International Journal of Transpersonal Studies
February 20, 2024
Glenn Hartelius
1 citation
The term 'nondual states' is often used in psychology and New Age contexts to describe experiences where the sense of self is softened or expanded. This paper argues that such usage is incompatible with the original meaning in Advaita Vedanta, where nonduality is a metaphysical concept about the nature of reality, not a description of a mental state. The author contends that applying the term to psychological states lacks the precision needed for a scientific construct and improperly inserts New Age metaphysical ideas into psychology. The argument is grounded in the author's study under a lineage-holding teacher of Advaita Vedanta.
International Journal of Transpersonal Studies
February 20, 2024
Douglas Duckworth
1 citation
A bodhisattva, the ideal of Mahayana Buddhism, can be understood through two complementary dimensions. One is a "top-down" approach: contemplative practices that unveil a pure, already-present nature by removing obscurations. The other is a "bottom-up" approach: directed training and discipline that breaks the cycle of suffering by turning the mind away from habitual, destructive patterns toward spontaneous and skillful responses. The paper argues these orientations are not opposed but complementary aspects of a bodhisattva's practice.
International Journal of Transpersonal Studies
September 1, 2018
Harry T. Hunt
1 citation
Wilhelm Reich developed a vitalistic transpersonal psychology that envisioned a future spirituality to counter global materialism and disenchantment with traditional religion. His work, framed as a "religion for the children of the future," drew on intuitions of a transformative life energy, though its supporting research in orgone physics and biology is questionable. Reich's personal development paralleled classical mystical stages of purgation and illumination, culminating in a "dark night" crisis interpreted as spiritual emergency. The paper distinguishes Reich's spiritual insights from his dubious scientific claims and situates him among other mid-20th-century thinkers who articulated overlapping visions of a New Age spirituality.
International Journal of Transpersonal Studies
September 1, 2017
Mark A. Schroll, Claire Polansky
1 citation
Mythical figures and comicbook superheroes can inspire personal growth, social and planetary change, and illuminate concepts from deep ecology and transpersonal ecosophy. The paper is divided into two parts: Part 1 examines how definitions of myth, hero, and the hero's journey frame personal and transpersonal growth. Part 2 analyzes individual comicbook characters, evaluating their significance for raising collective archetypal awareness of the psyche's relationship with Earth within an ecopsychological framework. Practical examples show how comicbook lore can cultivate a new quality of life on a planetary scale.
International Journal of Transpersonal Studies
December 31, 2024
Alef Trust, Gabriel Fernandez-Borsot
Transpersonal psychotherapy lacks a clear definition and systematic framework, leading to fragmentation through many idiosyncratic approaches. This fragmentation hinders theoretical development, wider recognition, training, and research. To address this, the paper proposes a model of five components that characterize transpersonal psychotherapy: purposeful use of states of consciousness, a transpersonal therapeutic framework, transpersonal techniques, focus on spirituality or existential meaning, and suitable phenomenology and therapeutic demands or goals. Each component allows varied implementations, so the model serves as a conceptual template covering the diversity of transpersonal psychotherapies while providing needed systematization.
International Journal of Transpersonal Studies
December 31, 2024
Glenn Hartelius
Advaita Vedanta, often cited as a source for nondual theories of consciousness that posit a pure, featureless awareness underlying mental experience, is frequently misrepresented. These interpretations deviate from both its traditional lineage-based teachings and scientific standards, creating compromises that lack traditional fidelity and psychological rigor. For meaningful dialogue between psychology and Advaita Vedanta, a clear distinction must be made between the sensate phenomenology of experience and the spiritual interpretations that may be implicit in experiential descriptions.
International Journal of Transpersonal Studies
February 20, 2024
Harry T. Hunt
The numinous, or felt sense of the sacred, evokes unity, humility, and healing. While traditional religion schematizes it in absolutes, phenomenologists like Husserl and Heidegger analyze it as a symbolic unification of a fragmented life-world. The numinous amplifies the nondual organism-surround relationship seen in non-symbolic organisms, reflected in Uexküll's animal umwelten and Gibson's "envelopes of flow." Husserl's passive synthesis and James's pure experience intuit forms underlying a transspecies consciousness, differentiated into concrete lifeworlds down to sentient protozoa and abstractly amplified as the human numinous. With its social template in an ethically responsible shamanism, the numinous now calls for care and conservation of Spirit shared with all sentient beings amid the human-caused climate crisis.
International Journal of Transpersonal Studies
October 31, 2009
S. Beyer
Mestizos in the Upper Amazon, descendants of Hispanic colonizers and indigenous peoples, have created a distinctive shamanic culture blending folk Catholicism, traditional Hispanic medicine, and Amazonian religious traditions—especially healing, sorcery, shamanism, and the use of hallucinogenic plants like ayahuasca. This culture produces brilliant visionary art and has spread globally, with ayahuasca shamans now performing ceremonies as far as Ontario and Wisconsin. The book describes what occurs at ayahuasca healing ceremonies, how apprentices form spiritual relationships with plant spirits, how sorcerers cause harm that shamans heal, and the uses of plants in healing, love magic, and sorcery.