Implications for psychology: The quality of identity is far more mysterious than we can presently comprehend. What are the implications for psychology of Grof’s pioneering consciousness research into the psyche’s greater reality revealed by drug and non-drug alterations of consciousness? First, all such expansions of identity beyond usual ego boundaries should be considered valid and real experiences that hint at the multidimensional nature of the human psyche. They tell us something important about the abilities that lie within each individual. There is no a priori reason for supposing otherwise. The data of modern consciousness research indicate that the quality of identity is far more mysterious than we can presently comprehend within the framework of core beliefs currently operative in contemporary schools of psychology (Grof, 2000).
Implications for psychology: Potential for broadening “official” concepts of the self. Second, consciousness research has the potential of overcoming conventional psychology’s highly limited ideas about the nature of the self by introducing original concepts and theories into discussions regarding the nature of the human psyche’s private and collective reality, and by proposing research agendas that promise to give us a greater understanding of human potential and exceptional well-being beyond the norm (Braud & Anderson, 1998). Where old, accepted ideas of selfhood fail to do justice to the multitudinous creativity of personality action, transpersonal psychology dares to conceptualize previously unknown elements of the self and to propose new ways to explore its greater reality.
3. Transpersonal Psychology is Not Limited to Any Particular Philosophy or Worldview.
The original definition of transpersonal psychology articulated in the “Statement of Purpose” of the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology in 1969 does not commit transpersonal psychology or its practitioners to any specific interpretation of transpersonal experiences and behaviors (American Transpersonal Association, 1969).
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The “Statement of Purpose” of the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology states: “This formulation [of the definition of transpersonal psychology] is to be understood as subject to optional individual or group interpretations, either wholly or in part, with regard to the acceptance of its contents as essentially naturalistic, theistic, supernaturalistic, or any other designated classification”, p. i). Transpersonal psychologists, in other words, can be psychoanalysts, behaviorists, cognitivists, humanists, or neurobiologists. They can be theists, agnostics, or atheists.
Key ideas that define a transpersonal orientation. What differentiates transpersonal psychology from other schools of thought that are committed to other goals and subject matter, other philosophic assumptions and conceptual models, other definitions of psychology and theoretical languages? Transpersonal psychologists - whether they choose to take a biological, environmental, cognitive, psychodynamic, phenomenological, or integral perspective to the study of exceptional human experiences and transformative capacities - will be united in their affirmation of four key ideas articulated in the Articles of Association for Transpersonal Psychology (Sutich, 1972, pp. 93-97) that identify the set of minimal assumptions about the nature of the psyche and it human expression that define a transpersonal orientation.
Impulses toward an ultimate state are continuous in every person.
Full awareness of these impulses is not necessarily present at any given time.
The realization of an ultimate state is essentially dependent on direct practice and on conditions suitable to the individual concerned.
Every individual has the right to choose his [or her] own path.
Each of these data-driven principles is intended to convey a minimal amount of theory-ladened philosophic assumptions about the nature of exceptional human experiences and transformative capacities.
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