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The Story of Transpersonal Psychology Science of the Soul | TEOTS | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: The Story of Transpersonal Psychology Science of the Soul
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Summary
Core Theme
Transpersonal psychology emerged in the 1960s as a holistic approach to understanding the full spectrum of human experience, integrating spiritual, mystical, and non-ordinary states of consciousness that were previously excluded by mainstream psychology.
in our beginnings we were after all in
the midst of the 60s ferment and one of
the things that was in that ferment was
that every
institution was being looked at to see
whether it was successful in what it
the East started fertilizing the West
more it always is in in phases but it
became prominent especially with the
Beatles you know right we all got very
fascinated by what the East had to teach the
the
West a lot of the people who were
influenced by Asian religions and who um
had taken mind altering
substances uh tried to explain it in
terms of Western psychology and I think
wall people were discovering that their
religious traditions in many cases had
dried up that they were not getting the
experience of being closer to their
Divine inner nature by going through the
church mosque synagogue that they had
been brought up in the whole human
potential movement was um was very much
uh a factor here so that people were
beginning to get interested in growth
experiences they recognized that group
experiences for example going to
workshops going to conferences just
opened up new worlds that they hadn't
explored before so there was a sense of
a richness of of human experience that
has had not yet been
studied had not yet been understood in
an adequate way in the west coast and
the East Coast we had BN and there was a
a youth interest in new religious ideas
spirituality was emerging as a kind of
uh uh primary uh generational interest
and uh older adults were waking up to
these issues too new people began to see
that the the evolution of Consciousness
was not something that stops when you
reach a adulthood in fact that may be
just the beginning and that we continue
to grow throughout life and that there are
are
tremendously many more potentials than
we're usually aware of that we can
unfold and it can lead to more peace
love and joy what transversal psychology
adds is what's traditionally been called
spirit this is the inner side the
intuitive side the part that is Longs
for meaning and value the part that was
deliberately consciously left out by by
mainstream psychology the
the
main event going on
was a sense that where American
Psychology was wasn't where The Cutting
Edge or the Innovations were going to
come and the people who were most
interested in these changes
uh basically were connected with Abraham
maslo the psychologist to develop self-actualization
Theory transpersonal psychology is a
relatively new field of of psychology
it's been around since about 1969 when
it was founded as a as an association of
transp personal psychology
basically is more holistic than mainstream
mainstream
psychology and uh more spiritual I was
attracted to transpersonal psychology
because it really addressed the whole
person and it was the only branch of
psychology that uh took an interest in
um the spiritual Dimensions uh in those
days 30 years ago you couldn't even
mention the word spirituality around
psychologists because they were all
trying so hard to be scientific y was
actually the first transpersonal
psychologist he broke with Freud over
the issue of excluding the spirit from uh
uh
psychology and so it adds it puts back
in what had always been there in
premodern times which is basically the
idea the human nature consist of Body
Mind and Spirit the project of of modern
Psychology was to uh try to have a
psychology with Spirit left out uh if
you think of a normal bell curve of
anything normal psychology or
conventional psychology tends to look at
from The Middle on down into the
Psychopathology and weirdness and mental
illness part now the other half of the
normal bell curve from normal to
Superior to exceptional to dazzling to
uh the people who change whole cultures
which turn out to be a combination of
Heroes Saints uh
Visionaries I'm just as interested in
that can say that transversal psychology
is a system of thinking that uh covers
the whole spectrum of human experience
which includes what we call uh
non-ordinary uh States Of Consciousness
now what's what's uh I think very
specific for transpersonal psychology is
that it not only studies these states
but they that uh transpersonal
psychologist uh hold these states in
great esteem transpersonal psychology
has shown that the states are uh if
they're properly understood properly
supported that they are actually healing
that they are transformative and even in
a sense uh uh
evolutionary what what it was about in
the beginning was Publications because
uh there were a lot of ideas around in
the early
60s uh about psychology and the culture
was changing and it was the beginning of
quote the 60s as we know it around that
same time people started working with
Consciousness expanding drugs were
called Consciousness expanding drugs
that basically now some people used them
as adjunct to psychotherapy dealing with
neurotic problems um but other people
felt uh there's other uses that seem to
go into dimensions of what ordinarily in
the past would have been considered the
psychology of religion you know William
James 1901 he wrote a book called
varieties of religious experience
religious experience
so um maslo and graph and others felt
they needed a new approach was needed to
deal with areas beyond the normal that
are not
pathological um but touch into areas of
religion mysticism higher States Of
Consciousness the kinds of things that
Eastern philosophy deals with a lot
transpersonal psychology actually arose
out of uh the living room of Anthony
sudit who lived lived in paloalto
California and Anthony suduch very
unsung hero actually founded two out of
the four major forms of psychology in
the world transpersonal psychology
attracted people who were
also aware that there was something
beyond what usual psychology study we
didn't really know what we were doing at
the beginning so it's almost I suppose
you could say some kind of uh almost
miraculous that people will gather
around something which is so open-ended
so undefined at the moment the idea that
there could be an interest in
Consciousness research
spiritual uh developmental
psychology uh that there could be a
psychology that
involves the whole span Man Of Human
Experience and human life and that this
did not exclude things because
methodologically they were hard to deal
with the idea that that could be
handled uh through a
scientific scholarly clinically professional
