{"id":8314,"date":"2019-05-14T14:18:38","date_gmt":"2019-05-14T19:18:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/matthewremski.com\/wordpress\/?p=8314"},"modified":"2019-05-14T14:18:38","modified_gmt":"2019-05-14T19:18:38","slug":"how-do-you-know-if-youre-spiritually-bypassing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/matthewremski.com\/wordpress\/how-do-you-know-if-youre-spiritually-bypassing\/","title":{"rendered":"How Do You Know If You&#8217;re Spiritually Bypassing?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Here&#8217;s an interview <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yogaoutreach.com\/how-do-you-know-if-youre-spiritually-bypassing\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"originally published (opens in a new tab)\">originally published<\/a> on the Yoga Outreach blog. I&#8217;ll be presenting and panelling at their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yogaoutreach.com\/events\/conference_may\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"upcoming conference (opens in a new tab)\">upcoming conference<\/a> in Vancouver, on May 25.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>YO: The term Spiritual Bypassing (SB) is becoming more common \u2013 what does it mean?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>MR:<\/em>\u00a0<\/strong>I want to say up front that I\u2019m not that fond of how the term is used. Typically it reinforces an individualistic diagnosis of what\u2019s really social problem. I\u2019m a cult survivor and that\u2019s my research area, and so my approach is to look at SB not as something individuals do because they\u2019re psychologically lazy, but as something they are taught to do by spirituality organizations that benefit from indoctrinating them into the idea that their product will answer all questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That said; SB is when a spiritual ideology, jargon, or community leader encourages a person to believe that all problems are solved or solvable. But what\u2019s really happening is that the person is avoiding or defending against more obvious and entrenched psychological or physical wounds.<!--more--><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>In the worst cases, bypassing techniques assert that everything \u2013 including illness, violence, and sexual abuse \u2013 is divine or a manifestation of Oneness.<\/strong>\u00a0There\u2019s no need to confront abuse or seek medical help because these so-called problems are just part of the greater illusion of life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bypassing can be private: \u201cMy clinical depression is an issue between me and God\/spirit\/karma,\u201d or interpersonal: \u201cIf only I worked on my relationship with God\/spirit\/karma my experience of racism or domestic violence would be purified.\u201d It encourages surrender over resistance and boundary-setting. It denigrates critical thinking as defensive against the \u201cTruth\u201d, before which one should simply bow in ecstasy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Above all, SB doesn\u2019t serve the person: it serves the ideology and the group that promotes it. If members of a yoga group with cultic dynamics\u00a0<em>believe<\/em>\u00a0that its teachings about the divine answer all questions, the group authority is strengthened. With critiques and questions discouraged, individual agency is weakened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>YO: How would I know if I\u2019m Spiritually Bypassing?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>By definition, bypassing is unconscious, so it\u2019s hard, if not impossible, to know when you\u2019re doing it. All the more so if you\u2019ve been manipulated to do it, which is what happens in high-demand groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That said, there are\u00a0<strong>red flags<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>If you feel \u201cengulfed\u201d by a method or community, such that it becomes your main and constant reference point for reality, it doesn\u2019t matter what you\u2019re actually being taught. What matters is the closing-off of other perspectives.<\/li>\n<li>If the above happens really fast<\/li>\n<li>If the group demands that you radically change your behaviour or daily schedule<\/li>\n<li>If you\u2019re encouraged toward a monochromatic feeling-state, i.e. always neutral or content<\/li>\n<li>If a group places exhausting demands on your time, money, or emotional labour.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Ultimately, the defenses against SB are the same as defenses against groups with cultic dynamics. Very hard to deploy in the moment, but easier to practice for with basic education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>YO: Are there certain types of people that are more at risk? Certain activities?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p><em><strong>MR:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>Bypassing isn\u2019t a character flaw or cognitive error. Nobody would choose to bypass if they could see it clearly, and they don\u2019t see it clearly because they\u2019ve usually been unduly influenced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That teaching might come really early. In my case, the Baltimore Catechism informed my Catholic childhood, so the idea of following instructions from a religious leader seemed normal. In adulthood, high-demand groups were able to manipulate my tendency to trust. But the teaching lands in different ways; plenty of my schoolmates didn\u2019t wind up in cults.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bypassing, or recruitment to a cult, can happen to anyone because everyone is vulnerable to manipulation. The one thing cult literature does say is that some situations can increase your vulnerability. For example, the stress of a family death, divorce, or lost job might make you more susceptible to someone peddling a totalizing solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>YO: In the West, Yoga often emphasizes self-improvement over spirituality. Does that mean we\u2019re not at risk of spiritually bypassing?