21 levels of Self-Deception: THIRD EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

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as ‘all one’ will often claim that therefore there cannot be separate personalities, even although we feel ourselves to be separate. If the distinction between individuals really is an illusion and we are in fact all part of an underlying reality, then perhaps it is wrong to talk about seeking any kind of connection or relationship or union with others. The union that we think we seek already exists at a deeper level. It should be possible to connect with everyone at least in some measure. Everyone is part of the same show. Sometimes this is described as ‘interbeing’ but the word I’d like to use for this connection is grace.

Grace is not morality. Grace deserves more than to just be called a virtue. It does not seem right to discuss whether grace exists independently of reality or only as an aspect of specific actions. If you are of a ‘mysterian’ persuasion then grace probably does not seem problematic. But otherwise, atheists and hard-nosed materialists alike might be able to accept grace that we build for ourselves — the result of humanity at its best.

So in the style adopted throughout this work, this process has been named as the ‘economy of grace’. What is the grace economy? The grace economy is about embodied persons in relationship. It is an economy about particular individuals and their particular circumstances, rather than a transcendent moral or idealistic code. Donna Haraway says this:

‘We seek not the knowledge ruled by phallogocentrism (nostalgia for the presence of the one true Word) and disembodied vision, but

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