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Transformation:

A Beginning

By
Joseph McNair

"Much of the magic in the world we live in is produced by the transformations we observe and experience."

In this series of essays, the writer hopes to derive a working definition of the process of multicultural awareness/consciousness (MA/C). Let us begin by tentatively describing the multiculturally aware and conscious person as one:

who perceives (is aware of), is knowledgeable about, understands and accepts variations or differences in human consciousness and behavior. This perception, knowledge, understanding and acceptance is a product of an extensive developmental  process which includes:

This individual, as a result of this process, will undergo deep, progressive changes in the structure and content of what s/he believes and values about self, others, life and the world.  This individual can:

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The concepts and constructs of "race," culture, ethnicity, language, religion/spirituality, politics, social class, physical and mental ability (or disability), gender, sexual orientation, and age (among others) are the proverbial "grist for the mill" of this developmental process.  These concepts, their deconstruction and explanation will be the substance of each of the subsequent essays in this series.

Integral to process of multicultural awareness/ consciousness  (MA/C) is the concept of transformation.  According to Marilyn Ferguson:

If one is to achieve MA/C then a transformation in consciousness and behavior must occur. In this first essay, an attempt will be made to deconstruct and explain the concept transformation.

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What Is Transformation?

Much of the magic in the world we live in is produced by the transformations we observe and experience. The writer recognizes that by using the term "magic", he introduces a provocative element with its own set of problems into this discussion from the outset. 

According to Gideon Bohak :

No definition of "magic" has ever found universal acceptance, and countless attempts to separate it from "religion" on the one hand and "science" on the other have borne few, if any, fruits. The problem lies, to a large extent, in that what one society may label "magic," another would label "religion," and another "science," so that by choosing one label we are implicitly choosing sides whenever conflicting definitions of magic compete with each other, or run the risk of imposing our own categories upon societies in which these categories would have made no sense. (Bohak,1995, [URL] http://www.lib.umich.edu/pap/magic/intro.html

Be that as it may, there are experiences in the world that fall under the category of transformation or being transformed.  Some of these acts, processes, and instances of transformation inspire surprise, awe, wonder, even reverence.  Science abounds with examples

Let us look at one example in the biological world. Think of the life cycle of the butterfly.

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  1. An adult female butterfly lays eggs fertilized by an adult male on a particular kind of food plant, found by a combination of shape or color recognition and chemical examination. The adult female butterfly  abandons the egg almost immediately..
  2. In about five (5) days, the egg hatches into a tiny worm-like creature known as a larvae or caterpillar.
  3. The newly emerged caterpillar has biting jaws, six real legs plus a number of extra 'prolegs' but no compound eye.  It quickly begins to devour its food source and shed its in order to grow.
  4. After usually four moultings or skin sheddings, the skin removed reveals the chrysalis or pupa. The caterpillar fastens itself to a plant with a silken thread and spins a cocoon.
  5. Although the pupa outwardly looks inert and resting, inside it is a bubbling cauldron of activity as the caterpillar is literally liquefied, then reassembled, over about two to three weeks, into a very different creature. It is still not fully understood how this process occurs.
  6. When the pupal skin becomes translucent, i.e. showing the coloring of the wings beneath, the adult butterfly is ready to emerge.  The pupal skin splits and a limp, damp butterfly crawls out - now with compound eyes, a proboscis for feeding and very clearly six legs. 
  7. The wings begin to expand as blood is pumped into them. A little warming in the sun and the new adult butterfly is ready to fly, feed and frolic (mate).   (adapted from [URL] http//:www.butterflies.org.uk/ lbh_home/cycle.htm)

Daly King  (1927) depicts this transformation far more poetically:

[T]he caterpillar spins itself a silken web against some suitable surface. In this it entangles its hind legs, and hangs downward until presently its skin once more splits along the centre of the back. It next shrinks considerably in size until it comes free of the old skin, but is still attached to the web. It is now in a half-way state between larva and chrysalis; by a wriggling motion it attaches a front set of hooks to the web and the old skin falls away completely. Shrinking still further, it soon becomes a true chrysalis, a small, cone-shaped object hanging point downward from a branch or beam.

