The existential–phenomenological approach of the early Heidegger and Max Scheler to religion as an amplified empirical phenomenology of the human condition, combined with Heidegger’s specific derivation of his Daseins-analysis from the Christianity of Eckart, Paul, and Kierkegaard, is shown to be broadly congruent with the contemporary transpersonal psychology of higher states of consciousness, largely based on Eastern meditative traditions. This descriptive transpersonal psychology of a mystical core to all religions based on the direct experience of presence or Being, as developed (...) by Rudolf Otto and elaborated by Laski, Almaas, and others, is then applied to selected gospel narratives as a further step, past its beginnings in the early Heidegger and Rudolf Bultmann, toward a re-construction of specific numinous states in early Christianity. This derivation of facets of the numinous from their presumed doctrinal schematizations and/or amplifications places Christianity closer to the goals of the meditative traditions, and allows a more directly experiential understanding of doctrines of Christian redemption, loving compassion, and eternal life as amplifications of the phenomenology of the inner forms of ordinary here and now consciousness, within which they are already foreshadowed. (shrink)

The five authors vary in the degree to which the recent neuroscience of the REM state leads them towards multiple dimensions and forms of dreaming consciousness (Hobson et al.; Nielsen; Solms) or toward all-explanatory single factor models (Vertes & Eastman, Revonsuo). The view of the REM state as a prolongation of the orientation response to novelty fits best with the former pluralisms but not the latter monisms. [Hobson et al.; Nielsen; Revonsuo; Solms; Vertes & Eastman].

Developmental understanding of transpersonal experience and its diverse impact on human life has been bedeviled by the opposed, monolithic extremes of Freud's regression to infant "narcissism," on the one hand, and more recent views of the transpersonal as the sole endpoint for any "higher" or "postformal operations" development of human intelligence, on the other. Here it is shown that "higher states of consciousness" can be more specifically understood as developments of a "presentational" intelli-gence, thereby constituting one line of adult development (...) among the several open to our symbolic capacity. The demonstrated but relatively infrequent occurrence of transpersonal states in early childhood then becomes understandable as a developmental precocity akin to that shown in mathematical and musical prodigies. The overlap of this developmental line with some of the thematics and regressive states of psychoanalytic object relations theories of infancy follows from the experiential nature of pre-sentational intelligence. Early emotional traumata and deficits must reappear in transpersonal experience to the extent that they were internalized as part of the mother-infant dyad whose structure underlies our symbolic, dialogic consciousness. (shrink)

If consciousness emerges into ontological reality at some point in nature, as system complexity increases, then it also ‘submerges’ at some adjoining point, as structures simplify. This has led some to posit a ‘latent-consciousness’ in what Bohr saw as the consciousness-like spontaneity of quantum phenomena. Yet to move on this basis to Whitehead's ontological pan-experientialism or to direct quantum explanations of consciousness faces serious epistemological limitations -- perhaps being more unwittingly projective than genuinely explanatory. More reasonable would be an epistemological (...) pan- experientialism in the sense of the later James. Consciousness, as the ultimate lens and medium of all knowledge, is inseparable from the physical reality it would know, especially at the very limits of empirical observation in microphysics. ‘Submerged’ consciousness is better understood in Jamesian pragmatic terms than via assumed but unprovable ontologies. (shrink)

A cognitive-developmental theory of synaesthesias - those subjective states fusing separate perceptual modalities - is supported by research indicating their neocortical basis and first appearance as part of the semantic learning of words, letters, numbers, and time in the early grade school years. It contrasts with models of a primitive, anomalous holdover from an earlier neural hyperconnectivity, widely assumed in recent neuroscience approaches. Classical synaesthesias, occurring most vividly in high 'fantasy proneness' children, as well as the more normative and less (...) stereotyped 'synaesthetic meanings' of mid childhood, would later be internalized as the imagistic side of Vygotsky's 'inner speech' - then introspectable as the typically diffuse felt sense of semantic significance. A synaesthetically structured felt meaning becomes the matrix for the development of metaphoric understanding in later childhood. The further exteriorized development of the full range of synaesthesias in adults high in imaginative absorption and creativity becomes central to the arts, culture, and meditative states of consciousness. This approach overlaps with that of Ramachandran on synaesthesia as a window to the evolution of language and metaphor, but separates the human capacity for cross- modal translation, as the root of all symbol formation, from the full range of synaesthesias that would be its later mid childhood differentiation and adds in the wider adult potential for higher developments of this normally implicit synaesthetic consciousness. (shrink)

The world I grew up in believed that change and development in life are part of a continuous process of cause and effect, minutely and patiently sustained throughout the millenniums. With the exception of the initial act of creation ..., the evolution of life on earth was considered to be a slow, steady and ultimately demonstrable process. No sooner did I begin to read history, however, than I began to have my doubts. Human society and living beings, it seemed to (...) me, ought to be excluded from so calm and rational a view. The whole of human development, far from having been a product of steady evolution, seemed subject to only partially explicable and almost invariably violent mutations. Entire cultures and groups of individuals appeared imprisoned for centuries in a static shape which they endured with long-suffering indifference, and then suddenly, for no demonstrable cause, became susceptible to drastic changes and wild surges of development. It was as if the movement of life throughout the ages was not a Darwinian caterpillar but a startled kangaroo, going out towards the future in a series of unpredictable hops, stops, skips and bounds. Indeed, when I came to study physics I had a feeling that the modern concept of energy could perhaps throw more light on the process than any of the more conventional approaches to the subject. It seemed that species, society and individuals behaved more like thunder-clouds than scrubbed, neatly clothed and well-behaved children of reason. Throughout the ages life appeared to build up great invisible charges, like clouds and earth of electricity, until suddenly in a sultry hour the spirit moved, the wind rose, a drop of rain fell acid in the dust, fire flared in the nerve, and drums rolled to produce what we call thunder and lightening in the heavens and chance and change in human society and personality.LAURENS VAN DER POST, The Lost World of the Kalahari. (shrink)

We synthesize literature from organization theory and political sociology to develop a conceptual lens from which organizing can be examined as a process whereby institutional structures are changed in ways similar to how social movements change entire societies. Implied is that hegemonic power structures maintain existing institutional structures by either resisting insurgencies or by making them seem senseless in the first place.

Critics have challenged agricultural scientists to address concerns for environmental quality, farm size and structure, international justice, and the health and welfare of consumers and farm labor in research planning. The goal of this research was to determine what is and what could be done to consider value-laden knowledge relevant to these concerns in research planning. Descriptions of a state agricultural experiment station and of a hierarchy of inquiry that included applied systems analysis and reductionist approaches to science revealed the (...) goal-seeking and expert-centered nature of agricultural research. Value-laden and value-free knowledge of agricultural scientists and administrators were heavily represented in broad research goals such as increased productivity and efficiency. In addition, these goals were not evaluated at the levels of inquiry typically practiced by agricultural scientists. A soft systems methodology provided a more holistic level of inquiry that could facilitate consideration of value-laden and value-free knowledge of world views more diverse than those of agricultural scientists and administrators. Scientists could function as co-learners with other participants to identify issues and to conceptualize systems that are relevant to improving research planning. Moreover, researching the practice of soft systems offers opportunities for exploring systems ideas and holistic value theory in relation to agricultural research. (shrink)

We propose a research program grounded in cultural theory and believe that this theory enables researchers to gain traction in Business and Society research. Grid-group cultural theory is a useful tool for examining organizational behavior. Organizational culture governs organizational social expression. Corporate Social Responsibility is a specific domain which benefits from exploration using cultural theory. Finally, objectives and aspirations of this research program are outlined.