professional
approach was fairly new a lot of it had
to do with ab's friends Tony's
friends uh a lot of the people Jim
thanan brought a lot of people in Stan
grath came in because he had had
experiences he was trying to deal with
and some way he was actually recovering
after a heart attack at that time and
this was very interesting I arrived at
the maslo residence and rang the bell
and his wife came to Bera came to answer
the door and I had this very distinct
feeling of really being unwelcome she
was almost blocking uh the enter into
the house uh with her
body but then finally you know stepped
back and uh ab and I connected and had a
wonderful time and also Bertha and I
made good connection and we had all
dinner and then uh she told me uh what
was behind this she said that when he
read uh the manuscript uh describing my
work that he was so excited about the
parallels that she was worried that if
the two of us get together and start
talking that it's going to be too much
excitement for him that he could have
another could have another heart attack
when the first issue of the journal
transpersonal was
published it was published the same
month that the lunar Landing occurred
where we walked on the moon for the
first time and I remember sitting in
with Tony suduch in his living room we
were watching TV with other people in
the room
and here comes the message back with the
video coming back from the surface of
the the Moon that somebody has stepped
on is walking on the
moon and I said to Tony I think we both
thought of it the same time well it's
opening up this Frontier just like what
we're doing with this journal we're
opening up all the way into space now we
now we know we can leave the planet and
land somewhere else and explore that's
what we're trying to do in Psychology
we're trying to open up that big Edge
that edge that is so hard to get a hold
of and we're going to do it as much as
possible staying within a scientific uh
role I became part of this I was invited
into this small group that was
formulating these uh principles of the
new psychology of of the force
forth uh now AB Abe and uh Tony wanted
uh humanistic psychology and then uh
they looked at uh what I have written
about uh the experiences in psychedelic
sessions where I talk about three levels
of experience biographical perinatal
focusing on reliving of births and and
prenatal life and then I described a
large group of experiences or even a
level in the unconscious that I called
transpersonal and so they got very
excited about this term transpersonal
transhumanism of a job application which
is if you want to start two new
psychologies in America that will also
be effective overseas and have thousands
of people involved in two organizations
at least putting on conferences for
hundreds and hundreds of professionals
tend and it's going to generate shells
and shells of professional and scholarly
literature and it's going to go on for
20 30 40 or more years you only have one
applicant to do this
job and this applicant completed 9th grade
grade
only he has a house in Palo
Alto and he makes his living and
supports himself uh as a psychologist a
counselor but he never got a degree and
in addition to not having anything
beyond a nth grade
education he can't get up and walk he
can't take a book off the shelf because
he is lying on his back and has been on
his back for decades because he was disabled
disabled
by uh severe case of juvenile arthritis
before any effective medications are
available well you have to fill in the
spots on the application that ordinarily
wouldn't be there number one is he read
everything he could get his hands on
remembered most of it was constantly
integrating it the second thing that's
interesting about this guy is he had a
terrific mind he not only read but he
knew what to do with it
all and uh I'm going to tell a story out
of class here he was a labor agitator in
the depression he was the guy who made
the plans and sent them out to other
people now in the depression there was a
lot of Labor difficulty and violence and
a lot of people were in deep trouble
because of the
depression but nobody thought that a guy
lying on his back who was totally
disabled you a little house in Palo Alto
could possibly have anything to do with
this he couldn't move his legs couldn't
blow his own nose couldn't feed himself
and was on this gurnie and I used to
turn the pages of the paper papers that
we would get in and Tony told me Sonia
in the condition I'm in the only kind of
play I can do is intellectual play and
that's what we did every afternoon for 3
or 4 hours for probably four years and
in the beginning Abe joined us so we
were there when we were doing all this
thing about what kind of uh statements
we would make about transpersonal psychology
psychology
and it was Tony and Abe who actually
sent me over to the
Zeno which was nearby my home only a
10-minute drive from my home because
they were interested in what Asian
psychologist had to say about the
farther reaches of human development
transpersonal really began as much in
the living room of Tony suich as any
place on Earth and each week we would
have like a cell and somebody amazing
would come through
lured by this who was this amazing man
in the slant bed and we would hang out
with them and they would in a sense uh
really teach us these were gurus that
passed through and major researchers and
so forth and gradually the journal began
to emerge and out of the journal there
be we realized that you don't run a
journal when you're really a poor little
group you have an association and the
purpose of the association is to charge
a number of people more more than you
journal culturally the transpersonal
movement can really be traced in the
west all the way back to the ucini
Mysteries transpersonal psychology uh is
really a uh contemporary form a reaction
to the Reliance on uh the mundane
everyday State of Consciousness which we
need to function in our everyday lives
we need it when we're driving through
traffic uh we need it when our we're
paying our bills and just kind of uh
making or ordinary plants and so on but
it's not the best State of Consciousness
for deepening our connection to uh uh
sense of some larger meaning in the
Universe uh a sense of connection to a
higher power uh other things that are
very important historically to human
existence so the elosan Mysteries were a
ritual that uh was part of the life in
Greece for around 500 years and people
were limited to participating in this a
single time in their entire life it was
a 4-day ritual uh the best historical
evidence is that it included ingesting
an LSD like
substance uh and people were forbidden
to talk about what they had experienced
during this ritual under the penalty of
death so historians like Eugene Taylor
really trace the cultural origins of
transpersonal psychology back to this
movement and then throughout history to
