Steve Dinan's Consciousness Timeline,
which comes to Enlightenment.Com under Special Arrangement with
the Transformative Community Network, is a marvel of brevity and
depth. While any timeline can be expanded, and while one might
quibble with some of the things that are included or excluded,
there is no doubt that this is a superb resource and tool for
those interested in consciousness, transformation, and spirituality.
Steve formerly directed and helped to
create the Esalen
Institute's Center for Theory & Research, a think tank
where leading scholars, researchers, and teachers can explore
the frontiers of human potential. He graduated from Stanford University,
holds a master's degree in East-West Psychology from the California
Institute of Integral Studies, and has studied Hinduism, Buddhism,
Sufism, and Christian and Jewish mysticism, as well as transpersonal
psychology. He is the editor of an anthology, Radical Spirit:
Voices of Vision and Hope from the Teachers of Tomorrow (March
2002, New World Library), and the author of various books in development:
The Call, In Kali's Garden, and Savoring Samsara. His volume of
mystical poetry Angelfire is available as a pdf file via email.
He can be reached at stdinan@transformunity.com.
The following timeline is by necessity
somewhat arbitrary and quite partial. The point is not to chart
the minutiae of events constituting what I am loosely calling
the "consciousness movement," but to give a sense for
a few prominent milestones. The last hundred years have witnessed
the gradual creation of a new world philosophy, one that sees
human beings engaged in an evolutionary process to access a deeper,
richer, more playful consciousness and to manifest the fruits
of that work in the world. This new amalgam of ideas and practices
has drawn from dozens of traditions, thousands of books and experiments,
and millions of collectively focused lives. Drawing a firm boundary
around this "movement" is thus misleading. It is better
likened to the flow of a tumultuous river, its millions of eddies
and currents creating, when seen from afar, a cohesive sense of
direction. This timeline is best viewed as a snapshot of that
river from high above.
1875 Founding of the Theosophical
Society in New York, spurs interest in spiritualism. The Society
propounded the notion of spiritual evolution in an attempt to
bridge the religious world view with that arising in science.
(Nov. 17)
1890 William James, Principles
of Psychology.
1893 First Parliament of World
Religions, Vivekananda electrifies the gathering and brings Vedanta
to the West.
1894 Rudolf Steiner, The
Philosophy of Freedom, first of his four "foundational"
books.
1900 Sigmund Freud, The
Interpretation of Dreams. Birth of the psychoanalytic movement.
1901 William James, Varieties
of Religious Experience, lays the groundwork for the cross-cultural
study of mystical experience.
1903 Frederic Myers, Human
Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death.
1905 Richard
Maurice Bucke, Cosmic
Consciousness.
1906 James Mark Baldwin, Thought
and Things.
1907
1909 Alexandra
David-Neel's The Buddhism of the Buddha and Buddhist Modernism,
presents a non-academic account of Buddhist practice.
1913 Rudolf Steiner founds anthroposophy.
1914
-
-
Jan Smuts, Holism
and Evolution, argues that each subsequent level of evolution
is more encompassing than the last, that what was once a whole
becomes part of a greater whole. Influential in systems theory.
-
Alfred North Whitehead,
in Process
and Reality, introduces the notion of prehension, that interiority
is fundamental all the way down to the most basic levels of
the universe.
-
Krishnamurti, who
had been chosen as the next World Teacher by the Theosophical
Society, rejects the organization and states that "truth
is a pathless land," setting the stage for the nondoctrinal
teachings of his next sixty years.
1933 Beginning of the Eranos seminars,
started with the purpose of finding common ground between Eastern
and Western religious thought. Participants included C.G. Jung,
Heinrich Zimmer, D. T. Suzuki, Martin Buber, and Mircea Eliade.
1934
Carl Jung, Archetypes
of the Collective Unconscious.
Arnold Toynbee, in A Study of History, explicates
his theory of the rise and breakdown of civilizations.
1936 Arthur Lovejoy, The
Great Chain of Being.
1937 Anna Freud, The
Ego and Mechanisms of Defense.
1938 Jung travels to India and upon
his return warns against the Western adoption of the practice of
yoga, instead calling for the development of a Western form of yoga.
1939 First East-West Philosophers'
Conference, organized by Charles A. Moore in Honolulu, attempts
to forge a global philosophy.
1943 Albert Hoffman accidentally
ingests LSD-25 (first synthesized in 1938), a mistake leading eventually
to the widespread use of psychedelics. (4/16)
1944 Aldous Huxley, The
Perennial Philosophy.
