尋求解決人類苦難的辦法 Part B

 

尋求解決人類苦難的辦法






查理斯·伯納 （1929–2007）



查理斯·伯納在加利福尼亞出生和長大， 美國，像他那一代的許多人一樣，年輕時對神秘主義、神秘主義和心理治療產生了興趣並參與其中 男人。這種興趣發展 成為終身 使命。 被自己掌握思想和情感的願望 所激發 並達到最高的理解水準，他在許多老師的指導下學習並貪婪地閱讀， 目的是親身體驗真理 他讀過。



除了對自我理解 的熱情外，Berner還努力將他學到的知識轉化為 其他人可以從中受益的實際過程，並開發了處理思想，情緒的階梯式方法， 身體和精神問題。他把人的這些方面分解成 可以 解釋整體的 組成部分和 地圖。



在許多方面，他的身體 工作是二十世紀中葉美國的典型產品，是 由價值高於出處的 零件 組成的被子。 這是一個 充滿新想法和新技術的時間和地點。 宗教運動和治療方法，以及兩者的結合，像蘑菇一樣在每個角落湧現， 都在裡面。 在更成熟的健康產業之外。



在 1950 年代末至 1970 年代初，心理健康 行業快速增長，最初是為了滿足需求 表現為普遍徵兵 ，並因大規模戰爭而變得更糟。 當今的許多治療系統都來自 當時發展的方法，如 人本主義心理治療、行為主義、 認知






精神分析的治療和發展 。1 這個行業的進步 伴隨著 巨大的社會變革; 此外，在許多 方面， 它們是 國際衝突和隨之而來的經濟增長 。



普通人 第一次有了可觀的閒暇時間和更多的可支配收入。就是這個 非常繁榮和消費主義，允許探索心理 大規模的想法和實踐。那些認同 反主流文化2 質疑主流的目標，看著 以獲得更深層次的意義。 與此同時，他們傾向於毫無疑問地離開 毫無疑問，促進增長和收益的文化的假設 好，並大力應用於自我探索和心理健康。3 伯納的 任務，就像蘇一樣 他周圍的許多人，和錢幣一樣 ，都固定在這個 世界上。4 根據時代精神開發的自助和治療 ，遠離探索和教育 為自己準備可以為客戶商品化 並提供的方法 可衡量的收益。伯納在這種工業的、醫學化的健康 方法和他的 更多方法之間走了一條細線。



形而上學的興趣。



然而， 這些本世紀中葉的變化都不是 憑 空而來的。 至少早在十九世紀中期 世紀，東方宗教因其強大的實踐而 受到擁護和掠奪。 本土運動，如心靈治療，美國 和諧宗教5 和基於催眠術的方法 ，6 借鑒 了這些，並發展了 自己的混合信念和方法 。 到 1950 年代，這些被認為是 過時的。然而，他們所信奉的一些不那麼平淡無奇的思維方式，例如 對健康和 積極思考的身心方法，在公眾的想像中 根深蒂固 ， 已經找到了進入一些更受人尊敬的方式 和主流心理學 衛生專業。這不僅僅是因為它們在 公眾中 非常受歡迎。 諸如短暫但有影響力的伊曼紐爾運動等 運動教會了 醫學界 它可能會生病 忽視 心理是 國家健康 的一個重要 方面。7



醫學界， 自二十世紀第一個十年 以來， 認識到自己的重要市場和作用一直是






尋求將精神衛生保健 完全納入 其軌道的方法。 第二次世界大戰充當了 快速擴張和專業化的催化劑。



伯納處於 這場風暴的中心 ，與他的文化景觀幾乎沒有區別，但 也致力於 嚴謹 的沉思方法。 作為一個快速自我調節行業的非專業人士 ，他仍然置身於現在面臨定義方法和壓力的職業 之外。 培訓以服務於 突然意識到 需要擴張和資金。



他也開始 做一些與大多數經典心理治療方法略有不同的事情 重新定義什麼 個人與個人 進步實際上是。在明確 心靈與本質個體的區別，如東方 哲學做，他在邁出一步 遠離健康的醫學模式，尤其是 軀體 或對所有疾病的物質解釋，包括 心靈的疾病。