movements for example in the United States
States
uh that included uh people meditating in
caves in Pennsylvania during the
1700s uh America became truly a
spiritual democracy where uh Splinter
groups from all over Europe could come
and live in their kind of spiritual
communes and live lives that they could
not live in Europe where the dominant
Powers whether it was the Catholic
Church or the Lutheran Church uh
insisted that people worship uh in the
way that the church mandated so America
has always been a kind of experiment in spiritual
spiritual
democracy now in the 1800s the
transcendentalists uh began to
incorporate many of the practices that
were just becoming uh known in the west
uh practices from India and Tibet and so
on those practices were really only
known to a very small group of people in
the west there certainly were
Publications on them and the kind of
Literati knew about them uh there were
small groups who practiced them it was
really in the 1960s
1960s
through books like uh uh Alan watt's
book on Zen and enlight M um through the
Maharishi packaging meditation in a form
where people could uh readily learn the
practice um also through the widespread
use of psychedelic drugs where people
would spontaneously have these kinds of
experiences so that's what really
created the kind of cultural opening to
these uh transpersonal
experiences again I want to distinguish
between transpersonal experiences and
transpersonal psychology because it was
really transpersonal psychology that
then came in and said these are really
important experiences for us as
understand I was working at the um
Department of Psychiatry of the school
of medicine in Prague and um we just
were finishing a large study of melal
one of the early tranquilizers and one
day the department when I was working
got a large uh box of ampules from
Sandos and a letter came with it and the
letter said this was a very exciting
investigational new substance that was
discovered or the the effects of which
were discovered practically by accident
by Dr Hoffman the leading chemist in the
Laboratories it's called lsd2
so I wouldn't have missed this for
anything in the world I kind of you know
became one of the early
volunteers and I had an experience that
just really changed my life both
professionally and
personally uh the man who was my
preceptor who got the supply um was very
interested in
electroencephalography so everybody who
wanted a session had to have EG before
during and after now what this meant
practically is that uh between the
second and the third hour when the
session culminates my experience
culminated uh This research assistant
came and said this was time for driving
the brain waves so she took me to this
little cell I laid down she pasted the
electrodes on my head and asked me to
close my eyes then bring this brought
this gigantic stroboscopic light put it
above my head and then turn this thing
on and in the next moment there was
light like I had had never seen in my
life couldn't even imagine existed I
read later sort of some of the
descriptions of of the mystics they talk
about you know millions of sons and so
on that was what happened to me um and
uh the only context I had for
understanding or relating to it was I I
thought this is what must have what it
must have been like in Hiroshima when
the bomb went off uh today I think it
was more like the dharmakaya like the
prime very clear light from the Tibetan
Book of the Dead that supposedly appears
at the time when we
die now what happened experientially is
that my Consciousness was catapulted out
of my body as separated from my body I
lost the research assistant I lost the
clinic I lost Prague I lost the planet
and uh suddenly I was in a state where
my Consciousness Had No Boundaries I had
the feeling I became the
universe and um there were a lot of
processes happening for which at the
time I had no names but later what kind
of I was vaguely able to relate to uh
Concepts like big bang you know black
holes white holes uh when I was reading
that that seemed to be like related to
what happened in that session and it was
just absolutely clear to me that the
cons Consciousness is not a product of
the brain that those are two separate
entities you know it's like a driver and
the car
so um I was very impressed and I felt
you know since I'm stuck in Psychiatry
by far the most interesting thing I can
do in my life or with my life is to
study these states so it's going to be soon
soon
uh um half a century when I had this
experience and since that time I had
really I have really done very little uh
professionally that would not be related
in one way or another to these non
ordinary States you know I use this
model of the aled state the set and
setting you have to look at the set and
setting to to find out what the content
of the experience is that's true of
dreams too it's true right now in a
waking State you know we have a certain
intention we have a certain setting
that's what else is there is the inner
and the outer right uh and similarly
with substances like LSD you had an
external Catalyst that pretty reliably
you know given the appropriate set and
setting could induce
mystical or religious experiences were
otherwise completely unusual in fact
there was a study done at Harvard by
person called Walter Panky who's an MD
and getting his PhD in the history of
religion and he took the idea of set and
setting seriously he said let's let's
pick out a group of people who are
interested in religious experience like
theology students at a seminary and
let's pick a setting you know where
during in a chapel during a service Good
Friday service in a chapel separate from
the M
chapel and let's tell them we're
interested in seeing you know a
religious experience and we give them
did a double blind placeo control study
like you do strict
psychopharmacology where uh half the
group got Placebo and half the group got
civil cyon and then he had a list of
criteria from the mystical mysticism
literature and on all of the
criteria they a group that got solos
cyon uh reported significantly higher
incidences you know including like
certain knowledge and ineffability
paradoxicality Transcendence of time and
space u only one criteria there was no
difference and that was like a general
feeling of love you know whether people
going Church Good Friday they had a
general feeling of Love also whether
they took something or not so um and
that change later on follow-up studies
six months later and somebody did a
follow-up study 25 years later with some
of these people they remembered the
experience and they still interpret it
the International Foundation for
advanced study had a what was called
investigational drug license and we had
told the federal government that we were
working with people in a therapeutic
environment and they came and checked us
out now and then and the Food and Drug
Administration cops came and checked our
