Customer Reviews

Transformations of Consciousness

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just one personal comment: merely reading the definitions of "split life-goals" and "dark night of the soul" by Wilber saved me several months (years?) of struggling - the book provides a novel structure of psychopathology and if you have a structure you have something to hold onto. very therapeutic book for (post)existential-level strugglers!
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i really like the brief and concrete style of the older books by Wilber (Atman Project is my favourite!), although, according to Wilber himself, they contain slightly outdated ideas. don't start with it, but don't forget it!

Where have the thoughts in this book been for so long??? Transformations of Consciousness thinks critically about issue's in psychology and spirituality that are so important and would seem so obvious, I wonder how they've managed to escape us all so completely. Primarily, this text brings attention and profoundly questions the motives of the psychological as well as contemplative schools in such a fundamental way as to expose unaddressed pervasive issues that ignorence of which can constitute avoidable casualties to mental and spiritual health. Emphasis is placed on recognition of developmental/phase specific aspects of what constitute appropriate therapeutic and spiritual practices. Specifically,when is meditation harmful as opposed to benificial. What are any of the obstacles in selectively transplanting eastern contemplative practices into the western cultural context? What can both eastern and western traditions contribute to and learn from each other? Wilber, Engler and Brown both impressed and stimulated me with the extraordinary depth and far reaching implications of their considerations. Now, I know why my experience in an eastern influenced spiritual community was bound to end in disillusionment and what has unconsciously motivated so much of my frustrating seeking! What better gift could you ask for?? If therapy has been repeatedly ineffectual, costly and disappointing, or if despite your interest in spirituality you've felt something was missing that you have had difficulty articulating; This book will articulate it. What a glorious Gift!! This book is my BIBLE now!

An excellent presentation of the stages of mindfulness meditation as well as the spectrum of development and the spectrum of psychopathology. Authors Ken Wilber, Jack Engler and Daniel P. Brown know what they are talking about.

Because levels of meditative development are still not widely known, because so few have ventured deeply into meditation, a book like this isn't understood by many. Someone who hasn't meditated can't believe this is possible, so they dismiss it.

If you are a serious long term meditator this book is great. If you've never meditated, or done much contemplative work, this book may not make much sense.

A very worthwhile book for any interested in meditative or contemplative development.

I have used this book for twenty years as a resource and guidebook on my own journey. Dan P Brown's three chapters continue to inform and inspire my own practice and understanding. And I use this book as a teaching aid in one of my classes on non-dual coaching and facilitation. Dan Brown describes in detail the stages of meditative practice and the phenomenological affects as one moves from beginner to advanced stages of samadhi. A useful tool for anyone dedicated to their own enlightened awareness or state development.

This is a great book!

For those interested in a western, psychological
analysis of what happens to those who follow a spiritual
path until the end, this book will bring so much clarity
to it!

A great book for any serious practitioner.

What I found most valuable in this book was the work of Engler and Brown in presenting a very rigorous analysis of the meditation process and their intimate knowledge of Thervadan, Tibetan, and Vedanta meditation. This book is very valuable for those who would like to get a more scientific analysis of what happens in the meditation process and what a more useful definition of what enlightenment is.

This book was originally published in 1986 and Amazon.co.uk lists a March 31st 2006 reprinting under Transformation of Consciousness. If you want to read more of Ken Wilber's epicyclic models, then this is twenty year old epicycles (see Andresen and Forman: Cognitive Models and Spiritual Maps for a more recent Wilber piece followed by a sympathetic but still exposing critique by Christian de Quincey). Wilber's old friend Michael Bauwens has put up his The Cult of Ken Wilber on the web for those interested in this New Age cult.
This book is worth the money primarily due to Harvard psychologist Professor Daniel Brown's extremely important chapter with its examination of the parallels between the stages of meditation in three authoritative yogic traditions (Yoga Sutras, Vipassana and Mahamudra). Although Brown came to the odd conclusion that all the paths are same but the goals different, others like myself (also Forman in The Problem of Pure Consciousness)disagree as the key stage is Basis Enlightenment (nondual Pure Consciousness) is the stage all 3 describe most similarly. Post-Enlightenment practises differ.
Brown's study discusses the yogic experience of the subtle flow of the Light when mental processes are held in abeyance. The Light is perceived as coming in waves (Hindu) or pulses/moments (Buddhists) which is clearly just a difference in focus. The YS tradition describes the Light as the coordinates of that previous gross mental content or A CONTINUOUSLY VIBRATING ENERGY FIELD IN A STATE OF CONTINUOUS WAVE PROPAGATION.
This information proved critical in my 1994 identification of the physical correlate of the Divine Light/Pure Consciousness or Godhead with the brainwaves from the brainstem Reticular Activating System. These brainwaves continuously underly all other brainwave activity and only cease at death. Numerous other authoritative yogic and mystic facts (the Light at the Centre, the prana/atman identity, Advaita's mutual superimposition of Pure Consciousness and sense percepts, Insight meditation's catching the Light in gaps between percepts, Vajrayana's Clear Light of Death as a continuous series of moments etc.) plus the presence of the Light in NDEs fits this interpretation (see my review of Kapstein's The Presence of Light on Amazon.com) or The Oneness/Otherness Mystery: The Synthesis of Science and Mysticism. Patanjali even begins the Yoga Sutras stating: yogas cittavritti nirodhah (yoga is the cessation of the WAVE-LIKE FLUCTUATIONS of the mindstuff). See also Travis's model of Pure Consciousness as the background state in Dalai Lama and Varela: Sleeping, Dreaming and Dying. The RAS is well known as it arouses the cortex as distinct from specific attention and is a universal human process unaffected by culture and tradition. Cessation of the RAS constitutes brain death.
Sutapas Bhattacharya