Jean Houston

Jean Houston, Ph.D. (born 10 May 1937) has been a leading figure in the cross-cultural study of spirituality and ritual processes. A prolific author of books, she is one of the founders of the Human Potential Movement. Her PBS Special A Passion for the Possible has been widely viewed.

Houston was perhaps formerly best known for her involvement with Margaret Mead during Mead's final years but she may be most widely known for urging First Lady Hillary Clinton to carry on imaginary conversations with Former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, in which Mrs. Clinton had to supply both sides of the conversation (discussed below). As this example suggests, Dr. Houston is a spiritual guide who has worked to develop ritual processes.

Biography
According to her published autobiography, A Mythic Life (1996), Jean Houston was born prematurely on May 10, 1937, in New York City. Her mother Mary Todaro Houston had studied acting, and her father was a comedy writer. Her forebears and relatives included Sam Houston, Robert E. Lee, William and Mary Randolph of Virginia, and Thomas Jefferson.

When Jean was 13, she literally ran into an old man on Park Avenue in New York City on her way to school. After this mishap, they became friends, and she enjoyed listening to him on various occasions. At the time she learned to pronounce his name as "Mr. Thayer." At a much later time, she learned that she had been talking with Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. (His complete surname is "Teilhard de Chardin"; the shortened form is "Teilhard" -- pronounced "tay-yar".)

Houston earned a B.A. from Barnard College, a Ph.D. in psychology from the Union Graduate School, and a Ph.D. in religion from the Graduate Theological Foundation.

She was deeply influenced by the work of Joseph Campbell, most notably by The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949). But perhaps her most significant mentor was Margaret Mead, who was also a personal friend.

With her spouse Dr. Robert Masters, Dr. Houston founded the Foundation for Mind Research. She is also the founder and chief teacher of the Mystery School, a program for the cross-cultural study of spirituality and ritual processes. She has conducted the Mystery School on both the east and west coasts for more than two decades. In 1984, she started a national not-for-profit organization known as The Possible Society to explore new ways for people to work to help solve societal problems. More recently, she has also founded the International Institute for Social Artistry. She is currently working with the United Nations Development Programme in the new field of social artistry, training U.N. staff and leaders in certain developing countries. She has lectured in more than 100 countries and worked intensively in 40 cultures. She has received many awards for her work.

Introduction
To understand where Jean Houston is coming from, as they say, the most important book to read is her Life Force: The Psycho-Historical Recovery of the Self (1980). In it she explicitly acknowledges that she is drawing on the last of the 38 books penned by the prolific Gerald Heard, his 1963 book The Five Ages of Man. As the sub-title of her book indicates, she thinks that people today need to recover dimensions of the life force that we have lost touch with as a result of our historical development. We in Western culture today think we know far more than our ancient ancestors did, but we don't. We confuse information with knowing. Recovering certain dimensions of the life force that they may have accessed, is exactly what Dr. Houston has set out to explore.

To understand the larger psycho-historical problematic that she is investigating, it can be helpful to consider her endeavors in light of the work of Walter J. Ong. As the Wikipedia entry about him and his work explains, he delineates the historical development of personalized ego-consciousness in Western culture. While he usually does not explicitly advert to the psycho-historical recovery of the self, as Houston does in her sub-title, he is well aware of the problematic that she is investigating -- namely, that we today in the Western world have lost touch with something valuable in our human heritage. He calls attention to this when he calls on his co-religionists to develop a new "mystique," as he puts it, toward life (see his Frontiers in American Catholicism, 1957: 104-25). Today instead of speaking of a mystique, we would speak of a spirituality. Spirituality has long been understood to include both personal spirituality and ritual processes involving a group of people. The cultivation of spirituality can help persons develop their human potential.

As mentioned above, Jean Houston is one of the founders of the Human Potential Movement. The Wikipedia entry on the "Human Potential Movement" contains a section devoted to criticism. In that section one form of criticism is summed up as follows: "The first is from researchers in psychology, medicine, and science who often dismiss the movement as being grounded in pseudoscience, over-using psycho-babble, and whose efficacy can be explained entirely by placebo."

