One of the thorniest of questions is whether a scientifically based, empirical transpersonal psychology is conceptually and methodologically possible The answer depends in large part on how we define “science,” “empirical,” and “scientific method.”
A generalized scientific method. Scientific method in its broadest sense can be defined as “a method of gaining knowledge whereby hypotheses are tested (instrumentally or experimentally) by reference to experience (‘data’) that is potentially public, or open to repetition (confirmation or refutation) by peers” (Wilber, 1984, p. 13). The scientific method operationalized in this way does not logically require that it confine itself solely to sensory data produced by the physical senses, limit itself to one particular type of repeatable experiential demonstration such as the laboratory experiment, or exclude a priori the theoretical possibility of a science of spiritual (psychic) experience, if consensual validation of experiential data can be methodologically obtained.
Science as “knowledge through causes”. The word “science” comes from the Latin, “scientia,” which means “knowledge through causes.” Aristotle identified four possible kinds of causes: material, efficient, formal, and final. Using as an example the popular television program, Star Trek, the “material” cause of the Star Trek images you see on the TV screen is the television tube; the “efficient” cause of those TV images is the electric current and voltage and incoming electromagnetic signals; the “formal” cause of those TV images is the program concept in the mind of Gene Roddenberry; the “final”cause of those TV images is the ultimate purpose of the TV show to expand the imagination of its viewers and motivate them to face and overcome their problems and better their world.
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Modern psychological science restricts itself to material and efficient causes alone. Modern psychological science restricts itself to knowledge through material and efficient causes. The approach to the knowledge of causes (i.e., science) that psychology has borrowed from the natural sciences (i.e., physics, chemistry, biology) looks outward to seemingly externally-originating events in the physical world and ties itself to the data produced by the physical senses (the contents of acts of seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, smelling). This restricted approach to the knowledge of material and efficient causes alone may be able to tell us something about the apparent exterior material and efficient causes of exceptional human experiences and human transformative capacities from a simple examination of the brain and the environment, but can say next to nothing about its interior formal and final causes.
Overlooks inner dimensionality of material and environmental events. By delegating the study of final causes to the discipline of theology, and formal causes to the field of philosophy, and limiting itself to knowledge of material and efficient causes, traditional, orthodox Western psychology narrows the boundaries of psychological life it is able to investigate. By confining itself to sensory information, psychological science is forced to pay almost exclusive attention to exterior behavior or material biology, and much of inner life escapes it as a consequence. By limiting the meaning of the word “empirical” to stimuli perceived by the physical senses, psychological science is forced to study only the topmost surfaces of events that are seen, and to overlook the power of thought and emotion, meaning and purpose, will and intentionality, working only with its physical effects and correlates.
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