This chrysalis is no longer a larva, or caterpillar. It is a definite stage... of transition, and somehow or other it is alive. Its outer shell is a hard formation unlike any of its former skins; within is a formless creamy fluid without structure or organization... There is apparently a complete disintegration of the former worm, its members, even its nerves and tissues, breaking down into a viscous liquid matter, a living water as it might be called.

[F]requently an outlined tracing of the creature to be, appears on the chrysalis shell before the interior organization has yet formed. It is all the more remarkable because this casing or container is never destined to be part of the butterfly... When we note that the later, developed wing-pattern can sometimes be seen plainly traced upon the shell, and further, that the liquid molecules of super protoplasm, within are still in an entirely formless fluid state, we can scarcely be censured for our astonishment and our vague attempts to imagine a kind of sub-molecular, magnetic reflection...

And now a completely new and different animal has gradually been formed from the broken-down molecular constituents of the former worm. It has disintegrated (we can call it death in life or life in death, for it is a state that is both life and death); and then the very elements of which the worm was composed have been reunited in a different pattern and structure, bringing into existence a quite dissimilar animal. And it has all taken place without the apparent addition of any feed or absorb elements exterior to itself ... At length the chrysalis bursts open ... and the new being emerges... [S]oon the body juices flow into the crumpled wings, filling them out and providing their vivid colouring... It flies away to its future life and functions as a fertilizer of flowers, the most delicate plants in the vegetable kingdom, and as the parent of future caterpillars. (King, 1927,[URL] http://www.bridge-systems.com/bridgepress/index.shtml

 

The life cycle of the butterfly is arguably one of the most impressive examples of transformation at work in nature.  The caterpillar and the butterfly are so dissimilar that one might think that they are entirely separate species. The butterfly is the only living creature capable of entirely changing its genetic structure.  The caterpillar's DNA is totally different from the butterfly's. Yet science informs that the caterpillar and the butterfly are one; that the lowly worm has been transformed into a magnificent winged metaphor of transformation.

Butterflies are powerful symbols for transformation and change throughout many traditions and belief systems. Butterflies represent in those traditions and belief systems the mind, the ability of the mind (including the contents of the mind) to change, and thus cause a change in behavior.

Defining Transformation

Webster defines transformation as:

an act, process, or instance of change in structure, appearance, or character; a conversion, revolution, makeover, alteration, or renovation.

We witness all sorts of transformations in our day-to day experience. Changes in structure, appearances and character of people, objects, places and events are fairly common. Working from the terms renovation back to conversion in Webster's definition, let us take a moment to examine examples of each and their relevance to the concept transformation.

Renovation

The term renovation means to restore to an earlier condition, to revive or renew as by repairing or remodeling.  We note, for example, that slums in the core of major urban cities are transformed into the upscale neighborhoods of young upwardly mobile professionals through the process of gentrification.

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According to Simon Velasquez Alejandrino:

The term "gentrification" dates back to the 1960s, when British sociologist Ruth Glass coined it to describe the influx of middle-class residents ("the gentry") into deteriorating London neighborhoods. As the newcomers renovated and upgraded the housing stock, property values rose and gradually displaced low-income residents.

Although gentrification is usually discussed in a housing context, gentrification impacts commercial establishments, as well. Commercial property owners, recognizing the increased buying power of new residents, can raise lease rates beyond the affordable range for small businesses serving low-income customers. The owner can then re-lease the space at a higher rate to a new enterprise catering to a higher-income population.

Especially in the United States, gentrification has taken on a racial element. The higher-income newcomers are usually white, and the displaced communities are often low-income people of color.  Alejandrino, 2000, [URL] http://www.medasf.org/reports/mission_gentrification.pdf

Alteration

An alteration may be defined simply as the act of making something different (as e.g. the size or style of a garment).  A competent seamstress, tailor or an individual talented in the use of a needle, thread and sewing machine can transform old clothes into new, plain clothes into popular or even high fashion items.

                                                                   

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Sometimes in the world of fashion an article of clothing designed for one purpose can be perceived differently through the fashion sense and be transformed.  Magosci (1995) cites the example of blue jeans:

At its birth, blue jeans were created for the California coal miners in the mid-nineteenth century by the Bavarian peddler Morris Levi Strauss. Strauss imported the cotton fabric from the Provenal city of Nimes (this is where the term "denim" derives from). People today who wear blue jeans, however, differ greatly from those of the epoch of its conception!

