Buddhism and Transpersonal Psychology

In the Freud-Rolland debate, Rolland argued that infants' oceanic feeling is healthier than adults' limited self-sense, and mystics can recover it without losing social learning. Freud countered that oceanic feeling involves shelterlessness and that derealization is psychotic. The text suggests shelterlessness arises from early separation, and while derealization is dangerous, if it proceeds unhindered it yields greater sanity. Buddhism and transpersonal psychology both value transpersonal and holotropic experiences, but transpersonal psychology must learn from Buddhism to distinguish among such experiences—such as formless realms of samsara, the neutral base-of-all, Awakening, and types of nirvana—and assign them different value.

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Abstract

In the debate between Freud and Romain Rolland the latter asserted the infants’ oceanic feeling to be saner than the adults’ limited sense of self, and that mystics recover the oceanic feeling without losing the learning achieved during socialization. Freud retorted that the oceanic feeling involved a sense of shelterlessness, and whoever went through derealization was psychotic and needed to be cured. However, the feeling of shelterlessness comes from the fledging sense of separation, and although derealization is a dangerous process, when it develops unhindered the result is greater sanity. So, Buddhism and TP agree in valuing transpersonal and holotropic experiences, but TP must learn from Buddhism to distinguish between kinds of holotropic and transpersonal experiences, and attribute different value to them: the formless realms of the highest tier of samsara, the neutral condition of the base-of-all in which the precious human possibility is squandered, Awakening, different types of nirvana...