A psychology with a psyche. The past 35 years of research and theory in transpersonal psychology serves to show that the idea of an autonomous spirit whose existence is taken for granted has not died out everywhere in psychology or become a mere fossil left over from premodern religion. As C. G. Jung (1960) put it in his essay, “Basic Postulate of Analytical Psychology,”
If we keep this in mind, we can perhaps summon up the courage to consider the possibility of a ‘psychology with a psyche’ – that is, a theory of the psyche ultimately based on the postulate of an autonomous, spiritual principle. We need not be alarmed at the unpopularity of such an undertaking, for to postulate ‘spirit’ is no more fantastic than to postulate ‘matter.’ Since we have literally no idea how the psychic can arise of the physical, and yet cannot deny the reality of psychic events, we are free to frame our assumptions the other way around for once, and to suppose that the psyche rises from a spiritual principle, which is as inaccessible to our understanding as matter. It will certainly not be a modern psychology, for to be modern is to deny such a possibility. (Jung, 1960, p. 344)
A psychology with a soul. Such a psychology will have to be a “post-postmodern” psychology, or in even bolder terms, a “transmodern” psychology (Jones, 1994; O’Donohue, 1989). Transpersonal psychology comes closest to being a psychology with a soul. Beauty, love, joy, power and will, the moral sense, the desire to know and the capacity for knowledge are “spiritual elements in our personality” (Assagioli’s phrase). It includes the belief in meaning or order in the universe and that the force behind creation is a loving, intelligent energy from which the self and world emerge (Tart, 1992).
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7. Spirituality shows developmental qualities. Many transpersonal psychologists see spirituality not simply as one aspect of human development among others but rather involving the whole person, and as having even biological significance (Helminiak, 1987; Maslow, 1971, chapter 23). Other transpersonal theorists argue that spirituality can be defined as a separate line of development (Wilber, 2000b, chapter 10). Psychological development does not have to be completed before spiritual development can begin.
"Does spirituality unfold in stages?" The answer depends on how we define "spirituality." "Not everything that we can legitimately call 'spirituality' shows stage-like development [e.g., the state of peak experiences]. Nonetheless, many aspects of spirituality…involve one or more aspects that are developmental [e.g., cognitive, moral, affective, social, and so forth]" (Wilber, 2000b, p. 134). Cognitive, moral, and self-development may be necessary, but not sufficient for spiritual development. What is clear is that authentic spirituality as a "trait" rather than a "state" usually involves some form of sincere, disciplined, prolonged spiritual practice for transforming one's consciousness that address transpersonal stages of growth and development.
8. Religions viewed as “spiritual psychologies.” Transpersonal psychologists tend to approach the world’s religions as “spiritual psychologies,” each with their own historically conditioned assumptions about the nature of physical reality and human personality (Tart, 1992a). As such, transpersonal psychology recognizes that each religion will have quite different visions and versions of that greater multidimensional framework of existence as legitimate reflections of its limited understanding as it interprets that Reality through its own unique set of culturally- and temporally-conditioned doctrines, myths, symbols, and rituals.
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