{"title":"Because the Nature of Nature is Fractal: The Liberatory Potential of a Fractal Epistemology","authors":"Katthe Wolf","doi":"10.24972/ijts.2020.39.1-2.166","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24972/ijts.2020.39.1-2.166","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":38668,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Transpersonal Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49627246","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Can Fractals Help Us Understand Transpersonal Experiences?","authors":"E. Benjamin","doi":"10.24972/ijts.2020.39.1-2.83","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24972/ijts.2020.39.1-2.83","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":38668,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Transpersonal Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45211276","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Erotic mindfulness: A core educational and therapeutic strategy in somatic sexology practices","authors":"Marie I. Thouin-Savard","doi":"10.24972/ijts.2019.38.1.203","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24972/ijts.2019.38.1.203","url":null,"abstract":"Somatic sexology modalities such as sexual surrogacy, sexological bodywork, masturbation coaching, and orgasmic meditation have shown significant potential for helping individuals transcend sexual difficulties and grow into more fulfilling erotic lives. The use of an embodied state of consciousness similar to neo-traditional forms of mindfulness meditation may be a common factor contributing to therapeutic efficacy in a variety of somatic sexology methods. Comparing the structure of three somatic sexology modalities—sexual surrogacy, masturbation coaching, and orgasmic meditation—with recent evidence supporting the efficacy of neo-traditional mindfulness practices in promoting women’s sexual wellbeing reveals that somatic sexology practitioners use embodied mindfulness as a strategy to set aside mental activity and invite their clients to feel, act, and interact with their sexuality from an embodied state of attention. This embodied state, when focused on one’s eroticism and sexuality, will be referred to as erotic mindfulness. The paper closes with a commentary on the potentially significant impact of using erotic mindfulness in sex therapy and education, and suggests avenues for further research.","PeriodicalId":38668,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Transpersonal Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45278367","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Toward a new theory of gender transcendence: Insights from a qualitative study of gendered self-concept and self-expression in a sample of individuals assigned female at birth","authors":"Seth T. Pardo","doi":"10.24972/ijts.2019.38.1.118","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24972/ijts.2019.38.1.118","url":null,"abstract":"Sex and gender are two concepts that are often conflated in popular culture. However, those who experience dissonance between their assigned sex and gender identity intimately understand the difference between sex, a biologicallybased distinction, and gender, a confluence of social and behavioral factors that contribute to understanding who one is as well as how one is seen by others. The gendered self-understanding and self-expression of 170 North Americans who self-identified as gender nonconforming and who were assigned female at birth were explored using a transpersonal lens and thematic analysis. Data suggested a range and variety of gendered self-concepts that aligned across two broad themes: binary (female/woman; male/man) and non-binary (gender nonbinary; trans masculine) gender core identities. Themes of gendered self-concept, expression in behavior, dress style and appearance, and surgical body modification are discussed. These data support the application of transpersonal theory to transgender identity development, and they underscore the need for more research to test the validity of a new theoretical model of gender transcendence discussed herein.","PeriodicalId":38668,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Transpersonal Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48061613","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Meaning-making among intentionally childless women","authors":"C. Brooks","doi":"10.24972/ijts.2019.38.1.140","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24972/ijts.2019.38.1.140","url":null,"abstract":"This paper is a summary of a qualitative research project that focused upon meaning-making processes as described by intentionally childless women. A grounded theory exploration, it involved semi-structured interviews with 30 cisgendered women aged 27–61 who chose childlessness early in life. Based on principles inherent to social constructivism and feminist theories, the subjective voices of the participants were analyzed as normative expressions of female identity. The main category that accompanied intentional childlessness was a sense of freedom. In addition, two additional thematic categories focused on ways the women view their contributions to their communities and experience belonging and a sense of meaning in the world. Some negative experiences associated with being intentionally childless were also reported. The majority of the women in this study noted that they feel no regret or have no second thoughts about their