material uh we used to in a sense put
aside Wednesdays for someone to come and
surprise us with a a visit for some
government agency so we were highly
observed and this was at Stanford this
was not at Stanford Stanford wouldn't
touch it with a 10o pole Stanford was
terrified at becoming the Harvard of the
West and I was the most likely person to
do it to them we were working on this
this uh working
with materials at a very low dose of of
psychedelics for intellectual problems
with senior
scientists and the way in which that day
would run with them the experimental day
was they would come in and they would
get stereo headphones and they would be
lying on a on a couch uh with a black ey
shade and listening to classical
music um and then around noon we would
take off the eye shades and offer them a
little bit of food mostly turned down
and say basically get to work and out of
that came a number of patents a number
of breakthrough kind of inventions um
very good stuff and while we were doing that
that
in the midst of about halfway through
the number of people we felt we were
going to run as a research project we
got a letter from the federal government
and it said um if you have opened this
letter we have just closed down your research
project meaning your
investigational drug license to do
research in this area has been
terminated as of the receipt of this
letter and I recall because we were we
were sitting in a little room next to
our session room we had four people
lying there major
scientists most of them now referred by
other people who had been our
scientists um listening to the later Beethoven
Beethoven
quartets and I looked around as the
youngest member of this group and said I
tomorrow and we all acknowledge that
that probably was a good idea it was too
much for some people okay some people
had difficulty handling the experiences
or they used them the wrong way or they
got distracted by the the pleasure of it
instead of learning from it but other
people saw we could all be Mystics of A
Sort we could all have a direct feeling
for the transpersonal the spiritual and
begin to base our lives on that and that
revolutionized our whole culture and in
ways we're still just beginning to find
out let me give you a personal example
when I was in graduate school one of the
psychiatrists in the psychology
department where I was training was
doing LSD
research and I was a subject for him a
number of times in between taking exams
and going to classes and all that I had
marvelous insights into the nature of
the human mind that way things which
were abstract ideas like dissociation
you know intellectually I knew all about
dissociation but it wasn't until I'd had
a psychedelic experience that involved a
lot of dissociation that I suddenly at a
deep level understood oh that's what
that stuff is and that's how it work it
gave me a lot of understandings of the
way the human mind works which have
gradually come out in a more formal kind
of way in my own research over the years
so for most of my work in Altered States
Of Consciousness for instance I've tried
to experience at least something of
particular States so I have an inside
idea of what it's about if you don't
have an ins side idea you can do awfully
silly things if you took a behaviorist
approach to psychedelic drugs like LSD
for instance you would probably say that
most of the time they act like a
sedative or a tranquilizer because
people sit still and don't do anything
for a long time and that's not what's
happening and William James so and he he
studied parapsychological experiments
somnambulism hypnotism all kinds of
unusual he studied psychedelic experien
he took nitrous oxide
and he said he said no he said he had an
amazing quotation he said all around our
ordinary Consciousness separated by the
filestream like other Realms of reality
and no account of human consciousness
that leaves these other Realms out of
account can be considered complete and
we ourselves had a large study using uh
LSD therapy with terminal cancer
patients seeing if we can influence
somehow uh the attitude towards death
and transform the the process of dying
through mystical experiences this was
probably the most interesting the most
moving uh work that I have ever been
involved in results would be that a
significant uh number of uh the patients
were were rated as significantly
improved in a variety of of areas uh you
know subjective experiences uh um all
the way to uh how easy it was to manage
manage them and so on uh the influence on
on
pain um there was about onethird of the
patients who were seen as essentially I
would say about onethird dramatically
improved onethird sort of moderate
improvements and then there was one/
third when there were no major changes
that we could detect it was in uh in
three areas generally we
saw great uh changes OT Al you know in
terms of depression uh um tension
insomnia things of that kind we saw also
very specific uh changes in the attitude
towards death they developed a very
convincing feeling that if they die it's
the body that dies uh you know that it's
not they who
die uh so it seemed to have transformed
also the experience of dying itself in
those patients whom we could follow in
the process of death
and then the third area was we found out
that uh LSD had very powerful influence
in many patients on uh
pain sometimes even pain that was not
tractable by by narcotics of course the
propaganda came you know when the image
of LSD suddenly was dictated by by
journalists and the Criterion was what
happened to people when they take it in
the street rather than what you do when
you you know run a responsible
therapeutic experiment M and so on that
was one part of it the other part was
that uh in these situations the
administrators and the legislators
didn't want to take the
responsibility you know they were afraid
of malpractice suits which are very very
um common in in this country and we got
a very strange answer when we when we
ask for more more money for the research
they said you have already proved that
you know it's useful there's no reason
to research sech it any further that was
their that was their
response so we were taking the
risks um for instance when I graduated
from Stanford you
know uh vanilla a educational
institution but my dissertation was on
the effective use of psychedelics and
Psychotherapy it was clear that I was
not only an incredibly Innovative
researcher on a Cutting Edge field but
I I think the the kind of person who
feels that well this this world of uh
getting up in the morning and and uh and
getting into the freeways and and uh to
work and hurrying and and trying to
accomplish and getting only half of it
done every day and then coming home at
night at night and going to bed and
going and getting up the next morning
and doing the same routine that that
that's not quite enough that that
