A Transcendental Psychology is a branch of psychology specializing in study of states of consciousness, more especially with cosmic experience or “enhanced” states of consciousness. It was influenced by different branches of western psychology (behaviorism, gestalt, psychoanalysis…) and eastern methods (Yoga, Zen, Sufism, etc.).
Other disciplines also influence it, for example: Physics (especially the concepts of Quantum Physics), Biophysics, Genetics, Pharmacology, Sociology, Anthropology, Parapsychology.
Basically, cosmic consciousness goes beyond ordinary consciousness, established by the five senses, and gives us instant access to Reality, in a direct way. Mystics of various religions refer to this type of total understanding using various names: mystical ecstasy, cosmic experience, transcendental experience, Nirvana, Samadhi, Satori, Kingdom of Heaven, etc.
Cosmic consciousness goes beyond ordinary consciousness.
Cosmic Consciousness would therefore be a higher form of consciousness than that normally possessed by the common man. At the age of 35, Canadian psychiatrist Richard Maurice Bucke had a life-changing experience and led him to write the book “Cosmic Consciousness” where he describes three forms, or degrees, of consciousness.
The first would be simple consciousness, common to animals and man. Then we have self-awareness, that the human being must be a distinct entity, separate from the rest of the universe. And through it he can treat his own mental states as objects of consciousness.
The third form of consciousness would be the cosmic, understood by Bucke as the next step in human evolution. With cosmic consciousness, there is an intellectual and moral enlightenment that elevates the human being to a new plane of existence, awakening the consciousness of eternal life. Bucke extends the Darwinian concept of evolution to spiritual development.
The psychiatrist shows that cosmic experiences have a wide range of characteristics, although not all of them occur in all cases. From his research, Burke lists the main ones:
- Subjective light: the individual has the sensation of being immersed in a luminous cloud.
- Moral elevation: feeling of joy and ecstasy.
- Intellectual enlightenment: a clear understanding of the whole.
- Sense of immortality: the fear of death disappears, it no longer has any meaning.
- Instantaneity: the experience occurs suddenly, totally.
- Experience unpredictability.
The duration of the experience is usually short, on the order of a few seconds or minutes. Sometimes, they can last for hours. However, for those who experience it, time ceases to have any meaning.
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For some people (as for Bucke himself) the cosmic experience occurs once in a lifetime. And, in most of the cases he studied, the age of the individual at which the experience manifests itself tends to be at full maturity, between 30 and 40 years.
Freud called this experience the “oceanic experience” and hypothesized that these states would be a regression to the maternal breast. Several assumptions have been examined around this regressive thesis.
Everything indicates that these kinds of mystical states exist at the post-uterine, intra-uterine and pre-uterine levels. The evidence for the existence of cellular memory (DNA, RNA) and for the continuity of organic and inorganic life leads us to think that the cosmic experience would be a regression to the level of energy potentiation.
Other scholars estimate that, unlike a regression, cosmic consciousness would be a higher stage of evolution, as described by Bucke. The reality of this experience has been confirmed today by means of electrocardiographic and electroencephalographic controls, indicating that something different is happening in the nervous physiology of individuals in a state of ecstasy, to the point that it is possible to follow, by monitoring the alpha rhythm, the beginning and the end of the experiment (although the content completely escapes this type of measure).