這對 心理治療來說並不完全陌生; 例如， 羅伯托·阿薩吉奧利（Roberto Assagioli）的工作以及心理合成和一些超個人心理療法吸引了 類似的區別。但無論是他的哲學模式，還是保持邊緣的自然傾向 ， 他既不尋求也沒有得到正式的認可。 對於他的工作，除了個人 多年來與他一起工作的治療師。但他的興趣也不是 只限於建立一種方法 致力於心理健康。這隻是整個系統的一部分 理解。他可能 從早期與山達基教會 的接觸中受到 影響。



在他 多年的 探索中遇到的 眾多老師中，有 古怪的山達基創始人L. 羅恩 賀伯特（1911-1986）。 如今，即使是這個名字也向許多人 發出了要避免的危險邪教的信號。但是這個 當年輕的查爾斯·伯納（Charles Berner）遇到戴尼提時，情況還不是這樣，戴尼提是成為戴尼提的先驅。 山達基，雖然賀伯特已經是一個有爭議的人物，他甚至有，甚至 到那時，疏遠了他的 許多 早期追隨者，並引起了心理健康行業的許多人（儘管不是全部）的蔑視。






賀伯特很少 被 描述為中性術語。 他被愛，被厭惡，被 解僱， 反過來受到與他接觸的人的欽佩。 戴尼提： 現代心理健康科學 8 該書於 1948年首次出版，取得了非凡的成功，並迅速催生了國際團體和合作夥伴運動 多年來，自助對一些更主流的方法 產生了影響 。 這本書似乎更多地 歸功於賀伯特作為科幻小說作家的經歷，而不是 心理學。 但是，儘管他和他的工作無疑是有缺陷的，但他和伯納一樣， 是 所有現代美國的海綿 。 不得不提供，無論 專業人士怎麼想，都把一個 心靈/身體/精神的説明方法吸引了數百萬人， 甚至在開始時， 吸引了一些醫生和心理治療師。9



人們的許多敘述 誰已經離開運動和 隨後對它進行了高度批評，其領導人也經常讚揚一些心理治療風格的 工作10 他們在其中體驗到是有益的。11 賀伯特 發展 的早期心理學工作在某些關鍵要素上，植根於弗洛德理論，特別是Korzybski的工作。12 這 華麗的語言和大膽的主張掩蓋了一些 相當成熟的理論和方法。



該運動也擅長 當它看到一個有用的成員時，它就會認出一個有用的成員，並且在伯納， 找到一個願意並能夠從事內部心理治療的年輕人 專案和有能力的領導者。反過來，他發現山達基是一個有趣和支持性的環境，可以解決他自己關於生命和意義的問題。



雖然他在 組織中 工作了大約10年，但其方法與他自己的方法之間的差異 終於變得太偉大了，無法維持。隨著山達基試圖控制其成員，以及 更嚴格，並制定官方認可的方法和信仰， 伯納的處境越來越站不住腳。 與哈伯德的相反 強調生存是首要的 人類的驅動力，他自己的經驗和研究 使他越來越相信，我們生活 的根本目的是 彼此聯繫和交流 。



伯納在 1965年 被要求離開 該組織，當時他失去了該運動的青睞。 等級制度。但他並沒有認為這是一個 挫折，而是自己 前進 ， 被釋放去追求新的路線。






思想從中產生了 啟蒙強化研討會，頭腦清理，情緒清理，以及經過幾次 年，通過 他的印度人投降冥想 老師，斯瓦米·克里帕爾瓦南達（1913-1981），或眾所周知的 克里帕盧。







與印度的聯繫



在 1974年，像 他那一代的許多人一樣，伯納踏上了 印度正在尋找一位他可以承諾的老師，認識到自己 需要指導。 繼續通常的炎熱和塵土飛揚的大師之旅 數百名其他嬉皮士尋求者，他終於找到了他所追求的 搜索。關於這次會議的記錄表明，伯納有些驚訝地 發現 有足夠大的智慧來滿足 他並且可以 順服的老師 。 但是當他聽到斯瓦米·克里帕魯在他的佛法中 所說的話時 13 會議，他描述了一次經歷 他的心在膨脹和開放，淚水順著臉頰流下來。從 在這一點上，他致力於在昆達里尼瑜伽傳統的這位謙遜老師 的 腳下 學習。14