decision, while a third of the participants spontaneously noted that they experience their lives as superlative.","PeriodicalId":38668,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Transpersonal Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47436938","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Divine kink: A consideration of the evidence for BDSM as spiritual ritual","authors":"S. Greenberg","doi":"10.24972/ijts.2019.38.1.220","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24972/ijts.2019.38.1.220","url":null,"abstract":"This paper reviews the limited empirical research supporting BDSM as a spiritual ritual that enables distinct altered states of consciousness. It expands upon Sagarin, Lee, and Klement’s (2015) preliminary comparison of BDSM to extreme ritual by suggesting that BDSM bears in common with spiritual ritual elements of pain or ordeal, spiritual meaning, and transformative potential. An increasing interest in BDSM in the West is considered in light of the spiritual and ritual roles BDSM fulfills for many practitioners. The relevance of BDSM to transpersonal psychology is discussed and BDSM is considered as an area for further research in transpersonal psychology.","PeriodicalId":38668,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Transpersonal Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49126865","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The castrated gods and their castration cults: Revenge, punishment, and spiritual supremacy","authors":"J. Wade","doi":"10.24972/ijts.2019.28.1.31","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24972/ijts.2019.28.1.31","url":null,"abstract":"Voluntary castration has existed as a religious practice up to the present day, openly in India and secretively in other parts of the world. Gods in a number of different cultures were castrated, a mutilation that paradoxically tended to increase rather than diminish their powers. This cross-cultural examination of the eunuch gods examines the meaning associated with divine emasculation in Egypt, Asia Minor, Greece, the Roman Empire, India, and northern Europe to the degree that these meanings can be read from the wording of myths, early accounts, and the castration cults for some of these gods. Three distinct patterns of godly castration emerge: divine dynastic conflicts involving castration; a powerful goddess paired with a weaker male devotee castrated because of his relationship with her; and magus gods whose castration demonstrates their superiority. Castration cults associated with some of these gods—and other gods whose sexuality was ambiguous, such as Jesus—some of them existing up to the present day, illuminate the spiritual powers associated with castration for gods and mortals.","PeriodicalId":38668,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Transpersonal Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43578579","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Amigeist: A new extreme love phenomenon","authors":"Jeffrey Sundberg","doi":"10.24972/IJTS.2019.38.1.83","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24972/IJTS.2019.38.1.83","url":null,"abstract":"Falling in love may begin with an inescapable, uncontrollable, transformative experience of intense emotions and intrusive thoughts, such as limerence. Romantic love researchers have tended to lump extreme love into pathology. Transpersonal psychology was chosen as the lens to examine an extreme occurrence of falling in love for its transformational and spiritual potential using a phenomenological approach. Twenty-five U.S. born participants, age 30 or older, reported experiencing a highly intense and deeply significant romantic love occurrence. Results revealed a unique experience with limited correlations to limerence. The new phenomenon is called amigeist, characterized by immediate, intense soul-mate bonding, such as secure attachment, with lifepartner potential. The larger themes were dynamic connection, secure attachment, astonishment, and passionate long-term relationships.","PeriodicalId":38668,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Transpersonal Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43705669","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The path to enlightenment of sacred married home life: Grihasthya dharma as a guiding ideal for the transpersonal marriage therapist","authors":"Stuart Sovatsky","doi":"10.24972/IJTS.2019.38.1.236","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24972/IJTS.2019.38.1.236","url":null,"abstract":"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 spiritual developmental path of the married householder (grihasthyin), where healthy ambition and egoic traits such as loyalty and lifelong commitment are emphasized en route to a balanced “ego-dissolution” and “ego-development” within the crucible of lifelong marriage, daily family life, and conscious aging. Thus, “spiritual bypass” issues are highly age-specific. Suggestions for a grihasthya-based marriage therapy are also described, drawing from forty-four years of clinical practice, as well as from the two-thousand-yearold Greco-Judeo-Christian soteriological (spiritually-healing) psychology based in admiration, gratitude, longing, apology, and forgiveness.","PeriodicalId":38668,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Transpersonal Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41930533","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}