Is Transpersonal Psychology A Science?
Transpersonal psychology is criticized as being “unscientific” Transpersonal psychology has been criticized for being an unscientific, irrational approach – the product of undisciplined thinking by a group of extravagant, mystically-oriented professionals (Ellis & Yeager, 1989, chapter 5). The so-called scientific theories of transpersonal psychology are viewed as the most speculative of metaphysics whose claims violate basic scientific methodology. Transpersonal psychologists themselves have even criticized transpersonal psychology as being unscientific. Harris Friedman (2002), member of the Executive Faculty at Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center, asserts:
Transpersonal psychology has never developed a coherent scientific frame of reference, and despite numerous attempts to adequately define it (e.g., Lajoie & Shapiro, 1992; Walsh & Vaughn, 1993), still suffers from serious ambiguity regarding its scope and appropriate methodology. As a result, little progress in understanding transpersonal psychological phenomena from a scientific perspective has occurred since the founding of the field. (Friedman, 2002, p. 175).
Let us examine this claim in more detail to determine what merit it has in terms of the original intent of the founders of transpersonal psychology, the meaning of the word “science,” and the methodology that transpersonal psychologists actually use to explore the nature of the phenomena that it studies.
Relationship to empirical science a key issue. The importance of the question of the relationship of the transpersonal disciplines to empirical science cannot be denied. As transpersonal theorist Ken Wilber (1993) notes:
It is probably true that the single greatest issue today facing transpersonal psychology is its relation to empirical science. The burning issue is not the scope of transpersonal psychology, nor its subject matter, not its methodology – not its premises, not its conclusions, and not its sources – because, according to modern thinking, all of those are purely secondary issues compared with whether or not transpersonal psychology itself is valid in the first place. That is, whether it is an empirical science. For, the argument goes, if transpersonal psychology is not an empirical science, then it has no valid epistemology, no valid means of acquiring knowledge. There is no use trying to figure out the range or scope or methods of knowledge of the new and “higher” field of transpersonal psychology until you can demonstrate that you have actual knowledge of any sort to begin with. (Wilber, 1993, p. 184)
Original Intent of the Founders of Transpersonal Psychology
There are many transpersonal psychologists who advocate that the field of transpersonal psychology be grounded in scientific methodology of experience, control, manipulation, replicability, verifiability, falsifiability (Baruss, 1996; Boucouvalas, 1980; Braud & Anderson, 1998; Friedman, 2002; Griffin, 1988; Nelson, 1990; Rothberg, 1994; Welwood et al., 1978; Wilber, 1998). Transpersonal psychologists who claim the field should to be a part of scientific psychology recognize the need to articulate descriptions and theories of transpersonal phenomenon in ways that were natural and congenial to the majority of psychologists and to the general public who identify psychology as a science.
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Advocates for a scientific transpersonal psychology. Transpersonal psychologist Donald Rothberg (1999) states: “The term transpersonal arguably reflects an attempt to develop a secular and broadly ‘scientific’ vocabulary for the exploration and study of phenomena that historically have been usually understood within particular religious and spiritual traditions” (p. 62). Transpersonal psychologist Harris Friedman (2002) in his article “Transpersonal Psychology as a Scientific Field” goes so far as to argue that “to allow practices that are not scientifically based within the field of transpersonal psychology is neither legally nor ethically defensible” (p. 176).
The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology. The intent of the major founders of transpersonal psychology was always to establish a discipline that was based on the empirical (i.e., experiential and not only sensory) dimensions of transpersonal phenomena. The statement of purpose of the major publication that launched the field, for example, confirms the scientific intent of its founders when it states “The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology is concerned with the publication of theoretical and applied research, original contributions, empirical papers, articles, and studies…” (American Transpersonal Association, 1969, p. i).
Abraham Maslow. Maslow likewise expressed a desire that the transpersonal vision be stated in empirical and scientific terms. In the preface to the second edition of his classic Toward a Psychology of Being, Maslow (1968) said: “ We need something ‘bigger than we are’ to be awed by and to commit ourselves to in a new, naturalistic, empirical [my emphasis], non-churchly sense, perhaps as Thoreau and Whitman, William James and John Dewey did” (Maslow, 1968, p. iv). Elsewhere, Maslow wrote:
If we get the scientific vision – that is, the empirical [my emphasis] vision of something which is in truth a human being and which, therefore, can be actualized – if we can actualize that these are not pipe dreams but clear possibilities, then this realization will bring it all within the realm of human activity. What this all means to me is that there is scientific justification for much of what we hope for in each other and for all mankind. (Maslow, 1969a, p. 9)
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William James. William James, one of the godfathers of transpersonal psychology, recommended that the meaning of the word “empirical” be expanded to include the data of sense and the data of consciousness (McDermott, 1968, pp. 194-310).
What is it to be “real”? The best definition I know is that which the pragmatist rule gives: “anything is real of which we find ourselves obliged to take account in any way.” Concepts are thus as real as percepts, for we cannot live a moment without taking account of them. (quoted in McDermott, 1968, p. 253-254)
James’s radical empiricism is thought to provide a useful epistemological framework based on “pure experience” for validating the cognitive authenticity and intersubjective significance of spiritual knowledge claims (Frakenberry, 1987).
Carl Gustav Jung. C. G. Jung (Nagy, 1991) also argued for an empiricism of direct experience and a consensus theory of truth regarding experiential knowledge obtained in experiences of the sacred. “According to Jung, interior experience reveals genuine knowledge of psychological and archetypal realities which are phenomenologically testable by adequate observers” (Ferrer, 2002, p. 45). Indeed, for Jung the empirical nature of psychic life is not to be doubted.
Without a doubt [psychic life] is our only immediate experience. All that I experience is psychic… My sense-impressions – for all that they force upon me a world of impenetrable objects occupying space – are psychic images, and these alone constitute my immediate experience, for they alone are the immediate objects of my consciousness… We are in truth so wrapped about by psychic images that we cannot penetrate at all to the essence of things external to ourselves. All our knowledge consists of the stuff of the psyche, which, because it alone is immediate, is superlatively real. Here, them, is a reality to which the psychologist can appeal – namely, psychic reality… Between the unknown essences of spirit and matter stands the reality of the psyche – psychic reality, the only reality we can experience directly. (Jung, 1960, pp. 353, 384)
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