BOOK REVIEW

The Road Less Traveled & Beyond, Spiritual Growth in an Age of Anxiety. Simon & Schuster: New York, 1997. 314 pp. $23.00 Hardbound

In between the publication of that seminal work and the present The Road Less Traveled and Beyond (referred to subsequently as "Beyond") are a number of other interesting books, including People of the Lie, wherein Peck takes on the subject of Evil (with a capital "E.") Reading POTL is highly confrontational, perhaps because in Peck’s division of people into those who accept too much responsibility and those who accept too little, most of us tend to fall in the category of accepting too much. Whenever "evil" is discussed, there is still a part of me that is quite sure that someone will bring up my name or that I will be "found out." I’ll touch on that "part" or activity of the human psyche a little later.

Beyond is really a revision of Peck’s earlier thinking to incorporate his tougher stance on Evil into the rocky but sunny terrain of The Road Less Traveled. In fact, that’s about the only thing really different about this book and many of Peck’s earlier ones, including the second volume in the "Road Trilogy," Further Along the Road Less Traveled (1993). There are entire illustrations in Beyond which are incorporated almost verbatim from other books. Not that this is a problem, but given his repetition, it’s becoming difficult to imagine what immediate experiences Peck will write about next, now that he is no longer a practicing therapist.

Given the forgoing build-up and (to this point) the lack of any of the "proper" effusive praise for Beyond, the reader is probably figuring that something is afoot. He/she would be right. Those looking for praise will hear it now, as I acknowledge that The Road Less Traveled and Beyond is in many respects a wonderful book, with good lessons for all of us--even those who are on other spiritual paths, such as Buddhism, Zen, Yoga and meditation, Shambhala, secular humanism, the Enneagram work, the Fourth Way, and the Diamond Approach. Scott Peck is--other than Teilhard--one of the few populist Christian moralists who speaks to the transcendental aspects of reality in a way that resonates with the other great spiritual paths.

Where I have difficulty in enthusiastically recommending this book and--in retrospect--some of Peck’s other books, is in Peck’s apparent total blindness to (and thus, his "pact with") the more self-subversive activities of the human psyche. I’m speaking here of the super-ego, often reduced in dimension in much self-help literature to the "inner critic," but really a much larger and subtler activity of the psyche. For example, it is the super-ego that gives us kudos and pats on the back for activities that we later often find out were not so great after all; like continually working until 9 PM at the office, when it would have been better to admit that we were overworked. In the world of the human psyche, praising the "positive" activities of the super-ego is sort of like praising the Mafia for keeping the streets safe, or crediting those Muscovite thugs who patrol the parks with keeping the peace, conveniently overlooking their tendency to relish beating people up and extract exhorbitant payments for their services.

Pecks’s term for the super-ego is the "observing ego," which seems to have--for Peck--some similarities to the "witness state" of some other spiritual paths--or even the mindfulness of vipanassu. As we’ll see in a moment, he also equates the activity of the "observing ego" with "self-consciousness," (or a lack of spontaneity) and depression. However, the true "witness state" or "mindfulness" has nothing at all to do with the lack of spontaneity. In fact, those activities actually require that some degree of spontaneity be achieved so that the self can detach from the intellectual manifestation of mind, and watch its activities without judgment.

For Peck, the "observing ego" has everything to do with the Christian concept of "conscience," however, as we see in this passage:

"Since self-consciousness often becomes painful at this stage of psychosocial and spiritual development [childhood], many people move into adulthood forsaking rather than continuing its development. Because they fail to further develop their observing egos once they enter adulthood, their self-observing capacity becomes modulated (and less painful), but this often occurs only because of an actual shrinkage of consciousness. When, unwittingly, the majority settle for a limited--even diminished--awareness of their own feelings and imperfections, they have stopped short on the journey of personal growth, thereby failing to fulfill their human potential or grow into true psychospiritual power." (Page 79, The Road Less Traveled and Beyond)

Given the mention of "pain" associated with the perceptions of the "observing ego," it is quite clear that what he is talking about is the negative or "inner critic" aspect of the super-ego. And the idea that this psychological mechanism could be in any way be poorly developed in human beings who have managed to develop an ego structure would seem astounding to--for example--a transpersonal psychologist. The concept that lack of consciousness of its activities indicates that the super-ego’s development has actually matured, and that its control would thereby become even more all-encompassing would be problematic to Peck, I suppose, because this doesn’t fit into his Christian cosmology. This cosmology requires the concept of original sin, which tends to become associated with the super-ego in many subtle--and not so subtle--ways.

