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Article Excerpt
Since her death in a head-on collision in 1981, Peace Pilgrim has become widely recognized as an extraordinary person, "an American saint who transcended all national, religious, or sectarian bonds to communicate love, understanding and integrity. Her life was her teaching" (Dan Millman, 1996). There are very few examples of individuals who have reached Level V, the highest level of development of personality in Dabrowski's theory. Drawing on the sources about Peace Pilgrim's life, Dabrowski's definition of secondary integration (Level V), and of the processes leading to it, this article examines the evidence and attempts to show that Peace Pilgrim is indeed one of those rare individuals who has taken up the arduous task of "psychological mountaineering" (Assagioli, 1991, p. 32) to its utmost attainment.
I begin by introducing the image of multilevel development as climbing a mountain and then present Peace Pilgrim's outline of the phases of her personal growth in order to examine the parallels between her development and Dabrowski's levels. Was her developmental potential indicative of strengths sufficient to bring her to secondary integration? In what way are Dabrowski's concepts of secondary integration and personality ideal reflected in her "inner peace"?
PSYCHOLOGICAL MOUNTAINEERING
In Dabrowski's paradigm of positive disintegration, personal growth is indeed much like scaling a mountain rather than a sequential unfolding of childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Imagining personal growth as ascent of a mountain, encountering danger, facing tests of courage, and forging on with perseverance suggests that not everyone has the strength, endurance, and determination to climb far; few manage to reach the summit. Moreover, not everyone is interested in climbing and may prefer to remain in the valley. Some may not even be aware of the mountain. The endowment for how far in scaling the figurative mountain an individual can go constitutes developmental potential. An endowment for multilevel development signifies that a person starts already a considerable distance up the slope. (1) A person with limited potential starts in the valley and does not reach far.
Can we line up Dabrowski's levels on such a mountain slope? Possibly, though we must leave Level I (primary integration) out of consideration because with its limited developmental potential and a narrow, rigid, and emotionally limited scope, Level I cannot be the starting point for multilevel development (Piechowski, 2008). Levels are peculiar constructs. They are abstract categories of types of development quite different from the intuitively obvious stages of life. For this reason, Dabrowski's theory does not define a starting point for development, the way fertilization or birth do, because there is none. Alternatively, the starting point for multilevel development can occur anywhere on the slope. One thing is certain, the absence of transforming elements in limited developmental potential precludes multilevel development (Dabrowski, Kawczak, & Piechowski, 1970; Piechowski, 1975, 2008).
With this said, Level II would represent meandering around the valley, perhaps going a little up and down again, but without a significant advance up the slope. The quest for self and one's own voice would be the start of inner growth that might lead higher up the slope (Piechowski, 2008). Level III would be about serious climbing but with many setbacks. Still, at the end of the day, the person would be higher up the slope than at the start. Level IV would represent serious, determined, purposeful climbing. Level V would be the broad summit.
Level V is not easy to grasp. Who can say they know personally someone sufficiently advanced to qualify to represent this lofty plane of the most advanced development? Is such a person possible at all in our midst, other than Jesus Christ, Saint Francis of Assisi, Gautama Buddha, Paramahansa Yogananda, Pope John XXIII, or the Dalai Lama? Would Bishop Tutu be a good example? Or Mother Teresa, her detractors notwithstanding? Shall we look among saints?
Religion, if followed with conviction, imposes a demanding personal discipline, and one could argue that a person without a religion would have no chance of attaining the most advanced level. I always felt that the most convincing examples of high levels of development are secular.
Dabrowski defined Level V (secondary integration) as follows:
Secondary integration as the highest level of development is also called here the level of personality. By "personality" is meant here a self-aware, self-chosen, and self-affirmed structure whose dominant dynamism is personality ideal.... Through the synthesis and organization carried out in Level IV, all dynamisms operate in harmony. They become more unified with the Disposing and Directing Center, which is now established at a high level and inspired by the personality ideal. Personality ideal becomes the only dynamism recognizable in the fifth level [italics added]. (1977, pp. 53-54)
Dabrowski's earlier descriptions put more emphasis on the concept of personality as the outcome of development through positive disintegration, a person in the fullest realization of the most fundamental and universal human qualities. Secondary integration was defined as the level of personality (Dabrowski, 1967, 1973). Interestingly, a similar concept of personality was proposed by Assagioli (1965), as the result of a synthesis and integration of all component "subpersonalities."
What developmental potential must be present for development of this magnitude to be possible? Dabrowski is explicit on this. The endowment must be positive, the environment for growing up must be favorable, and self-directed multilevel development must have an early start with some energy (Dabrowski et al., 1970).
SOURCES ON PEACE PILGRIM'S LIFE
To find a representative example of secondary integration depends on the availability of information and documentation about a person that would allow making a good case. The case would be more persuasive if the person were a contemporary known to many people. Peace Pilgrim is a living example of multilevel development as it was precipitated by her search for meaning. Her work of inner transformation was self-chosen, deliberate, and carried out to completion with unswerving determination.
Mildred Ryder, nee Norman, was born in 1908 and died in 1981. She changed her name to Peace Pilgrim and went through the legal process partly in order to protect her family from investigation by the FBI, as they regarded her as a communist (A. Rush & J. Rush, 1992). Her talks were recorded on audio and videotape. They were transcribed and published as a book, Peace Pilgrim: Her Life and Work in Her Own Words (1982), which also includes replies to questions from people who heard her speak. A 70-minute documentary, The Spirit of Peace (Friends of Peace Pilgrim), was made in 1995 and another, Peace Pilgrim: An American Sage Who Walked Her Talk, in 2002. Peace Pilgrim's Steps Toward Inner Peace: Harmonious Principles of Human Living (n.d.) were transcribed from her talks and printed early in her life as Peace Pilgrim. The interview with Ann and John Rush (1992) offers information on her early life and the "total revision" to become Peace Pilgrim. These sources offer adequate material to examine her development and the attainment of secondary integration. A brief outline of her life and the statements revealing what motivated her are combined here with an analysis in Dabrowski's terms. This study follows the model of examining lives of mystics in the light of Dabrowski theory as carried out by Nixon (1990, 1994, 2008).
PEACE PILGRIM'S DEVELOPMENTAL POTENTIAL
Talents, abilities, intelligence, overexcitabilities, and capacity for inner transformation constitute developmental potential (Dabrowski, 1977; Piechowski, 2003).
Her sister said that, even as a child, Mildred had a bearing that made other children listen to what she had to say. She was a precocious child with an inquisitive mind and a "fantastic memory and could recite long poems at age three. She learned to read at age four or five before starting school. She taught herself to play the piano over the course of one summer" (A. Rush & J. Rush, 1992, pp. 64-65). "She was always a dare devil when she was younger." Diving off a bridge she would...
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