Participation and the mystery transpersonal essays in psychology, education, and religion

388 Pages·2017·1.595 MB·English

by  Ferrer, Jorge N

PARTICIPATION AND THE MYSTERY

PARTICIPATION AND THE MYSTERY
Transpersonal Essays in Psychology,
Education, and Religion
JORGE N. FERRER
State University of New York Press
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Name: Ferrer, Jorge N. (Jorge Noguera), 1968– author.
Title: Participation and the mystery : transpersonal essays in psychology,
education, and religion / by Jorge N. Ferrer.
Description: Albany, NY : State University of New York Press, [2017] |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016031415| ISBN 9781438464879 (hardcover : alk. paper)
| ISBN 9781438464886 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Transpersonal psychology. | Spirituality—Psychology. |
Psychology, Religious.
Classification: LCC BF204.7 .F47 2017 | DDC 150.19/87—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016031415
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
vii
INTRODUCTION
1
PART ONE
TRANSPERSONAL PSYCHOLOGY
CHAPTER ONE
Participatory Spirituality and Transpersonal Theory 9
CHAPTER TWO
Transpersonal Psychology, Science, and the
Supernatural 41
CHAPTER THREE
Toward a Fully Embodied Spiritual Life 73
CHAPTER FOUR
A New Look at Integral Growth 91
PART TWO
INTEGRAL EDUCATION
CHAPTER FIVE
The Four Seasons of Integral Education
(with Marina T. Romero and Ramón V. Albareda) 119
CHAPTER SIX
Teaching Mysticism from a Participatory Perspective 143
v
CONTENTS
vi
CHAPTER SEVEN
Embodied Spiritual Inquiry: A Radical Approach to
Contemplative Education 163
PART THREE
SPIRITUALITY AND RELIGION
CHAPTER EIGHT
Stanislav Grof’s Consciousness Research and the
Modern Study of Mysticism 181
CHAPTER NINE
Participation, Metaphysics, and Enlightenment:
Reflections on Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory 199
CHAPTER TEN
Religious Pluralism and the Future of Religion 221
POSTSCRIPT
241
CODA
A Secret Poem for You 251
APPENDIX ONE
Participatory Spirituality and A. H. Almaas’s
New Diamond Approach 255
APPENDIX TWO
The Soft Perennialism of S. Taylor 263
NOTES
273
REFERENCES
313
INDEX
365
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book is the product of more than a decade of thinking deeply
about the implications of a participatory worldview for contemporary
psychology, education, and religion. As usual with any book of this kind,
I owe an immense debt of gratitude to the countless individuals who
generously offered me their critical input after reading earlier versions
of these chapters. I am also grateful to those who took the time to
write reviews of my previous books or engage my work through various
personal or scholarly exchanges. These contributions not only helped
to improve the presentation of my ideas, but also saved this work from
many conceptual imprecisions and oversights.
In particular, I want to thank the following friends, scholars, and
colleagues (in alphabetical order): John Abramson, George Adams,
Ramón V. Albareda, Bruce Alderman, A. H. Almaas, Rosemarie
Anderson, Masoud Arez, Christopher Bache, Natalia Barahona Noseda,
Father Bruno Barnhart, William B. Barnard, Michael Bauwens, Duane
R. Bidwell, Nicholas G. Boeving, Andrew F. Burninston, Elias Capriles,
Craig Chalquist, William C. Chittick, Christopher Clarke, Brendan
Collins, Randy Conner, Andrew Cooper, Paul F. Cunningham, Edward J.
Dale, Marylin C. J. Daniels, Michael Daniels, Douglas Duckworth, Sean
Esbjörn-Hargens, Roland Faber, Gabriel Fernandez, Charles Flores, Robert
K. C. Forman, Anthony Freeman, Paul D. Freinkel, Harris Friedman,
Octavio García, Ann L. Gleig, Gerry Goddard, Ellen Goldberg, Stanislav
Grof, M. S. Haar Farris, Glenn Hartelius, John Heron, Michael Hollick,
Pablo Ianiszewski, Lee Irwin, Karen Jaenke, Don Hanlon Johnson,
Stephen Kaplan, Sean Kelly, Michael King, Jürgen Kremer, Jeffrey J.
Kripal, Gregg Lahood, Brian L. Lancaster, Beverly Lanzetta, Michael
Lerner, Agustín López Tobajas, David Lorimer, David Loy, Sinesio
Madrona, Juan Antonio Martinez de la Fe, Robert McDermott, Douglas
McDonald, Vicente Merlo, Alfonso Montuori, Michael Murphy, David
Nicol, José Antonio Noguera, Jay Ogilvy, Raimon Panikkar, Agustín
Pániker, William Parsons, Jordi Piguem, Daryl S. Paulson, Iker Puente,
vii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
viii
Kaisa Puhakka, Peter Reason, Kenneth Ring, Oliver Robinson, Marina
