt to keep people "awake." Occasionally followers accused him and his teachings as being "heartless." Also, Gurdjieff often made a point of alienating those who had dropped out and encouraging active followers to break off contact with the person as a necessary step to avoid being distracted by feelings of sentimentality and empathy.

Typing Religions, Teachings, and Movements: Mormonism

Mormonism, formally called The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is one of the religions I am closely acquainted with. Here I will analyze the socionic content and development of the church and its teachings, whose integral type is ESI.

As has been the case with many other religious teachings, the early days of Mormonism had a different information emphasis than the church we know today. The founder, Joseph Smith, was an ethical extravert of some kind - possibly EIE or SEE (or maybe even SLE??) - and a very dominant, charismatic, and action-oriented individual. The early days of the church were tumultuous and involved moving from state to state, rapid expansion and extensive missionary efforts, and continual conflicts with local residents as they tried to establish their new society. There were also experiments with communal property, a banking fiasco, and armed conflicts with locals. The general spirit of the movement was one of overcoming tribulation necessary to achieve the young church's lofty mission - establishing the "restored gospel of Jesus Christ" and preparing the Earth for the Second Coming.

As I discussed in a previous post, numerous charismatic and ambitious people were drawn to the new movement who later "apostatized" and left the faith after making great contributions to it. Many of them, as well as occasional charismatic individuals after them, went on to create churches of their own (here's a list of all the Latter-day Saint splinter groups). A handful have been reasonably successful.

The dramatic and exalted atmosphere of early Mormonism also carried over to the area of spirituality. Powerful spiritual experiences such as visions, speaking in tongues, and other dramatic external expressions of spirituality were not uncommon. During this period, missionaries converted thousands of new members overseas, who left their homes to travel to the new Zion. This was a very extraverted time.

The extraverted period of Mormonism culminated in the conquering of the American West after Joseph Smith was killed and the Mormons were essentially driven out of the country. They made a grand exodus across the Great Plains and settled in Utah, where they built a new society and established new settlements across the Great Basin region.

Now, with external threats mostly out of the way, the church gradually metamorphosized into an introverted structure. The church's focus shifted to keeping traditions, maintaining a stable and growing society, and developing personal moral qualities in a family and community setting. Ultimately, the conservative, kind-hearted and soft-spoken, family-oriented Mormonism that we know today was born. The most-emphasized mission of the movement switched from external expansion and conquering to perfecting one's home, community, and personal life.

Naturally, these changes were reflected in the spiritual practice of Mormonism as well. Much of the initial dramatism of the faith was lost, and spiritual experiences became "tamer" and more internal. In modern Mormonism, spiritual experience centers around "the still, small voice" or "the warm fuzzy feeling." External spiritual manifestations are extremely rare and are generally treated with suspicion. The "Holy Spirit" as understood by contemporary Mormonism expresses itself through feelings.

Introverted ethics is also the common language of the religion. You will feel it in almost any Mormon congregation all over the world. People speak in a soft, sentimental tone and move around gently and thoughtfully, and there is a lot of tenderness and meekness, good will towards newcomers, and soft crying during frequent emotional moments. Compared to the importance of cultivating and sharing this feeling, all other considerations such as studying holy writ, developing a meditative state, or balancing one's physical sensations (which correspond to , , and ) clearly take a distant back seat. Of course, there are pockets of these information aspects wherever there are charismatic church members of these types, but these aspects do not become the common language of the congregation.

This information focus is generated at the very earliest stages of missionary work. Missionaries try to create a atmosphere at lessons, deemphasize the importance of gaining a logical understanding of how the pieces of the theology fit together, and constantly share personal experiences and feelings in a spirit that often bring tears to people's eyes. "This," say the missionaries, "is the Holy Spirit." New members are taught to make this feeling the basis of their personal religious practice and to let it guide their lives.

Collectively, Mormons cultivate the image of nice, concerned, faithful, strong-principled, morally upright people who can be trusted and counted on, and who uphold family values and honor their communities and government. Going back to my descriptions of the information aspects as they apply to religions and teachings, we see that this is a centered spiritual teaching.

Now let's see what weight the other information aspects are given in Mormonism, going back to my descriptions of different spiritual emphases.

