Transpersonal Psychologies

Alchemical practices have been reborn in our contemporary world under the rubric of Jungianism, transpersonal psychology, or depth psychology. But in Alchemical Psychology, Thom F. Cavalli, Ph.D., takes us directly to the source-and on a wonderful adventure into the true nature of our hearts and minds. 

Both in operation and in terms of study, this route is complicated by our predominant cultural bias of not really paying much attention to our bodies. Our bodies are too seldom thought of as sources of information. Researchers in humanistic and transpersonal psychology are just beginning to find out that the body has a wisdom of its own—a brain of its own, as it were—that can provide us with information about ourselves and external reality and process that information. Carlos Castaneda, for example, has told me that in Don Juan s system, a sorcerer considers his body a major source of information about the world around him the sensations in his body will tell him a great deal about events that otherwise would not be perceived through ordinary sensory channels. 

The results of both his preinduction interview about his general experience of hypnosis and the particular hypnotic session have been condensed into the graph shown in Figure 14-6 (Reprinted from c. Tart, 3. Transpersonal Psychology., 1970, 2, 27-40, by the permission of the American Transpersonal Association). 

The third ordering (Figure 17-5) is John Lilly s conceptualization of the system taught by Oscar ichazo in Arica, Chile. More background is available in the chapter by John Lilly and Joseph Harts in Transpersonal Psychologies 128, as well as in Lilly s Center of the Cyclone 35. ... 

This is not meant to imply a blanket criticism of all communities, political and social ideas, or spiritual systems indeed, in Transpersonal Psychologies 128 I attempt to promote the psychologies... 

Another brief introduction to Gurdjieffs ideas is a chapter by Kathleen Riordan (Speeth) in my Transpersonal Psychologies (El Cerrito, Calif. Psychological Processes, 1983). She later expanded this chapter into a small book, The GurdjiejfWork (Berkeley And/Or Press, 1976). 

Mann, R. The Light of Consciousness Explorations in Transpersonal Psychology. Albany, N.Y. State University of New York Press, 1984. 

T art. Transpersonal Psychologies. See also C. Tart. Hidden Shackles The Assumptions of Western Psychology, cassette tape, available from Psychological Processes, Box 37, El Cerrito, CA 94530. 

Tart, States of Consciousness and State-Specific Sciences, Science 176 (1972) 1203-1210 Tart, States of Consciousness-, Tart, Transpersonal Psychologies. 

Transpersonal Psychologies. El Cerrito, Calif. Psychological Processes,... 

Charles T. Tart, Ph.D., is internationally known for research on transpersonal psychology and parapsychology. His 14 books include two classics, Alured States of Consciousness and Transpersonal Psychologies. His Body Mind Spirit Exploring the Parapsychology of Spirituality at the scientific foundations... 

It may be that some d-SoCs cannot be reached directly from another particular d-SoC some intermediary d-SoC has to be traversed. The process is like crossing a stream that is too wide to leap over directly you have to leap onto one or more stepping stones in sequence to get to the other side. Each stepping stone is a stable place in itself, but they are transitional with respect to the beginning and end points of the process. Some of the jhana states of Buddhist meditation may be of this nature (see Goleman s chapter in Transpersonal Psychologies 128 ). This kind of stable transitional state should not be confused with the inherently unstable transitional periods discussed above, and we should be careful in our use of the words state and period. 

Metzner, Ralph. 1994. Addiction and transcendence as altered states of consciousness. Journal of Transpersonal Psychology 16 (1) 1-17. 

Doblin, R. 1991. Pahnke s Good Friday Experiment A long-term follow-up and methodological critique, The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology 23 (1). 

Pahnke, W., and W. Richards. 1969. Implications of LSD and experimental mysticism. Journal of Transpersonal Psychology 1 (2) 69-102. 

Lukoff, et al, (1990)."Transpersonal psychology research review psychoactive substances and transpersonal states," The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, Vol. 22 2. 

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