The belief that one can read others' minds has long been considered a symptom of psychosis, despite reports in the parapsychological literature of veridical telepathy. All patients admitted to an inpatient psychiatric unit were screened for paranormal beliefs, and those claiming telepathic abilities were tested in a free-response ESP task. Eighteen per cent of the inpatient population claimed...
James's "Ether Mysticism" and Hegel DANIEL J. COOK THROUGHOUT HIS LIFE, James was a persistent critic of Hegel and Hegelianism . Very often he attacked Hegel with derision as well as earnest argument. One attitude that has been cited as evidence of James's light-hearted and cavalier treatment of Hegel concerns his comments on Hegel while under the influence of nitrous oxide (N20). In this paper...
The authors suggest that Transcendental Meditation offers a great deal of promise for use in helping relationships. They also suggest that the technique might receive wider acceptance if it could be explained in other than a purely philosophical or mystical way. For that reason, in their article they offer a psychological interpretation of the TM process.
Emerging paradigms m tran~per~ona1 psychotherapy are discussed m relation to values and attitudes of the therapist and the place of transpersonal experience m the growth process, which goes beyond self actuahzation to self-transcendence. When a therapist is identified as havmg a transpersonal orientation, it may be assumed that he/she affirms the validity and importance of the spiritual quest...
Medicine. San Francisco. He is Director of the Psychosomatic Medicine Center of Gladman Memorial Hospital, Oakland, and in private practice in Berkeley. During graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley, he was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow, studied at the C. G. Jung Institute in Zurich, Switzerland, and became Director of the Institute for the Study of Consciousness, Berkeley. He has...
Mysticism and the mystical experience seemingly play little or no part in our Western tradition. Certainly there is no mystical tradition in the West such as Zen Buddhism, nor is there any great understanding of or influence from the writings of Heraclitus, Spinoza, or the mystical passages in the early work of Wittgenstein. Mysticism has been generally misunderstood in the West, and it has...
The author reports two cases in which depersonalization occurred during the waking consciousness of individuals who had engaged in meditative techniques designed to alter consciousness. Psychiatrists should be aware of this phenomenon, as the number organizations in the "consciousness movement" is increasing, and should ask people manifesting depersonalization about any involvement in...
The term "psychedelic" applied to "altered states of consciousness" would imply that such subjective anomalies are direct expressions of normal psychological functioning. The anomaly in such experience would depend in the first instance on sensitization to qualities of immediate subjective state. Such sensitization should in itself be considered nonadaptive, cutting off the "intentionality" of...
The author describes a model of intoxicant use based on altered states of consciousness and reviews his own and others' research on marijuana to illustrate the utility of this model, which is derived from both introspective reports and observed data. The relationship of social behavior and cognitive functioning to the "intoxication state of consciousness" is discussed. This state of...
Concepts deriving from Zen Buddhism have come to form part of popular Western culture during the last twenty years or so.These concepts are often vague and misleading.This paper suggests that Zen can be usefully characterized as a set of techniques designed to bring about specific changes in behaviour and experience.This is also often held to be one of the aims of psychology.As yet,...