Blue jeans have evolved from a garment associated exclusively with hard work to one associated with leisure. What began as work clothes has transformed into one of the "hottest" items available on the consumer market. What was once an apparel associated with low culture (late nineteenth-century society would of considered it as such) has undergone an inversion of the classic "trickle-down" theory. Blue jeans were the first to accomplish a rather revolutionary cultural achievement--bring upper class status to a lower class garment. By the 1970s, jeans had been elevated into the domain of high fashion status through the designer label-- some have even attained elitism by prominent haute courturiers.
C. Magosci, 1995-2003,[URL]   http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/history/material_culture/cynth/

Makeover

Also in the world of fashion and particularly in cosmetics, the term " makeover" has come to mean a transformation of sorts.

A makeover may be described as an overall treatment, usually with cosmetics, changes in hairstyle and apparel to improve the appearance or transform the image.                                

  

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Revolution

There are several definitions of the word "revolution" relevant to the concept of transformation.   For the purposes of this discussion, a revolution may be described as:

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In the first instance, Robert A. Hatch (2003) describes the Scientific Revolution:

By tradition, the "Scientific Revolution" refers to historical changes in thought & belief, to changes in social & institutional organization, that unfolded in Europe between roughly 1550-1700; beginning with Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543), who asserted a heliocentric (sun-centered) cosmos, it ended with Isaac Newton (1642-1727), who proposed universal laws and a Mechanical Universe.  Hatch, 2003, {URL} http://web.clas.ufl.edu/users/rhatch/pages/03-Sci-Rev/SCI-REV-Teaching/03sr-definition-concept.htm

And the impact of this transformation?  According to William Gilbert (1972-2003)

[I]n no other time or place outside of the modern western world has natural science had so profound and pervasive an impact on the way people live and think!The effects of modern science have manifested themselves in various ways. In an obvious sense, the results of scientific knowledge applied in the form of technology are everywhere evident today. Over the years they have revolutionized communication and transportation and increased beyond calculation the power and wealth available to society and those who control and experience its benefits!But these amazing developments do not encompass all the effects of science on the modern consciousness. More subtle, but probably no less important, has been the formation of a particular view of the nature of reality. We look at the world and our place in it in a different way than was possible in the prescientific period [the period before the writings of Copernicus. Author's note].  (William Gilbert, 1972-2003, published posthumously on http://www.ku.edu/~ibetext/texts/gilbert/23.html

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The Islamic Revolution, which in 1978 toppled Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, and brought to power the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini is an excellent  modern example of transformation by means of social revolution.  According to Ivor Benson (1989):

In 1979 the mullahs in Iran overthrew the Persian monarchy, one of the oldest in the world, while at the height of its power, replacing it with an Islamic republic dedicated to the implementation of the Sharia, a law of private and public conduct prescribed in the Koran.
(Benson, 1989, [URL]http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v09/v09p141_Benson.html

The Islamic Revolution not only transformed Iran but has impacted the entire international system as well. It seems that since the onset of this revolution in Iran, no day has passed without news involving Islam:

Conversion/Recovery

An appropriate definition of conversion as regards this essay is a transformation in which an individual exhibits a new or different religion or faith, set of beliefs, or perspective through which s/he views the world.

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Speaking in the first instance of religious conversion, Max Weber (1921) describes this process as metanoia,

the complete reversal of individual's central attitude toward the value and meaning of life and the world (Weber, 1968)

Lewis Rambo (1998), a psychologist who is also a "man of the cloth", provides some perspective on religious conversion:

People ask me, "What it is that changes when a person converts?" I've struggled with that over the years. Drawing upon my own observations, as well as the literature, I've tried to put together four major things that happen in a conversion process.

