Transpersonal Psychology Commons^™

Holding Space For Complexity: Remembering Leslie Combs, Kimberly A. Morelli

Journal of Conscious Evolution

This tribute reflects on the teaching legacy of Allan Leslie Combs, focusing on his capacity to hold space for complexity during intimate online salons conducted with students and colleagues. Drawing from my experience as a participant in these gatherings, the essay highlights Leslie’s emphasis on relational, creative inquiry over rigid theory. Rather than positioning development as linear progress or achievement, these conversations were experienced as an ongoing, reflective inquiry into consciousness itself. Leslie’s mentorship fostered deep personal reflection and affirmed lived experience as a valid and generative source of knowing. His legacy endures not only through his scholarship, but also …

Dissolving Glass, Rachel Heartwood

Ought: The Journal of Autistic Culture

My work is a visual aut-ethnography that explores the profound loneliness of being a neurodivergent person, now amplified by living in a foreign country. This series of photographs represents the deepening of my personal "fishbowl," a metaphor for the isolation of my complex, forever-changing/evolving inner self from the outside world. For me, this feeling is not new; it is a long-standing pattern of being misunderstood, misjudged and under/overestimated by others. Having recently moved to Germany, I've found that the language barrier has increased the opacity on the glass, blurring my ability to understand/be understood by …

Consciousness And Magic: A Tribute To Allan Leslie Combs, Sharon G. Mijares Phd

Journal of Conscious Evolution

This article discusses the originating and continuing ideas associated with the Society for Consciousness Studies (SCS). More than a historical account, the evolution of the SCS mirrors the revelatory and unifying experiences of members as they pursue the understanding of non-local and non-ordinary consciousness through lenses such as synchronicity and the imaginal realm. This tribute encompasses parapsychological emphases interwoven with mythological, shamanic, spiritual, and literary art, drawing parallels between Parmenides’s journey to the underworld and the exploration of “magic” in science. Primarily, the essay focuses on the contributions of Allan Leslie Combs and his capacity for uniting various contributions and …

A Thought Paper For Allan Leslie Combs, Glennie Sewell

Journal of Conscious Evolution

This personal reflection honors Allan Leslie Combs through an intimate process letter written while the author studied under Combs in a doctoral course on consciousness studies. Exploring themes of spiritual authenticity, the nature of reality, and the pursuit of unity consciousness, the author grapples with integrating mystical experience with academic inquiry. The piece reveals the transformative influence of Combs’s teaching and embodies the vulnerable, introspective scholarship he championed, ultimately exploring the author’s own emerging vision of unity consciousness as a path toward creating collective human unity.

Keywords: consciousness studies, unity consciousness, spiritual integration, transformative education, contemplative practice, creative writing, Allan …

Allan Leslie Combs: Reminiscence And Recommendation, Jonathan B. Bricklin

Journal of Conscious Evolution

The author recalls his first meeting with Allan Leslie Combs, identifying his defining trait of openness through the lens of the Trickster archetype. Drawing on the philosophy of William James, the essay concludes with a recommendation for a future edition of Combs’s book Synchronicity, specifically regarding the inclusion of precognition.

Keywords: trickster, synchronicity, William James, Allan Leslie Combs, precognition, openness

Love Will Get You Further: Allan Leslie Combs And The Legacy Of Radiance, Julia C. Gardner

Journal of Conscious Evolution

In this reflective tribute, I draw on a November 2025 remembrance gathering for Allan Leslie Combs to explore how his scholarship on consciousness lived through his presence, pedagogy, and relationships. The article weaves reflections from students, colleagues, friends, and family to show how Leslie treated consciousness as a living, radiant field and knowledge as participatory. Speakers describe a mentor who walked beside their work, welcoming spiritual, creative, and embodied ways of knowing, while trusting love, humor, and trickster-mischief as legitimate modes of inquiry.