由於這個印度人 連接15 他的工作發生了變化。 儘管他使用和教授的技術大致 相同，但它們的哲學基礎得到了更清晰的關注和 方向 我們現在 在其中看到了。 頭腦清醒， 已經基本符合 印度哲學，隨著斯瓦米·克里帕盧的教義和 帕坦伽利的 著名而重新置放 瑜伽經。16 正是在這一傳統中， 它迅速成為根基，並通過它來 閱讀。



繼克里帕盧之後，伯納· 他的餘生都奉獻給了解放或啟蒙的計劃。 但心靈清除仍然是一個明確定義的專案限制 處理 思想，他為此感到自豪。 認知與心靈， 在他看來，主要屬於 具體的東西和語言，並且可以在很大程度上在這個領域內處理。17 然而，它依賴於對人是什麼的描述，這與瑜伽哲學保持一致。 在伯納的現代化 自由之旅地圖中，代表了瑜伽士道路上的第一步。 帕坦伽利也認為瑜伽不是 體育鍛煉，而是 經常想到，但 主要關心 控制思想，因為 特別是 頭腦 將我們隱藏起來 我們到底是誰， 我們是什麼。





勞倫斯·諾伊斯（生於1951年）



勞倫斯·諾伊斯於1975年<>月與伯納相識， 在這項工作和老師中找到了一種承諾回答的方法 那時他一直在問自己的問題 幾年。隨後，他加入了伯納的學生小組 ，並與他一起工作 ， 首先在加利福尼亞，然後 夏威夷，在他們協會的最後幾年，在南澳大利亞。



伯納在心靈方面的 工作在諾伊斯出現時或多或少 地 停止了。 那些最初接受過心靈清除訓練的人跟隨他進入 瑜伽或 各行各 司，伯納本人也深深地參與了投降冥想。然而，諾伊斯在看 在中心的檔案中，發現了一盒舊盒式磁帶，上面有數小時的 關於心靈清除的談話 ， 他聽到的材料立即引發了他的 想像力。 伯納雖然不再對 自己提供會議感興趣，但 為諾伊斯感到高興。自 將講座和筆記彙編成手冊，並指導他 這樣做。 從那以後，這些手冊就形成了 心靈清除訓練的教科書，是本書 的理論基礎。



諾伊斯離開了伯納的社區 1993年回到 美國，但他有 繼續使用伯納的方法。他一直嚴格忠實於此 伯納的原則大大增加了所有 方法的效用， 特別是從粗略的增長運動中獲取 心靈清除 實驗到完全 發展了具有明確道德規範和階梯式流程的實踐。 諾伊斯負責 教導數百甚至數千名新人，並繼續完善和領導啟蒙強化課程，並教導其他人這樣做。他 將原始手冊 擴展為自己的技術和指南，處理抑鬱、邊界等 常見問題 和創傷。18 他繼續在美國和歐洲教授清算和相關實踐。






結論



伯納在思想上所做的工作反映了它的美國根源，稱 在悠久的歷史 中，彼此之間存在著各種緊張關係的影響






但都在推動 勘探和開發。 他的核心遺產主張個人 以自創為根本的代理和責任。 這是 對一個熟悉的主題的改編;持不同政見者 確立了美國的意識形態基礎 ，將他們 跨越大西洋 視為 通往“應許之地”的旅程 。 由於土地本身迅速 它被饑餓的移民圍起來並吞噬，很快就變成了一個隱喻的空間，一個 空間的概念——到二十世紀初 ， 它已經被 挖掘出來了。 醫生 從弗洛德的無意識領域地圖 中工作的 心理。19 美國的心理治療，以及後來的伯納，已經 準備好探索這個空間， 重塑內陸領土並開發其無限資源。



這與 堅定的樂觀。不 懷疑最初是出於必要，它可以給美國人心理 探索和自助原則 與相對保守的歐洲同行的語氣不同。 在舊國家，20 無意識往往 被視為 一個充滿不舒服的壓抑的黑暗大陸。 探索它是為了 它本身，為了道德和個人 成長而做的事情。 在美國， 它被看到相當 作為一個充滿機遇和承諾的土地，以及為了到達 更好的目的地而 踏上的 旅程。21 而不是 自我認識 為了自己的利益，伯納和他的同胞，部分 在市場的隱性要求 和責任的驅使下，將精神探索視為具有 明確和積極的結果 它的基本理由。22



