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How Perception Meets Hermeneutics: An Empirical Investigation of Tasseography
Get PDFTasseography is a divination method to provide insight about the seeker’s past, present, or future life by interpreting patterns in the dregs of a liquid. Although it has been practiced with coffee throughout Europe and Middle East, particularly among women, no known studies exist on the seer’s perceptual process of the ambiguous patterns or how the roles of the seeker and seer, symbols, ritual, and cultural epistemology shape the divinatory hermeneutics. This study focused on the Armenian coffee divination ritual, asking what are the processes and conditions that enable experienced cup readers to obtain divinatory insight in tasseography? Two seekers each produced one cup, photographed and presented virtually to roughly half of a sample of 17 female seers through video-recorded virtual sessions. Seers were interviewed about their experiences of providing reading, data triangulated with their reading data and the two seekers’ reflections on the readings. Thematic analysis revealed that tasseographic interpretation is a psychodynamic embodied process, influenced by the seer’s subjective world and informed by intuitive sources, that engenders empathetic attunement with the seeker. Readings revealed significant thematic convergence and relevance to each seeker’s central query, and reflected the seekers’ life at the time the cup was produced rather than at the time of reading. Interpretation convergence occurred independent of perceptual variation, suggesting that the seers’ semiotic processes involve transpersonal states and sources
Deconstructing Consciousness in Art
Get PDFTo the extent that art mirrors consciousness, what does the art of any age have to tell us about where we are as a species and civilization? In this paper, I suggest that modern and postmodern art reveals the tendency toward deconstruction, of our identities, as selves, as cultures, and as a civilization. Through this process of deconstruction, there is a space offered to us through the experience of art, of freedom to recreate ourselves, our identities, and our sense of purpose and meaning in the cosmos. Grounding the inquiry in texts from various authors in the field of art history and the philosophy of consciousness, I present examples of art that deconstruct and reinvent, and invite the viewer (of the art) to self-reflect and consider how we may emerge anew from the experience of art. I invite the reader to engage in the same process. I also ask what the art of the current era can tell us about where we are and where we are going as a species
Psychophysiological Effects of Increasing Awareness of Nondual Consciousness in Young Adults with Depression and Anxiety
Get PDFYoung adults increasingly suffer from anxiety and depression during the time of transition into adulthood. This research study examined the effects of increasing awareness of nondual consciousness in young adults who were experiencing various levels of anxiety and depression. The methodology was mixed-method and included four 1-hour group-based sessions over 4 weeks. Increasing awareness of nondual consciousness through educational, experiential, and behavioural components resulted in reduction in the average depression score from 19.4 (borderline clinical depression) to 10 (normal), and reduction in the average anxiety score from 12.7 (moderate anxiety) to 6.9 (mild). Participants reported increased mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual wellbeing, as well as reduced worry, higher sense of interconnectedness, clarity, creativity, confidence, and agency. At 30-days and 6-months, depression was further reduced by 12% and 17% respectively, while anxiety was reduced by 22% and 27%, indicating a potential upward spiral. The study was repeated during the COVID-19 pandemic with similar results, indicating the effectiveness of the methodology during highly uncertain times. Increasing awareness of nondual consciousness can contribute to prevention and early intervention for depression and anxiety, decreased need for medication, and reduction of stigma
What is Transpersonal Psychology? A Concise Definition Based on 20 Years of Research
Get PDFResearch on definitions of the field of psychology and themes in the literature of the field over a period of 20 years inform this description: Transpersonal psychology is a transformative psychology of the whole person embedded within a diverse, interconnected, and evolving world that pays particular attention to states of consciousness and developmental models reflecting expansion beyond conventional notions of self. Each element of this definition is examined, as well as the four phases of definitional development within the field from its founding in 1968 up to the present
Review of The Mystical Exodus in Jungian Perspective: Transforming Trauma and the Wellsprings of Renewal, by Shoshona Fershtman
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There\u27s a Duwende on my Shelf: The Parapsychological Studies of Fr. Jaime C. Bulatao, SJ
Get PDFIn the Filipino transpersonal worldview, the mind is not contained within the brain, and is often projected onto the world as “spirits”. Studying these cultural metaphors may allow for a deeper understanding of the Filipino psyche. Fr. Jaime C. Bulatao, SJ, one of the founders of the Psychological Association of the Philippines, studied the projections of the Filipino psyche as they manifested in paranormal phenomena. Bulatao provides the metaphor of eggs frying in a pan as a framework to understand this: the egg whites fuse despite the yolks being far apart. It is in the dissolution of boundaries that transpersonal experiences occur. This paper discusses possibilities for future research as well as the potential contributions of transpersonal research to the field of clinical psychology
Emotion and Judgment in Young Women of a Society in Transition
Get PDFThe present study asked whether emotional responses to narratives of moral transgressions are shaped by the reader’s assumed relationship with the injured party (i.e., oneself, familiar other, and unfamiliar other). Its goal was to test a cultural, religious, and individualistic account of such responses in young females of a traditional society in transition towards a sustainable integration into the global economy. To this end, female college students from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia were asked to identify their emotional reaction to each of several moral transgressions, report its intensity and then judge the severity of the transgression. In agreement with the religious norm hypothesis, whereby others are to be treated as oneself, reported emotions, affective intensity, and moral judgment did not change with students’ relationship with the injured party. The only exception was students’ lenient judgment when feeling angry for being the victim of a transgression, which underlies the tenet of forgiveness in religious doctrine
What is Transpersonal Psychology? A Concise Definition Based on 20 Years of Research
Get PDFResearch on definitions of the field of psychology and themes in the literature of the field over a period of 20 years inform this description: Transpersonal psychology is a transformative psychology of the whole person embedded within a diverse, interconnected, and evolving world that pays particular attention to states of consciousness and developmental models reflecting expansion beyond conventional notions of self. Each element of this definition is examined, as well as the four phases of definitional development within the field from its founding in 1968 up to the present
