This review identifies three persistent problems in consciousness studies within traditional psychology: the absence of a consensus definition of consciousness, the 'hard problem' of linking neural activity to subjective experience, and a lack of systematic research into altered states of consciousness (ASCs). The author discusses physicalist approaches, cognitive models, and phenomenal accounts of consciousness, and examines some developments in neuroscience. The paper argues that traditional psychology has not adequately addressed these foundational issues, particularly the study of ASCs, which is the author's own research focus.
Transpersonal Anthropology, a growing subfield of Social Anthropology, shares much with Transpersonal Psychology and can offer a broader view of human experience by drawing on non-Western peoples' concepts, philosophies, and ways of life. Social Anthropology's methodological self-critique has produced insights applicable across the social sciences, yet Transpersonal Anthropology may have narrowed its vision. The author proposes that the two disciplines can inform each other and offers an alternative model based on fieldwork studying transpersonal experiences within mild altered states of consciousness, both sacred and secular, as part of ordinary everyday streams of consciousness, along with the therapeutic effects of such states.