伯納作品的另一個 特點是 加爾文主義的基礎 ，暗示雖然一個人 不能嚴格地賺錢 她（她）通過善行、世俗的成功和繁榮在天堂的地位 可以解釋為上帝在個人救贖中的恩典的證據。這種思想可以從 通過正確的思維實現世俗進步的格言中看到 ，這句格言仍然是一個 美國自助的強大特徵 和治療。 神秘主義和世俗的渴望似乎 就像奇怪的同床異夢者一樣，但伯納的思維模型 澄清並規範了這種關係。



此外，在將直接溝通和關係置於自戀個人主義傾向之上時






人類存在的目的，伯納的作品促進了 另一個民族理想， 儘管與后工業時代的個人主義存在張力。 因為伯納認為我們的存在本身就是一個結果 在我們履行關係 的動力 中，它採用了基本的道德準則 作為傷害保險。23 因此，它將社區置於個人的 唯我論慾望之上，因此 從根本上說，這是一個政治專案。



他的作品是經濟的，他 拋開 了所有無關緊要的東西，以便專注於主要遊戲;它是 使用旨在滿足特定目的的技術 的功利主義; 它在技術上是精確的; 它對個人的整個旅程進行了徹底的映射; 它是關於人際關係和同理心作為其手段和 目的;最後，它確定了 個人作為她或他自己命運的作者，在一個更大的意義元敘事中 。在 這些特點，儘管它 宏偉的專案，但它喚起 了一種與生俱來的謙遜， 認識到我們的職責 首先是我們的鄰居。



鋒利和 全面，心靈清除建立在哲學和實踐的基礎上 從擁擠的大熔爐中出現，治療，新的靈性，哲學 東西方和自助聚會和 合併。無論是在這種組合中在家裡還是 作為一個問題 與使它成為可能的經常定義不足的假設不同，它變得非常清晰： 對人類的綜合診斷 用理智的處方來調節，這與 賦予它生命的一些 趨勢背道而馳。



雖然出於實際目的，它可能 被歸類為心理治療， 它是 巢中的 杜鵑，因為它 的目的與其說 是修補 煩惱的心靈 至於通過重新學習 簡單的人際接觸的常態來消除我們對它的需求 。



實踐處於邊緣 靈性，抵制這種分類 保持堅實的實用性和世俗性;這是 嚴格的業務。還 矛盾的是，其目的的剝離性使 它能夠以 精確和適當實用的同樣優點來標記錢幣。 和世俗的。



今天，東方的正念冥想實踐 作為一種有價值的工具受到心理健康界的 歡迎 。 它已被 證明在各種 情況下都有效 ，以增加






學習它的人的總體健康和福祉。 研究者 知道它有效，即使他們不知道為什麼。伯納的工作依賴於 人與人之間的正念，並更進一步。他知道它是如何以及為什麼起作用的，並且具有 罕見 的解釋能力。 


THE SEARCH FOR A RESOLUTION TO HUMAN SUFFERING






Charles Berner (1929–2007)



Charles Berner was born and raised in California, USA, and like many people of his generation became interested and involved in mysticism, esotericism and psychotherapy as a young man. It was an interest that blossomed into a lifelong mission. Fired by a desire to master for himself the mind and emotions and reach the highest levels of understanding, he studied under many teachers and read voraciously with the intention of personally experiencing the truths about which he read.



Alongside his passion for self-understanding, Berner worked to translate what he learned into practical processes others could benefit from and developed stepped methods for dealing with the mind, emotions, body and spiritual problems. He broke these aspects of the person down into components and into a map that could explain the whole.



In many respects, his body of work is a quintessential product of the USA of the mid-twentieth century, being a quilt composed of pieces valued for utility over provenance. It was a time and place bursting with new ideas and techniques. Religious movements and therapeutic methods, and combinations of the two, were springing up like mushrooms around every corner, both inside and outside of the more established health industries.



