Responsibility assumption is a doctrine in the spirituality and personal growth fields holding that each individual has substantial or total responsibility for the events and circumstances that befall them in their life. While there is little notable about the notion that each person has at least some role in shaping their experience, the doctrine of responsibility assumption posits that the individual's mental contribution to his or her own experience is substantially greater than is normally thought. "I must have wanted this" is the type of catchphrase used by adherents of this doctrine when encountering situations, pleasant or unpleasant, to remind them that their own desires and choices led to the present outcome. Doctrine, from Latin doctrina, (compare doctor), means a body of teachings or instructions, taught principles or positions, as the body of teachings in a branch of knowledge or belief system. ... ... Personal development (also known as self-development or personal growth) comprises the development of the self. ... In moral philosophy, the word responsibility has at least two related meanings: The obligation to answer for actions. ... ...

The term responsibility assumption thus has a specialized meaning beyond the general concept of taking responsibility for something, and is not to be confused with the general notion of making an assumption that a concept such as "responsibility" exists.

Variations in degree of personal responsibility postulated

The main variable within various interpretations of the responsibility assumption doctrine is the degree to which the individual is considered the cause of his or her own experience, ranging from partial but substantial, to total.

Partial but substantial responsibility

In its forms positing less than total responsibility, the doctrine appears in nearly all motivational programs, some psychotherapy, and large group awareness training programs. In programs as non-controversial as the Dale Carnegie books and courses or Norman Vincent Peale's books on the power of positive thinking, it functions as a mechanism to point out that each individual does affect the perceived world by the decisions they make each day and by the choices they made in the past. These less absolute forms may be expressed within the rubric that we cannot control the situations that befall us, but we can at least control our attitudes toward them. Psychotherapy is a set of techniques intended to improve mental health, emotional or behavioral issues in individuals, who are often called clients. These issues often make it hard for people to manage their lives and achieve their goals. ... Large Group Awareness Training or LGAT is a mechanism for promoting awareness change and rapid, thorough commitment to a cause or idea. ... Dale Carnegie (November 24, 1888 - November 1, 1955) was a pioneer in self-improvement, salesmanship, and corporate training programs, and became famous for courses he developed that emphasized public speaking and interpersonal skills. ... Norman Vincent Peale (May 31, 1898 - December 24, 1993) was, preacher and author (most notably of The Power of Positive Thinking) and a progenitor of the theory of positive thinking. Peale was born in Bowersville, Ohio and died in Pawling, New York. ... Decision making is the cognitive process of selecting a course of action from among multiple alternatives. ...

Total responsibility

In its more absolute form, the doctrine becomes both more pronounced and more controversial. Perhaps the most prominent dividing line of controversy is the threshold of reversed mental causation, where sufficient responsibility is assigned to the individual that their thoughts or mental attitudes are considered the actual cause of external situations or physical occurrences rather than vice-versa, along the lines of the catchphrase, "mind over matter." In this realm the doctrine can present controversial propositions such as, "you chose to have cancer and can just as easily become well if you choose," or the even more shocking and initially unpalatable proposition, "the six million Jews who died in the Holocaust did so because they wanted to die." Despite the extremity of these positions, there are indeed groups and schools of thought subscribing to the doctrine of responsibility assumption that would support these propositions and more. They point to offsetting benefits if such a causation system is true, such as the absence of personal sacrifice and interpersonal guilt, or the absolute safety such a system portends for the causative mind. In its absolute form, this doctrine approaches solipsism (the notion that only oneself exists), and strictly from this perspective causation may, perhaps, correctly be termed solipsistic. The philosophical concept of causality or causation refers to the set of all particular causal or cause-and-effect relations. ... Mind over matter is a phrase popularized during the 1960s and 1970s. ... When normal cells are damaged beyond repair, they are eliminated by apoptosis. ... Healing is the process where the cells in the body regenerate and repair to reduce the size of a damaged or necrotic area. ... Concentration camp inmates during the Holocaust The Holocaust was Nazi Germanys systematic genocide (ethnic cleansing) of various ethnic, religious, national, and secular groups during World War II. Early elements include the Kristallnacht pogrom and the T-4 Euthanasia Program established by Hitler that killed some 200,000 people. ... Sacrifice (from a Middle English verb meaning to make sacred, from Old French, from Latin sacrificium : sacer, sacred; sacred + facere, to make) is commonly known as the practice of offering food, or the lives of animals or people to the gods, as an act of propitiation or worship. ... Guilt is a word describing many concepts related to a negative emotion or condition caused by actions which are, or are believed to be, morally wrong. ... Solipsism (from the Latin ipse = self and solus = alone) is the epistemological belief that ones self is the only thing that can be known with certainty and verified (sometimes called egoism). ...