1945
- Merleau-Ponty, in Phénoménologie
de la Perception, creates a methodology for the study of subjective
experience.
- Rene Guénon, Man and His Becoming
According to Vedanta.
1946
1947 Fritz Perls, Ego,
Hunger, and Aggression.
1948
1949
- Jean Gebser, The
Ever-Present Origin, articulates a theory of the evolution
of human culture through five stages: archaic, magical, mythic,
rational, and aperspectival.
Joseph Campbell's The
Hero with a Thousand Faces, highly influential in comparative
mythology.
- Simone de Beauvoir, Le Deuxieme Sex.
- Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine,
foundational for many of the leading lights of the consciousness
movement.
- Mircea Eliade, The
Myth of the Eternal Return.
- Erich Neumann, The
Origins and History of Consciousness.
- Moshe Feldenkrais, Body
and Mature Behavior: A Study of Anxiety, Sex, Gravitation and
Learning.
1950 L. L. Whyte, The Next Development
in Man.
1951 Carl Rogers, Client-Centered
Therapy.
1952
1954
- Joseph Needham, in Science and Civilization
in China argues for the scientific side of Taoism.
- Aldous Huxley, with The
Doors of Perception, piques the interest of many as to the
possible benefits of psychedelic experience.
- Mircea Eliade, The
Myth of Eternal Return.
1955
1956
1957
1958
1959
- Norman O. Brown, Life
Against Death.
- Joseph Campbell, Primitive
Mythology, first volume of Masks of God series.
- Edward Conze, Buddhism:
Its Essence and Development
- John Blofeld, The
Zen Teaching of Huang Po.
- Arrival of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi to San
Francisco, start of the enormously influential Transcendental
Meditation movement. Peak hits about 1967 or 1968.
- Arrival of Shunryu Suzuki to San Francisco
as a priest for the Japanese Zen Buddhist congregation. He eventually
creates the San Francisco Zen Center which plays an influential
role in introducing Soto Zen practice to America. (5/23)
- Tibetan uprising against Chinese occupying
force leads to bloodshed and the flight of the Dalai Lama and
much of the core of the Tibetan religious hierarchy, setting the
stage for the dissemination of Tibetan Buddhist teachers and practices.
1960
1961
- Alan Watts, Psychotherapy
East and West establishes parallels between Western psychotherapy
and Eastern spirituality.
- Thomas Szasz, The
Myth of Mental Illness.
- Michel Foucault, Histoire
de la Folie.
- Carl Rogers, On
Becoming a Person.
- J. D. Salinger, Franny
and Zooey, fictional account of the turn towards mysticism.
- George Leonard, "The Explosive Generation"
article in Look, first major piece to foretell the tumultuous
times to come.
- Founding of The Journal of Humanistic
Psychology. (Spring)
- Founding of The Journal for the Scientific
Study of Religion.
1962
- Founding of the Esalen Institute as
a forum for exploring new philosophies and visions of human development.
- Abraham Maslow, Toward
a Psychology of Being.
- Marshall McLuhan, The
Gutenberg Galaxy, describes the effect of electronic technologies
on the age of the book.
- Thomas Kuhn, The
Structure of Scientific Revolutions articulates his theory
of paradigm shifts governing the process of scientific discovery.
- Carl Jung, Memories,
Dreams, and Reflections, his autobiography.
- Rachel Carson, Silent
Spring, an important catalyst for the environmental movement.
- Joseph Campbell, Oriental
Mythology.
- Psychedelic experiments with Timothy
Leary and Richard Alpert at Harvard.
1963
- Civil rights march on Washington, M.
L. King's "I Have a Dream" speech (8/29).
- Betty Friedan, Feminine
Mystique.
- E. N. Lorenz publishes the first paper
on chaos theory.
- Gerald Heard, The
Five Ages of Man.
- Victor Frankl, Man's
Search for Meaning.
- Charlotte Selver and Charles Brooks begin
teaching Sensory Awareness at Esalen.
1964
- Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert, and Ralph
Metzner, The
Psychedelic Experience, an adaptation of The Tibetan Book
of the Dead as a guide for the Western use of psychedelics.
- Abraham Maslow, Religions,
Values, Peak Experiences.
- Robert Bellah, "Religious Evolution."
- Mircea Eliade, Shamanism.
- Joseph Campbell, Occidental
Mythology.
- Idries Shah, The
Sufis.
- K. Dabrowski, Positive
Disintegration.
- Arthur Koestler, The
Act of Creation.
- Arrival of Fritz Perls at Esalen, which
provides a platform for the dissemination of Gestalt (May)
1965
- Harvey Cox, Religion
in the Secular City.
