Revisioning Transpersonal Theory
- Book: Revisioning Transpersonal Theory. A participatory vision of human spirituality. By Jorge Ferrer.
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Summary
From the reading notes of Michel Bauwens , 2006:
Foreword: Richard Tarnas on paradigm shift
An original break often returns assumptions of the past, so that a second break may be needed.
Example: Copernicus' hypothesis of heliocentrism still suffered from the assumption that the planets move in circles; it took Kepler to step outside it, and discover elliptical movement.
The evolution of transpersonal psychology, whose aim it was to bridge the break between science and religious experience, followed a similar pattern.
It's precursors were William James and Carl Gustav Jung; it's founders were Abraham Maslow and Stanislav Grof.
Transpersonal Psychology represented a radical break with the prevailing positivism and reductionism, but remained itself within the the same problematic: it retained "Cartesian assumptions, i.e. the stress on separate intrasubjective experience; it also shared the anti-Christian attitude of the Enlightenment.