  1. One of the few things that sociologists and psychologists agree upon is that, almost without exception, changing to a new religious orientation takes place through what the sociologists call kinship and friendship networks of one sort or another. Sometimes they're very intense. Sometimes they're minimal. In any case, people who convert or change religions usually do so through personal contact, and not through impersonal methods of communication, although that happens sometimes..
  2. Secondly, what is very clear is that virtually all religious groups emphasize the importance of relationships with the leader of the group, and with members of the group. One of the things that is very striking when you go into a religious group is that there is enormous affection. People in some groups will even address one another as brother and sister, or other terms that communicate that relationships are very important.
  3. The third thing that happens when people become converts, is that the way in which they interpret lifetheir rhetoricchanges. Now, this varies from group to group obviously. It varies, both in the content, and the degree to which they apply it to different aspects of their life. In some cases, for people who are very totalistic in their conversion, they now have an interpretative system that applies to anything and everything!
  4. The fourth thing that changes is the notion of role... Role is very powerful in shaping peoples' perceptions and behaviors. When people become a member of a new religious movement, or when they become a passionate Roman Catholic, they have a new perception of themselves that often empowers them to do things, to believe things, and to feel things that they have not have been able to prior to that time. (Rambo, 1998 [URL] http://www.religiousfreedom.com/conference/Germany/rambo.htm)
 

The process of recovery from alcoholism, drug addiction, sexual addiction, and other forms of self destructive behaviors and lifestyles is similar if not identical to religious conversion.  Recovery from addiction to alcohol and drugs may be described as

a process of overcoming both physical and psychological dependence on a psychoactive substance, with a commitment to sobriety.

Gene C., sober since 1990, provides a fairly typical account of the transformation of someone in recovery from alcoholism:

I started out in a fellowship other than AA. I worked in an auto repair shop with the man that introduced me to the rooms of recovery. For that I am forever grateful to him and God. While in that shop, he was 12 stepping me. I was suffering much inner torment, it must have been obvious. I tried many times to have an accident by dropping a car on myself. I wanted it to look like an accident for my parents' sake.

During our daily morning ritual, he would ask "What is your problem today"? I would answer, "The job, the boss, my girlfriend, the family or my asshole friends". He would respond," So it's got nothing to do with that bottle of scotch you drank last night"? I would say "No, what's it got to do with that"! He always walked away laughing to himself, never answering the question.

Eventually I made my first meeting and have been sober since but the road has been sometimes very rocky. I worked with a myriad of sponsors; none really having any concrete message or seeming to have only a vague idea of what was going on. Still, they had more than I did, and I appreciate what they did for me.

The best sponsor that I had during that time took me through some steps using bits and pieces from the Big Book, the twelve and twelve, the basic text of NA and a fourth step format from an unknown source. The assignments consisted of reading the selected materials and writing on what I thought the step meant to me. Using this very common method, I missed out on much of the program.

When I formally got through steps 1 to 7, I was confused and was convinced that anyone claiming to have character defects removed by God was simply blowing sunshine up my butt. Today I know that I was lost right at step 1 and got more confused as I tried to build on a weak foundation with even weaker building materials.

I accumulated material possessions, money, a large apartment, part of a college education and a wife. Everything was better than it ever was on the outside. I found out that this was not the answer either because if it was I wouldn't feel as if I was dying on the inside.

After two years of sobriety I went through more than a year of intense anger and still blamed everyone around me for my problems. After that I started to play with the idea of ending my life again and entered into a period of a barely functional depression and self pity. I have no idea of how long it lasted. I heard a lot of people sharing about periodically wanting to die after so many years in the rooms and just toughening it out or getting loaded or going on medication to help their mood.

I didn't want any of those alternatives, who would? I found out that my friend that had twelve stepped me was wrong. My problems had much less to do with that bottle of scotch than he and many others implied. Alcohol is only a symptom. My disease is not alcohol, it's alcoholism. Gathering some strength from who knows where, I searched many meetings across four fellowships trying to find the crucial element that had escaped me. I experienced much ridicule from some of the people of that first fellowship, blaming my problem on a lack of gratitude, phone calls or meetings. I had plenty of these things. Doubling up on these things worked even less. Funny how they told me that making the same mistake twice expecting different results was insanity. Now I had proof.

I finally heard a man speak in an AA meeting that had a message that was different than any other than I have ever heard. This bald headed, tattooed, Harley-riding, leather-bound messenger of God had spoken of being recovered, happy, useful and free. He was talking about recovery as promised in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Soon he became my sponsor and took me through the Big Book up to page 164. I finally have twelve steps in my life because I was able to look at this in a new way. Not what these steps mean to me but what message was Bill Wilson and the first hundred alcoholics trying to get across to me. I took their statements and compared my experiences to them in the first step ad simply followed their directions for the following 11 steps.