- R. D. Laing, The
Divided Self.
- Morey Bernstein, The
Search for Bridey Murphy, stokes public fascination with reincarnation.
- Robert Assagioli, Psychosynthesis:
A Collection of Basic Writings.
- Philip Kapleau, The
Three Pillars of Zen.
- Haridas Chaudhuri, Integral
Yoga.
- Ida Rolf begins summers-in-residence
at Esalen, bringing her work of Structural Integration into prominence,
though she had practiced it for 25 years.
- George Leonard, while brainstorming with
Esalen co-founder Michael Murphy, coins the term "human potential
movement." (March)
1966
- Norman O. Brown, Love's
Body.
- Lama Govinda, The
Way of the White Clouds.
- Bell's theory of nonlocality proposed,
precursor of physics and consciousness movement to follow in 1970s
and 80s.
- San Francisco Zen Center purchases Tassajara
Hot Springs, which becomes the center of gravity for intensive
practice of Soto Zen in the West.
- Thich Nhat Hanh arrives in the U.S. for
a three-week speaking tour.
1967
- R. D. Laing, The Politics of Experience.
- Alexander Lowen, The
Betrayal of the Body.
- Arthur Koestler, The
Ghost in the Machine.
- Will Schutz, Joy,
turns group therapy into an important national movement. (May
approx.)
- Summer of Love
- Stanislav Grof suggests the term "transpersonal"
to describe an emerging orientation in the consciousness movement.
- Ford Foundation grant starts the Confluent
Education program at Esalen, directed by George Brown, applying
humanistic principles to education. This program is eventually
incorporated into UC-Santa Barbara's School of Education.
1968
- Haridas Chaudhuri founds the California
Institute of Asian Studies (CIAS) in San Francisco to spread Sri
Aurobindo's integral philosophy. (April 8)
- Thomas Merton travels to South-East Asia
in order to build bridges between Christian and Asian monasticism.
- Von Bertalanffy, General
System Theory.
- Carlos Casteneda, The
Teachings of Don Juan, first in his series of influential
semi-fictional tales of a Yaqui sorcerer.
- Stewart Brand, The
Whole Earth Catalog.
- George Leonard, Education
and Ecstasy.
- Joseph Campbell, Creative
Mythology.
- Ralph Metzner leads a series of dialogues
at the Esalen San Francisco center on ecology and psychology.
1969
- Abraham Maslow and Anthony Sutich create
the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology.
- Theodore Roszak, The
Making of a Counter Culture, helps define the epochal social
changes occurring in America in the sixties.
- Charles Tart, ed., Altered
States of Consciousness.
- James Lovelock first proposes, but does
not name, the Gaia hypothesis.
- Fritz Perls, Gestalt
Therapy Verbatim.
- Elizabeth Kübler-Ross, On
Death and Dying.
- Rollo May, Love
and Will.
- Mircea Eliade, Yoga: Immortality
and Freedom.
- F. M. Alexander, The
Resurrection of the Body.
- S. N. Goenka returns to India to teach
vipassana courses, a pivotal event in the dissemination of Dharma
practice in the world.
- Samuel Bercholz founds Shambhala Publications.
- Launching of the Agnews Project by Esalen,
an alternative approach to psychosis in a state mental hospital.
- Ashley Montagu, Sex, Man, and Society.
- Lawrence LeShan, "Physicists and
Mystics: Similarities in World View." (Nov.)
- First Council Grove, Kansas, conference
on voluntary control of internal states.
- First Association of Humanistic Psychology
conference with a transpersonal subsection.
1970
- First Earth Day (April 22), a significant
launching point for the environmental movement
- Robert Bellah, Beyond
Belief.
- John Blofeld, The
Tantric Mysticism of Tibet.
- Sheila Ostrander and Lynn Schroeder,
Psychic
Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain, opens channels for the
bridging of the Western consciousness movement with similar work
in the Soviet Union.
- Chogyam Trungpa, Meditation
in Action.
- Jacob Needleman, The
New Religions, examines the emergence of Eastern disciplines
and cults and the growing number of spiritual seekers, especially
in California.
- Moshe Feldenkrais, Body
and Mature Behavior.
- Esalen contingent visits Roberto Assagioli,
bringing his system of Psychosynthesis back to the United States
and leading to its popularization. (June)
1971
- Baba Ram Dass, Be
Here Now, a transitional point for consciousness movement
away from psychedelics.
- Robert Monroe, Journeys
Out of the Body, popular autobiographical treatment of out-of-body
experiences.
