Customer Reviews

Transpersonal Knowing: Exploring the Horizon of Consciousness (Suny Series, Transpersonal & Humanistic Psychology)

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I have a background in the subject, found it to be a great collection. Even for those without previous background, a very useful and expanding book. Enlivening.

This is not a psychology book, but rather a text that should be read by anyone who is seriously interested in inquiry. As a teacher of research, it is no surprise to me that students generally dislike research classes. The academic view has become so focused on teaching methods for constructing knowledge that the actual experience of knowing has been quite forgotten. The contributors to this book remind us of the joy and liberation that can be experienced in the process of inquiry.

Today psychologists nip closely at the heals of lawyers and doctors as top parasites in the lower intestine of public misfortune. There are nevertheless still a few dedicated people in the field who avoid the institutionalized witch-doctor clap-trap of this psuedo-science and approach human behavior head-on, pun intended, by looking at the raw data that is present immediately to all of us, human consciousness. What is the business of human consciousness? Their answer, "knowing", directly, intuitively and unencumbered by the prejudice of cyclical neuroses or circular rationalization. What are the limits of this consciousness/knowing continuum? There are none to be found anywhere. And, this is more more than a logical conclusion, it is an experiential, experimental conclusion. The editors, particularly Kaisa Puhakka, have no gimmicks of popular self-help to pander, no nine hundred numbers backed by Taro cards. They don't even offer statistics or new psychy buzz words. Yet, they have only language to talk about that which is basically ineffable. And for that, they do a more than servicable job of copernicus-izing psychology starting from the inside out.