I then turn to my own dissertation research on play consciousness (PlayCS) as a tangible extension of …

An Open Letter To Leslie, Anne G. Kinne Phd

Journal of Conscious Evolution

This article celebrates the life and work of dear friend and mentor, Allan Leslie Combs, acknowledging his continued presence in my life. Interweaving stories of our relationship with his insights on integral consciousness, Bateson’s concept of aphanipoiesis, Varela et al.’s notion of autopoiesis, and using narrative, storytelling, and autoethnographic methodologies, I tell a tale of becoming that troubles and haunts my past. The sticky tendrils of Ancestral trauma and its transhistorical epigenetic inheritance, once acutely troublesome, are shifting due in large part to the contents of this letter. Woven together, these conscious, intersecting, and interactive lenses show how Leslie has …

An Interest-Driven Approach: An Interview With Professor Allan Leslie Combs, Laurel Waterman Phd

Journal of Conscious Evolution

On March 17, 2024, I interviewed Professor Allan Leslie Combs about his teaching for my doctoral research project titled Teaching With Consciousness: A Narrative Inquiry Into Scholars’ Experiences Teaching About Consciousness Beyond the Brain. In January 2025, Leslie reviewed a draft of my interview write-up and emailed me, saying, “Beautiful work! And I have to say I am honored by the description you give of my own teaching philosophy.” This article draws on Leslie’s stories and applies their insights to the theory and practice of consciousness education—a field exploring perspectives on the source and nature of consciousness and their …

Portrait Of A Mentor, Katherine Ziemke

Journal of Conscious Evolution

This essay offers a sketch of Professor Allan Leslie Combs’s mentorship to doctoral students. It represents one student’s experience of the latter part of Combs’s long career as a psychologist, consciousness researcher, academic, speaker, author, and mentor. The paper is written from a first-person perspective by one of Combs’s very last doctoral students, with details taken from her initial journey into the doctoral program, through the beginnings of dissertation research and proposal defense, until the time Combs left this world. Some of the details contained herein may be recognized from the author’s presentations given at Combs’s retirement and memorial gatherings. …

Young Adults And Early-Onset Psychosis: A Grounded Theory Study Of Experiences Of Identity Development, Katherine Hayden-Lewis, Deborah Rubel

The Qualitative Report

While identity development is a crucial task for young individuals ages 15-25, current research inadequately centralizes identity development in the context of first-time psychosis related to schizophrenia spectrum disorders. This study addresses the knowledge gap by exploring the grand research question, “How does a young person experience their identity development after the first episode of psychosis?”. Constructivist grounded theory methods influenced by critical frameworks were used to collect and analyze data with seven young adults engaged in first episode psychosis programs. Participants were young adults, between the ages of 19-24, that at the time of the study were enrolled in …

The Founding History Of The Journal Of Conscious Evolution, Charles H. Silverstein

Journal of Conscious Evolution

This article traces the founding history of the Journal of Conscious Evolution (JCE), established by Allan Leslie Combs in 2005. The narrative explores three distinct perspectives on conscious evolution that influenced the journal’s creation: Barbara Marx Hubbard’s emphasis on humanity’s interconnectedness and creative potential, the General Evolution Research Group’s systems theory approach led by Ervin László, and Combs’s integration of the developmental growth of states and structures of consciousness within a conscious evolution framework. The article details how Combs developed the curriculum for the first accredited Master of Arts degree program in Conscious Evolution at The Graduate Institute in Connecticut …

On Consciousness And Death: In Conversation With Allan Leslie Combs—A Posthumous Study Of An Influential Thinker’S Perspectives, Leila A. Kincaid

Journal of Conscious Evolution

The following is a summary of key findings from my analysis of the unconventional interviews that I posthumously conducted with Dr. Allan Leslie Combs in a creative take on qualitative interviews. This study is based on my viewing of several of his recorded interviews and talks and on reading two of his books, The Radiance of Being and Consciousness Explained Better. From these sources, I created a synthesis of theoretical responses from Combs to my interview questions for the purposes of this study. These findings include insights gained from my textual coding process and their relationship to emergent themes in …

Martial Arts Studies: A Commentary On The Exploration Of Consciousness In Modern Martial Arts, James H. Sutton

Journal of Conscious Evolution

The rapid globalization of martial arts has reconditioned how the beliefs, customs, and philosophies of traditionally based systems are interpreted and applied in modern practice. As contemporary scholarship struggles to accommodate the cultural histories, myths, and traditions that permeate the perception of martial arts in modern contexts, the focus of inquiry has shifted towards explaining cultural variations in practice rather than understanding the nature of self-awareness derived from self-practice. Consequently, the deeper meanings of martial arts as pathways to personal and transpersonal awareness are often invalidated in favor of objective and verifiable explications. In short, the role of consciousness is …