- William Irwin Thompson, At
the Edge of History.
- Shunryu Suzuki, Zen
Mind, Beginner's Mind.
- Lama Angarika Govinda, Foundations
of Tibetan Mysticism.
- Abraham Maslow, The
Farther Reaches of Human Nature.
- Werner Erhard springs into limelight
with his est trainings, a quick-fix distillation of human potential
ideas in a weekend workshop format.
- Creation of the Association for Transpersonal
Psychology (Nov.)
- Ralph Metzner, Maps of Consciousness.
- Gopi Krishna, Kundalini
-- The Evolutionary Energy in Man.
- E. Herrigel, Zen
in the Art of Archery.
- Karl Pribram, Languages
of the Brain.
- Esalen creates the Program in Humanistic
Medicine, planting some of the first seeds for holistic medicine,
an extension in many ways of the consciousness movement.
1972
- Gregory Bateson, Steps
to an Ecology of Mind, an influential synthesis of anthropology,
biology, and cybernetics.
- Michael Murphy, Golf
in the Kingdom. Though fictional, Murphy's book becomes the
bestselling golf book of all time, inaugurating the "inner
game" of sports, sports psychology, and mystical offshoots.
- Ervin Laszlo, Introduction
to Systems Philosophy.
- Robert Ornstein, The
Psychology of Consciousness.
- George Leonard, The
Transformation.
- Andrew Weil, The
Natural Mind.
- John Lilly, The
Center of the Cyclone.
- First International Transpersonal Conference
in Reykjavik, Iceland (5/31-6/5)
1973
- Arne Naess, The Shallow and Deep Ecology
Movements.
- E. F. Schumacher's Small
is Beautiful advocates the adoption of Buddhist principles
in the Western economic system.
- New Dimensions Radio first begins to
broadcast as a voice for the emerging new perspectives.
- Chogyam Trungpa, Cutting
Through Spiritual Materialism.
- Michael Harner, Hallucinogens
and Shamanism.
- Founding of the Institute of Noetic Sciences
by astronaut Edgar Mitchell as a research and educational institution
to explore human consciousness.
- First national conference of the Association
for Transpersonal Psychology.
- Conference on "Spiritual and Therapeutic
Tyranny: The Willingness to Submit" addressed abuses of power
in human potential arena. (Dec. 7-8, SF)
1974
- Chogyam Trungpa founds the Naropa Institute
in Boulder, helping to bring Tibetan Buddhism to the West.
- Ian Stevenson's Twenty
Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation, begins his lifework of
a systematic and scientific study of reincarnation.
- Marija Gimbutas, The
Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe, influential in the seeding
of the Goddess and neo-pagan movements.
- Anica Mander and Anne Kent Rush, Feminism
as Therapy.
- Lawrence LeShan, The
Medium, the Mystic, and the Physicist.
- Edgar Mitchell and John White, eds.,
Psychic
Exploration: A Challenge for Science.
- Robert Pirsig, Zen
and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
- Kenneth Ring, "A Transpersonal View
of Consciousness: A Mapping of Farther Reaches of Inner Space,
" JTP, attempts to synthesize a range of perspectives on
consciousness.
1975
- Stanislav Grof, Realms
of the Human Unconscious, adds perinatal (birth) matrices
between the personal unconscious and transpersonal realms and
chronicles the results of thousands of psychedelic sessions.
- Terrence and Dennis McKenna, The
Invisible Landscape.
- James Hillman, Revisioning
Psychology, deconstructs the hero myth and ego psychology.
- Fritjof Capra, The
Tao of Physics, explores parallels between Eastern mystical
systems and the worldview of modern physics.
- Charles Tart, States
of Consciousness, proposes the idea of state-specific sciences
and pioneers the scientific study of altered states of consciousness.
- Ken Wilber, "Psychologia Perennis:
The Spectrum of Consciousness." Journal of Transpersonal
Psychology. First exposition of Wilber's spectrum model, in
which all psychologies and traditions are situated on one continuum.
- Peter Marin, "The New Narcissism"
in Harper's begins self-critical phase of consciousness movement.
- Raymond Moody, Life
After Life, brings near-death experiences and their potential
meaning into the public consciousness.
- Jeffrey Mishlove, The
Roots of Consciousness.
- Herbert Benson, The
Relaxation Response, influential in medical/scientific circles
as a paradigm for understanding meditation and its effects.
- George Leonard, The
Ultimate Athlete, applies human potential philosophies and
principles to sports, games, and the growing fitness movement.
