Nowadays, Transpersonal Psychology is a still young discipline. It was born from various psychological streams, critical towards Behaviourism and Psychoanalysis. From the beginning, it proposed itself as a "third force", and aimed at discovering new possibilities and potentialities of man. Its trend was "humanistic", in a way. Later on, the interest of researchers decidedly shifted to the Self: the Ego was put in second place, and space was allowed to non "personal" tendencies. In fact, man is not only a product of his story, of his milieu, and so on, but, above all, of the ring which links him to a long chain of progenitors. The man of caves continues to live inside us. But he is not only an aggressive or libidinous man, as Freud put him. He hides in himself a rich potential to enlightenment or awakening; hence, he must develop this "sparkle" of eternity through his actions.
C. G. Jung is the father of this stream of psychology. In his opinion, man advances all his life towards a goal, which is individuation. Roughly speaking, this path will lead him to discover all his archetypes and the authentic sprouts of inner development. Transpersonal psychology draws on Jung, highlighting still more, if anything, the connection with Eastern philosophies. Buddhism, Taoism, and Sufism are the major branches of this direction. Hinduism, too, can give important ideas to psychologists; in particular, Vedanta and Yoga must be evaluated. There is another logic, which is outlined by these great religious traditions. Nevertheless, emphasis is put on the spiritual element, rather than on the religious one. From this point of view, Christianity, too, can lead man to such an awakening, above all in its esoteric traits: the apocrypha of New Testament, and some single characters, such as Master Eckhart and Georges Gurdjieff, can give precious teachings to the man or the woman who does not only conceive Christianity as an istitution.
With such premises, a completely new field opens to research: there are particular experiences, whereby man can attain another state of mind, much more significant than that of his being awaken. These were already called "peak experiences" by an important exponent of humanistic psychology, that is, Abraham Maslow, and can give man a new perspective on reality and the world. In order to define the mood related to these experiences, all the greatest traditions have elaborated their specific terms: Zen speaks about satori; Taoism about hsü ("condition of emptiness"); Sufism about fana' ("extinction of the Ego"); Buddhism about nirvana; esoteric Christianity about "the kingdom of heavens", and so on. It is a childish condition, where we come back to our childood, as it were, yet enriched by the experiences common to saints and the relevant characters of mankind. All of us become "children/sons of God", in a sense.
Transpersonal psychology is the awareness of
the craving of man to perfection; which is an unattainable goal, but, however,
has to be constantly pointed at all the same. It is a purpose of culture,
more than of civilisation.
