Characteristics of Transpersonal Consciousness
The transpersonal consciousness is an experience of a transbiographical domain of the psyche, or that which is beyond the individual's current physical incarnation. This includes the collective unconscious realm delineated by Carl Jung, the cartography of the many dimensions of consciousness as mapped by Stanislav Grof, the hierarchical model of reality as independently agreed upon by the many mystic traditions of the world, etc. It is a horizontal, vertical, and/or transcendent experiential extension beyond the usual boundaries of space and time.
In an ordinary, or consensus, state of consciousness a being experiences the limits of the self as equivalent to the boundaries of the physical body. Its perception of the environment is limited to the five senses of its body and restricted to the ranges of these senses. While this being can anticipate the future and recall the past, its direct experience is only of the present and immediate surroundings. To recapitulate, both interception and exteroception are confined to the usual spacio-temporal parameters.
The word ‘consensus' was chosen above to emphasize a current paradigmatic bias in mechanistic science. Regardless of the progress made through relativistic and quantum physics, the scientific zeitgeist is very much still attached to a Newtonian-Cartesian worldview. The many avenues of philosophical inquiry seem to be, after a long and painful diversion, once again converging upon what the transpersonal consciousness gained access to through transcendental and empirical apperception long ago, as perennially catalogued yet often ignored. Mystical literature has long agreed upon a complexly layered and multi-tiered reality. These states of psychological experience and realms of reality can be reached spontaneously, through meditation, with psychedelic assistance, using holotropic breathwork, and many more ways. In reference and on the basis of this discussion, transpersonal consciousness can thus be defined as an expansion of experience beyond the familiar boundaries of body, ego, space, and time.
In an ordinary, or consensus, state of consciousness a being experiences the limits of the self as equivalent to the boundaries of the physical body. Its perception of the environment is limited to the five senses of its body and restricted to the ranges of these senses. While this being can anticipate the future and recall the past, its direct experience is only of the present and immediate surroundings. To recapitulate, both interception and exteroception are confined to the usual spacio-temporal parameters.
The word ‘consensus' was chosen above to emphasize a current paradigmatic bias in mechanistic science. Regardless of the progress made through relativistic and quantum physics, the scientific zeitgeist is very much still attached to a Newtonian-Cartesian worldview. The many avenues of philosophical inquiry seem to be, after a long and painful diversion, once again converging upon what the transpersonal consciousness gained access to through transcendental and empirical apperception long ago, as perennially catalogued yet often ignored. Mystical literature has long agreed upon a complexly layered and multi-tiered reality. These states of psychological experience and realms of reality can be reached spontaneously, through meditation, with psychedelic assistance, using holotropic breathwork, and many more ways. In reference and on the basis of this discussion, transpersonal consciousness can thus be defined as an expansion of experience beyond the familiar boundaries of body, ego, space, and time.