The psychological health industry, during the late 1950s to early 1970s, saw rapid growth, initially to meet the needs shown up by universal conscription and made worse by war on a huge scale. Many of the therapeutic systems current today came out of methods developed at the time, such as humanistic psychotherapy, behaviourism, cognitive






therapy and developments of psychoanalysis.1 The advances in this industry were matched by huge social change; also, in many ways, they were by-products of international conflict and the concomitant growth in the economy.



For the first time, ordinary people had appreciable leisure time and more disposable income. It was this very boom and consumerism that allowed for the exploration of psychological ideas and practices on a mass scale. Those who identified with the counterculture2 questioned the goals of the mainstream and looked for deeper meaning. At the same time they tended to leave unquestioned the assumptions of that culture which promoted growth and gain as unquestionably good, and applied them vigorously to self-exploration and psychological health.3 Berner’s quest, like that of so many around him, was fixed just as much on this world as the numinous.4 Self-help and therapy developed in line with the zeitgeist, away from exploration and education for its own sake towards methods that could be commodified for the customer and which offered measurable gain. Berner trod a fine line between this industrial, medicalised approach to health and his more



metaphysical interests.



None of this mid-century change came out of a void, however. Since at least as early as the mid-nineteenth century, Eastern religions had been embraced and plundered for their powerful practices. Home- grown movements, such as mind-cure, American Harmonial Religion5 and methods based on Mesmerism,6 drew on these and developed hybrid beliefs and approaches of their own. By the 1950s, these were considered outmoded. Yet some of the less prosaic ways of thinking they espoused, such as a mind/body approach to health and positive thinking, were firmly entrenched in the public imagination and had found their way into some of the more respectable and mainstream psychological health professions. This was not least because they had proved so popular with the general public. Movements such as the short-lived but influential Emmanuel Movement had taught the medical profession that it could ill afford to ignore the psyche as an important aspect of the health of the nation.7



The medical profession, recognising an important market and role for itself had, since the first decade of the twentieth century, been






seeking ways to bring mental health care exclusively into its orbit. The Second World War acted as a catalyst for rapid expansion and professionalisation.



Berner was in the eye of this storm, barely distinguishable from his cultural landscape and yet also dedicated to a rigorously contemplative approach. A non-professional in a rapidly self-regulating industry, he remained outside the professions that were now under pressure to define their methods and training to serve a sudden recognition of the need for expansion and funding.



He was also starting to do something a little different from most classic psychotherapeutic approaches in reconceptualising what the person and personal progress actually are. In making an explicit distinction between the mind and the essential individual, as Eastern philosophies do, he was taking a step away from the medical model of health and, especially, the somatic or material explanation for all ailments, including those of the mind.



This is not entirely foreign to psychotherapy; for instance, the work of Roberto Assagioli and psychosynthesis and some transpersonal psychotherapies drew similar distinctions. But whether it was his philosophical model or a natural inclination to remain on the fringes, he neither sought nor was given formal recognition for his work, except from individual therapists who worked with him over the years. But his interests were also not confined to establishing one method of working towards psychological health. That was only part of a whole system of understanding. He may have been influenced in this through his early contact with the Church of Scientology.



Among the many teachers he came across in his years of exploration was the eccentric founder of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard (1911– 1986). These days, even the name signals to many people a dangerous cult to be avoided. But this was not yet the case when the young Charles Berner came across Dianetics, the forerunner of what became Scientology, although Hubbard was already a controversial figure who had, even by then, alienated many of his early followers and brought scorn upon himself from many, though not all, in the psychological health industry.






Hubbard is rarely described in neutral terms. He was loved, loathed, dismissed and admired in turn by people who came into contact with him. Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health8 was first published in 1948 to extraordinary success and rapidly spawned an international movement of group and partnered self-help that has had an influence on some more mainstream approaches over the years. The book seems to owe more to Hubbard’s experience as a writer of science fiction than to psychology. But flawed as he and his work undoubtedly were, he, like Berner, was a sponge for all modern America had to offer and, whatever the professionals thought, put together a mind/body/ spirit method of help that appealed to millions, and even, at the start, to some medics and psychotherapists.9



Many of the accounts of people who have left the movement and subsequently been highly critical of it and its leaders often also credit some of the psychotherapy-style work10 they experienced within it as having been beneficial.11 In some of its key elements, the early psychological work developed by Hubbard had its roots in Freudian theory and the work of Korzybski in particular.12 The florid language and bold claims obscure some fairly well-established theories and methods.