there's got to be more to the meaning of Our
Our
Lives the the people that are drawn into
the field and the uh both faculty and
students and staff people who work as
secretaries and clerks and
registr um are often uh the elves on a
spiritual path they're asking good
questions about their lives and um often
care deeply about how things uh work in
the world and uh how to be kinder I
think in a very basic
way people drawn to transpersonal
psychology are very likely to be people
who even from childhood did not think
that have
seen Beyond ordinary appearance into the
complexity of Human
Experience for whatever reason there's a
lot of different reasons that a person
person's perspective on life can shift
it could be simply through your upbringing
upbringing
it could be through an
illness um it could be through a
traumatic event it could be by virtue of
being gifted in some way that sets you
apart but some some way
of seeing that things are beyond their
mere appearance I I'm speaking in the
trying to be the in the simplest sense
of what what's this impetus in people to
go beyond to go beyond the ordinary go
beyond the the
merely go beyond consensus reality the
fact that we have all these different
religious traditions in the world and
we're all bumping up against each other
raises questions it's like what if I'd
been born over there you know when I'm
born here this is the truth you know
what what if I was born over there would
that be the truth
truth
and you know one response to that is to
throw it out and say well it's all
baloney another response
is to go really into your tradition and
say we're right and you guys are all
wrong U but for the people that can't do
either one of those who go you know what
I've had experiences where there's
really something going on there
something bigger than me I know
that but it doesn't make sense to me to
put it in a little box and say I'm right
and all you guys are wrong
I think that's the kind of person that
goes to transpersonal psychology and
says I want to understand this I need to
have a bigger picture I need to reinvent
I need to be part of the process of
Reinventing the understanding of who we
are and how we relate
to this something that's bigger than we
are I think I'm one of those many people
that primarily was drawn to it as a kind
of Lifeboat in Academia
because I was in graduate
school interested in Shamanism in my
case and there was simply no way to fit
it into my program and the the area that
most allowed me to be able to talk about
Shamanism with my professors was transpersonal
psychology psychology of Buddhism and
the meditation practices the for example
um Sida yoga or Sufi practices or um
Buddhist Meditation in all its forms
whether it's Zen or vasna or Tibetan
Buddhism were all becoming increasingly
popular and it was only transpersonal
psychology that really um made any
effort to understand uh what was
happening when people did take their
meditation practice seriously when I
brought out my Altered States Of
Consciousness book back in 1969 I had a
section on meditation and I bragged in
the introduction to that section that I
was reprinting 2third of the English
language scientific literature on
meditation which sounded very impressive
to you realize it was two of the three
articles that existed there was almost
no scientific research on meditation
then years later in the 70s there was an
article published in science that found
some physiological correlates of
Transcendental Meditation and all of a
sudden that legitimatized it for
mainstream science if it affected the
brain and the body maybe meditation is
real instead of some weird thing that
comes from the East so it legitimatized
research and now there's more than
probably 1,400 1500 scientific studies
on meditation published meditative
practice um is a practice that um
generally speaking attempts to uh either
pacify or modulate the mental processes
so that they become more permeable to uh
the light of Consciousness to the energy
of Consciousness more porous to it so
that the mind uh relaxes and then when
the Mind relaxes uh naturally becomes
more permeable or poros to that kind of
like um uh greater knowledge greater
consciousness and then there is um more
chances of a descent or an Ascent no I
think one of the best things for
therapist in training is to learn to
meditate because it does quiet the mind
and give one a capacity for listening
more deeply to oneself and others and I
think that when somebody is in therapy
and they also have a meditation practice
it's as though the process goes along
much faster because when you sit down to
meditate all sorts of things come up and
then it's all Grist for the- Mill for
the Psychotherapy
process I find that people who are
meditators tend to make much more rapid
progress in therapy and uh and I think
that it's just a a real asset however I
don't think one is a substitute for the
other I do think that one of the uh
splits that exists in our culture that
hopefully will be healed is that often
meditation teachers
um do not think that therapy is valuable
and sometimes there are some therapists
that don't think meditation is valuable
one of transpersonal psychology's big
jobs that it's going to take many years
to do is to classify the different kinds
of meditation practices and to find out
what kind works for what kind of person
so that eventually someday we might be
able to
say for your personality type don't do
Zen meditation cuz too many people go
off the deep end with it and not enough
people feel they've spiritually grown
but this other kind of meditation is
good for your personality type we don't
know anywhere near enough to be able to
make those kind of recommendations at
this point but that's my hope for the
field I think it's hard to describe I
think it's hard to describe in the same
way that how would you describe the
experience of waking up in the
morning it's as though when you're in a
dream you think it's that's reality it's
the way it is and all of a sudden you
wake up and you discover that it was
only a dream but you see when you wake
up from
sleep uh you awaken to what you then
and I kind of like to think of the the
spiritual awakening as simply
Awakening rather
than moving from one kind of spell
boundness to another you Just
Awaken and I think that's what happens
in our in our lives that we at some
point begin to recognize that all of the
past and all of the future exist only in
the mind
and that our reality is in this present
moment and that A Spiritual Awakening
allows us to see how much of our Lives
is spent in dreaming most of our time is
spent thinking about the past or the
future and that takes away from our
capacity to live fully in the present in
simple terms I would describe it
probably in two directions One Direction
would be like a process of gradual
letting go of our narcissism and
self-center at all levels not only
conscious but also physical and
