Paths Beyond Ego: The Transpersonal Vision

This book is a clarion call for an expanded vision of human possibilities. In it, many of the best thinkers of our day ask us to renew the perennial search for self-knowledge and to discover the deeper meaning of our lives. For this, they offer the transpersonal perspective -- which extends beyond consciousness in its myriad forms, including altered states, yoga, dreams, and contemplation. This marriage of psychology and science with the spiritual traditions has borne ripe fruit- the transpersonal vision, which offers a uniquely generous and encompassing view of human nature. The fifty essays that make up Paths Beyond Ego apply transpersonal thinking to individual growth, psychotherapy, meditation, dreams, psychedelics, science, ethics, philosophy, ecology, and service. The result is an integrated and comprehensive overview of the many dimensions of human experience. In clear, accessible writing, the contributors suggest that our potential for enhancing human abilities is much greater than previously suspected and that our tools for this grand undertaking are widely available today. The transpersonal vision offers great hope for the future -- and links us to the timeless wisdom of the ages.

Table of Contents:
Paths Beyond Ego Foreword, by John E. Mack, M.D.Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
PART I: THE VARIETIES OF TRANSPERSONAL EXPERIENCE

Section One: The Riddle of Consciousness
1. Psychology, Reality, and Consciousness - Daniel Goleman
2. Psychologia Perennis: The Spectrum of Consciousness - Ken Wilber
3. The Systems Approach to Consciousness - Charles Tart
4. Mapping and Comparing States - Roger Walsh

Section Two: Meditation: Royal Road to the Transpersonal
5. The Seven Factors of Enlightenment - Jack Kornfield
6. Meditation Research: The State of the Art - Roger Walsh
7. Even the Best Meditators Have Old Wounds to Heal: Combining Meditation and Psychotherapy - Jack Kornfield

Section Three: Lucid Dreaming
8. Benefits of Lucid Dreaming - Judith Malamud
9. Learning Lucid Dreaming - Stephen LaBerge
10. Beyond Lucidity: Moving Toward Pure Consciousness - Jayne Gackenbach and Jane Bosveld
11. Continuous Consciousness - Sri Aurobindo
12. From Lucidity to Enlightenment: Tibetan Dream Yoga - Stephen LaBerge

Section Four: The Mind Manifesters: Implications of Psychedelics
13. Do Drugs Have Religious Import? - Huston Smith
14. The Varieties of Consciousness: Observations on Nitrous Oxide - William James
15. Realms of the Human Unconscious: Observations from LSD Research - Stanislav Grof

PART II: THE FARTHER REACHES OF DEVELOPMENT

Section Five: Transpersonal Dimensions of Development
16. The Spectrum of Transpersonal Development - Ken Wilber
17. Becoming Somebody and Nobody: Psychoanalysis and Buddhism - John H. Engler
18. The Varieties of Egolessness - Mark Epstein
19. The Pre/Trans Fallacy - Ken Wilber

Section Six: Problems on the Path: Clinical Concerns
20. Spiritual Emergency: The Understanding and Treatment of Transpersonal Crises - Christina Grof and Stanislav Grof
21. Addiction as Spiritual Emergency - Christina Grof and Stanislav Grof
22. The Shadow of the Enlightened Guru - Georg Feuerstein
23. The Spectrum of Pathologies - Ken Wilber

Section Seven: The Quest for Wholeness: Transpersonal Therapies
24. The Spectrum of Therapies - Ken Wilber
25. Healing and Wholeness: Transpersonal Psychotherapy - Frances Vaughan
26. Assumptions of Transpersonal Psychotherapy - Bryan Wittine
27. Integral Practices: Body, Heart, and Mind - Michael Murphy

PART III: FOUNDATIONS AND APPLICATIONS

Section Eight: Science, Technology, and Transcendence
28. Different Views from Different States - Gordon Globus
29. Eye to Eye: Science and Transpersonal Psychology - Ken Wilber
30. Science and Mysticism - Fritjof Capra
31. Transpersonal Anthropology - Charles D. Laughlin, Jr., John McManus, and Jon Shearer
32. The Near-Death Experience - Kenneth Ring

Section Nine: The Philosophy of Transcendence
33. Transpersonal Worldviews: Historical and Philosophical Reflections - Robert A. McDermott
34. The Perennial Philosophy - Aldous Huxley
35. The Great Chain of Being - Ken Wilber
36. Hidden Wisdom - Roger Walsh

Section Ten: Minding Our World: Service and Sustainability
37. The Nobel Peace Prize Lecture: A Call for Universal Responsibility - The Dalai Lama
38. Compassion: The Delicate Balance - Ram Dass
39. Conscious Love - John Welwood
40. Transpersonal Ecology - Warwick Fox
41. Deep Ecology: Living as If Nature Mattered - Bill Devall and George Sessions
42. The Tao of Personal and Social Transformation - Duane Elgin
43. Transpersonal Experience and the Global Crisis - Stanislav Grof and Christina Grof
44. An Inner Manhattan Project - Peter Russell

Section Eleven: Envisioning the Future
45. Paths Beyond Ego in the Coming Decades - Ken Wilber
46. The Adventure of Consciousness - Roger Walsh and Frances Vaughan

Notes and References
Further Reading
Resources
Contributors
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