Further Steps to a Philosophy and Psychology of Awakening: An Assessment of the Transpersonal Paradigms of Grof and Washburn [And Appendices I, II and ... and Philosophy, and Psychology of Awakening) - Softcover

Capriles, Elias

Softcover

ISBN 10: 9807123267 ISBN 13: 9789807123266

Publisher: La Castalia Publishing Center, 2013

Synopsis

Washburn defines two contrasting paradigms in transpersonal theory: (1) Wilber’s, which Washburn calls structural-hierarchical, and which combines evolutionary theories in the fields of psychology and theory of human social and spiritual evolution, with a hierarchical, stratified classification of psychic states (which, in my view, is essentially based on the Upaniṣads and on Vedānta, but which according to Wilber is equally based on Buddhism), and (2) the one Washburn calls dynamic-dialectical, which in his view was introduced by Carl Jung (1928, 1964, 1972, 1975)1 and presently includes those of Stan Grof, David M. Levin, and his own (Washburn, 1995, Introduction and ch. 1). (Assagioli [1976], Norman O. Brown [1968], and most authors I subsume under the label antipsychiatry [cf. Chapter II of this book and Capriles, 2007a vol. II] posit “descending” paths as well; however, perhaps because of the way Washburn defines the dynamic-dialectical paradigm, or for some reason unknown to me, he does not include them within it.) However, the View that to some extent Washburn shares with Grof is regressively descending, whereas genuine Paths of Awakening are descending in a Phenomenological and Existential sense, which I call Metaphenomenological and Metaexistential because they go far beyond the visions of twentieth century phenomenology and existentialism. To begin with, phenomenology takes for granted that the true condition of reality is being, and that being is not a delusive creation of deluded mind, failing to deconstruct the assumptions of metaphysics that it claimed to question. And existentialism claims that authenticity lies in not escaping the suffering nature of existence, and that existence is itself suffering that cannot be transcended—whereas Metaexistential philosophy and psychology claim that existence as defined by the existentialists is delusion and that we must face the suffering involved in existence to go down though it, like Dante in the Divine Comedy, to finally reach the Empyreal, which is asamskrita: unproduced, uncreated, unmade, not induced, unintentional, uncontrived, uncompounded and unconditioned.

Edition details

• Publisher: La Castalia Publishing Center
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 9807123267
• ISBN 13: 9789807123266
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 263