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Consciousness, Evaluation, and the Self-Organizing Brain
Get PDFWhile evolution is guided by natural selection, it is internally driven by self-organizing processes. The brain encompasses these complementary forces and dynamics of evolution in both its structure and dynamics by embodying a historical record of the factors that have shaped it throughout its evolutionary past, as well as by being shaped by selective parameters in real time. Self-organization is evident in not only the brain’s structure and form, but also in the processes that support consciousness. From the convergence of complex structure and the novelty-generating dynamics of chaos that both characterize the brain arises the experience of explicit consciousness, with its endless scope of possible expressions
A Framework for Studying Consciousness
Get PDFScholars have wrestled with consciousness , one writer calling it the hard problem . Some thirty-plus years after the Towards a Science of Consciousness, we do not seem to be any closer to an answer to What is consciousness? . Seemingly irresolvable metaphysical problems are addressed by bootstrapping, provisional assumptions, not unlike those used by logicians and mathematicians. I bootstrap with the same ontology and epistemology applicable to everything we apprehend. Here, I argue for a version of the unity of opposites, a form of neutral monism. Something exists because of what it is not; nothing can exist by itself, singularities (analogous to monads), expressing the relationship. Applying this most fundamental law to the consciousness problem, the physical (movement) comes into being simultaneously as the mental (stasis), each displayed by a field that is variegated (ranging from creative to entropic processes). Such is in keeping with how the singularity emerged as our universe, the same form that may account for sub-Planck-scale phenomena. Overall, like the most fundamental law, deep structures are imminent in our universe, both as objects and processes
Life Before Birth: A Thematic Analysis of Memories of Coming into Life Part 2: Recollections of Fetal Life and Birth
Get PDFThis article examines a second set of data produced in a thematic analysis of 68 “earliest memory” narratives submitted to an independent website to explore the question: what do people who claim to remember how they came into the world say about their experience prior to and including birth? Part 1 examined the first and largest subset of the data, narratives of an otherworldly existence consistent with Western reincarnation intermission stage 2 experiences, near-death experience accounts and mythic traditions. This article thematically analyzes descriptions of life in the womb, birth, and apparently veridical out-of-body and other paranormal impressions of events surrounding birth, congruent with pre- and peri-natal psychology, especially early trauma. Surfacing and resolving such early memories may have greater potential for healing than treating later life events
The Mushroom, the Frog, and the Rainbow of Desire: A Participatory-Psychedelic Spiritual Emergence
Get PDFThis article will explore a spiritual emergency through a myth or fairy tale that emerged at the same time I had a frightening brush with death. Two days before the accident I had ingested psilocybin mushrooms. Michael Washburn, among other transpersonal theorists, will be used to interpret, amplify and re-frame this potential ‘psychotic episode’ with ‘borderline features’ into something more, perhaps, on the threshold of a shamanic initiation in a liminal state. The mythic sequence in my story anticipates the death-rebirth (perinatal pattern) and evolution of consciousness in the LSD research of Stanislav Grof; an evolution given epic participatory elucidation by Richard Tarnas; and an evolution consummated in the erotic desire for nature found in the panpsychism of Freya Mathews
Visionary Art as Evolving Consciousness
Get PDFVisionary art is art that is not confined by form, it argues that the artist who creates spiritual art allows the spirit to guide them, rather than relying on traditional form or technique. This can result in art that is incredibly unique and expressive, as it comes from a place of pure creativity and intuition. It also examines the visionary art of Alex Grey whose works offer a gateway into a different state of consciousness, where the viewer can access new insights and perspectives. In in a world that is becoming increasingly disconnected from the creative body, visionary art can be a source of hope and inspiration
Life Before Birth: A Thematic Analysis of Memories of Coming into Life Part 1: Recollections of Another Realm
Get PDFAutobiographic memories prior to birth remain controversial in psychology because such memories are traditionally believed to begin much later when some sense of self is formed. Prenatal sentience, including fetal learning, occurs in species from arthropods to humans, and evidence for autobiographic memories from pre- and neo-natal humans has typically come from clinical case histories of altered-state regression techniques eliciting records from adults or clinical case histories of children in normal states. This thematic analysis examined 68 “earliest memory” narratives submitted to an independent website to explore the question: what do people who claim to remember how they came into the world say about their experience prior to and including birth? The findings produced two distinct data sets. This article, Part 1, analyzes the majority of the data, narratives that described prenatal existence in an otherworldly realm. The results are consistent with and elaborate findings in established but controversial fields, notably reincarnation research, especially the intermission research, some of it veridical, and near-death experience research. Part 2, a separate article, analyzes a second subset of records that were narratives of fetal experiences, birth, and apparently veridical paranormal perinatal impressions, consistent with the clinical literature on pre- and peri-natal psychology and some of the intermission experience literature
Relational Inquiry: Seven-Years Practicing Seven Relationships
Get PDFGreetings from Byron Bay—what follows is a postcard version of a seven-year cycle of relational inquiry retrospectively nicknamed The Rainbow of Desire. I outline our practices, explore five basic fields in our approach to new paradigm research, and present an updated version of my seven relationships model as a heuristic for understanding and participating in relational inquiry. As a contemporary spiritual expression, with roots in the Greek-Socratic tradition of research, and informed by Gestalt practice (not psychotherapy), this account may also be of value for persons interested in further Gestalt-transpersonal inquiry, research, and learning
Parapsychology and Transpersonal Psychology in Dialogue: Could These Two Movements Be Brought into Better Alignment?
Get PDFParapsychology and transpersonal psychology were founded independently and have evolved separately as two distinct movements, although there is considerable overlap in both their content and in the interests of a number of scholars who are active in both areas. Harris Friedman, Co-President of the Association of Transpersonal Psychology, and Dean Radin, President of the Parapsychological Association, engaged in an informal discussion on the salient commonalities and differences between the two movements, focusing on exploring ways that the two could be brought into better alignment, such as including more transpersonal approaches within parapsychological studies and vice versa. Stanley Krippner, whose seminal work straddles both areas, chaired the panel, introducing and serving as a discussant for Friedman’s and Radin’s views, as well as in presenting his own views on the relationship between parapsychology and transpersonal psychology
Quantum Tunneling and Exceptional Human Capacities: Illustrating Different Skepticisms in Physics and Psychology
Get PDFQuantum tunneling is a phenomenon where a particle appears on the other side of an energy barrier that it does not have enough energy to pass through, according to classical physics. This notion, first proposed by a German physicist in 1927, runs improbably counter to common sense and to rules thought for hundreds of years to govern physics. Acceptance of this and other quantum phenomena has required the reconceptualization of subatomic particles from solid bits of matter to probability clouds that extend infinitely in every direction. As such, quantum physics has required a skepticism driven by the need for sound evidence, rather than based on whether a given idea conformed to culturally common notions of reality. This form of well-tempered skepticism would serve the project of building a psychology of the whole person, and of all persons, in place of versions that reject phenomena based on cultural notions of what is or is not plausible, even in the face of substantive preliminary evidence. Such a skepticism is counterproductive in a way that dismissal of a patient\u27s unexpected healing response could negatively impact the body\u27s self-healing capacities