This article explores recurring archetypal patterns across four spiritual, mythological, and esoteric systems: the Chinese I Ching, the European Tarot, Jewish Kabbalah, and the Heliopolitan pantheon of Ancient Egypt. Through a comparative symbolic analysis, it considers whether these traditions encode a recurrent structure of eight primary archetypal principles organised around a ninth unifying...
Jim Channon conceptualised The First Earth Battalion as a new generation of spiritual warriors within the US military, specifically through his report, Evolutionary Tactics: The First Earth Battalion Operations Manual. Both the Battalion and the report were immortalised through Jon Ronson’s book, The Men Who Stare at Goats and a subsequent film by the same title. While both take a light-hearted...
In a previous article (Rush, 2016), I argued that Western Esotericism had contributed to the development of transpersonal psychology. In the present article, I continue this argument by focusing on Roberto Assagioli and comparing his work with that of his contemporary Walter Ernest Butler. Assagioli (1888–1974) was an Italian psychiatrist and the founder of psychosynthesis, whilst W.E. Butler...
This paper examines the issues raised in a recent round table on the future of research in scientific transpersonal psychology. It suggests ways in which transpersonal psychology might meet both the seemingly paradoxical goals of scientific rigour and transpersonal integrity. First, the paper posits that existing quantitative and qualitative research methods are likely sufficient to study...
The late nineteenth and early twentieth century saw a resurgence of interest in the occult and the paranormal. Ideas from the occult, the paranormal and the study of altered states of consciousness influenced Freud’s theories. In turn, the work of Freud has influenced parapsychology and transpersonal psychology. This paper explores these lines of influence from occultism, through Freudianism,...
One of the challenges of materialism is explaining how phenomenal consciousness emerges from physicality. The theory of panpsychism has been proposed to answer this question by suggesting that consciousness is ubiquitous within the Universe, that the Universe is a mental construct, and that even the atoms and sub-atomical particles manifest a rudimentary form of consciousness or...
Identity is named as an archetypal energy and is linked to the works of Carl Jung and Abraham Maslow. The over-arching influence of archetypes in the human psyche is described with the aid of a simple map. Common psychological problems in relation to identity are discussed. The question is raised as to whether Humanistic and Transpersonal Psychology have changed their identities.
Editor’s note: this article is a summary of the Keynote at the Section Annual Conference Transpersonal Activism on 12 September 2021.Despite its designation as the ‘Fourth Force,’ Transpersonal Psychology often occupies a peripheral and precarious place within mainstream Psychological approaches. Its historic focus on mystical/spiritual and non-ordinary states of consciousness, coupled with its...
Steve Taylor’s Review of the new edition of my book Shadow, Self, Spirit (2021) focuses on a critique of what he sees as my ‘sceptical’ stance on metaphysics and my rejection of his own ‘soft perennialism’. I respond to Taylor’s criticisms by noting: (1) that my own perspective rejects materialism and acknowledges the need for metaphysical concepts in transpersonal psychology; and (2) that, in...
Embracing Metaphysics: Transpersonal Psychology as a Post-Materialist Approach Michael Daniels’s book Shadow, Self, Spirit is an essential book for students of transpersonal psychology – perhaps the clearest, most wide-ranging and well-written overview of the topic that has yet been written. However, this article suggests some problematic areas with Daniels’s approach, such as his criticism of...
Although phenomenologist Edmund Husserl’s project was not directed at transpersonal experiences, his methods are nevertheless applicable in a profound and effective way. We explore Husserl’s project and its methods for their relevance to transpersonal studies. Husserl laid out the proposition that science, including psychology, must be grounded in the study of perception, which after all is the...
This paper explores both transpersonal psychology and ecopsychology individually and in conjunction, followed by an inspection of their relationship with mystical experiences and the impact of these within a transpersonal ecopsychological context. Specifically, nature as a trigger for such experiences is examined, alongside an analysis of the effect of these nature mystical experiences on an...
This paper considers poetry, poets and the transpersonal. It first considers the creation of poetry in relation to the transpersonal with the focus on the poet, in particular the role of altered states of consciousness for the poet in the act of creation; the focus then shifts to the reader of poetry to consider if poetry reading can lead to transpersonal states, finding at least that poetry...
This essay provides an anthropological account of a neuroepistemological account of mystical experience. We commence by outlining the various qualities of mystical experience (e.g. time-consciousness and space-consciousness distortion). Subsequently, we analyse the epistemology of mystical experience with special reference to the constructivist versus decontextualist debate. Next, we formulate...
This paper explores how Taoist (道子) philosophical perspectives could enhance holistic wellbeing, combining research and practical applications. Collectively the workshop facilitators have over a hundred years of experience in various Taoist practices, predominantly the martial arts, meditation and Chi Kung (气功). Specifically, the paper introduced core principles of Taoism as a precursor to...
This is a response to John Rowan’s (2019a) paper ‘Do transpersonal psychologists know what they are talking about?’. Two different meditation practices can lead to two different altered states of consciousness, samadhi and satori, the latter being associated with psychotherapeutic insights. Rowan’s article is about samadhi so this paper concentrates on satori, comparing and contrasting the two,...
This research assesses what may be contributed to counselling through developing practice which is centred on a feminist psychospiritual model. This is a qualitative study which analyses a series of in depth, semi-structured interviews, as I discuss transpersonal and psychospiritual forms of practice with each of the research participants. Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) is...
A proposed direction for transpersonal psychology is the development of empirical research within the field, specifically in assessing the effects of transpersonal practices. The areas of self-actualisation, peak experience and flow have been subjected to research predominantly using psychometrics, however a range of theoretical and methodological issues within these concepts are evident. An...
This paper invites readers to reflect on and review the current developments and interventions in response to the Covid-19 pandemic and climate crisis, drawing from the established theory of planned behaviour, ecopsychology research, coaching and transpersonal psychology, and discusses the future action and practice in the realms of mindfulness and psychological intervention. We propose...
While there is a tradition of research in relation to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LGBTQI+) community and religiosity, there is a paucity of research relating to spirituality. Additionally, classifying such ‘non–conforming’ groups into a general classification has inherent problems, specifically in relation to those identifying as transgender more likely to...
Leadership since time immemorial has been considered a sacred calling, a spiritual and moral responsibility that attracted great thinkers from East and West. Only with the realpolitik of Macchiavelli, followed by industrialisation, did leadership theory become secular and transactional, a trend that lasted until the late 20th century. About the time transpersonal psychology emerged, sacred...
This paper aims to provide an understanding on the meaning of transpersonal psychology. It first examines the current definition of transpersonal psychology and its inherent problems and challenges. It then offers a new insight on the definition by drawing a parallel metaphor from the Taoist perspective and concludes that the nature of transpersonal psychology is fluid like water which is...
This paper is a critique on transpersonal psychologists in terms of their experience and practices. Rowan observed that most participants in transpersonal psychology conferences had not embodied the experience of Nondual – the highest level ofconsciousness in the realms of the transpersonal according to Wilber (2000). Rowan further pointed out that most great religious traditions made the...
The relationships between psychology, religion and the transpersonal are difficult to clarify because of confusion and uncertainty about the key terms. ‘Religion’ is so diverse that there is no single essence of religion that is found in all its manifestations. The ‘transpersonal’ is also hard to define, one of the issues being that it is often defined largely in what it goes ‘beyond’ rather...
This paper is in part a reflection on the personal illness which led the author to discover mindfulness and compassion training that supported and helped the author in her rehabilitation after having suffered a cardiac arrest. It explores the origins of mindfulness training and how a more explicit teaching of compassion skills has been found to be highly beneficial in the health and wellbeing,...