T. Romero, Donald Rothberg, John Rowan, Matthew D. Segal, Jacob
H. Sherman, Bahman A. K. Shirazi, Larry Spiro, Olga R. Sohmer,
Joseph Subbiondo, Nahuel Sugobono, Becca Tarnas, Richard Tarnas,
Steve Taylor, Jenny Wade, Harald Walach, Michael Washburn, and Ken
Wilber.
Special gratitude goes to my coauthors of chapter 5, Marina T.
Romero and Ramón V. Albareda, for permission to reproduce their work
in this anthology.
Inspiring dialogues with my students at California Institute of Inte-
gral Studies (CIIS) in San Francisco have significantly enriched the
contents of this book. At CIIS, I also learned a great deal from chairing
the doctoral research of Zayin Cabot, Samuel A. Malkemus, and Alex
Rachel, who in their own unique ways are taking participatory thinking
in new and exciting directions.
I would like to particularly thank Anna F. Doherty, whose editorial
magic blessed many of the chapters of this book and makes the English
prose of this Spaniard more elegant and idiomatic. I am also grateful to
my research assistants, Elisabeth Teklinski and Jennifer Spesia, whose
generous and meticulous help with numerous editorial and formatting
tasks allowed me to complete this book at its proper time. Special kudos
go to Elisabeth for her thorough consolidation and revision of the book’s
references, as well as the arduous labor of cross-checking the text’s cita-
tions against the reference list.
While most of the contents of this book derive from work pre-
viously published, all have been thoroughly revised and updated. In
addition to numerous new references, endnotes, and minor changes, all
the chapters include original materials; the book also incorporates an
entire new chapter (chapter 7), an important Postscript clarifying the
evolution of my thinking, and two Appendices respectively discussing
A. H. Almaas’s (2014) Diamond Approach and S. Taylor’s (2017) soft
perennialism from the perspective of the participatory approach. Redun-
dancies between chapters have been eliminated, except for a few cases
in which the same passage was essential for the argumentative line of
more than one chapter.
Lastly, special thanks to the late Nancy Ellegate, Senior Acquisi-
tion Editor of the State University of New York (SUNY) Press, as well
as to her assistant Jessica Kirschner, Senior Production Editor Laurie
Searl, and the SUNY Press creative and administrative team, for their
steadfast support in the publication of this work.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ix
❧
Permission to use material from the following publications has been
granted:
Chapter 1. Ferrer, J. N. (2011). Participatory spirituality and
transpersonal theory: A 10-year retrospective. The Journal of Transper-
sonal Psychology, 43(1), 1–34.
Chapter 2. Ferrer, J. N. (2014). Transpersonal psychology, science,
and the supernatural. The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 46(2),
152–186.
Chapter 3. Ferrer, J. N. (2008). What does it mean to live a fully
embodied spiritual life? International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, 27,
1–11.
Chapter 4. Ferrer, J. N. (2003). Integral transformative practice:
A participatory perspective. The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology,
35(1), 21–42.
Chapter 5. Ferrer, J. N., M. T. Romero, and R. V. Albareda. (2005).
Integral transformative education: A participatory proposal. Journal of
Transformative Education, 3(4), 306–330.
Chapter 6. Ferrer, J. N. (2011). Teaching the graduate seminar in
comparative mysticism: A participatory integral approach. In W. Parsons
(ed.), Teaching mysticism (173–192). American Academy of Religion
Series. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Chapter 8. Ferrer, J. N. (2002). Revisioning transpersonal theory: A
participatory vision of human spirituality. Albany, NY: State University of
New York Press.
Chapter 9. Ferrer, J. N. (2011). Participation, metaphysics, and
enlightenment: Reflections on Ken Wilber’s recent work. Transpersonal
Psychology Review, 14(20), 3–24.
Chapter 10. Ferrer, J. N. (2010). The plurality of religions and
the spirit of pluralism: A participatory vision of the future of religion.
International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, 28(1), 139–151.
Ferrer, J. N. (2012). The future of world religion: Four scenarios,
one dream. Tikkun: Culture, Spirituality, Politics, 27(1), 14–16, 63–64.
Coda. Ferrer, J. N. (2004). A secret poem for you. International
Journal of Transpersonal Studies, 23, 91–93.