Divine responsibility

Responsibility, in this sense, is distinguished from cause. This concept represents the position that, in principle, each individual exists as-a-God while in practice one is constrained by the fact of multiple so call 'Gods.' This combined principle and constraint, results in a context where individuals have the possibility of creating anything-at-all but lack the strength to do so since such would require one God having power over another. Reduced to the barest of terms, an individual assumes responsibility for all events even though one is not in the place of causing all events. It is like a God without the freedom pick amoung multiple choices--always only the perfect choice--yet, as God, is still held accountable because the potential freedom to make any choice still remains. If creation is the context and full awareness is the goal, then creation flows through the life of an individual as the cause and the individual assumes responsibility for this creation as if it was his/her own. The major cultural consequence of this point-of-view is that any notion of an independent God, becomes a God in which all of God's responsibilities are delegated to (human) beings.

Enfolding objectivism and the scientific method

Responsibility assumption is notable for its ability to fold within its own contours the reservations held toward it by the opposing doctrines of objectivism and materialism. In answering the criticism that convincing scientific evidence has never been shown that would objectively support the doctrine's existence, adherents of the total responsibility version of the doctrine counter that the appearance of such objectively overwhelming scientific evidence would itself violate the doctrine, due to its effects on unwilling observers. Analogizing the doctrine to an extreme application of quantum indeterminacy in which the observer not merely affects the outcome of the observed phenomenon but indeed completely controls it, adherents argue that it would be impossible for any skeptical observer to be presented with overwhelming evidence of the doctrine's validity (or of anything else, for that matter) if the observer does not mentally desire to receive it. Metaphysical objectivism is the theory that there is an underlying reality that exists independent of our perception and consciousness. ... Materialism is the philosophical view that the only thing that can truly be said to exist is matter; that fundamentally, all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. ... Quantum Mechanical indeterminacy, or often just quantum indeterminacy refers to the same fundamental physics phenomenon as does the more frequently used Heisenberg uncertainty principle. ...

Proponents thus conclude more generally that the scientific method and the seemingly objective observations underpinning it can never resolve the larger metaphysical issues of an observer-driven subjective existence. They reason that if causation is always mentally driven by the observer, then the placebo effect is the only real effect there is, and the seemingly objective reportings of science are simply a description of those mental effects which multiple minds and/or a super-mind have agreed to respect in common. Scientific method - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... The placebo effect (placebo, translating from Latin as I shall please, is also known as non-specific effects and the subject-expectancy effect) is the phenomenon that a patients symptoms can be alleviated by an otherwise ineffective treatment, apparently because the individual expects or believes that it will work. ...

Logical difficulties

Logically consistent application of the doctrine, especially the total responsibility version, encounters various logical and philosophical difficulties that must be handled, and which are handled by proponent groups in various ways. For example, if all physical effects in the world are merely the result of mental processes, it can be asked what truly causative, non-physical factors set those mental processes in motion in the first place; in other words, what caused the mental cause? The answer given to address this difficulty depends on the mythos or "backstory" in place for each proponent group. In the book A Course in Miracles, for example, separation from the mind of God and fragmentation into individual minds set up the mental conflict and tension that plays itself out on the screen of the physical world. Mythos can mean: A collection of myths A web-based comic and video game series created by Variant Interactive; see Mythos: the Demon Hunters A brand of Greek beer; see Mythos (beer) A Canadian music project; see Mythos (musical project) An Origins Award-winning card game released in 1996 by... In narratology, a back-story (also back story or backstory) is the history behind the situation extant at the start of the main story. ... Second hardbound edition of A Course In Miracles, as published by Foundation for Inner Peace. ...

