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Stages of Transpersonal/Spiritual Development The field of study that examines the spiritual states of consciousness and stages of development is called transpersonal psychology. The spiritual stages of development are the ultimate reaches of our human potential and only by becoming aware of them and studying them we can eventually attain them. "Transpersonal experiences may be defined as experiences in which the sense of identity or self extends beyond (trans) the individual or personal to encompass wider aspects of humankind, life, psyche, and cosmos. Transpersonal disciplines study transpersonal experiences and related phenomena. Practitioners seek to expand the scope of their disciplines to include the study of transpersonal phenomena and to bring their particular disciplinary expertise to this study. Transpersonal Psychology is the psychological study of transpersonal experiences and their correlates. These correlates include the nature, varieties, causes, and effects of transpersonal experiences and development as well as the psychologies, philosophies, disciplines, arts, cultures, life-styles, reactions, and religions that are inspired by them, or that seek to induce, express, apply, or understand them."
Philosopher Ken Wilber has accomplished another, more extensive, systematic mapping of worldviews than we have explored thus far. Synthesizing Western and Eastern philosophy, developmental psychology, cultural anthropology, evolutionary theory, systems theory and the mystic writings of the world's great wisdom traditions, Wilber has managed to create a truly holistic map of reality. With this map he has successfully included the truths, but not the errors, of nearly all the modes of understanding that humanity has created. The most important aspect of Wilber's work, in my opinion, is that he has managed to convincingly explore the stages of transpersonal development that succeed the primarily personal stages. These are the spiritual stages of development described by mystics of all persuasions. The scientific study of the spiritual stages of human development is known as transpersonal psychology. Wilber is not the only researcher to investigate the Spiritual or transpersonal stages of development. Beginning with William James there is a long line of psychologists and philosophers who have explored the further reaches of human nature. These include, in no particular order, Richard Burke, Evelyn Underhill, Aldous Huxley, Stanislav Grof, Michael Washburn, Jenny Wade, Roger Walsh, Frances Vaughn, and Sri Aurobindo. However, much I respect and admire the work of all these individuals, it is precisely because Wilber attempts to integrate the best all of them into his system that I believe it is not only the most comprehensive, but the one best suited for discussing the spiritual stages of development. Wilber's transpersonal spectrum of consciousness adds four distinct stages to the other systems of personal development, which he incorporates into his system as well. Briefly, the first is the Psychic level, or nature mysticism, where the unity with all living things is perceived and lived. This is also the level where actual psychic events may be experienced. The Hindu tradition refers to this as the siddhas, which distract many spiritual aspirants from ultimate realization. The next level is the Subtle, or deity mysticism, where one experiences unity with one's primal archetypes, or one's personal god. A near-death experience is one example of this, but a sustained realization at this level often includes experiences of interior illuminations and a deep unity with not just all life (or the gross level) but the actual mechanisms that support life, the subtle forms, or the laws of the universe if you will. The third stage is the Causal; unity with the Witness, and the emptiness, or void, from which all arises. This stage is what is generally considered enlightenment, but there is a final stage: the Nondual or Unity Consciousness stage, in which identification with even the Witness, the void, with emptiness, is transcended and there is simply unity, simply Spirit. There is no subject and no object, there is simply All. Spirit as Spirit. All of these stages are covered in more detail in the Fifth Turn, A Vision for Spiritual Transformation. Wilber's transpersonal stages of consciousness are based on a cross-cultural study of the world's mystic traditions as well as modern consciousness research. While there are many scientists attempting to explain the spiritual experience as a neurological event, trying to pinpoint a "God Module" within the brain, these conjectures miss the point.(i) All experiences are neurological events in that we experience them neurologically. It is not surprising that a long-term practitioner of meditation will display a significantly different EEG pattern, or that areas of their brain not normally used will be highlighted in an MRI scan. Meditation is not altering their consciousness, it is altering their experience of consciousness. And as a five-year old 's experience of consciousness is not as developed as a teenager's or an adult's, just so, the average person's experience of consciousness is not generally as developed as that of a longtime practitioner of meditation. For several thousand years the world's mystic traditions have all been teaching a very similar program of spiritual realization, regardless of how different their religious and mythological teachings might be. This is the perennial philosophy, and its continued effectiveness at revealing deeper ways of knowing, is what the transpersonal, or spiritual stages of development, are based on. Wilber makes it clear that he believes each of the stages of development, personal as well as transpersonal, are potentially available to every person and by extension, every society. There is
a strong correlation between the stages of personal and spiritual development
and the stages of sociocultural development. Humans pass through individual
stages of development and as societies we seem to pass through these
very same stages played out on a larger fashion. And just as each worldview
on the personal level successively embraces a wider perspective, a deeper
understanding of the universe, so too do the larger stages that society
in general moves through. It is important to note that each successive
stage does not abandon the worldview of the previous stage, but instead
transcends it, leaving the individual, or the society, with a successively
wider perspective. Different individuals will always be at different
stages throughout a society, as the work of Ray and Anderson illustrates,
but at most times a single worldview will dominate a society. Currently
our Western society is dominated by the Modern worldview, which tends
to have a low regard for the very notion of religion, much less the
idea of a transcendent spirituality. As our society moves slowly toward
a more Integral worldview this situation will hopefully change in some
radical and significant ways. Footnotes i) Sharon
Begley, "Religion and the Brain," Newsweek, May 14,
2001.
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