Measuring Human Ability To Detect Emotional Energies In Transpersonal Fields Of Consciousness, Carol Richardson Phd, Mdiv, Mph

Journal of Conscious Evolution

This research presents original data from an online research survey with 111 respondents regarding their ability to detect emotional energies in transpersonal fields of consciousness in crowds and dyads. The data show that a majority of respondents, from 90% to 96.4%, reported experiencing different emotions “in the air,” such as excitement, tension, anxiety, anger, and love. Personal data responses include age, gender or gender identity, and worldview. Examples of possible worldviews include: “scientific, not religious, not spiritual”; “spiritual and scientific”; “religious”; and “religious and scientific.” Respondents were given two free-answer essay options: one in which they could describe their personal …

Steiner And Jung On Esoteric Knowledge, Katherine T. Ziemke Mst, Jd, Phd Candidate

Journal of Conscious Evolution

For centuries, humanity has been accumulating complex knowledge, systematically building increasingly intricate mathematical and scientific models by accruing predictable circumstances or facts, often designated as theories or laws. This essay proposes that there is a hidden well-spring of ideas or knowledge beyond the methodical accumulation of such mathematical and scientific knowledge, from whence the source that inspired the basis of this knowledge might have originated. Carl Gustav Jung and Rudolf Steiner believe there is an abundance of such knowledge that lies hidden in plain sight and available for a vast expansion of human awareness. In this essay, I take a …

Leslie Shines, Tobi Zausner Phd

Journal of Conscious Evolution

This poem serves as a tribute to a beloved colleague of consciousness studies, Allan Leslie Combs, celebrating his neurodivergent brilliance, boundless compassion, and enduring energetic presence.

Keywords: Allan Leslie Combs, poetry, tribute, consciousness studies

Not Meant To Be Read: The Stories They Silence, The Resistance That Speaks, Cristina Onea

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this dissertation, I trace the evolution of surveillance from overt state violence to the more insidious forms of ideological policing embedded in everyday life. Through lived experience, oral history, and critical autoethnography, I explore how surveillance moves through bodies, families, institutions, and memory—not simply as external control, but as internalized rhythms of fear, vigilance, and self-surveillance. I move between my father's life under Romanian dictatorship, my own embodied inheritance, and the contemporary struggles of librarians facing ideological suppression to reveal surveillance as a structure that persists through generations, mutates across contexts, and demands new forms of resistance.

I argue …

A Method For Developing Multicultural Musical Fluency: Reclaiming A Relationship With Traditional Ashkenazi Music, Rachael Penn

Expressive Therapies Theses

Counseling and music therapy scholars recommend that students and clinicians engage in self-inquiry to explore their cultural values to build multicultural competence. I created an arts-based method for deep reflection using theory and techniques in the literature regarding culture-centered music therapy, including ethnographic inquiry, the cultural unconscious, intersubjective theory, active imagination, embodiment, and artistic reflection. I engaged with music from my own cultural background, which included Ashkenazi klezmer music and Yiddish folksong, to reflect on my cultural values and to build a living relationship with the music. Thematic analysis revealed eight themes, including the function of the music, personal memories …

Grief As Slip: (How Little I Show) An Exploration In Clay, When Words Are Not Enough, Michelle A. Smith

Masters Theses, 2020-current

Grief as Slip (how little I show) implies that even as we acknowledge our mortality and the fleeting nature of life, we still only reveal a fraction of our true selves or our deeper realities. The ceramic artwork in this exhibition carries and conveys a journey through the present and remembered emotions of the artists’ personal narrative. By juxtaposing the tactile nature of clay with the ethereal quality of human experience, Smith contemplates the profound interplay between material transformation and emotional resilience. The exhibition’s intent is to translate the essence of complex emotional states into abstracted forms so they can …

Use Cases For Art Therapy Intervention In Clinical Psychedelic Praxis, Kaitlin Maud

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

Psychedelic medicine has existed for thousands of years as a traditional, sacred practice and is now in varying stages of legalization for clinical application in the United States. Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy uses specific psychoactive substances to facilitate altered states of consciousness in which clients have access to unconscious material and there is a greater cognitive openness to new perspectives and possibilities. Art Therapy is a modality of psychotherapy with decades of data to support its clinical efficacy in treating mental illness and other chronic conditions. A review of the literature shows a range of use cases for art in the context …