Four decades ago, Huston Smith published one of the mostinfluential articles ever written on psychedelics, titled “Do Drugs HaveReligious Import?” As part of “The Oral History of PsychedelicResearch Project,” he was interviewed and invited to revisit thistopic. The interview covers his personal experiences, as well as the influences of psychedelic experiences on religious traditions...
The word entheogen was coined to denote psychedelic chemicals and botanicals that engender the experience of god within. Drawing on William James, Charles Tart, and Ken Wilber, the authors claim that a complete study of religion must include entheogens, and they propose topics leading toward an entheogen research agenda:(a) the spiritual nature of the human mind, (b) the dispute over the...
The nature of the experiences induced by shamans has long been a topic of considerable controversy. The experiences occurring during one of the major shamanic techniques, the shamanic journey, have been described in terms of various psychopathologies or as identical to the transcendent experiences of Buddhism and yoga. Despite such claims, careful analysis reveals that shamanic journey...
In the fall of 1996 issue of the Buddhist magazine Tricycle, various teachers of Buddhist meditation practice commented on the value of psychedelic experiences, with opinions of them ranging from helpful to harmful. Here, the author hopes to explain these conflicting viewpoints by describing important aspects of employing psychedelics that must be taken into account for effective results. These...
This study investigated the extent and types of altered beliefs, attitudes, and values of 53 subjects who reported having had a neardeath experience (NDE). A control group was composed of 27 individuals who reported having had similar life-threatening incidents but without a corresponding NDE. In addition, 45 significant others in the lives of the participants in these groups rated the extent...
Religious or Spiritual Problem is a new diagnostic category (Code V62.89) in the 1994 Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Although the acceptance of this new category was based on a proposal documenting the extensive literature on the frequent occurrence of religious and spiritual issues in clinical practice, the impetus for the proposal came from transpersonal clinicians...
What we may call the transhuman/inhuman critique states that transpersonal psychology is centered on cosmic issues rather than on human ones and so is not a human psychology at all. Abraham Maslow's statements to the effect that the transpersonal is "transhuman, centered in the cosmos rather than in human needs" are considered evidence of this position. Analysis of Maslow's lesser known...
The author reviews a dozen "hot spots" in humanistic and transpersonal studies by reflecting on the new forewords to three ofhis books. Tbpics include cultural evolution, the nature of conventional as well as higher stages of human development, the possibility of grounding and confirming spiritual knowledge, and the relation of such spiritual knowledge to rational and empirical knowledge. The...
This article substantiates the importance of Ken Wilber and his work on transpersonal theory to the psychology and spirituality of human development over the past 23 years. Wilber and his work, prior to 1995, continue to attract ardent controversy, particularly outside of the field of transpersonal psychology. The focus of this article is directed to the identification of a few common pervasive...
Although research evidence exists concerning the efficacy of meditation in psychotherapeutic settings, therapists and counselors are often unfamiliar with meditative techniques and their usefulness. Those in professional fields frequently lack ways of bridging the gap between what may represent the spiritual domain of life and the more pragmatic concerns typically presented by clients. This...
Studies have primarily examined meditation's effects as a self regulation strategy for stress management. Fewer studies have examined its utility as a self exploration strategy for enhancing psychological health in psychotherapy and behavior change. And, few studies have examined meditation's effect regarding its original religious purpose as a self liberation strategy to enhance spiritual...
This article introduces Vasily Nalimov, humanist, philosopher, and visionary, and Zhanna Drogalina Nalimov, co-worker and researcher, as individuals whose concepts regarding human consciousness are both provocative and exciting. Following his years in Soviet labor camps and labeled "an enemy of the people," Nalimov found that his ideas were better received in the West than in his own country....
Before gaining notoriety as a promoter of the psychedelic drug experience, Timothy Leary established impressive credentials in the field of interpersonal psychology and was developing a humanistic form of psychotherapy he called "existential-transactional." This article plots the evolution of his work in these areas, from publication of his classic Interpersonal Diagnosis of Personality (1957),...
This article describes a personal experience of altered consciousness as a result of ingesting "magic mushrooms" (psilocybin). It also briefly notes the reactions of Fred Skinner and Abraham Maslow to a report to them of this experience made by the author when he was a graduate student 30 years ago. Familiarity with the effects of hallucinogens may facilitate communication with terminally ill...
This article reports research in "Walking in Your Shoes," an empathic way of deeply relating to one another. Stating one's intention to be another person and walking with that intention, one is able to experience a subject's energetic style, how he or she is in the world, and what abilities are used to cope. The awarenesses that arise as one walks with no conscious intention of imitating or...
Recently, we have witnessed an explosion of interest in the transcendental dimension of human experience. Leading psychological theorists, however, have become polarized on this matter. Whereas emphatic rationalists (such as Albert Ellis) perceive little value in the transcendental, ardent transpersonalists (such as Ken Wilber) stress its most expansive implications. This article explores a...
Time is the currency of life, the medium through which we find life both meaningful and enjoyable. However, time is not objective reality but rather subjective experience. Objective clock time is merely a reification or quantification of inner subjective time. Nine time dimensions are outlined and compared as they relate to temporal authenticity and the subjective experience of time....
The paucity of formal scientific research into the therapeutic potential of nonordinary states of consciousness is addressed in this article. A literature review examines the historical development of this field, providing the context that shaped the thinking of its major contributors. Key terms are then defined, and a theory for how nonordinary states of consciousness can affect one's...
The article outlines reasons why the field of transpersonal psychology arose and some of its current theoretical and experimental frontiers. These frontiers include full-spectrum models of development that encompass transconventional stages, possible integrations among different psychological schools, new understandings of contemplative practices and altered states of consciousness, and...
The ego as a construct in humanistic and transpersonal psychology has a turbulent history. Early efforts to distinguish transpersonal theories from the reductionism of Freudian drive psychology tended to eschew psychoanalytic views altogether, including theories on the development of the ego as an intrapsychic structure. In the last decade, transpersonal theorists have began to recognize and...
Respondents reported on whether they had had a peak experience, how many people they had told, and the reasons they had not told more people. Out of 246 respondents, 79% reported having had a peak experience but most had told only a few people about it. The most common reasons respondents gave for not discussing a peak experience were that it was a special and intimate personal experience which...
This article is a response to Michael Washburn's "Two Patterns of Transcendence," in which he maintains that there are two dominant but incompatible paradigms in transpersonal psychology: Jung's Analytic Psychology and Wilber's Spectrum Psychology. The conclusion of this article is that the two psychological paradigms are not incompatible, and that the Jungian model can, in essential respects,...
The great spiritual traditions agree that the cultivation of mindfulness is central. Without mindfulness we live in a state of distorted perceptions and fantasies, acting inappropriately with reference to our own true nature and the reality of the immediate situation, and consequently creating stupid and useless suffering. This article is oriented toward those readers already convinced of the...
This essay is specifically a critique of Kirk's Schneider's "The Deified Self: A'Centaur' Response to Wilber and the Transpersonal Movement," but it also discusses and summarizes the essentials of the ongoing debate between existential-humanistic psychology and transpersonal psychology.
This article responds to Schneider's (1987) critique of transpersonal psychology. It is contended that Schneider seriously misunderstood transpersonal consciousness and psychology. Transpersonal consciousness is achievable, as evidenced by abundant credible literature, but it is not immediately available to everyone. Research suggests that transpersonal consciousness is positively related to...