Bill W., Spiritual Awakening and Enlightenment

Bill and Lois Wilson

The early 1960's were an especially productive time in Bill Wilson's life. Having divested himself of day-to-day responsibility for 'running' A.A., having completed his last major literary work (the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions) and having cleared his side of the street in acknowledging the crucial role that Carl Jung played in kick-starting A.A., so to speak, Bill had time to reflect on the miracle that had happened not only to him, but to so many others.

In his personal life, Bill was searching widely to deepen his own spiritual experience, and in his public life was reaching out to those in A.A. who had perhaps not had the sudden enlightenment experience that he had experienced at the very beginning of his personal recovery, his so-called 'wind-on-the-mountain' moment.

Richard M. Bucke
(1837-1902)

Bill was undoubtedly aware of the significance of his own sudden spiritual awakening at Townes Hospital. In the library at Stepping Stones, Bill and Lois Wilson's home just outside New York City, was a copy of Richard M. Bucke's study of the enlightenment experience, "Cosmic Consciousness." In his study of  'enlightenment' and exploration of higher states of consciousness, Bucke sets out a dozen or so common symptoms of the 'enlightenment' experience, most of which criteria would describe Bill's experience at Townes Hospital.

Among the most immediate effects of such an experience, according to Bucke, are an overwhelming presence of light, a diminution of the ego into an expansive state of consciousness in which one feels at one with the world, as well as a moral imperative to share this experience with others. Although Bill does not mention this overwhelming light in the 'Big Book' of Alcoholics Anonymous, he more often than not described it in recounting his experience in other forums.

Bill's reluctance to mention the overwhelming light it in the 'Big Book' may have been a prescient knowledge, born of his early unsuccessful work with drunks prior to meeting Dr. Bob, that his sudden and profound spiritual awakening was more than most people could fathom or would experience. Indeed, the 'Spiritual Experience' appendix was added to the second edition of the 'Big Book' in order to assure others that sudden spiritual awakenings such as Bill's were, perhaps, not the norm, and that true spritual insight and acuity could be gained just as readily by an awakening "of the educational variety."

In the July 1962 Grapevine, Bill tackled this issue directly, writing:

"It is the intention of the Grapevine to carry occasional accounts of spiritual experiences. To this interesting project I would like to say a few introductory words. There is a very natural tendency to set apart those experiences or awakenings which happen to be sudden, spectacular or vision-producing. Therefore, any recital of such cases always produces mixed reactions. Some will say, "I wish I could have an experience like that!" Others, feeling that this whole business is too far out on a mystic limb for them, or maybe hallucinatory after all, will say, "I just can't buy this business. I can't understand what these people are talking about."

"As most AA's have heard, I was the recipient in 1934 of a tremendous mystic experience or "illumination." It was accompanied by a sense of intense white light, by a sudden gift of faith in the goodness of God, and by a profound conviction of his presence. At first it was very natural for me to feel that this experience staked me out for somebody very special."

"But as I now look back upon this tremendous event, I can only feel very specially grateful. It now seems clear that the only special feature of my experience was its electric suddenness and the overwhelming and immediate conviction that it carried to me."

"In all other respects, however, I am sure that my own experience was not in the least different from that received by every AA member who has strenuously practiced our recovery program."

Aldous Huxley
(1894-1963)

Bill's non-alcoholic friend, the great polymath writer, spiritual seeker and philosopher, Aldous Huxley, observed that, "the metaphysic that recognizes a divine substantial to the world of things and lives and minds; the psychology that finds in the soul something similar to or even identical with divine Reality; the ethic that places man's final end in the knowledge of the immanent and transcendent Ground of all being - the thing is immemorial and universal."

Bill, of course, realized that this "Ground of all being" is, indeed, both immanent and universal. On page 55 of the 'Big Book,' when he explains exactly where we might find a God of our own understanding, he writes: "We found this Great Reality deep down within us. In the last analysis it is only there that it may be found." (Emphasis added.)

Because Bill came to know that his experience was not exceptional (other than perhaps with respect to its sudden intensity), but that it was in fact a universal potential or reality, he could observe, so many years after his initial enlightenment, that, "we should question no one's transformation - whether it be sudden or gradual. Nor should we demand anyone's special type for our ourselves, because our own experience suggests that we are apt to receive whatever may be the most useful for our needs."

Thus, in his essay on Step Two in the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, Bill writes that "A.A.'s tread innumerable paths in their quest for faith. If you don't care for the one I've suggested, you'll be sure to discover one that suits if only you look and listen."

