Several substantial critiques remain a source of fractionalizing debate within transpersonal psychology, including the weakness of its definition, whether it is redundant with Wilber's integral psychology, whether it is a scientific field, whether it is too metaphysical, whether it neglects the problem of evil, and what contribution can it make to mainstream psychology.This article explicates...
Interviews with 30 experienced non-native practitioners of the Native American sweat lodge ceremony revealed 184 reports of transpersonal experiences. Interview questions sought to (a) disclose how practitioners discern or critique their own experiences, (b) consider alternative explanations for practitioners’ experiences, and (c) critically reflect on the sweat lodge ceremony per se as a...
This study explored ostensibly shamanic journeying imagery by (a) assessing visual images across induction techniques (i.e., sonic driving, Ganzfeld, relaxation, and sitting with eyes open); (b) determining combination( s) of induction technique and instructions most associated with religious imagery; and (c) investigating the origins of visual imagery. Six participants were randomly assigned...
Despite its substantial scientific, academic, and professional achievements, transpersonal psychology has\nnot been fully incorporated within traditional undergraduate psychology curricula. One reason is conventional\npsychology’s prejudiced perception of humanity’s spiritual nature. Other reasons lie within the field\nof transpersonal psychology itself, including the lack of agreed-upon...
This study examined the relation of altered states of consciousness to neuroticization, spiritual experience, and divergent thinking in a sample of women (N= 102) at late pregnancy and post-delivery.The results suggest that stress associated with imminent childbirth is linked to higher levels of ASCs and that neuroticization and spirituality seem to be implicated in the induction of ASCs.
In this paper, it is argued that “higher states of consciousness”–or mystical experiences–have two main sources: they can be caused by a disruption of the normal homeostasis of the human organism and also by an intensification of the “consciousness-energy” that constitutes our being. (These are termed HD and ICE states). The author investigates examples of both types of experience, and compares...
This paper explores the influence of transpersonal thinking, including the mythological perspective of Joseph Campbell and the holotropic perspective of Stanislav Grof, on actor training using the neutral mask. An outline of training in the neutral mask is given, focusing on the approach of David Latham, as experienced by the author in his own training. Points of correspondence with the vision...
The works by the American mythologist, Joseph Campbell, as well as the poetry of John Keats, especially his “Ode to a Nightingale,” offer new ways to reimagine our relation to the earth, to the dead and to language’s continued vitality. Beginning with a brief overview of some of the major tenets of Campbell’s guiding force of the “monomyth,” which gathers all the various world mythologies as...
The Higher Self is a concept introduced by Roberto Assagioli, the founder of psychosynthesis, into transpersonal psychology. This notion is explained and linked up with the Western mystical tradition. Here, coming from antiquity and specifically from the neo-Platonic tradition, a similiar concept has been developed which became known as the spark of the soul, or summit of the mind. This history...
This paper claims that the ultimate issue confronting transpersonal theory is that of nondualism. The revelation of this spiritual reality has a long history in the spiritual traditions, which has been perhaps most prolifically advocated by Ken Wilber (1995, 2000a), and fully explicated by David Loy (1998). Nonetheless, these scholarly accounts of nondual reality, and the spiritual traditions...
A 26-item Revised Paranormal Belief Scale is introduced which provides a measure of degree of belief in each of seven dimensions: Traditional Religious Belief, Psi, Witchcraft, Superstition, Spiritualism, Extraordinary Life Forms, and Precognition. Improvements from the original 25- item Paranormal Belief Scale (Tobacyk & Milford, 1983) include adoption of a seven-point rating scale as well as...
The principal aim of this paper is to overview some of the salient existing empirical data supporting the possibility of an interconnectivity of consciousness that extends beyond the conventionally recognized confines of body and mind. Thereafter, the article provides possible explanations of this apparent interconnectivity drawn from the work of Jung and recent developments in physics.
Most traditional art forms around the planet are an expression of the spiritual dimension of a culture’s cosmology and the spiritual experiences of individuals. Religious art and iconography often reveal the hidden aspects of spirit as glimpsed through the filter of cultural significance. Moreover, traditional art, although often highly abstract, may actually describe sensory experiences...
This paper presents an integration of transpersonal structural theory. It is claimed that a “dichotomy debate” is currently taking place within transpersonal psychology, which involves what Wilber has called the “pre/trans fallacy” (1993) and the “ascender/descender debate” (1995). The pre/trans fallacy states that early, prepersonal life experiences are confused for transpersonal experiences...
Ecopsychology—the use of nature for understanding and healing the soul—has become accepted as a legitimate tool by theorists and practitioners alike. Yet one important dimension of the field has been ignored: metaphysical tracking. This article brings to light a number of mystical phenomena that trackers, ancient and modern, have experienced, and suggests their common root in the so-called...
Despite 40 years of dialogue, debate still continues over whether psychedelics are capable of inducing genuine mystical experiences. This paper first reviews the arguments against this possibility and shows that all of them contain shortcomings. One reason the debate still continues is that there has been no adequate theory of mystical states and their relationship to the factors which produce...
The majority of the world’s cultures encourage or require members to enter alternative states of consciousness (ASC) while involved in religious rituals. The question is, why? This paper suggests an explanation for the culturally prescribed ASC from the view of Fisher information. It argues from the position, first put forward by Emile Durkheim in his magnum opus, The Elementary Forms of the...
In the spirit of William James, we present a process view of human consciousness. Our approach, however, follows upon Charles Tart’s original systems theory analysis of states of consciousness, although it differs in its reliance on the modern sciences of complexity, especially dynamical systems theory and its emphasis on process and evolution. We argue that consciousness experience is...
Early Gnosticism is identified as a form of Weber’s inner-worldly mysticism that, following the critique of Plotinus, entailed spiritual metapathologies of inflated grandiosity, despair, and/or social withdrawal. These vulnerabilities re-emerge in the naturalistic psychologies of spirituality begun by Emerson, Nietzsche, Jung, and Maslow and more implicitly within contemporary personality and...
The purpose of this paper is to critically explore the nature and ontological and epistemological significance of differences observed in how various cultural traditions describe and explain such experiences. After an initial consideration of definitional issues, the article focuses on the arguments supporting and challenging the idea of mystical experience being a universal phenomenon and a...
The importance of the development of transpersonal psychology as a science is considered. Arguments from romanticism, scientism, and constructionism that challenge this possibility are countered. A distinction is drawn between the field of transpersonal psychology as a science and the broader area known as transpersonal studies that may legitimately use scientific or nonscientific methods. The...
The authors compiled 80 chronologically ordered passages from the contemporary psychology literature that address the essence of transpersonal psychology.A thematic analysis of these passages revealed that the two most frequent categories, occurring 53 (66.2%) and 49 (61.2%) times respectively, were: (a) Going beyond or transcending the individual, ego, self, the personal, personality, or...