My sponsor was just a guide and a help to see when I was trying to do it my own way again. I have not been depressed since, have not tried to hurt myself, take no medication and have not gotten loaded. Today I live in the solution and carry the message of the first hundred alcoholics as written in the Big Book into meetings and to my sponsees. I am finally Happy, Joyous and Free. Many Thanks to God, AA and the wonderful people in my life especially...

Anonymous [URL]http://substanceabuse.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://members.tripod.com/~step13/)

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Just as poignant and transformative are stories of those who are recovering from racism and homophobia. Reverend Kenneth Collier (2001) in a sermon entitled "Reflections Of A Recovering White' Man" made these pertinent comments:

Racism is a form of hatred. It is a way of driving people apart and alienating us, one from another. Racism is, therefore, a sin, a sin that has been committed in America from its earliest European days. And it is a sin for which we have yet to atone.

This is not to say that European culture is, itself, evil or that there is something inherently wrong in the way we European Americans are in the world. It is to say that we have done many evil things in the process of spreading European culture throughout the world

It is this evil that I seek to recover from, and the first step for me is

    1. the eradication of the idea of race. It requires that every time I hear a reference to race I translate it into something else: culture, language, ethnicity, whatever seems appropriate. That's annoying at best, but we U[nitarian] U[niversalist]s have been translating in a religious context for years. We should be pretty good at it by now. It also requires that I
    2. give up any notion of myself as "white." I'm not white. My skin is a kind of brownish pink color. I'm a European American, more specifically, an Anglo-Celt. My primary language is English. My family has been in North America for a little more than 350 years. I grew up in an upper middle class neighborhood in the Mid-Atlantic state of Delaware, which was a border state during the Civil War. My family comes from the South, and my ancestors were slave holders. When I was very young and she was very old, I met the last of these slaves still living. All of these things are part of my cultural heritage and are part of who I am. None have anything whatever do with the color of my skin, my "race."  I also have to begin to
    3. recognize the reality that the racism of America has in fact been perpetrated primarily on those whom we call "people of color," i.e. those whose skin color is dark: reddish through various shades of brown to nearly black, and these people, victims of the sin of American racism, have tended to use the color of their skin as an organizing principle!

Those steps to recovery aren't all that difficult. A far more difficult one has to do with the levels of privilege that I have as a result of being European American. As I see it there are three kinds of privilege.

"White privilege" falls into the later category. The question that I face is what to do with the reality that I enjoy this "white privilege." It is mine whether or not I want it. I can't give it away, sell it, deny it, or fail to exercise it. It is a matter of American culture, a legacy of the fact that America has perpetrated the sin of racism, and no one person acting alone can erase that legacy.

So what do I do about it? These privileges should be extended to all, but how can we do that? What is my responsibility here? It is one thing to talk in grand terms about exercising those privileges in such a way that they are extended farther and farther. It is another thing entirely to understand specifically what that means for my behavior. This is one of my growing edges. Another growing edge that is related to this has to do with responsibility. I may not be responsible for the sins of racism as practiced by my ancestors, but since I am the beneficiary of those sins, am I not responsible to the continuing victims of the sin? Am I not responsible to act for atonement, for cultures and people becoming at one with each other? And how do I do that? What am I called upon to do, in specific terms. I do not know. I do not even know what atonement might mean, and this causes me considerable anguish. (Collier, 2001, http://www.uucpa.org/sermons/sermon010603.html)

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One of the most difficult "isms" from which to recover is the two-headed monster known as homophobia and heterosexism.  An anonymous contributor whom we shall call "Elf" shares the story of his conversion/recovery/transformation:

I could have been described as a rabid homophobe. I hated anyone who fit my definition of queer, sissy or faggot. This included gays, lesbians, bisexuals and people who today are described as transgendered. I called them freaks and wanted no part of them. 