And just so long as we continue to probe the 'deep within' that lies within us all, we too will find "the Great Reality" of our own existence, of our own immanent and transcendental nature.

Rare Video of "Bill's Story" and the Birth of A.A. and Al-Anon: Featuring Bill and Lois Wilson

In rare video footage Bill and Lois Wilson recall their struggle with Bill's alcoholic addiction, the fateful visit by Ebby T., and Bill's sudden and profound "spiritual awakening" that relieved him of his addiction.

Note that in recalling his sudden spiritual awakening - the "central experience" of his life - he describes how "the room instantly lit up . . . in a blinding glare of white, white light."  This is a classic description of satori, or the 'enlightenment experience' that Richard M. Bucke describes it in his book "Cosmic Consciousness;" a book which Bill owned and undoubtedly referenced, along with William James' "The Varieties of Religious Experience," in writing "Alcoholics Anonymous."

[The first half-minute or so of the first video is somewhat choppy. After that, it is smooth sailing.]











The remaining clips of this rare footage may be found on Youtube by following the links, below.

In these clips, Bill recounts the full story, or "chain of events" that resulted in the birth of Alcoholics Anonymous (ranging from Carl Jung's advice to Rolland Hazzard, to Bill's work with Dr. Bob, and their work with Alcoholic Anonymous 'Number Three'), while Lois recounts how Al-Anon came to be.

• Bill's Story: Part Four
• Bill's Story: Part Five
• Bill's Story: Part Six
• Bill's Story: Part Seven
• Bill's Story: Part Eight

The video appears to be shot at "Stepping Stones," Bill and Lois' home outside of New York City. If anyone knows how this home movie came to be filmed and/or who filmed it, please let me know.

On Acceptance . . . and "God-consciousness"

“… (A)cceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation - some fact of my life - unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in [this] world by mistake… . (U)ntil I accept life completely on life’s term, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and my attitudes.”

("Alcoholics Anonymous," page 417.)

Likely the most often quoted passage from the "Stories" section of "Alcoholics Anonymous," this paragraph cuts to the chase. In one paragraph it diagnoses the fundamental problem of the alcoholic addict and suggests the solution: acceptance that life is as it is in this moment, and what is needed is a change in one's attitude from resistance to an acceptance of life on life's terms.

The underlying cause of almost any addiction (including, foremost, an addiction to one's thinking patterns) is that the addict is essentially attached to and identified with an overly active and compelling inner narrative of self-consciousness - the  ordinary, human "ego," or what William James called "the stream of consciousness." Indulgence in the behaviour that provides temporary relief from this incessant mental chatter and the painful emotions that accompany it - drinking, drugging, gambling, an eating disorder, emotional outbursts, etc. - is the symptom of this addiction to the addict's self-conscious life. What is needed, therefore, is a change in one's inner life, a change in one's "attitude" (one's habitual way of thinking) or, in short, a change in the level of one's 'inner consciousness.'

One of the books in Bill W.'s library at "Stepping Stones' - his home just outside New York City where he lived when writing the "Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions" - is Richard M. Bucke's classic psychological profile of "enlightened" persons throughout history and across cultures, "Cosmic Consciousness." (Bucke, was an intimate friend and 'follower' of the poet, Walt Whitman, and the Superintendent of an "insane asylum" in Hamilton, Ontario at the time he wrote "Cosmic Consciousness.") The book was first  published in 1901 and was used as a source book for William James' critically important book,"The Varieties of Religious Experience."

Richard M. Bucke

In it, Bucke distinguishes between three different levels of "ordinary" consciousness: receptive, perceptive and conceptive consciousness. As far as we know with certainty, we are the only species with "consceptive consciousness," while we share with lower order species the more basic states of consciousness which Bucke terms 'perceptive' and 'receptive' in order of descending evolutionary development.

In "What God Wants," author Neale Donald Walsh, classified these same levels of consciousness in the way more popularly discussed today as 'human' consciousness, 'mammalian' consciousness and 'reptilian' consciousness. Walsh used an apt illustration of a cobra, a lion and a jealous husband to illustrate how these varying states of consciousness trigger a response once there is something in the environment that seems to be a call to action.

To paraphrase Walsh, he notes that if you get to close to a cobra - invading its territory, so to speak - it will instinctively coil and then strike out with a venomous bite. However, a crucial distinction is that there must be a direct stimulus or 'threat' in its immediate environment to trigger this response. (Bucke would term this "receptive" consciousness, as the organism is receiving a direct stimulus and reacts to it.)