- Founding of the journal Anima
as a forum for psychology, religion, and women's studies.
- Founding of Yoga Journal (May)
1976
- Huston Smith, Forgotten
Truth.
- Julian Jaynes, The
Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.
- A
Course in Miracles.
- Chogyam Trungpa, The
Myth of Freedom.
- Arthur Young, The
Reflexive Universe.
- Founding of the Insight Meditation Society
in Barre, MA, by Joseph Goldstein, Jack Kornfield, and Sharon
Salzburg. Important in bringing the practice of Theravadan Buddhism
to the West.
- Lee Sanella, Kundalini:
Psychosis or Transcendence?
- James Fadiman and Robert Frager, Personality
and Personal Growth, first textbook on personality theory
to include transpersonal and Eastern viewpoints.
- June Singer, Androgyny:
Toward a New Theory of Sexuality.
- Johannes Fabricius, Alchemy:
The Medieval Alchemists and Their Royal Art.
- J. Poortman, Vehicles
of Consciousness: The Concept of Hylic Pluralism, examines
the cross-cultural evidence for subtle bodies.
- Founding of the journal Parabola as a
forum for the study of myth and the quest for meaning.
1977
- Ken Wilber, Spectrum
of Consciousness, important synthesis of a variety of approaches
to consciousness, situating them on one spectrum, bridging Eastern
mysticism and Western psychology in influential ways.
- Amory Lovins, Soft
Energy Paths.
- Ida P. Rolf, Rolfing:
The Integration of Human Structures.
- Haridas Chaudhuri, The
Evolution of Integral Consciousness.
- Elmer and Alyce Green, Beyond
Biofeedback.
- Stanislav and Christina Grof create Holotropic
Breathwork during an Esalen month-long workshop.
- Ken Wilber and Jack Crittenden found
the journal Revision: A Journal of Knowledge and Consciousness
as a forum for the consciousness movement.
- John Welwood, "Meditation and the
Unconscious: A New Perspective," JTP, proposes four
grounds of consciousness: situational, personal, transpersonal,
basic.
- Daniel Goleman, The
Varieties of the Meditative Experience, outlines a dozen major
meditative disciplines, popularizes distinction between awareness
and concentration paths, a distinction derived from Theravada
Buddhism.
- James Ogilvy, Many-Dimensional
Man.
- Russell Targ and Harold Putoff, Mind
Reach.
- Robert M. Anderson, "A Holographic
Model of Transpersonal Consciousness," JTP.
- Don Hanlon Johnson, The
Protean Body.
- Ida Rolf, Rolfing: The
Integration of Human Structures.
- Founding of the journal Consciousness
and Culture.
- Release of Star Wars, first movie
to show significant influence of human potential movement through
Lucas' study of J. Campbell, tai chi, and other related fields.
(summer)
1978
- Arthur Koestler, Janus:
A Summing Up, articulates the theory of "holons."
- Stephen Katz, Mysticism
and Philosophical Analysis, launches the constructivist program
in the study of comparative mysticism.
- Theodore Roszak, Person/Planet.
- Hazel Henderson, Creating
Alternative Futures.
- Lex Hixon, Coming
Home, explores parallel visions in different traditions of
enlightenment or liberation.
- George Leonard, Silent
Pulse.
- Susan Griffin, Woman
and Nature.
- Eugene Gendlin, Focusing,
argues that the common denominator in successful therapy is a
capacity to tune in to more subtle levels of bodily felt sense.
- Michael Murphy and Rhea White, The
Psychic Side of Sports.
- Helen Wambach, Reliving
Past Lives.
- Michael Washburn, "Observations
Relevant to a Unified Theory of Meditation," JTP.
- Founding of the journal Somatics to create
a framework for the new body-based disciplines, arts, and sciences.
1979
- Gregory Bateson, Mind
and Nature.
- James Lovelock, Gaia:
A New Look at Life on Earth.
- Christopher Lasch, The
Culture of Narcissism, a backlash against the human potential
movement.
- Elaine Pagels, The
Gnostic Gospels.
- Frances Vaughan, Awakening
Intuition, one of the first books on intuition that addresses
both personal and transpersonal levels.
- Kenneth Pelletier, Holistic
Medicine: From Stress to Optimum Health, reflects growing
turn of consciousness movement to practical problems of health.
- Starhawk, The
Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess,
gives voice to the growing Goddess movement.
- Gary Zukav, The
Dancing Wu Li Masters, quantum physics and consciousness exploration
that won the American Book Award for Science, ideas influenced
by Esalen conferences.