emotional and and sexual uh and uh in
all its forms the more gross more
obvious and the more subtle and uh
that's U that I would say it's pretty never
never
ending and then the other direction
would be like as a process of uh of
becoming more complete human beings and
by a complete human being I mean
something very simple I mean like a
human being that is fully grounded in
this reality fully here on planet Earth
without needing to go anywhere else to
be full and complete and free but at the
same time open to all those energies of
Consciousness here and open to all those
energies of Life uh from this plane
inevitably when a person has a spiritual
awakening it's intensely personal
intensely personal but also inevitably
if one is going to evolve in it and um
find ways to live here uh
uh
one begins to see that others have had
this experience and that Traditions have
evolved around people having the same
basic experience and then you have to
ask yourself what do I fit in best with
or do I fit in any of them and what do I
want to um
incorporate for myself as a way to live
in this world because it is going to
have to end up in relationship you know
we we have spiritual Awakenings but we
don't have them in
isolation um we affect others by our
spiritual awakening and they affect us
as well the Tibetan Buddhists like to
talk about Hiwa some terrible
shock you stand there in front of the twin
twin
towers and suddenly you might feel a lot
lighter I mean it's horrible
but there's an opening and a new mind
State can come in I I do think Awakening
is about your mind
State and um it's about presence
immediacy all at
once you know how do you take in the all
stop guarding against the all have a
kind of all at oness all right that's the
the
Awakening and then can you stabilize it
or do you lose it and forget it
spiritual awakening for me is
experienced most deeply in my physical
body and in that sense I'm probably
different than a lot of people uh but
perhaps more like a lot of lay people
who don't wouldn't call themselves
transpersonal psychologists I think a
lot of people for instance who um
do uh love fly fishing or fish or Sports
Go In the Zone as it's often called and
those experiences are Bas are are
basically spiritual in my in my
understanding and allow for a kind of at
Oneness with one's environment and one's
activity which is very physical as well
as spiritual and from my perspective um
I can actually feel those changes in my
body my body
becomes more light fil build literally
or more porous Spiritual Development in
many ways is about creating
spaciousness it's about creating space
and even the field might be described as
a field which creates space it creates spaciousness
spaciousness
capacity rather than to think about it
well I think the main asset that a
transpersonal psychologist brings to the
practice of psychotherapy is an openness
to the many dimensions of experience
that transcend ordinary
rationality so
that while uh cognitive psychology works
with beliefs it's very much grounded in
the rational and there are certain
experiences which are not rational and
yet are very significant for people and
I think it's important to recognize that nonrational
nonrational
experiences um aren't necessarily pre-
rational that some of them are
transrational but it doesn't mean that
all nonrational experiences are
transrational some of them are
preal some of them really are regressive
and that may or may not be regression in
service of the ego but that a person
needs to be able to manage their
experiences in such a way that it
doesn't totally destroy or disrupt their
lives and that so there needs some be
some grounding it's not a matter of
getting rid of the ego but simply making
friends with the limitations of ego as
they say in Zen Buddhism it's as though
there's a there's a role for the ego as
an organizing principle that you don't
want to be confined to living only in
that particular
um realm of experience many of the uh
problems that people
encounter uh when they engage in
practices like meditation and yoga are
well known to experience meditation
teachers and yoga teachers um there are
terms in their own Traditions to refer
to uh calini crisis and people who
meditate and start experiencing ing uh
things that are uh in some way
disconcerting to them uh meditation
teachers in fact have developed
techniques uh for working with those
kinds of experiences but when these
Traditions were brought over into the
West much of that kind of experience was
not transferred over and in addition
many people engaged in these practices
pretty much on their own they didn't go
to a Zen Center or an ash from where
they would be under the tutelage of an
experienced teacher uh they might have
gone to a weekend Workshop or they might
have even picked it up from an audio or a
a
videotape as a result when they started
to have these problems uh there was
nobody who could Point them uh towards
a path that would enable them to get
their bearings one of the factors that
enters into Psychotherapy is how does
your worldview affect your experience
and how do your beliefs create your
experience and how does your experience
reinforce your beliefs and can we
question some of those can we explore
your dreams can we uh find out what else
is going on that you're not already U
fully in touch with so I think there are
multi many dimensions to transpersonal
psych psychology that are available to a client
client
that would not be available in a in a
strictly rational or medical approach my
personal work has actually been in this
area of helping people to
integrate uh intense transpersonal
experiences because quite often uh these
are very
uh intense experiences and they can be
uh very disconcerting to an individual
it can throw their equilibrium off uh it
can even result in a period of time
after say a intense mystical experience
where they're not able to function in everyday
everyday
reality uh and they may need the
opportunity to be in a kind of
moratorium where uh people are actually
working with them uh to help them to uh
regain their hold on reality while still
uh retaining the uh
uh insights that they've gained while in
the altered state of consciousness in my
own work I like to work with dreams a
lot because dreams often cut through our
defenses and bring up things that are really
really
emotionally um loaded that are really
intense and often we can get guidance
from our dreams in certain ways if we
learn to understand them so uh that's
really exploring another dimension of
Consciousness that's exploring what we
call the subtle Realms instead of being
locked into one perception one
perspective sometimes I think that
Psychotherapy is about healing the split
mind and the broken heart and uh that
people do get better if they can be in a
relationship which allows them to do
what they need to do but I don't know
what somebody needs to do when they come