Another difficulty is the seeming stability and commonality of a physical world that, according to the doctrine, is the net result of so many different minds in apparently different conditions, or in other words, how could so many causative minds at odds with each other have caused one apparently stable external world to result? The answers given to this difficulty vary from solipsism to the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics. Solipsism (from the Latin ipse = self and solus = alone) is the epistemological belief that ones self is the only thing that can be known with certainty and verified (sometimes called egoism). ... The many-worlds interpretation (or MWI) is an interpretation of quantum mechanics that proposes the existence of multiple parallel universes, all of which have the same physical laws and constants, but occupy different states. ... Fig. ...

Meanwhile, proponents of the partial responsibility version must for their part grapple with questions such as to what degree and by what mechanisms the subjective internal and objective external factors of causation interplay to produce net effects in the world, and here again, multiple answers are offered.

Religious and philosophical roots and usage

The est seminars popularized the term "responsibility assumption" in the 1970s, but the doctrine both predates est and is found in a far wider variety of settings. The doctrine has spiritual roots in the monism of Eastern religious traditions that holds only one true being exists, and all people are one with each other and with God and hence possess Godlike powers, though often unawares. It has been likened to karma, which however tends to suggest later retribution for earlier acts, while responsibility assumption posits more of an immediate link between the experience desired and the outcome received. The doctrine also has associations with the neoplatonist notion of an illusory world, which the doctrine's adherents would phrase more precisely as an illusion of external worldly effects on inner mental states. It finds further support in philosophical idealism, which posits thought as the one true substance. Est may signify: Eastern Standard Time East in French, when referring to France, the Franche-Comté and Lorraine régions Erhard Seminars Training Est, Netherlands Electroshock Therapy, now known as Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) This page concerning a three-letter acronym or abbreviation is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which... The 1970s in its most obvious sense refers to the decade between 1970 and 1979. ... ... A being, in the most general sense, is anything that is alive. ... God is the term used to denote the Supreme Being believed by monotheistic religions to exist and to be the creator and ruler of the Universe. ... Karma or Karm(Sanskrit: कर्म from the root kri, to do, meaning deed) or Kamma (Pali: meaning action, effect, destiny) is a term in several eastern religions that comprises the entire cycle of cause and effect. ... Retributive justice is a theory of criminal justice wherein punishments are justified on the grounds that the criminal has created an imbalance in the social order that must be addressed by action against the criminal. ... Neoplatonism (also Neo-Platonism) was a school of philosophy that took shape in the 3rd century A.D. Though based on the teachings of Plato and the Platonists, it interpreted Plato in many new ways, so that Neoplatonism was quite different from what Plato had written, though many Neoplatonists would... Idealism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ...

Among historically Christian churches, the Quaker and Unitarian Universalist denominations have belief systems that incorporate doctrinal elements similar to responsibility assumption. The doctrine can be found in the work of psychotherapist Georg Groddeck assigning mental causes to physical ailments, has been more recently propagated by self-help authors such as Arnold Patent, and can be found in a number of New Age and new religious movements. Prominent among these are Christian Science and the New Thought Movement, whose constituent theologies espouse mental approaches to bodily healing and express precepts such as, "to each, according to his belief." The doctrine combined with reversed causation can further be found explicitly expressed in works such as A Course In Miracles. The Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as Quakers, or Friends, is a religious community founded in England in the 17th century. ... The flaming chalice is the universally recognized symbol for Unitarian Universalism. ... Georg Groddeck, psychosomatic, writer (* October 13, 1866, Bad Kösen † June 10, 1934, Knonau close to Zurich). ... Though the term self-help can refer to any case whereby an individual or a group betters themselves economically, intellectually or emotionally, the connotations of the phrase have come to apply particularly to psychological or psychotherapeutic nostrums, often purveyed through the popular genre of the self-help book. ... New Age describes a broad movement characterized by alternative approaches to traditional Western culture. ... A new religious movement or NRM is a religious, ethical, or spiritual grouping of fairly recent origin which is not part of an established religion and has not yet become recognised as a standard denomination, church, or religious body. ... The Church of Christ, Scientist, often known as The Christian Science Church or simply Christian Science, is a religious body, held by its members to be a Christian denomination, with about 2,000 branches (local churches) in over 70 countries. ... The New Thought Movement describes a set of religious developments that originated in the United States during the late 19th century, beginning with Phineas Parkhurst Quimby. ...

In popular culture

The theme of responsibility assumption appears in several places in popular culture. For example, it appeared in Richard Bach's bestseller, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, and Bach addressed the topic more directly in a less-popular later book, Illusions. Richard Bach (born June 23, 1936) is an American writer. ... Jonathan Livingston Seagull was first published in 1970 and is the work of Richard Bach. ...

