How I Became a Metaphysicist

What is METAPHYSICS?

The details of this subject of inquiry can get philosophically complicated and logically complex.

Fortunately, I am a simple man, and therefore like to keep things simple for both myself and my readers.  In the spirit of this simplicity, I will define this topic simply, as follows:

METAPHYSICS: The nature and study of the non-physical world and universe.

Metaphysics is the study of that which you cannot see or otherwise detect with your five senses, but is very real nonetheless.  This subject of inquiry contrasts, of course, with Physics, which is the nature and study of the physical world and universe—that which can be seen or otherwise detected with your five senses or through verifiable scientific experimentation.  If you wish to add a tad more texture to this basic definition, a simple consultation of Webster expands it as follows:

Metaphysics: The branch of philosophy that deals with the first principles of things, including abstract concepts such as being, knowing, substance, cause, identity, time, and space. [1]

Metaphysics matters!  If you don't believe me, just think about all of the things you benefit from in this world but cannot see or otherwise detect with your five senses without the aid of high tech scientific instrumentation (e.g. x-rays, gamma rays, cellular waves, radio waves), as well as that which cannot be adequately detected or measured by science at all (e.g. goodness, love, desire, happiness, hope, joy, intention, passion, pain, anxiety, depression, despair, hate, evil, etc.).

In my book, Self-Action Leadership: The Key to Personal, Professional, & Global Freedom, I introduce the Self-Action Leadership Theory & Model, which I put forth as a self-help—or metaphysical—"Theory of Everything."

Click HERE to read more about this Metaphysical Theory of Everything.

My purpose in making such an admittedly audacious claim, and undertaking such an arduous lifelong project is an attempt to keep pace with (or perhaps even surpass by degree) the field of physics by providing the kind of mental, emotional, and spiritual help and hope from metaphysics that mirrors the scientific help and hope that exists in the elusive, but ongoing pursuit of a physical, scientific "Theory of Everything."

I also wish to provide unbelievers (both the irreligious and the anti-religious) with food for thought that they might find more palatable than the fare of whatever prophets and pastors they have chosen to reject.

Lastly, I wish to provide believers of all kinds with an academic apology (generally speaking) for their religious faith and hope, which, even if every detail of their present vision of an afterlife turns out not to be entirely true when they actually get there, can prove to be a productive force for positive metaphysical development in this world.

I should note up front that I, myself, am an ardent believer.  I would bet my life on my religious and spiritual faith.  Nay, I already have bet my life on it—and continue to do so as I write this—and will continue to do so each day of my life until physical death transfers my spiritual being to another realm for the next stage of my physical and metaphysical journey.

It is out of my own religious education, faith, and spiritual experiences that my passion for metaphysics has arisen.  Moreover, my deep spiritual convictions and continued religious education and practice will, no doubt, continue to influence my investigation and understanding of metaphysics.  While my religion and spirituality are vitally important—even essential—components of my collective metaphysical inquiry, they are, nonetheless, not the only components.  In the following paragraphs, I outline different elements that have contributed to my passion for metaphysics, which have arisen in my life over long periods of time.

It first began with my religious education and experience, which began early in my life.  My first formal religious address was delivered at age three (3), a week shy of my fourth birthday, in a children's organization in my Church.  This was followed by continued education and experiences, including formal seminary instruction, two-years of full-time, unpaid missionary service, and nearly 20,000 hours of combined participation in learning, teaching, serving, worshipping, and leadership oriented activities.

My spiritual experiences likewise began at a very young age.  In intervening years such experiences have continued unabated, whereby I have, in the aggregate, experienced many, varied, and sometimes quite concrete and definite spiritual illuminations—the veracity of which, while I cannot scientifically verify or sentiently validate, would nonetheless bet my life upon because of their existential value and practical utility based on actual results achieved over long periods of time in the laboratory of real living.

This growing metaphysical bent rooted in religious and spiritual experience was further expanded at age eight or nine when I attended my first self-help oriented seminar and began to first learn and apply metaphysical principles of time management (i.e. values identification, clarification, prioritization, and goal setting).  This led to a deep and often careful study of many of the self-help masters of the past century, including: Dale Carnegie, Norman Vincent Peale, Napoleon Hill; and more recently: Og Mandino, Anthony Robbins, Hyrum W. Smith, Stephen R. Covey,  and Eckhart Tolle.

Despite my passion for metaphysical subjects of inquiry, my academic interest was not limited to the metaphysical realm.  As a youngster, I was quite good at arithmetic, and I yearned for the day when I could someday enroll in chemistry, calculus, physics, and other, scientific related classes—something I saw my older brothers do, which I greatly admired.