At the next higher level - 'mammalian,' or what Bucke would call "perceptive" consciousness - a male lion patrolling its territory smells the urine markings of a competitive male, and this indirect perception of a 'threat' triggers a response; the lion 're-marks' its territory and aggressively tries to hunt down the other male it perceives as threatening its interests.

Shakespeare: "There is nothing either
good or bad, but thinking makes it so."

"Hamlet," Act II, Scene II.

At the 'human' or 'ordinary' level of self-consciousness (or what Bucke calls "conceptive" consciousness) a man going to a dinner party knows that a man who could be a potential rival might be there. He thinks to himself that the man might hit on his wife, or the wife might flirt with the potential rival, and that mere thought or 'concept' triggers an emotional response of jealousy. There is no direct stimulus, just the act of conceiving the ideas in his mind produces the effect. As far as we know it is only mankind (and 'perhaps' some higher order mammals, like chimpanzees, dolphins or whales) that are capable of manifesting this higher order of self-consciousness.

We may, in fact, be unique in that, as others have observed, somehow 'we know that we know.' And isn't the sure conviction of knowing that we 'know' our 'problems' what causes the irritability, restlessness and discontent in the alcoholic addict? And, isn't the knowing that we 'know' a solution for this discomfort what keeps an addict in his or her active addiction?

Fortunately, as others have again noted (both alcoholic addicts and other so-called 'normal people,' alike), we are capable - once we know that we know - of a still higher state of consciousness that we all have the potential of reaching. It is as Bucke, the philosopher Gerald Heard (a friend of Bill W.'s) or Andrew Cohen, a teacher of what he terms "Evolutionary Enlightenment,"  would call an evolutionary potential. It is a higher state of consciousness that I would term an "acceptive consciousness" although Bucke and others have various names for it, "cosmic consciousness" being one preferred description.

Yet, because it is for now a "potential" state of consciousness, the person who wishes to reach that state must work towards becoming capable of manifesting it. He or she must 'consciously' and 'actively' nurture it, as very few attain to this state through force of circumstance; although, historically some lucky few have attained it spontaneously, and mostly in very trying circumstances.

The "Spiritual Experience" appendix to the 'Big Book' of Alcoholics Anonymous tells us that a vital spiritual experience, whether of the "sudden" or "educational variety" is what we need to arrest and recover from both our addiction to booze and/or drugs - as if booze weren't a drug - and the addiction we have to the ordinary self-consciousness that drives us blindly. Fortunately though, it assures us that we all have the potential for this higher consciousness, and - assuming we put in the continual daily effort to practice this program of self-examination, meditation and prayer - a very good chance of attaining this higher state of being.

The "Spiritual Experience" appendix, first published in the second edition of "Alcoholics Anonymous" when there were approximately 150,000 A.A. members, notes:

"With few exceptions our members find that they have tapped an unsuspected inner resource which they presently identify with their own conception ot a Power greater than themselves.

Most of us think this awareness of a Power greater than ourselves is the essence of spiritual experience. Our more religious members call it "God-consciousness."

"Acceptive" or "God-consciousness" 
is a 'love' without object or conditions.

Ultimately, it is resorting to this higher state of radical acceptance (a sense of 'love' without objects or conditions), this state of "God-consciousness" (or as I prefer "acceptive consciousness"), that allows us to accept life on life terms, that allows us to accept the "person, place, thing, or situation" that is disturbing us "as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment," without the necessity of drinking or drugging to get by.

Evolving Consciousness

Perhaps the most frequently referenced quote from the stories section in the back of the Big Book is that dealing with 'acceptance' from the chapter "Acceptance Was The Answer" (formerly, "Doctor, Alcoholic, Addict"). It is found at page 417 in the fourth edition of Alcoholics Anonymous and reads:

"And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. Whenever I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, thing or situation - some fact of my life - unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God's world by mistake. Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could not stay sober; unless I accept life completely on life's terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and my attitudes."

Acceptance is at the heart not only of the Serenity Prayer, but at the heart of most of our slogans. To "Live and Let Live" is acceptance. Acceptance is the 'grace' in "But for the Grace of God," the 'first thing' in "First Things First," the level of thought to aspire to in "Think, Think, Think," and the means of 'letting go' of old ideas in "Let Go and Let God".