- Carol Christ and Judith Plaskow, eds.,
Womanspirit
Rising.
- Founding of the Princeton Engineering
Anomalies Research group by Robert Jahn, a source of some of the
most important research on psychokinesis and field effects of
consciousness.
1980
- Francisco Varela and Humberto Maturana,
Autopoiesis
and Cognition, an important step in seeing how organisms actually
co-create their environments.
- Ilya Prigogine, From
Being to Becoming, develops the theory of "dissipative
structures" by applying thermodynamics to biology.
- Erich Jantsch, The
Self-Organizing Universe, attempts an overall view of the
universe including the theories and ideas of Prigogine, Lovelock,
Margulis, Varela, and Maturana.
- Roger Walsh and Frances Vaughan, eds.,
Beyond
Ego, a transpersonal psychology anthology.
- Ken Wilber, with The
Atman Project presents a developmental model of consciousness
stretching from prepersonal to transpersonal realms.
- Creation of the Spiritual Emergence Network
by Stanislav and Christina Grof
- David Bohm, in Wholeness
and the Implicate Order, develops a holographic model of the
universe to reconcile quantum mechanics with an "implicate
order," an ontological ground of being.
- Stanislav Grof's LSD
Psychotherapy, provides the best overview of the research
programs, therapeutic strategies, and results from psychedelic
research before the government closed formal research programs.
- Marilyn Ferguson, The
Aquarian Conspiracy.
- Kenneth Ring, Life
at Death: A Scientific Investigation of the Near-Death Experience.
- Michael Harner, Way
of the Shaman.
- Jacob Needleman, Lost
Christianity.
- Seymour Boorstein, ed., Transpersonal
Psychotherapy.
- William Irwin Thompson, The
Time Falling Bodies Take to Light.
- Hastings, Fadiman, and Gordon, Health
for the Whole Person: The Complete Guide to Holistic Medicine.
1981
- Rupert Sheldrake, A
New Science of Life, proposes the theory of morphogenetic
fields to explain anomalous data in a variety of fields.
- Morris Berman, The
Reenchantment of the World.
- Charlene Spretnak, ed., The Politics
of Women's Spirituality.
- B. Schultz and D. Hughes, eds., Ecological
Consciousness.
- Duane Elgin, Voluntary
Simplicity.
- Ken Wilber, Up
From Eden, examines cultural evolution from the Paleolithic
to the present.
- Haridas Chaudhuri, Integral Yoga.
- Thomas Robbins and Dick Anthony, eds.,
In
Gods We Trust: New Patterns of Religious Pluralism in America.
Sociology of religion angle on new movements.
- Lynn Andrews, Medicine
Woman.
- Founding of the journal Anabiosis, which
subsequently becomes the Journal
of Near-Death Studies.
1982
- James Hillman, "Anima Mundi: the
Return of Soul to the World".
- Fritjof Capra, The
Turning Point, examines the parallel changes occurring in
multiple fields to support his thesis that one historical epoch
is coming to a close and another is arising.
- Carol Gilligan, In
a Different Voice, extends Kohlberg's work with moral development,
examining ways in which women's moral growth differs.
- Michael Sabom, Recollections
at Death.
- Arthur Deikman, The
Observing Self.
- Huston Smith, Beyond the Postmodern
Mind.
1983
- First Leonard Energy Training at Esalen,
an eight-week program of physical, mental, and spiritual disciplines.
Early attempt at long-term, integral transformation program.
- N. Katz, Buddhist
and Western Psychology.
- Founding of Common Boundary.
- Peter Russell, The
Global Brain.
1984
1985
- Stanislav Grof, Beyond
the Brain, the most sophisticated articulation of his synthesis
of various depth psychologies.
- Stephen LaBerge, Lucid
Dreaming. First popularization of the transformative possibilities
of lucidity in dreams.
- Howard Gardner, Frames
of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences.
- Charlene Spretnak and Fritjof Capra,
Green
Politics.
- Jeanne Achterberg, Imagery
in Healing.
- John Welwood, Challenge
of the Heart: Love, Sex, and Intimacy in Changing Times.
- Thomas Armstrong, The
Radiant Child, explores the spiritual experiences of children,
calling into question some transpersonal assumptions.
- Nick Herbert, Quantum
Reality: Beyond the New Physics.
- Ram Dass and Paul Gorman, How
Can I Help?
- Stanley Keleman, Emotional
Anatomy.
1986
- Hameed Ali, under the pen name A.H.
Almaas, publishes Essence, the first exposition of his Diamond
Approach, synthesizing Sufism, object relations psychology, and
Tibetan Buddhism.
