Transpersonal Psychology

[Ligeia]

I recently read "transpersonal psychology" by Stansislav Grof and I came across an intressting passage.
I sum it up: The concept of a violent takeover to quit oppresion and build a harmonic and good situation reflects the dynamic of internal transformations associated with the process of death-rebirth.
Thats why it seems like a fundamental truth and becomes popular for a political concept that is plausible.
The mistake is within the fact that the spiritual process is projected into the material reality and is covered by an ateistic slogan for the transformation of the world,in this shape it won't work.

Furthermore,he writes that the energy which emerges from a revolution doesn't get lost or something after the violent takeover but is the seed of corruption within the leaders,so leaders of a revolution have to be emotionally mature and know themselves.Thats the conclusion.

So,what do you think about this?And transpersonal psychology in general?

[Janus]

I don't think much of spiritual psychology theories or any "mentalism" in general. Neither would many members of this board as most of them are materialists and therefore reject any idealist tendencies. I am mainly interested in psychology theories that have major empirical proof behind them like behaviorism and biopsychology.

[Ligeia]

I thought so,too but anyway,I wanted to ask.

The book tells that you have to interpret science totally new if you consider quantuum mechanics and the theory of relativity and the like.

The theory is that everything is bound together and one,although everything is at the same time an individual existence and furthermore there exist an energy which still is everywhere but cant be explained e.g. gravitation energy.
But most importantly in this theory is the consideration of prenatal experiences which like the death-consciousness shall influence human psychology.
There also existst an universal consciousness that you can experience in dreams or psychedelic states.

I didnt pay much attention and have to admit I know almost nothing about physics but I wonder what these physics got to do with a new comprehension of science.

[Janus]

Physics is scientific whereas "mentalistic" psychology is not. You can't disprove these idealist psychological theories like psychoanalysis (freud would just say that you are undergoing transference), therefore they are not scientific.

The interconnections of the world and universal consciousness as stated by that book can't really be proven. It was Jung who first proposed that collective unconscious but of course it can't be proved either.

Quantum physics and relativity are truly revolutionary and give us a new outlook on the world but they have nothing to do with psychology.

Furthermore, gravitational potential energy can be proven. Remeber energy can't be created or destroyed but transferred. Gravitational potential energy is energy due to position and this energy is changed to kinetic energy as the object moves.

[Ligeia]

Of course,Grof also states which psycologist had similar ideas and give the base for his theory.
I have another question...I know that doesnt belong here but maybe someone knows: Why do Iones go down from metal into liquids?Some go down to the liquids easier then others,why?Why do have electrons different energy potentials?

Well,ok,I see the mental psychology cant be proven but nevertheless in descriptions of intelligence the so called transpersonal intelligence is also taken into account among others.

[comet_rider]

Physics is scientific whereas "mentalistic" psychology is not. You can't disprove these idealist psychological theories like psychoanalysis (freud would just say that you are undergoing transference), therefore they are not scientific.


Well, the "empirical" sciences (like classical physics) and the "mentalistic" sciences are not that much different, what is classified as the "mentalistic" ones are just early in their development. Sciences, both of them, can only find patterns, and perhaps put these patterns to use - for example, we can only observe all matters/energies to be in the form of waves and/or particles as far as we can tell (maybe we'll have to recatagorize them when new forms come into play), and we can use these characteristics to our advantage, like inventing the computer by applying the patterns of eletrons and patterns of behaviors of various elements. But we can never really say why these patterns are here, because we invented these patterns in the first place so our tiny little brains don't explode with too much information - for example, whoever said matters/energies can't be catagorized as high/low probability concentrates? In fact, quantum mechanics does work by the principle of probability and randomness.

A theory that would be deemed "non-empirical" would be the one that says the universe has a pulse of "appearances", everything working solely on the laws of probability, and light being not "Real" but a boundary of probability. Sure, this cannot be disproved yet, but that doesn't mean it will remain "un-disprovable" forever. Furthermore, doesn't it explain the laws of relativity better than any other theory?

Empiricism works by "falsifying", the law of falsification. Nothing can ever be proven correct, they can only be infinetly falsified, thus the scientific tests. So why not try to open up our minds and accepting the possibility of different theories because, as the law itself states, nothing is sure to be correct?

[Janus]

But the problem with "mentalist" psychology is that it can't be proven. Freud could go on all day about out id, ego, and superego but there would be no true scientific evidence actually backing it up. He could put his cases up as evidence but even those couldn't really count as evidence (particularly after new info. was released about his appointments). Therefore, if it can't be falsified, then it's really not scientific.

[comet_rider]

It's all the matter of categorization.

Like i said before, we can only find patterns and catagorize them - we find that most energies travels in wave-like motions, for example, so we catagorize them that way.

Freud observes the different insdincts (at least the life instincts, as the death instincts are more controversial) and catagorized them as the "id", he observed the internalization of parental figures, and catagorize anything to do with that as the "superego", etc.

Freudian psychology cannot be falsified by conventional empirical scientific techniques, but it can be falsified by its own catagory rules, just like how physics can be falsified by empirical tests but cannot be falsified by the psychoanalytic theory. They catagorize things differently and neither one is the "right" one.

So when you say the empirical sciences are more "right", what is essentially meant is that the empirical sciences re-catagorize at a slower rate. I admit that may give it an advantage over the "mentalistic" sciences, but it doesn't make them any less "right" or any more "wrong" than the empirical ones.

And just as an interesting side note - bio-psychology actually includes both methods of catagorization: many bio-psychologists still follow the general Freudian model (of id ego and superego i mean, not the sexual theories) and catagorize the brain that way on a big scale, while applying the empirical catagorization at a finer level.