Psychology Commons^™

The Varieties Of Spiritual States Triggered By Sex: A Systematic Review Of The Empirical Literature, Jenny Wade

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

This systematic review integrates the empirical evidence of spiritual experiences triggered by sexual activity, including studies by 10 authors. Despite venerable sexual meditative traditions of embodied spiritual practices, such as Hindu Tantra, Vajrayana Buddhism, and Taoism, empirical studies of sexual spiritual experiences are in their infancy. This review presents the range of sexual altered states experiences identified to date and how they qualify as spiritual experiences phenomenologically and in terms of their lifechanging effects. Seventeen distinct sexual-spiritual states have been identified across authors, with 4 others identified at significant levels in qualitative studies by individual authors. As an emergent area …

The Path To Enlightenment Of Sacred Married Home Life: Grihasthya Dharma As A Guiding Ideal For The Transpersonal Marriage Therapist, Stuart Sovatsky

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

This paper attempts to correct the unwitting reliance of much transpersonal psychology upon Indian texts that were indigenously specific to sannyasins (nonhouseholder, monastics). This includes teachings from advaita vedanta, yoga, and many Buddhist schools on releasement from desire, the diminishing role of the ego, guardedness toward “the mellow-drama” of “worldly” life (as Ram Dass famously cast relational involvements). Some forty years of the unwitting over-application of such teachings to modern non-monastic lives has helped create an artificial split in transpersonal and East-West spirituality teachings involving “engaged/ embodied” and implied “un-engaged/un-embodied” spiritual paths. This article describes the value system and lifelong …

An Embodied Spiritual Inquiry Into The Nature Of Human Boundaries: Outcomes Of A Participatory Approach To Transpersonal Education And Research, Olga R. Sohmer, Ross C. Baumann, Jorge N. Ferrer

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

Embodied spiritual inquiry (ESI) is a radical approach to integral and transpersonal education and research offered as a graduate course at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS). Inspired by elements of participatory research and cooperative inquiry, ESI applies interactive embodied meditations to access multiple ways of knowing (e.g., somatic, vital, emotional, mental, contemplative) and mindfully inquire into collaboratively decided questions. This article presents the learning outcomes of an inquiry into the nature of human boundaries within and between co-inquirers, providing an example of how ESI is implemented in the classroom and can be used to study transpersonal subject matter. …

Ecology Of The Erotic In A Myth Of Inanna, Judy Grahn

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

Myths of Mesopotamian Goddess Inanna, planet Venus in the ancient Sumerian pantheon, have

been useful in psychological processes of contemporary women. A lesser-known myth, “Inanna and

Shukaletuda,” includes sexual transgression against the deity and ties the deified erotic feminine

with fecundity and sacredness of fields and trees. Interpretation of Inanna’s love poems and poems of

nature’s justice contextualizes ecofeminist relevance to psychological issues. Deconstruction of rich

imagery illustrates menstrual power as female authority, erotic as a female aesthetic bringing order,

and transgender as sacred office of transformation. Meador’s (2000) interpretation of three Inanna

poems by a high priestess of ancient …