During my junior high school years, I became sufficiently interested in physics to borrow a physics textbook (one of Paul G. Hewitt's early editions of his famous text, Conceptual Physics) from my 8th grade physical science teacher, so I could study it over the summer.  Later, in high school, my science fair entry investigated principles of kinetic and potential energy, and included an experiment involving archery—another passion of mine.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, my aptitude in higher mathematics and the physical sciences drastically failed to match up with my innate interest in the subjects, thus influencing me to pursue an increasingly metaphysical line of academic pursuit in high school, college, and graduate school. Translation: Much to my existential chagrin (but practical relief), I never ended up taking calculus or chemistry.

Immanuel Kant
An 18th Century German
Metaphysical Philosopher

Upon entering college, my interest in metaphysics grew even deeper as I was introduced to philosophers both ancient and modern, foreign and American.  From Aristotle and Confucius to Kant, Mill, Franklin, Emerson, and Thoreau, my mind naturally gravitated toward the metaphysical elements of life, inquiry, and conversation.  You might say that I developed a penchant to, and liking for, swimming in the "deep end" of the pool.  [2]  However, recognizing the inherent dangers of doing so in an unbridled fashion, I strived to keep things simple enough to be able to clearly articulate and then readily apply my musings into real life practice.  I was thus able to avoid getting sucked into black holes of academic inquiry, where many an intellectual has been trapped and lost from both practicality and reality—to their damning loss, and the loss of any others they bring down with them.

At the confluence of all this metaphysical interest lay an ever-whirling storm of mind in the form of a mental disorder, specifically obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), which has proven to be a two-edged sword wielding positive benefits along with its hellish symptoms. Over time, the whirlwind of my OCD-influenced mind whipped the entirety of my sometimes maddening, but ultimately invigorating and productive thought chains into a productive helix that led continually upward into the development and publication of the Self-Action Leadership Theory and Model—made possible through diligent research and writing completed at the doctoral level of graduate school.

I do not claim that my Theory and Model is perfect, or even complete.  Indeed, I intend to continue working on it until the day I die—and beyond.  But in the meantime, after nearly three decades of diligent study, painstaking effort, and a deep, multifarious collection of rich metaphysical experiences, I am pleased with the results so far, and present it to YOU in hopes that you might find its principles and applications to be as intellectually delicious and existentially practical and beneficial in the laboratory of real living as I have.

Welcome to the world of practical metaphysics!

If you would like to begin (or accelerate) your own journey into the world of metaphysics, I invite you to buy my book, and begin reading it, TODAY.

Click HERE to Buy a Copy of Self-Action Leadership

Notes

1. New Oxford American Dictionary (electronic version for Mac)

2. My older brother Joe applied this metaphor to describe my intellectual proclivities, and added a worthy caveat thereto: "It's fun to swim around in the deep end, but if you stay there too long, you might drown."  

A Metaphysical Theory of Everything

In the last century, Albert Einstein forever altered mankind’s understanding of physics and astronomy when he discovered his famous theory of relativity, which states that: Energy = Mass multiplied by the Speed of Light squared. Written in shorthand, this famous formula reads: E = mc2.

This groundbreaking theory forever clarified the astronomical relationship between space and time. It also enhanced our understanding of the law of gravity and how it operates in our universe. Einstein’s groundbreaking theory, put forth in the first two decades of the 1900s, signaled a quantum leap for mankind in the field of physics. It was also an important step forward in achieving an even greater, and more elusive, goal of physicists: the discovery of a “Theory of Everything.”

Gravitational Singularity Theory: One of many theories
that a physical Theory of Everything would take into account.

A scientific theory of everything—related to “string theory” and sometimes referred to as a “final theory,” a “master theory,” or an “ultimate theory”—is an undiscovered mathematical formula that would, in one equation, synopsize the physical ontology and operation of everything in the known universe. The pursuit of such a profound, yet mysterious, theory is perhaps the ultimate ambition of twenty-first century physicists.

I have always been fascinated by the concept of a theory of everything in the physical world. I am not a physicist, but as a metaphysical poet-philosopher—and more specifically, a personal leadership expert—I have been racking my brain for the past 13 years in search of answers to an analogous question: what would a metaphysical, philosophical, self-help theory of everything look like?

Self-Action Leadership helps human being to harmonize
their thoughts, speech, and behaviors with universal, natural laws.

The Self-Action Leadership Theory and Model are the results of my efforts to produce a self-help, metaphysical theory of everything. While I do not claim to have perfectly achieved such a difficult and ambition undertaking, and while I am confident future revisions will continue to refine and improve upon the work I put forth here, I am pleased with the present synthesis of my studies and research, which is deeply rooted in the narrative of my ongoing attempts to successfully apply the SAL Theory and Model in the laboratory of my own life.