: The idea that spirituality involves an external, open-ended search is given little if any emphasis. In fact, it is essentially discouraged, except for people who are investigating the religion and whose search leads them to Mormonism. After a person has joined the church, however, additional searching is frowned upon. Also, it is institutionally made very difficult, as members are given duties and responsibilities and are encouraged to cultivate stable family, work, and community relationships and to take part in frequent church activities. All of this makes concerted external searching - which might involve travel, trying out random things, and letting oneself get carried away - extremely difficult as long as one is involved in the Mormon lifestyle and community.

: The idea that spirituality involves overcoming hardships and tribulation is given considerable emphasis. Great attention is given to the themes of resisting temptation and combatting one's weaknesses. Spiritual development is perceived as being a long, thorny road with many obstacles. Church members frequently discuss their hardships with one another. However, this is not the main theme of the religious practice.

: The idea that spirituality involves service and being "actively engaged in a good cause" is also prominent in Mormonism. It is commonly believed that righteous living leads to prosperity, and members are not shy about their professional achievements and prosperity, but proudly consider them "blessings" or rewards for proper living. Church members are kept busy with numerous meetings, activities, and service. However, achieving goals in a rational and effective way is not the primary goal of these activities. Instead, their purpose is mostly to provide a setting to feel more , and they are not very externally productive nor carried out in the most rational way.

: The idea that spirituality involves emotional coalescence with other worshipers and with God is not given much emphasis. Mormons are widely known for their restraint and for not getting involved in "loud fun." However, they don't necessarily view external emotions as a bad thing; they're simply not emphasized.

: The idea that spirituality involves giving up worldly cares, a meditative state, and visions and similar experiences receives some emphasis. In fact, the concept of "soul searching" in a way replaces the idea of a related external search. Soul-searching and thoughtful reflection about one's life and mission is recognized to be a part of Mormons' spiritual journey. However, sophisticated related practices have not been developed.

: The idea that spirituality involves perfecting the bodily experience receives very little emphasis in Mormonism except for a simplistic eating and drinking code called the "Word of Wisdom" that forbids alcohol and tea and coffee. Ways of improving health and balancing one's internal sensations are almost never discussed; these areas are considered to be members' personal prerogative.

: The idea that spirituality involves a concerted study of holy writ and mastering the religion's theology is given little emphasis. Scripture study classes are held, but the focus is almost on subjective aspects (i.e. personal application) rather than mastering teachings themselves. Generally, doctrinal instruction is undemanding and unsupervised. There is almost no definitive doctrinal statements in Mormonism from which to build a set-in-stone theology.

: As we have seen, the idea that spirituality involves perfecting one's behavior and stable relationships and cultivating a sense of duty and gratitude towards others permeates all areas of Mormonism.

Possible Objections to Typing Religious and Spiritual Teachings

It has occurred to me that by analyzing religions and spiritual teachings (along with all kinds of movements and ideologies) from a socionic or anthropological point of view, I may be touching on a very sensitive subject. I will continue until I see a compelling reason to stop. The whole point of many religions is that they are supposed to be universal. By suggesting that each organized religion or movement gives unequal weight to different information aspects, I'm basically undercutting their claim to universality. However, there are many other reasons to doubt the universality of individual religions, and this is just one of many.

Another criticism that I have received before is that I am trying to obtain a "mental" understanding of something that is intended to be understood with the "heart." Here I would answer that first of all, I am very familiar with variations of the "heart" aspects of religion and have experienced them firsthand over many years. However, my own pursuit of understanding (including spiritual understanding) puts first (see the description three posts ago to see what kinds of things that entails). Secondly, the remark that religion is meant to be understood with the heart is an ethical sentiment that does not apply to all religions and spiritual teachings. In many logic-centered religions it is normal to have theological discourses without engaging personal sentiments. For these religions, religious truth is not obtained through feelings but through study and correct interpretation. Finally, even religions that are "heart" centered frequently include teachings about the nature of the physical world, history, and future events that are not heart-centered and do not engage ethical feelings.

Another possible objection is that religions typically include teachings about how to go about doing things in all areas of life and include value systems that have something to say about every area of human activity - from science to sex and from politics to professional choices. Religions don't limit themselves to teachings only about one or two information aspects; therefore, it is impossible to type them. To this I would answer that teachings relating to different information aspects differ in their depth and emphasis. The aspect that receives the most emphasis is also the common ("default") language of the group that you will find when you visit congregations of that religion - even congregations located in completely different countries.

In upcoming posts we'll see what kind of perspective this approach can give us.