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p><em><strong>MR:<\/strong><\/em>The content isn\u2019t as important as the function, in my opinion. With cults, you might be employing group devotion to avoid individual problems. At yoga class, you might be using individual practises to avoid group or societal problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A yoga studio can be this weird place where you do something together but remain alone, boundaried by a strip of rubber, a Mona-Lisa smile, and a fixed gaze. The premise is that \u201cgoing inside\u201d is all that\u2019s needed for your life \u2014 and all life \u2014 to improve. That can be framed in the jargons of self-improvement or spirituality, equally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>YO: What if you\u2019re coming to yoga for therapeutic reasons rather than transcendent \u2013 is there anything wrong with that?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>MR:\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Not really. However, people who are super-interested in history and cultural appropriation might start looking carefully at how therapeutic ideals can begin to occlude older values of practice that carry indigenous understandings. Indian practitioners prior to the 20th\u00a0century were not particularly interested in wellness or self-care or functional movement: all of which are easily co-opted into the productivity addictions of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Neoliberalism\">neoliberalism<\/a>. I think we all want to be careful that our self-care isn\u2019t about making us more adaptable to the stress of late capitalism and the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Precariat\">precariat<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>YO: In\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/matthewremski.com\/wordpress\/the-biopolitics-of-neoliberalism-in-contemporary-yoga-exploring-questions-posed-by-giada-consoli\/\">other writings<\/a>, you mention that yoga offers individualistic practices when what people need are relational practices. But isn\u2019t going to a yoga class, or staying in an ashram, a communal experience? What is missing?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p><em><strong>MR:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>Yoga and meditation in group classes is a 20th\u00a0century phenomenon. Prior to this, practitioners would have shared experiences in ashram settings, and this might have been really nurturing \u2014 I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But for the most part modern yoga and global Buddhism do a lot of religious work for neoliberalism: practices are for the individual, and must be carried out by the individual in order to be successful. When Pattabhi Jois says: \u201cJust do your practice, and all is coming,\u201d he\u2019s not just exercising limited English to suppress critical thinking, he\u2019s also laying the groundwork for yoga people to believe that what you do on your mat is the primary shaper of your reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When this is exported to and then proliferates through the US scene, for example, it becomes particularly worrisome, because many people are using yoga etc. as primary care in the absence of adequate health insurance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>YO: How does this relate to spiritual bypassing?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p><em><strong>MR:<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0It\u2019s the idea that internal focus is the primary pathway to healing or justice. You can really get lost in that and avoid looking at all kinds of ways in which you\u2019re being oppressed or traumatized by concrete and material relationships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>YO: In\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"http:\/\/matthewremski.com\/wordpress\/\"><strong>your book<\/strong><\/a><strong>\u00a0about\u00a0<\/strong><strong>Pattabhi Jois\u2019s Ashtanga community<\/strong><strong>\u00a0\u2013\u00a0<\/strong><strong><em>Practice and All is Coming<\/em><\/strong><strong>\u00a0\u2013 you talk to victims of sexual abuse, and also community members in denial of the abuse. Which of these groups is engaging in spiritual bypassing?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p><em><strong>MR:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>Denial and bypassing might be synonymous. Members who rush to defend a leader who is obviously causing harm could be a serious example of spiritual bypassing. However, they could also be motivated by other reasons:\u00a0safeguarding their positions within the community, defending against cognitive dissonance, or protecting sunken costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As for the victims of abuse, spiritual bypassing may be what initially motivated them to stay in an abusive relationship with their teacher. But survivors who find the support to be able to speak out are doing the opposite of bypassing. They\u2019re forcing a confrontation with a material history and reality. They are providing reality-checking. In that sense, they are the spiritual teachers of our age, calling both individuals and organizations into transparency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What would spirituality mean, if not transparency?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Spiritual bypassing doesn\u2019t serve the person: it serves the ideology and the group that promotes it. If members of a yoga group with cultic dynamics believe that its teachings about the divine answer all questions, the group authority is strengthened. With critiques and questions discouraged, individual agency is weakened.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8318,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"slim_seo":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,23,85,88,70,560,93],"tags":[63,510,50],"class_list":["post-8314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","category-blog","category-charismatic-abuse","category-cult-dynamics","category-press-interviews","category-trauma","category-yoga-culture","tag-buddhism","tag-spiritual-bypassing","tag-yoga"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/matthewremski.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/matthewremski.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/matthewremski.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matthewremski.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matthewremski.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/matthewremski.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8314\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matthewremski.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/matthewremski.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matthewremski.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matthewremski.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}