- Frances Vaughan, The
Inward Arc.
- Donald Rothberg's "Philosophical
Foundations of Transpersonal Psychology" addresses philosophical
assumptions underpinning the consciousness movement.
- Sam Keen publishes Faces
of the Enemy, foundational work on the psychology of enmity
and propaganda.
- Ken Wilber, Jack Engler, and Daniel Brown,
eds.,Transformations
of Consciousness.
- Beginning of David Ray Griffin's SUNY
Press series on constructive postmodernism, drawing from many
works of the human potential movement.
1987
- Robert Jahn and Brenda Dunne, Margins
of Reality: The Role of Consciousness in the Physical World.
Important validation of PSI and field effects of consciousness
from the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Program.
- Ervin Laszlo, Evolution:
The Grand Synthesis.
- James Glick, Chaos.
- Georg Feuerstein, Structures
of Consciousness.
- Riane Eisler, The
Chalice and the Blade.
- Barbara Brennan, Hands
of Light, an overview of subtle energy bodies and hands-on
healing practices, linking them to psychodynamic processes.
- Jon Klimo, Channeling:
Investigations on Receiving Information from Paranormal Sources.
- Deane Juhan, Job's
Body: A Handbook for Bodywork.
1988
1989
1990
- Warwick Fox, Toward
a Transpersonal Ecology.
- Arthur Hastings, With
the Tongues of Men and Angels, a scholarly review of the channeling
phenomenon.
- Robert Forman, ed., The
Problem of Pure Consciousness.
- Roger Walsh, The
Spirit of Shamanism.
- Gary Zukav, The
Seat of the Soul.
- Morris Berman, Coming
to Our Senses: Body and Spirit in the Hidden History of the West.
- Mihaly Csikszentmihaly, Flow:
The Psychology of Optimum Experience, argues that a broad
range of transpersonal experiences can be attributed to the common
experience of "flow."
- Jeanne Achterberg, Woman
As Healer.
- Gary Doore, ed., What
Survives: Contemporary Explorations of Life After Death.
- John Nelson's Healing the Split,
explores the relation of madness to transcendence, drawing on
major consciousness theorists.
- Founding of the journal Anthropology
of Consciousness.
1991
- Francisco Varela, Evan Thompson, and
Eleanor Rosch, The
Embodied Mind, a fusion of Buddhism, Merleau-Ponty and research
into cognitive science and the immune system.
- Joanna Macy, World
As Lover, World As Self.
- Richard Tarnas' Passion
of the Western Mind, overviews Western history through the
lens of the transformation of consciousness.
- Michael Mahoney, Human
Change Processes: The Scientific Foundations of Psychotherapy.
- Matthew Fox, Creation
Spirituality.
- Michael Talbot, The
Holographic Universe.
- Jacob Needleman's Money
and the Meaning of Life, turns a transformative lens on a
largely neglected area in spiritual circles.
- Howard Rheingold, Virtual
Realities.
- Charlene Spretnak, States
of Grace: The Recovery of Meaning in the Postmodern Age.
- Sam Keen, Fire
in the Belly.
1992
- Michael Murphy writes The
Future of the Body, the most comprehensive compendium yet
published of evidence for metanormal capacities in human beings.
- Theodore Roszak, The
Voice of the Earth.
- Michael Murphy and George Leonard initiate
a two-year experimental class in what they called Integral Transformative
Practice, a program combining meditation, imaging, affirmations,
intellectual study, physical discipline, nutrition, and group
work.
- Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry's The
Universe Story: From the Primordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic
Era, tells the epic story of the creation of the universe
combining scientific accuracy and poetic vision.
- Al Gore, Earth
in the Balance, reflects penetration of ecological consciousness
and human potential movement into upper echelons of government.
- Founding of "What
is Enlightenment?" magazine by Andrew Cohen
- Margaret Wheatley writes Leadership
and the New Science, popular extrapolation of new science
and consciousness movement principles into organizational theory,
very influential in business world.
- Michael Lerner, ed., Tikkun
-- To Heal, Repair, and Restore the World: An Anthology.
- Thomas Moore, Care
of the Soul.
1993
- James Redfield, The
Celestine Prophecy, pop spiritual adventure book based loosely
on human potential principles taps unseen vein of interest in
publishing, becoming a runaway bestseller.
- Sogyal Rinpoche, The
Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, quickly surpasses the important
milestone of 100,000 copies sold, reflecting Buddhism's growing
popularity.
- Roger Walsh and Frances Vaughan, eds.,
Paths
Beyond Ego.