in I have to discover that as they tell
themselves Jim had invited a Sufi
teacher from mul coming out of the
Turkish Sufi tradition and a whole group
1980 when I met the teacher something
very powerful happened to me
I had an incredible
experience of a sense that he understood
me at a level and depth that nobody ever
had before it felt to me in that moment
the moment he glanced at me as though my
whole life was squirted into a huge Mainframe
Mainframe
computer and
integrated and the in a sense integrated
so such that he knew everything that was
going to come out
given that he had all the data up till
today so here's this guy who glanced at
me and I thought he knows how the rest
of my life is going to
go I didn't even know who he was at the
time and I this little voice I said to
myself and I don't usually talk to
myself knowing that's a bad thing as a
psychologist I said GE I hope that's the
Sufi master that Jim invited because if
that's just one of his students I don't
want to meet this guy's teacher this is
you know this is pretty
heavy I was gone from that moment in a
sense I mean I really began to develop a
relationship with this extraordinary
spiritual teacher which quickly matured
to the place where I was willing to
trust my spiritual life to him and in a
sense my life to
him he returned in
1981 and in 1981 I became initiated as a
dervish in the halvet jahi order which
is the Turkish Sufi order that uh he was
the head of for the past 23 years um
that's been my spiritual practice that's
life it's true with me as it has been
with many other psychologists that much
of our grounding in the work that we do
comes from a personal experience so uh
my personal experience uh occurred uh in
the early
7s it was related to taking
LSD it was a period uh of my life uh
where I spent two months in what would
be conventionally diagnosed as a psychotic
psychotic
episode uh believing that I was a
Reincarnation of Buddha I was a
Reincarnation of Christ and that I had a
mission uh to write a holy book that was
going to be a new Bible for the entire
world now just hearing myself say that
uh I could easily uh frame that as a
psychotic experience and certainly meets
all the diagnostic criteria for
psychosis but I'm also acutely aware
since it was my experience that it was a
spiritual awakening for me um after the
two months that I spent in that state I
then set out on a personal spiritual
journey to try to figure out what the
hell happened here what was this Jewish
boy all of a sudden involved in thinking
he was Buddha and Christ so it really
became a jumping off point for me to
explore the world's spiritual Traditions
psychology on my own Street at that time
it was Chicago a quarter of 12 before
April Fool's Day and my 40th birthday I
got out of my car and this is quarter
right before midnight and there was a
gun to my head and it was clearly three
gang kids I lived in a neighborhood
surrounded by ghettos but it's a university
university
neighborhood and the guy said you know
um this is a
stickup and I turned at him and looked
at him and I
screamed and it was very satisfying I'm
satisfied to this day that I let him
know I thought this was very unjust but
but I did give him my purse then um and
he whacked me with the gun and across
the cheek and the gun went off and so I
had no cheek I I was shot in the
face and I didn't know how I'd look and
I didn't know what my life would be after
after
that so that was a big
Awakening because this is in of all the
brochures I had planned for my life and
all the worries and all the hopes this
one just wasn't in the brochure anywhere
I kept looking back over the brochure
I'd wake up the next day and think um
you know maybe it won't be there but it was
was
there and then a few days later I
remembered that I I had been working for
years actually training with a
psychic uh but she was also a spiritual
guide and
we didn't want to be too
sensationalistic about things so on and
precognitions um mostly I like to shut
them off because they were a little bit
catastrophic but then I remembered three
days after this shooting that I had had
a series of Dreams I'd put them all on
tape and the last one they led up
logically to the last one which
precognized the shooting which saw in
advance that I would get shot all of the
dreams said you're going to come through this so it helped it was nice to know
this so it helped it was nice to know that the mind is awesome linear time is
that the mind is awesome linear time is not what you think it is you can see
not what you think it is you can see into the
into the future that
future that counterbalanced but so on the one hand
counterbalanced but so on the one hand it was helpful in a spiritual
it was helpful in a spiritual awakening uh but a lot of work had to be
awakening uh but a lot of work had to be done because it was also a the beginning
done because it was also a the beginning of an illness very sick PTSD you know
of an illness very sick PTSD you know post-t trauma stress like a
post-t trauma stress like a veteran uh and that went on for seven
veteran uh and that went on for seven years but to cure myself I got to do
years but to cure myself I got to do wonderful things go off to see all the
wonderful things go off to see all the countries I wanted to see I went to
countries I wanted to see I went to India I went to China Tibet I did that
India I went to China Tibet I did that on a Sho string but I did it long like
on a Sho string but I did it long like for a year to to
for a year to to heal and that was definitely the
heal and that was definitely the initiation the
initiation the real breaking apart
real breaking apart of a little success script you know
of a little success script you know American success script climb the
American success script climb the academic ladder or be a super
academic ladder or be a super therapist uh the breaking apart of all
therapist uh the breaking apart of all my assumptions I just needed the proof I
my assumptions I just needed the proof I needed proof I'd been flirting with it
needed proof I'd been flirting with it for a couple of decades
died which brings tears to think about
tears to think about too we had a wonderful time with her
too we had a wonderful time with her before she
before she died she was really great I will tell
died she was really great I will tell you um a story about her which has to do
you um a story about her which has to do with
with Zen she was reading about what all the
Zen she was reading about what all the religions had to say about
religions had to say about afterdeath which is something that as a
afterdeath which is something that as a teacher I've had lots of people who've
teacher I've had lots of people who've come to me they're concerned about
come to me they're concerned about what's going to happen to them after
what's going to happen to them after they die it's not something you think of
