Another way to gain an understanding of transpersonal psychology is to look at the exceptionally creative human experiences and behaviors investigated by transpersonal psychologists and the varieties of evidence for human transformative capacity.
Topics that are studied in transpersonal psychology. Transpersonal psychiatrist Roger Walsh and psychotherapist France Vaughn in their 1993 book, Paths Beyond Ego: The Transpersonal Vision, identify topics of particular interest to contemporary transpersonal psychologists.
Topics of particular interest include consciousness and altered states, mythology, meditation, yoga, mysticism, lucid dreaming, psychedelics, values, ethics, relationships, exceptional capacities and psychological well-being, transconventional development, transpersonal emotions such as love and compassion, motives such as altruism and service, and transpersonal pathologies and therapies. (Walsh and Vaughn, 1993, p. 5)
Figure 1-2 identifies six overlapping domains (and their associated phenomena) that define the scope of transpersonal psychology. These six domains identify the variety of topics that are studied by transpersonal psychologists (see, Murphy, 1992, for an extended discussion of topics dealing specifically with human transformative capacities).
Figure 1-2. Varieties of Transpersonal Phenomena
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Figure 1-3 lists approximately 100 specific exceptional human experiences and transformative behavioral capacities that are investigated by persons in the field of transpersonal psychology (Palmer & Braud, 2002; see also, Fodor, 1966; Frager, 1989; Gowan, 1980; Grof, 1988; Guiley, 1991; Lash, 1990; White, 1997)
Figure 1-3. Exceptional Human Experiences
Transpersonal phenomena include so-called “anomalous” experiences and behaviors. Transpersonal phenomena include many different so-called “anomalous” experiences and behaviors, including mystical/unitive, encounter-type, psychic/ paranormal, unusual death-related, exceptional normal experiences, and other evocative demonstrations of personality action (Cardena, Lynn, & Krippner, 2000). They are considered “anomalous” by mainstream psychologists because of the artificial divisions established within psychology itself that exclude activities not of statistically frequent nature, or thought to be “paranormal” because of the standardization applied within psychology itself.
Psi functioning, viewed as an extension of normal creative ability. Psychic phenomena, for example, have been reported for centuries by quite normal people and are psychological facts, representing its own kind of experiential evidence about the full dimensions of human existence, regardless of the interpretations that might be made about them. For this reason, many transpersonal psychologists consider so-called “paranormal” phenomena simply as an extension or expansion of normal human creativity and not as paranormal or “anomalous” at all. As someone once said: “There is nothing abnormal in the world – there is only the lack of understanding the normal.” Psi functioning is evidence for the multidimensional nature of the human psyche and for abilities that lie within each individual, that are a part of our species’ heritage, and that more clearly define how the soul’s abilities in life show themselves (Tart, 1997a).
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