- First of two conferences at Esalen, convened
by Theodore Roszak, to consolidate and articulate the outlines
of the field of Ecopsychology. (6/12-6/18)
- J. Kramer and D. Alstad, The
Guru Papers, a harsh indictment of the abuse of power in hierarchical
guru relationships.
- Duane Elgin, Awakening
Earth: Exploring the Human Dimensions of Evolution.
- Brendan O'Regan and Caryle Hirshberg,
Spontaneous
Remission: An Annotated Bibliography, the most comprehensive
survey of the subject.
1994
Ralph Abraham, Chaos,
Gaia, Eros: A Chaos Pioneer Uncovers the Three Great Streams of
History.
1995
- Ken Wilber, Sex,
Ecology, Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution. Wilber's magnum
opus, presents a four-quadrant model of evolution (inner/outer,
individual/collective) in an attempt to create a comprehensive
integral philosophy.
- Daniel Goleman, Emotional
Intelligence, argues that our emotional intelligence might
be more central to our capacity to deal succesfully with the world
than traditional measures of intelligence.
- Stuart Kauffman, At
Home in the Universe, a version of complexity theory which
posits "order for free" as the result of sufficient
diversity and complexity. His basic ideas are extended into human
domains as well.
- Daniel Matt, The
Essence of Kabbalah, popularization of mystical Judaism, part
of the revitalization of Western traditions.
- Andrew Harvey, The
Return of the Mother, articulates the revival of the divine
feminine principle in major world religions.
- O. J. Simpson verdict provides compelling
evidence for field effects from collectively focused intention.
Random-event generators in several locations show highly improbable
deviations in randomness precisely correlated with collective
attention (est. 500 million people) focused on verdict. (10/3)
- George Leonard and Michael Murphy, The
Life We Are Given.
- Rabbi Zalman Schacter-Shalomi, From
Age-ing to Sage-ing, introduces concept of Spiritual Eldering,
revising visions of retirement and old age.
- Don Hanlon Johnson, ed., Bone,
Breath, and Gesture: Practices of Embodiment, the first of
three edited volumes that articulate the contours of the Somatics
field.
- Frances Vaughan, Shadows
of the Sacred: Seeing Through Spiritual Illusions.
- First State of the World Forum (October).
1996
- William Irwin Thompson, Coming
Into Being: Artifacts and Texts in the Evolution of Consciousness.
- Jenny Wade, Changes
of Mind: A Holonomic Theory of the Evolution of Consciousness.
- Michael Lerner, The
Politics of Meaning: Restoring Hope and Possibility in an Age
of Cynicism.
- Bruce Scotton, Allen Chinen, and John
Battista, eds., Textbook
of Transpersonal Psychiatry and Psychology.
- James Hillman, The
Soul's Code.
- Jean Houston, A
Mythic Life.
- Paul Ray completes his social survey
on an emerging integral culture, a group he numbers at 44 million
US adults, all of whom share "values focused on spiritual
transformation, ecological sustainability, and the worth of the
feminine."
- Experiments by Marilyn Schiltz and Richard
Wiseman provide strong evidence of experimenter effects on the
success or failure of psychical research. Presented at the 39th
Parapsychological Association Convention.
1997
1998
- Stanislav Grof, The
Cosmic Game, the capstone work for this pioneering psychiatrist,
charts the metaphysical insights gleaned from thousands of non-ordinary
state sessions over four decades.
- Willis Harman and Elisabet Sahtouris,
Biology
Revisioned, examines the repercussions of including consciousness
in biology.
- Andrew Harvey, Son
of Man, radical revisioning of Jesus Christ through a mystical
lens, also reflects the turning Westward of the consciousness
movement.
- Erik Davis, Techgnosis,
explores the magic, mythic, and spiritual fabric of the growing
world of information technologies.
- Barbara Marx Hubbard, Conscious
Evolution: Awakening the Power of Our Social Potential.
- Ken Wilber, The
Marriage of Sense and Soul, first book of consciousness movement
to be publicly endorsed by the President and Vice-President of
America.
- Kenneth Ring, Lessons
From the Light: What We Can Learn from the Near-Death Experience.
- Ian Stevenson, Reincarnation
and Biology, extends study of reincarnation evidence to include
birthmarks and physical deformities.
- David Ray Griffin, Unsnarling
the World-Knot: Consciousness, Freedom, and the Mind-Body Problem.
1999
- Collected
Works of Ken Wilber, a first for a living psychologist, reflects
the growing popularity of the integral vision.
---------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------
|