In high school it was considered good sport to "jump the faggot''; to kick his ass!  They rarely fought back (although one time, one of the sissies. Shrieking like a girl beat up all his attackers.  More often than not they ran away after such an attack,  bloody and crying.  I didn't participate in this too often.  I was a varsity athlete and a starter.  I didn't have to prove how tough I was/ I had a reputation as a good basketball player, and my strong masculinity was conceded. Usually this queer-baiting sport was reserved for guys who didn't have strong reputations for fighting and needed to improve theirs or real bullies who just needed to hurt someone from time to time.  I did slap around one boy who said something smart-assed back to me when I accused him  of being sissified, but most of the time, I just sat back and watched with amusement as others terrorized effeminate boys. I never occurred to me that there was anything wrong with my behavior.

One evening when I was about seventeen, while hitching a ride home from work, I  was given a lift by a chubby but pleasant older man (probably in his early forties).  I remember that he was driving a green and white two-tone '53 Pontiac. He asked probing questions about who I was, what school I attended, etc., and made them seem like polite chit-chat.  I, of course, flattered by the attention, began to blab about my grades, my basketball career and my scholarship offers. 

As we drove into my neighborhood, his conversation changed. He told me how much he enjoyed our talk, how attractive he found me.  He wanted to know when could he see me again. To my horror, I began to pick up the gist of this conversation.  I had just begun to think of ways I could get out of the car blocks away from my house, when he pulled over to the curb, parked, and reached over and put his hand on my knee.Not knowing what else to do, I slapped his hand off my knee, forced open the door and jumped out of the car. 

I ran into the night, in the opposite direction of my house, screaming at the top of lungs, "He's a punk! The man is a punk!  Realizing what I was saying and what people might think about me, I shut up, hid behind some garbage cans in an alley, and waited an hour or two until I thought it was safe to go home. When I got home, I went straight to bed, ignoring my mother's queries about where I had been and why I was so late.  I yelled at her, telling her to leave me alone.  As I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, wave after alternating wave of fear and anger washed over me. Why would a faggot be interested in me? Was there something about me!? These perverts should be lined up and shot.  They should be castrated and locked away from normal people!

That was thirty years ago.  In the intervening years, I have had a fairly successful life, with my share of acclaim and public accolades. I make an excellent salary and am considered by my colleagues to be an more than competent at what I do. Along with this, however, there has been a dark and murky emotional undercurrent that includes several failed marriages, episodes of domestic and spousal violence, alcohol and drug abuse, anger management, and finally cognitive/behavioral therapy. I went into therapy because I was sick and tired of being sick and tired of the life I was living. There was something broke in me that needed fixing.  In my self work, I have learned that my fear and intolerance of anyone not heterosexual along with my personal beliefs about the superiority of heterosexuals were major triggers to my violent acting out episodes. This fear, intolerance and superiority provided compensating cover for my uncertainties about my own masculinity. 

I began to see that my homophobic and heterosexist behavior before and after my near seduction of thirty years ago was rooted my perceived "failure" to measure up to all of the prevailing gender role and identity norms. That which was broke in me was my image of me.  A major breakthrough for me came when my therapist asked me if I was attracted to men. I was shocked by the question. When I didn't respond immediately, he rephrased the question: "Do you get an erection when you look at men?"  This time I saw his point -- and felt very silly about my darkest fear.  I can't remember ever being turned on by a man or having sexual fantasies about men. Women have always been the object of my lusty nature. (In fact I can see how I have used women to prove to myself my manliness). I do, though, remember being afraid that someone might think I did.  This insight was the first of many liberating insights. After four years of regular self work, I have made real progress in the repair and rehabilitation of my self image.  Much of this involved confronting my homophobia and heterosexism. 

While I may not be "cured," I can tell you that I am not the person I was when I started therapy four years ago. I don't see homosexuals as freaks or perverts anymore.  I know that these are people just like me, who can have many things in common with me, except that their sexual orientation and sexual behavior is different than mine. Nor do I think that a homosexual is automatically sexually attracted to me just because we share the same gender. I try to treat all people with the same kind of respect that I wish to be afforded. I challenge homophobic remarks. I monitor my own speech and behavior for traces of homophobia, and I apologize when I offend. I attempt to educate myself about lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender culture.  I am even trying to cultivate a friendship with one gay man I know. I try not to use gender-specific language when alternatives are available and I do not assume that everyone is or wants to be heterosexual.  Anonymous, Notes on Recovery, (2004)

Finally, there are those of us who have to recover from "bad" parenting.  Forgiveness is a major element in this process.  Diane Wilson shares her transformative insights:

For me, forgiveness was something that happened fairly late in recovery. Here are a few thoughts...