John Denver, a proponent of est, wrote two songs about it, Farewell Andromeda (1973) and Looking for Space (1975), and the opening lines of Farewell Andromeda capture the essence of responsibility assumption: John Denver John Denver (December 31, 1943 – October 12, 1997), born Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr. ... est (always in lower-case), or Erhard Seminars Training, was a controversial New Age large group awareness training (LGAT) seminar program, widespread during the 1970s. ...

Welcome to my morning, welcome to my day

I'm the one responsible, I made it just this way

To make myself some pictures, see what they might bring

I think I made it perfectly, I wouldn't change a thing

The 1956 movie Forbidden Planet featured an analogous concept to responsibility assumption, about a race who, through technology, became able to materialize their thoughts, to disastrous ends. 1956 (MCMLVI) was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Forbidden Planet is a classic 1956 science fiction film and a subsequent novelization by W.J. Stuart. ...

The 1967 television series The Prisoner featured an ambiguous climax spawning several interpretations, one of which implicates responsibility assumption. Throughout the short seventeen-episode series, the eponymous prisoner, a man held against his will by a mysterious group, attempted to determine—and in the final episode apparently succeeded in determining—the identity of the mysterious person who led the group and thus ultimately determined the prisoner's fate. The moment of revelation in which the mysterious leader was literally unmasked by the prisoner was brief and unclear, but there are fans of the series who believe the unmasked leader was the prisoner himself. 1967 (MCMLXVII) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Prisoner was a controversial 1967 UK television series, starring Patrick McGoohan, created by McGoohan and George Markstein. ... An eponym is a person, whether real or fictitious, whose name has (or is thought to have) given rise to the name of a particular place, tribe, discovery, or other item. ...

In a deleted scene from the 1999 movie Dogma, a fallen angel explained how the subconscious demands of the damned that they be punished, as they believed God could never forgive their sins, remade the face of Hell from a simple separation from God into a "suffering pit." 1999 (MCMXCIX) is a common year starting on Friday, and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ... Dogma is a 1999 comedy film, written and directed by Kevin Smith, who stars in the film along with Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Linda Fiorentino, Alan Rickman, Salma Hayek, Chris Rock, Jason Lee, Jason Mewes, George Carlin, and Alanis Morissette. ... This article needs copyediting (checking for proper English spelling, grammar, usage, tone, style, and voice). ... Medieval illustration of Hell in the Hortus deliciarum manuscript of Herrad of Landsberg (about 1180) Hell is, according to many religious beliefs, a place or a state of painful suffering. ...

Though these are prominent examples, varying degrees of the doctrine of responsiblity assumption have formed a minor theme more broadly within the United States cultural landscape since the decline of the 1960s counterculture. In sociology, counterculture is a term used to describe a cultural group whose values and norms are at odds with those of the social mainstream, a cultural equivalent of a political opposition. ...

See also

• Phenomenalism
• Phenomenology
• Karma

In the philosophy of perception, phenomenalism is the view that physical objects, properties, events (whatever is physical) are reducible to mental objects, properties, events. ... Look up Phenomenology in Wiktionary, the free dictionary Phenomenology is a current in philosophy that takes intuitive experience of phenomena (what presents itself to us in conscious experience) as its starting point and tries to extract the essential features of experiences and the essence of what we experience. ... Karma or Karm(Sanskrit: कर्म from the root kri, to do, meaning deed) or Kamma (Pali: meaning action, effect, destiny) is a term in several eastern religions that comprises the entire cycle of cause and effect. ...

References

Nonfiction

• Anonymous (1992). A Course in Miracles (2d ed.). Mill Valley, CA: Foundation for Inner Peace. ISBN 0-9606388-8-1.
• May, Rollo, and Irvin D. Yalom (1984). "Existential Psychotherapy," pp. 354-391 in Raymond J. Corsini, ed., Current Psychotherapies (3rd ed.). Itasca, IL: Peacock.

Second hardbound edition of A Course In Miracles, as published by Foundation for Inner Peace. ... Mill Valley is a city located in Marin County, California. ...

Fiction

• Bach, Richard. Illusions - Confessions of a Reluctant Messiah.
• Bach, Richard (1970). Jonathan Livingston Seagull.