TRANSFORMATIVE


Ralph Metzner (2022, orig. 1997). The Unfolding Self: 

                                                Varieties of Transformative Experience


Metzner has a PhD in clinical psychology from Harvard and taught at the California Institute for Integral Studies for over 30 years.

There is a summary journal article of the book published in 1990 called, Ten Classical Metaphors for Self-Transformation in the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology.

The sources for the book are east and west religion/spirituality, mythology, philosophy, shamanism, yoga, anthropology, transpersonal and depth psychology...he frames the work as "nonstatical research" and includes many stories, some personal, some from students, some from the sources above.

Thesis: consciousness, the field in which thoughts, sensations, feelings...occur, is transformed via CHANGE, which can be abrupt/gradual, temporary/lasting, grace/intentional, invisible/manifest, and progressive/regressive. 

The classic metaphors for these trasnformative experiences are: awaken from the dream, uncover the veils, liberation, purify by fire, wholeness, reconcile, reborn, light, integrate the wild animal, unfolding, journey, and return to source...all of these are elaborated and explained HOWEVER...

there is almost no practical methods for achieving these transformations which is where the book falls short...there should be at least 1 practice for each metaphor--to his credit, there are plenty of references which probably describe these practices for those that want to learn.


Practice: Which of the metaphors of transformation do you most resonate with...perform some research to find a practice that serves to support your growth using this metaphor of transformation...something simple that you can perform in 5-10 mins a day on an ongoing basis for 7 days, then assess.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
SPIRITUAL SOLUTIONS Wayne Dyer (2003). There's a Spiritual Solution to Every Problem. Dyer earned a Doctorate of Education in Guidance and Counseling, and is a prolific author. His first book that i read in the 1970's, Your Erroneous Zones, profoundly influenced my thinking as a teen.  The theme of this book is that there is a spiritual solution to every problem, that problems are illusions created in the mind by incorrect thinking, and that the solution to these mental problems is to change our thinking in light of the spirit (defined as an energy/intelligence that is the source of all life, i.e., God). Some might call this "spiritual bypassing," ignoring the body in favor of the mind and spirit. The first half of the book is lessons from Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. Dyer suggests that low frequency is associated with the "negative" and faster frequency with the "positive" [for me, at least musically, lower frequencies don't imply negative emo...
Read more
Image
TURN ON Timothy Leary (1965, 1999). Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out Leary was a University Professor at Harvard who is best know for his experiments with LSD. The book is part lectures, part interviews, and part essays. Given all the media hype about Leary, i was surprised at how much common sense i encountered, and how much he speaks to learning, hope, and love.  He begins with a chapter on how to start your own religion (to invoke the rights of the first amendment in US law) with family and friends, a tribe of people living together in community with their own laws...a place where sacrament is consumed (it need not be LSD, but anything that is spiritually meaningful to the community, something that binds the community together in ceremony)...a place preferably in nature where one feels protected and nurtured.  The BIG ADVICE is to drop out of society's robot world/mind, and turn on to God/Goddess (the Spirit), nature, and the body and mind, and tune in (dropping back into socie...
Read more
Image
BODY WISDOM  Therese Bertherat (1989).  The body has its reasons: Self-awareness                                                           through conscious movement.  Berherat takes us on a personal journey in learning body wisdom /awareness using Ehrenfred's method which is radically different than the medical model/method she learned at University. The story unfolds as "sessions" of practices, and the end of the book reveals several "preliminaries" on how to cultivate body wisdom. Among the many practical lessons are:      pause after exhaling to let the body use oxygen before inhaling again--this allows the              body to rest/relax with every breath.      because all parts of the body are integrated, working with one par...
Read more