Forgiveness is something that you do for yourself. More than anything else, it is letting go of any expectation that the other person will change. It is letting go of any expectation of apology, or of recognition and acknowledgement of wrong-doing. It is acknowledging to yourself that the other person acted in the only way that this person could act.Forgiveness does not mean turning the other cheek. If a person who has wronged you in the past has the capability to hurt you again, you have every right to protect yourself.

Forgiveness does not require that you extend trust. This kind of forgiveness is not dependent on the other person changing, so the only safe assumption for you is that this person has not changed. In so many cases, the underlying issue is a broken promise of one sort or another. In my case, my childhood was taken away from me by abusive and controlling parents, and by an emotionally empty father. I have forgiven them for being who they were, but this does not in any way begin to fulfill the needs I had as a child, and that I still need.

Forgiving my parents, and letting go of any expectation that they ever could have been adequate parents, means that I have to take ownership of those unfulfilled needs. Now that I know those needs will never be met by my parents, I am free to fill those needs for myself.  In the end, forgiveness is freedom. It is a gift to yourself. It is release. (Wilson, 2001, http://www.firelily.com/support/recovery/forgiving.html)

The foregoing examples of conversion are perhaps closest to the kind of transformation we will refer to in subsequent essays. To get a better idea of this type of personal transformation, let us alter Weber's definition of metanoia to read

the progressive expansion (including but not limited to the complete reversal) of an individual's central attitude toward the value and meaning of one's self and others, of  life and the world.

This becomes our working definition of personal transformation. Let us keep this definition in mind as we attempt to understand and apply the ideas and concepts in the following essays.

REFERENCES:

Capra, Fritjof.  The Tao of Physics. Boston: Shambala, 1991.

Ferguson, Marilyn, The Aquarian Conspiracy.  Jeremy P Tarcher/Putnam: a member of Penguin/Putnam Inc. New York, 1980-87.

Harman, Willis, Global Mind Change: The Challenge of the Last Years of the Twentieth Century.  Knowledge Systems, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana. 1988

Takaki, Ronald.  A  Different Mirror: A  History of Multicultural America.  New York: Back Bay Books, Little, Brown and Company, 1993.

Weber, Max, Economy and Society. Edited by G. Roth and C. Wittich. New York: Bedminster Press, 1968. Originally: (1921) 1976 Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, ed. Johannes Winckelmann, Tbingen: Mohr.)

WEBSITES:

Alejandrino, Simon V.  Gentrification of San Francisco's Mission District

http://www.medasf.org/reports/mission_gentrification.pdf

Benson, Ivor, Iran: Some Angles on the Islamic Revolution

http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v09/v09p141_Benson.html

Bohak, Gideon, Traditions of Magic in Late Antiquity: Introduction, http://www.lib.umich.edu/pap/magic/intro.html

C., Gene, 13 Step'N  It's time we talked about it...

http://substanceabuse.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fmembers.tripod.com%2F%7Estep13%2F

Collier, Kenneth W.  Reflections Of A Recovering "White" Man

http://www.uucpa.org/sermons/sermon010603.html

Gilbert, William, The Beginning of the Scientific Revolution

http://www.ku.edu/~ibetext/texts/gilbert/23.html

Hatch, Robert  A.  The Scientific Revolution

http://web.clas.ufl.edu/users/rhatch/pages/03-Sci-Rev/SCI-REV-Teaching/03sr-definition-concept.htm

King, Daly THE BUTTERFLY: A Symbol of Conscious Evolution,

Introduction by Terry Winter Owens

http://www.bridge-systems.com/bridgepress/index.shtml

London Butterfly House, The Butterfly  Life Cycle

http://www.butterflies.org.uk/lbh_home/cycle.htm

Magocsi, C, The Gentrification of Blue Jeans

http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/history/material_culture/cynth/

Rambo, Lewis, The Psychology of Religious Conversion

http://www.religiousfreedom.com/conference/Germany/rambo.htm

Wilson, Diane, Forgiving

http://www.firelily.com/support/recovery/forgiving.html