We find the essence of transcendent leveraging in this breathtaking challenge to our usual way of seeing and being in reality. The other leveraging challenges in our life, range from the role played by memories (residing in our hippocampus) to the role played by emotions (residing in our amygdala). It is worth noting that these two neural structures reside alongside one another in our limbic system. These limbic structures merge into Brugh Joy’s transformation process. Perhaps, as Joy suggests, it is a matter of abandoning our “grown-up” sense of reality—what Thomas Kuhn (2012) labeled, “normal science”–and returning to a fresh, pre-socialized sense of wonderment about reality (Kuhn’s preparadigmatic state). Joy (Joy, 1979, p. 20) proclaims:
“. . . as we begin to use the beginner’s mind to see things the way they are rather than the way we have been conditioned to see them, we can also begin to understand . . . fundamentally, our all-too-human habit of taking our belief systems as real. . . . [W]e can also learn to see the magnificence of our creative potential in the rich variations of themes called life, religion, government and so on.”
Maybe this is the “regression in the service of the ego” that ego psychologists aligned with Freud often have identified (Hartman, 1958).
At this point, Brush Joy brings us back to the fundamental distinction to be drawn between an objectivist and constructivist perspective on “reality.” Joy (Joy, 1979, p. 2) opts for a constructivist perspective:
“The difference between the awful insanity and the creative glory is nothing more than the recognition that belief systems are only belief systems and not realities. At this level of consciousness, we can create anything we desire, and once we realize that we live only in an idea level of existence that is not based on any intrinsic realness, we may consider the possibility that there are options to our experience and expression of reality. The questioning process brings us naturally, easily and inevitably to the threshold of higher states of consciousness.”
The leveraging of transcendence is fully evident in Joy’s proposal that we engage a “beginner’s mind” when discerning what is actually “real.” We should not only re-enter our world without a pre-existing frame of mind (Kuhn’s paradigm) but also with a focus on that which is particularly important for us.
Conclusions
We are living in a VUCA-Plus world that requires us to focus on our “ultimate concern.” (Tillich,1957/2001) We are to transform the VUCA-Plus conditions on behalf of this concern. Transcendence is not for the “faint of Heart” and must be used to leverage those changes in perspective and practice that are the essence of Peter Vaill’s “learning as a way of being” (Vaill, 1996)
Armand Nicholi (2002) envisioned Sigmund Freud struggling with the theology of C. S. Lewis. I wonder what Nicholi would have to say about the approach Sigmund Freud take when emersed in a dialogue with either Brugh Joy or Peter Vaill. And would the perspective of either Joy or Vaill enrich the life coaching that Dr. Freud is providing Daniel?
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References
Allport, Gordon W. (1937). The functional autonomy of motives. The American Journal of Psychology, 50(1/4), pp. 141–156.
Barrett, Deirdre (2001) The Committee of Sleep. New York: Crown Publishers.
Bergquist, William (2025) The New (Ab)Normal, Harpswell, ME: Atlantic Soundings Press.
Bergquist, William (2026) Dancing Between the Raindrops, Harpswell, ME: Atlantic Soundings Press.
Bergquist, William and Agnes Mura (2011) coachbook, Harpswell, ME: Professional Psychology Press.
Bergquist, William, Jeremy Fish and Gay Teurman (2026) Salus: A Multi-Dimensional Appeal to Health/Volume One: From Biology to the Organization, Harpswell, ME: Atlantic Soundings Press.
Breger, Louis (2000) Freud: Darkness in the Midst of Vision, New York: Wiley.