However, we find the following highly qualified statement in the lengthy Wikipedia entry about "Pseudoscience": "Pseudoscience is distinguishable from revelation, theology, or spirituality in that it claims to offer insights into the physical world by 'scientific' means." Broadly speaking, Dr. Houston's work involves the cross-cultural study of spirituality and ritual processes.

The entry also makes this allowance: "There are also bodies of practical knowledge that are not claimed to be scientific." Dr. Houston is working to develop a body of practical knowledge regarding spirituality and ritual process -- that is, she is exploring practices.

One of the most famous compilations of spiritual practices is the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556). Much of Dr. Houston's work is in the same domain that the Spiritual Exercises is in.

A word is in order here about the Spiritual Exercises. After Ignatius of Loyola underwent a profound conversion experience, he consulted one spiritual director after another as he developed his spiritual life. He eventually compiled a series of meditions that had helped him and started guiding others through them. These meditations are practices that worked for him to help him develop his spiritual life. Now, we could use the terminology about human potentiality and say that doing these meditations under the guidance of a qualified spiritual director helped persons develop their human potentiality.

As is well known, Ignatius of Loyola is remembered not only as a spiritual director but also as the founder of a religious order known as the Society of Jesus, whose members are known as Jesuits. As part of their training, every Jesuit makes a 30-day retreat in silence following the Spiritual Exercises. But does this help them develop their human potential? This question is hard to answer directly. However, relative to the total number of Jesuits over the centuries, the number of Wikipedia entries about Jesuits seems high. Of course this could be the result of a bunch of Jesuits writing Wikipedia entries about Jesuits. However that may be, there have been many outstanding Jesuits over the centuries, and their spirituality no doubt contributed something positive to their personal development and contribution to society.

In the Spiritual Exercises Ignatius of Loyola invites people to undertake the kind of meditation known in the Christian tradition as lectio divina, which goes back at least to the time of St. Benedict of Nursia (c.480-543). Lectio divina is not something one does to produce an exegesis of a text; instead of being a form of exegesis, lectio divina is a form of prayer, undertaken in the hope of spiritual development.

C.G. Jung describes this kind of practice as active imagination; see the 200-page compilation of his scattered observations about this practice in Jung on Active Imagination (1997).

In their 1972 book Mind Games, Robert Masters and Jean Houston refer to this kind of practice as "mind games." In short, their book Mind Games could be classified in the same category with the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola. To be sure, their book is devoted to explicitly non-religious imaginative exercises, whereas his book is devoted to explicitly religious imaginative exercises, based on the Christian tradition of thought and reflection on Christian scripture down to his time. But both book call of people to use the resources of their imagination in constructive ways; in one book this kind of practice is styled "exercises"; in the other, "games"; the terms "exercises" and "games" are close enough in meaning in the context of these two books that we can classify these two books in the same category.

In connection with active imagination, Jung discusses what he refers to as the transcendent function in the human psyche. This is a force in the human psyche that beckons us to further human growth -- onward and upward. This force can be styled the life force, as Houston styles it. On the level of personal development, Teilhard de Chardin, mentioned above, has written about this life force from the perspective of the Christian tradition in The Divine Milieu (1960). For two recent studies of spiritual growth that are of related interest, see Norman Russell, The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition (2004); A.N. Williams, The Ground of Union in Aquinas and Palamas (1999).

On a cosmic level, Teilhard has written about the life force in The Human Phenomenon (1999).

The practice of two-sided conversation
As mentioned above, Dr. Houston urged Mrs. Clinton to carry on imaginary conversations with Mrs. Roosevelt. In a book excerpt that appeared in Newsweek, Bob Woodward of Watergate fame wrote a sensationalistic account about Dr. Houston and Mrs. Clinton's two-sided imaginary conversations with Mrs. Roosevelt. However, in a follow-up story about Dr. Houston in Newsweek, Kenneth L. Woodward (no relation), the long-time religion editor of Newsweek, pointed out that spiritual directors in the Roman Catholic tradition had recommended this kind of practice for many people on retreats. As he noted, instructions for carrying on such a two-sided colloquy with long-dead biblical personages such as Jesus can be found in the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, a famous spiritual director and the founder of the Society of Jesus religious order. As this example shows, Houston can be styled a spiritual director in the tradition of St. Ignatius of Loyola.