If there is one preeminent lesson I have learned throughout all my efforts to produce the SAL Theory and Model and comprehend its many principles, it is this: there is nothing existentially special about me above any other human being; however, everything is special about the principles put forth in the SAL Theory and Model. As such, any human being who studies, learns, and then applies these principles will eventually grow to fill the measure of their creation and realize the grandest levels of their existential potential. Thus reigneth supreme the virtue of True Principles and the veracity of Universal Laws. This virtue and verity fills my soul with a deep humility before the immovable and irrevocable physical and metaphysical laws of nature.

I present this Theory and Model to the world in hopes that as many people as possible will choose to be willing to pay the price to learn and apply these True Principles to thereby earn and receive as much Existential Growth as possible during the time they spend in this world. It is therefore the earnest desire and humble hope of this self-help “metaphysicist” that you may choose to study and utilize these True Principles—rooted in Universal Laws—to unlock the power they hold to transform yourself into all YOU are capable of becoming.

Strangled by narcissism, hedonism, and
self-deceived ignorance, America and the
rest of the world is largely unaware of its
collective potential for greatness and service.

Amidst the hustle and bustle of life in the twenty-first century, and betwixt the endless and often hectic details and minutia of daily living, it is easy to lose perspective of who we really are, and what we are really capable of as members of the human race. As a result, we are often “half-hearted creatures … far too easily pleased fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us.” We are “like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea” [1]. All of us have spent our share of time "making mud pies" when something far greater lies on the horizons of our potential.

When I reflect on the omnipotence of Universal Laws and the opportunity, liberty, and power we possess to align our behavior with True Principles, and then combine it all with an understanding of the intrinsic Existential Equality of mankind, my mind, heart, and soul is filled with a perpetual reverence for all human beings. One writer put it this way:

It is a serious thing to live in a society [where] … the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship … It is in the light of [our] overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal" [2].

I developed the SAL Theory and Model with the sincere desire and express purpose of opening your eyes to your own incomprehensible potential for Existential Growth. In addition, it is my earnest wish for you to catch the vision of the endless opportunities you have to contribute meaningfully to the lives of others, and to enjoy the indescribable growth, development, maturation, happiness, satisfaction, contentment, fulfillment, joy, and peace that accompanies those who dedicate their lives to the service of others.

To properly serve others, however, you must first be in proper working order yourself. Anyone who learns about and diligently applies the True Principles contained in the SAL Theory and Model will come out on the other side a fit servant leader who is prepared to make the world a better place by virtue of his or her presence and actions therein [3]. Just as importantly, you will be on your way to becoming a highly-trained soldier—an elite warrior—who is ready to do battle with error and evil whenever and wherever it rears its ugly head within your sphere of individual or organizational influence.


To learn more about Dr. Jordan Jensen's Self-Help Theory of Everything, Click HERE to buy a copy of Self-Action Leadership.

SELF-ACTION LEADERSHIP is the key catalyst for initiating transformational leadership that lasts in any organization. The truth of the matter really is that simple; and the transformation of organizations through the holistic development of individuals really is that difficult—yet altogether possible for anyone willing to invest the time, effort, and sacrifice required to achieve authentic, transformational results.

Unlike any training program that has ever preceded it, Self-Action Leadership provides a single vehicle wherewith individual self-leaders can discover—and then act—upon the great truth that HOLISTIC personal development and growth spanning the mental, moral, spiritual, physical, emotional, social, and financial elements of our individual natures is within the grasp of each one of us.

Note: Freedom Focused is a non-partisan, for-profit, educational corporation. As such, we do not endorse or embrace political figures. We do, however, comment from time-to-time on historical or political events that provide pedagogical backdrops to illuminating principles contained in the SAL Theory & Model.

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Click HERE to learn more about the SAL Theory & Model.


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Notes:

1. Lewis, C.S. The Weight of Glory. As quoted in Dorsett, L.W., Editor (1996). The Essential C.S. Lewis. New York, NY: Touchstone. Page 362.

2. Lewis, C.S. The Weight of Glory. As quoted in Dorsett, L.W., Editor (1996). The Essential C.S. Lewis. New York, NY: Touchstone. Page 369.

3. Greenleaf, R. (1977). Servant Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power & Greatness. New York, NY: Paulist Press.

An Era-Shifting Speech on Education

This Saturday, February 21, 2015, Dr. Jordan R. Jensen, will be delivering a groundbreaking educational speech at Lone Star College in The Woodlands, Texas (Houston). The next several blog posts contain this address.