The movement was also good at recognising a useful member when it saw one and, in Berner, found a young man willing and able to work on the in-house psychotherapy project and an able leader. He, in turn, found Scientology an interesting and supportive environment for addressing his own questions about life and meaning.



Though he spent about 10 years in the organisation, the differences between its approach and his own finally became too great to sustain. As Scientology sought to control its members more and more strictly, and lay down officially sanctioned methods and beliefs, Berner was in an increasingly untenable position. In contrast to Hubbard’s emphasis on survival as the primary human drive, his own experiences and research drew him more and more into the belief that our fundamental purpose in life is to connect and communicate with one another.



Berner was asked to leave the organisation in 1965 when he fell out of favour with the movement’s hierarchy. But rather than seeing this as a setback, he forged ahead on his own, released to pursue new lines






of thought from which came the Enlightenment Intensive workshops, Mind Clearing, Emotion Clearing and, after a few years, Surrender Meditation through his Indian teacher, Swami Kripalvananda (1913– 1981), or Kripalu as he was generally known.







The Indian connection



In 1974, like so many of his generation, Berner made the journey to India in search of a teacher he could commit to, recognising a need in himself for guidance. Going on the usual hot and dusty circuit of gurus along with hundreds of other hippie seekers, he finally found that for which he was searching. Accounts of this meeting suggest Berner was somewhat surprised to have found a teacher of great enough wisdom to satisfy him and to whom he could submit. But as he heard what Swami Kripalu was saying in his dharma13 session, he described an experience of his heart expanding and opening and tears streaming down his cheeks. From that point on he dedicated himself to learning at the feet of this humble teacher in the Kundalini Yoga tradition.14



As a result of this Indian connection,15 his work shifted. Although the techniques he had used and taught remained much the same, their philosophical underpinning gained the sharper focus and the direction we now see in it. Mind Clearing, already basically in line with Indian philosophy, was reorientated in step with Swami Kripalu’s teaching and also Patanjali’s famous Yoga Sutras.16 It is to that tradition that it swiftly became anchored and through which it can be read.



Following Kripalu, Berner devoted the rest of his life to the project of liberation or enlightenment. But Mind Clearing remained a clearly defined project limited to dealing with the mind and of which he was proud. Cognition and the mind, as he saw it, belong primarily to the world of concrete things and language, and can be dealt with to a large extent within that arena.17 Yet it rests on a description of what the person is that is in step with yogic philosophy and, in Berner’s modernised map of the journey to freedom, represents the first step on the yogi’s path. Patanjali, too, describes yoga not as physical exercises, as it is often thought of, but as primarily concerned with controlling the mind, because it is the mind in particular that hides us from who and what we really are.





Lawrence Noyes (born 1951)



Lawrence Noyes met Berner in December 1975, and found in this work and the teacher an approach that promised to answer the questions he had been asking himself by then for some years. He subsequently joined Berner’s group of students and worked with him, first in California, then Hawaii and, for the final years of their association, in South Australia.



Berner’s work on the mind had more or less ground to a halt by the time Noyes came on the scene. Those who had originally trained in Mind Clearing had followed him into yoga or had gone their own way, and Berner himself was deeply involved in Surrender Meditation. Noyes, however, in looking through the centre’s archives, found a box of old cassette tapes with hours of talks on Mind Clearing, and the material he heard immediately fired his imagination. Berner, though no longer interested in working with offering sessions himself, was happy for Noyes to compile the lectures and notes into manuals and instructed him as he did so. Those manuals have formed the textbooks of Mind Clearing training ever since and are the theoretical basis for this book.