Spirituality and ritual process
Much of Houston's work in spirituality centers on creating fresh ritual processes, albeit ones deeply indebted to ancient ritual processes. She styles her work in this crucial area the Mystery School, because it is still something of a mystery as to how ritual processes enable people to engender their human potentials. Unfortunately, many Americans today can be styled ritually challenged. Apart from singing the national anthem together occasionally, most of our lives are not ritually rich. As a result, much work remains to be done to develop meaningful ritual processes for American culture today, so that we can perhaps engender the deeper resources of the human psyche in our efforts to actuate our human potential and thereby grow into more fully actuated persons. Houston has devoted her adult life to this work.

In this respect, she is answering the call of Walter J. Ong, S.J., in the culminating essay in Frontiers in American Catholicism (1957: 104-25). There he calls on his co-religionists to develop a new "mystique" toward life, as he styles it. Today instead of speaking of a mystique, we would speak of spirituality. In her work in the Mystery School, Houston has been using trial and error approaches to work toward developing fresh ritual processes that are meaningful for people today and perhaps also efficacious in helping them actuate their human potential for true greatness, as distinct from grandiosity. Robert L. Moore has also been active in exploring fresh ritual processes for people today; see his book The Archetype of Initiation: Sacred Space, Ritual Process, and Personal Transformation (2001). The classic study of ritual processes is by Victor Turner, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure (1969). In Turner's terminology, ritual processes are truly efficacious when the participants have what he styles a liminal experience, not just a liminoid experience. Unfortunately, most church liturgies involve a liminoid experience for most people, which means that much work remains in the effort to develop liminal experiences in ritual processes for most people.

Human greatness
As mentioned above, Houston's widely viewed PBS Special A Passion for the Possible shows that she is calling all people today to consider human potential and greatness. In Honor and the Epic Hero: A Study of the Shifting Concept of Magnanimity in Philosophy and Epic Poetry (1960), Maurice B. McNamee, S.J., shows the shifts in the concept of greatness (magnanimity = great spirit). No doubt the concept shifted over time due at least in part to shifting cultural conditions.

In Nietzsche Humanist (1996: 110-11), Claude Pavur points out that Augustin Renaudet in 1958 characterized early modern humanists as cultivating "a mystique or ethic of human greatness or nobility." Pavur uses this characterization of the early modern humanists to suggest that Friedrich Nietzsche is best understood as a humanist. When we consider Nietzsche against the background of the humanists who cultivated "a mystique or ethic of human greatness or nobility," we can see that he was updating this tradition of thought in his vision of the Ubermensch. Houston is now updating this centuries-old Western tradition of thought by developing a multi-dimensional concept of possible human greatness.

Publications
Many of Dr. Houston's books have been reprinted; only the original dates of publication are given here.

Books by Jean Houston
Life Force: The Psycho-Historical Recovery of the Self (1980); The Possible Human: A Course in Extending Your Physical, Mental, and Creative Abilities (1982; 2nd ed. 1997); The Search for the Beloved: Journeys in Mythology and Sacred Psychology (1987); Godseed: The Journey of Christ (1988); Erwachen (in German); The Hero and the Goddess: The "Odyssey" as Mystery and Initiation (1992); Public Like a Frog: Entering the Lives of Three Great Americans (1993); The Passion of Isis and Osiris: A Union of Two Souls (1998); A Mythic Life: Learning to Live Our Greater Story (1996); A Passion for the Possible: A Guide to Realizing Your True Potential (1997); Jump Time: Shaping Your Future in a World of Radical Change (2000); Mystical Dogs: Animals as Guides to Our Inner Life (2002).5

Books with Robert Masters
The Varieties of Psychedelic Experience (1966); Psychedelic Art (1968); Mind Games (1972); Listening to the Body: The Psychophysical Way to Health and Awareness (1978).

Book with Diana Vandenberg
A Feminine Myth of Creation (in Dutch, 1988).

Book with Margaret Rubin
Manual for the Peacemaker: An Iroquois Legend to Heal Self (1995).

Film and Television Appearances

 * Dalai Lama Renaissance documentary (which is narrated by Harrison Ford)