they die it's not something you think of when you're 40 year but you do think of
when you're 40 year but you do think of it when you're sitting eyes in which is
it when you're sitting eyes in which is has a lot to do with dying and letting
has a lot to do with dying and letting go put it that way which is what dying
go put it that way which is what dying is and she read she said oh mother
is and she read she said oh mother everything is so culturally
everything is so culturally determined she said if if you if you if
determined she said if if you if you if you're fear afraid of
you're fear afraid of reincarnation or if you're afraid of
reincarnation or if you're afraid of Hell Purgatory or your you know how to
Hell Purgatory or your you know how to get into heaven after you die or if
get into heaven after you die or if you're an American Indian you've got
you're an American Indian you've got happy hunting grounds if if you're an
happy hunting grounds if if you're an islamist or a Muslim so the guys do
islamist or a Muslim so the guys do pretty well in heaven I haven't been
pretty well in heaven I haven't been able to read anything which says that
able to read anything which says that the women do very well in heaven but she
the women do very well in heaven but she said it's all so culturally conditioned
said it's all so culturally conditioned I just can't go there she said' I can
I just can't go there she said' I can understand if it were a different age
understand if it were a different age and you were brought up entirely within
and you were brought up entirely within one religion or another you wouldn't
one religion or another you wouldn't even know there there were other stories
even know there there were other stories but I can't go there she said I just
but I can't go there she said I just can't and so I was sitting with her
can't and so I was sitting with her every day for that last two years at
every day for that last two years at least when she was on her bed my funny
least when she was on her bed my funny daughter and finally I read to her the
daughter and finally I read to her the Zen concept of don't know
mind there is a Zen concept don't know mind and she said that's me that's me I
mind and she said that's me that's me I can do that I can don't know that's the
can do that I can don't know that's the truth for me she said call coin I want
truth for me she said call coin I want to be ordained so coin came over and he
to be ordained so coin came over and he ordained her on the sofa over there and
ordained her on the sofa over there and called her her Dharma name was ocean of
Truth she was a terrific teacher as dying people often will
dying people often will be teaching stick was in her hand not in
be teaching stick was in her hand not in mine and we it was a wonderful
mine and we it was a wonderful experience to be with
question I I guess the most amazing thing to me is the Persistence of the
thing to me is the Persistence of the interest in what we call
interest in what we call transpersonal experience and
transpersonal experience and phenomena that are arises in so many
phenomena that are arises in so many places at so many times so many
places at so many times so many cultures and that it can it can get
cultures and that it can it can get formed in so many ways some of which are
formed in so many ways some of which are in total conflict with each
other and then the amazing thing is that all these
so many marks on the window that what's coming through the
window that what's coming through the window and what you can see through the
window and what you can see through the window is what it's about but the design
window is what it's about but the design I draw on the
I draw on the window whether I make an icon out of
window whether I make an icon out of that design or whether I completely
that design or whether I completely paint the window BLS because I don't
paint the window BLS because I don't want to see what's on the other side or
want to see what's on the other side or whether I scratch a design in it and
whether I scratch a design in it and make it my own little unique peculiar
make it my own little unique peculiar design or whether I I turn it into an
design or whether I I turn it into an altar or whatever it is that
altar or whatever it is that form is the part that changes all the
form is the part that changes all the time what doesn't change all the time is
time what doesn't change all the time is what's on the other side of the window
what's on the other side of the window and what's coming through the
and what's coming through the window so that there could be some
window so that there could be some Universal that there is a universal
Universal that there is a universal aspect to whatever is
aspect to whatever is transpersonal
is partly amazing but what's the most amazing that there can be all these
amazing that there can be all these forms and with so many different forms
forms and with so many different forms some of
some of which are lethal and brutal
which are lethal and brutal and terrible conf human conflict
and terrible conf human conflict Laden that's still to know that well if
Laden that's still to know that well if we don't get it right maybe another
we don't get it right maybe another generation will or if this these
generation will or if this these individuals have wrecked something maybe
individuals have wrecked something maybe somebody else can repair it but that's
somebody else can repair it but that's all work on the fors what's behind the
all work on the fors what's behind the fors what's through that that's the
fors what's through that that's the amazing part that it persists that it's
amazing part that it persists that it's there
there so that other than people Tony suduch is
so that other than people Tony suduch is probably the most amazing person I've
probably the most amazing person I've ever met just uh totally contradicts
ever met just uh totally contradicts reality in terms of what's
reality in terms of what's possible and uh what a great pleasure
possible and uh what a great pleasure and reward to know of somebody like that
and reward to know of somebody like that and work with them he's the amazing guy
and work with them he's the amazing guy that I have known and a lot of amazing
that I have known and a lot of amazing people in the field I must say it's
people in the field I must say it's great to have worked in a field where
great to have worked in a field where people are basically great people good
people are basically great people good motives bright intelligent it's a lot of
motives bright intelligent it's a lot of amazing in this business uh this
amazing in this business uh this activity this profession I've been in so
activity this profession I've been in so uh my great my great game
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