Noyes left Berner’s community in 1993 and returned to America, but he has continued to work with Berner’s methods. He has been rigorously faithful to Berner’s principles and added greatly to the utility of all the methods, taking Mind Clearing in particular from a sketchy growth-movement experiment to a fully developed practice with explicit ethics and stepped processes. Noyes has been responsible for teaching hundreds, if not thousands, of newcomers as well as continuing to refine and lead Enlightenment Intensives and teaching others to do so. He has extended the original manuals into techniques and guides of his own, dealing with common issues such as depression, boundaries and trauma.18 He continues to teach Clearing and related practices, in America and Europe.






Conclusion



The work Berner did on the mind reflects its American roots, calling on a long history of influences variously in tension with one another






but all pushing towards exploration and development. His core legacy asserts personal agency and responsibility in self-authorship as fundamental. This is a reworking of a familiar theme; dissenters who established the ideological underpinning of the USA saw their move across the Atlantic as a journey to the ‘Promised Land’. As the land itself was swiftly fenced and swallowed up by hungry immigrants, it soon became a metaphorical space, an idea of space – enough that, by the early twentieth century, it could be mined by doctors of the psyche working from Freud’s map of the unconscious territories.19 American psychotherapy, and later Berner, were more than ready to explore this space, remodelling the interior territory and tapping its infinite resources.



This goes hand in hand with an attitude of determined optimism. No doubt born originally of necessity, it can give American psychological explorations and the principles of self-help a different tone from their relatively conservative European counterparts. In the Old Countries,20 the unconscious tended to be seen as a dark continent of uncomfortable suppressions. Exploring it was something to be done for its own sake, for moral and personal growth. In America it was seen rather as a land of opportunity and promise and a journey embarked on for the purpose of arriving at a better destination.21 Rather than self-knowledge for its own good, Berner and his compatriots, partly driven by the implicit demands of the market and accountability, saw mental exploration as having a definite and positive outcome as its basic justification.22



Another characteristic of Berner’s work is found in the Calvinist underpinning implying that, while a person cannot strictly earn her or his place in heaven through good works, worldly success and prosperity can be interpreted as proof of God’s grace in personal salvation. This thinking can be seen in the dictum of worldly progress achieved through right thinking that remains a strong feature of American self-help and therapy. Mysticism and worldly aspiration may seem like strange bedfellows, but Berner’s model of the mind clarifies and normalises the relationship.



Furthermore, in setting direct communication and relationship above tendencies towards narcissistic individualism as the overarching






purpose of human existence, Berner’s work promotes another national ideal, though one in tension with the individualism of the post-industrial age. Since Berner suggests that our very existence is a consequence of our drive to fulfil relationship, it adopts a basic code of ethics as insurance against harm.23 As such, it prioritises community over the solipsistic desires of the individual and is thus fundamentally a political project.



His body of work is economical in brushing aside all that is extraneous in order to focus on the main game; it is utilitarian in using techniques designed to meet specific purposes; it is technically precise; it is thorough in its mapping of the entire journey of the individual; it is about human connection and empathy as its means and end; and finally, it identifies the individual as the author of her or his own destiny within a greater meta-narrative of meaning. In these features and despite its grand project, it calls to an innate humility that recognises our duty to our neighbours above all.



Razor sharp and comprehensive, Mind Clearing is founded on a philosophy and practice that has emerged from the crowded melting pot where therapies, the new spiritualities, philosophies of East and West and self-help meet and merge. Both at home in this mix and standing as a question mark to the often under-defined assumptions that have made it possible, it emerges crystal clear: an integrated diagnosis of the human condition with a prescription for sanity that bucks some of the trends that gave it life.



While for practical purposes it might be classified as psychotherapy, it is a cuckoo in the nest since it aims not so much to mend the troubled mind as to obviate our need for it through re-learning the normalcy of simple human contact.



The practice sits on the edge of spirituality, resisting that categorisation by remaining solidly practical and secular; it is strictly business. Yet, paradoxically, the stripped-bare clarity of its purpose allows it to signpost the numinous by the very same virtue of being precisely and properly practical and secular.



Today, the Eastern practice of mindfulness meditation is being welcomed by the psychological health profession as a valuable tool. It has been shown to work in all kinds of circumstances to add to






the general health and well-being of those who learn it. Researchers know it works, even if they do not know why. Berner’s work rests on mindfulness between individuals and takes it further. He knew how and why it worked and had the rare ability to explain this.