I am grateful for Peck’s thought because it throws into such sharp relief a human growth path that seems to be at odds with the emerging transpersonal path to which many moderns are beginning to subscribe. This power of this Zeitgeist is evident in the fact that it is one to which Peck himself seems to subscribe.

For those wanting a brief explanation, I'll simply say that, while a more traditional view would want to maintain the super-ego for keeping the ego in check, the transpersonal growth path would seek the dissolution of the super-ego as a step in transforming the ego, enabling the emergence of identity with a "higher" or "supreme" self. The transpersonal view attributes the humanizing activities of conscience and morality primarily to executive, or cortical, functions. The super-ego is seen, in contrast, as drawing its energy from survival instincts mediated by the lower brain.

It’s quite clear that--intellectually at least--Peck would be in almost complete agreement with the transpersonal view described earlier. In fact, Peck’s concluding chapter "The ‘Science’ of God" is an excellent summary of the transpersonal view that progress in human spiritual evolution involves the transformation and reintegration of the ego. Peck’s discussion of the failure of most modern psychotherapists to acknowledge the important role of spiritual growth in human development is rooted in his perception that an artificial division of reality into the "natural" and "supernatural" is the problem. This dualism is characteristic of the modern worldview and Peck points out that the "spiritual" awareness of the "unseen order of things" is discounted by many people because there is nowhere to put such unifying perceptions in a dualistic world. Peck coins a rather ponderous term for this problem: "psychospiritual historical baggage."

Despite the forgoing, the primary questions I have regarding Peck’s approach to "spiritual growth in and age of anxiety" are procedural, not philosophical.

How does one approach the therapy of people suffering from anxiety without specifically addressing work on the super-ego, the negative activities of which are both a primary agent and also a result of this anxiety? I suspect that subjecting Peck’s book to a linguistic analysis would reveal that one of the most common words used by the author in critical, proscribing areas of the discourse is "must." People familiar with super-ego work would recognize that "must" is one of those "either-or" words on which the super-ego thrives. And this "either-or" stance is a clear barrier to progress in any kind of spiritual work.

To see how this works in Peck's self-therapy, it's interesting to review the incident of a chess game with his 14-year old daughter. After playing chess for a while, it became too late for his daughter (who needed to get up for school in the morning) and she requested that he hurry his moves so that she could go to bed. He refused, wanting to win and not wanting to risk making a bad move. Peck put her off and badgered her so extremely about this that she became angry and ran off to bed crying. In the subsequent super-ego attack (which Peck calls "the work of depression"), he begins questioning his "out of balance" need to win. Ultimately, he decides to replace his need to win with the need to be a good parent and to "kill" his desire to win at games. While he drapes this triumph of his super-ego with words like "flexibility" and "maturity," he doesn't even consider the possibility that his desire to win and express his capability at a game (after all) had relatively little to do with the incident and that the primary culprit was that same super-ego and the characteristic lack of presence which accompanies its activities. So he denies himself the possibility of a spirited, future game of chess with his daughter (after all, it is much more fun beating your dad when he really wants to win!) and gives in to the demands of his super-ego, which is masquerading as "maturity."

One can even see the outcome of the strong undercurrent of "must" statements in other reviews of this book. For example, in the magazine Body Mind Spirit, reviewer Nancy Burke translates Peck’s message as follows: "We are unwilling to do the long, hard work of first looking closely at who we are, what we can do, and what we must do for others . . . our false and narcissistic notions of "simply" doing it our way, our unwillingness to "pay our dues" in life, keep us from enjoying the pure and ultimate simplicity of a loving and close relationship to God." Such a quest would be very difficult to start because it essentially lacking in joy.

And just how does one go about having a "close relationship to God" without having a close and loving relationship with one's essential qualities? Establishing such a relationship usually requires the work on the super-ego that is (incredibly) missing from Peck’s dour psycho-spiritual cosmology. Peck doesn’t seem to have an alternative or replacement except for the need to (in his words) "continually strike--and restrike--a delicate balance among conflicting needs, goals, duties, and responsibilities." Joy might be in there somewhere, but it’s hard to tell where.

- Darrell Dodge, TelosNet

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Updated: March 24, 2008