Revisioning Transpersonal Theory : A Participatory Vision of Human Spirituality (Suny Series in Transpersonal and Humanistic Psychology) (Transpersonal Humanist Psychol)

I hesitate to write a review of this book because past reviewers have been so articulate and erudite. However, this is an essential book for anyone who wants to learn about transpersonal psychology, especially at the theoretical (as opposed to the applied) level. Ferrer engages in a dialectic, deconstructing past theories and then reconstructing them along his own lines. He is more successful with the deconstructing process. People who assume that all religions are (at heart) the same and that all mystical experiences (at heart) are the same will be disappointed and disillusioned. When Ferrer reconstructs transpersonal theory, he seems to take a fresh approach, taking a middle ground between "the One and the Many." However, astute readers will notice the similarities to themes from the Vedanta literature and from recent critics of Ken Wilber's work. Nonetheless, Revisioning Transpersonal Theory is beautifully written, extremely provocative, and provides depth to a field of study that has been dismissed as too superficial to be taken seriously. Indeed, that may Ferrer's book's greatest contribution.

Ferret brilliantly critiques and then offers an alternative to the perennial and contextual understandings of the multiple and varied spiritual traditions of humanity. He suggests that there is a middle way between the hierarchical and absolutist understanding that ranks and judges spiritualities as higher and lower and the contextual relativistic understanding of spirituality as inevitably mediated by our own cultural and other lenses making the knowing or experiences of the Absolute impossible. His creative and alternative approach offers a new way to understand the multiplicity of religious and mystical visions of the Absolute in a relational and communal way without pre-judging or ranking spiritual experience or understanding.

this book is verry helpful to help you to ask yourself some good questions regarding your inner journey. It hilights many potential pittfals encountered in the transpersonal practices and anchor them in a tentative new encompassing approach.The most important point for me, after two years of practice of holotropic breathwork, was the dangers of an approach too exclusively experiential, which is common in the transpersonal field. That is the belief that experiences in themselves contain healing potential and spriritual progress. the emphasis on experience was necessary for a time for the transpersonal field to be accepted by the scientific community as the study of non ordinary state of consciousness. but the quest for experience can easily turn into an addiction to temporary high spiritual states without being intergrated into the daily life, but not without inflation of the ego... as in the case of many psychonautes exclusively using psychedelic substance. traditionnaly, experiences are only one of the many ingredients nessary for a fruitful spiritual practice, which come along with intelectual studies, respect of ethic principles, relationships in a shangha or group of practicionner and with a teacher of master.another interesting point is the new and refreshing ways to account for the diversity of spiritual systems. contrary to Wilber who is caught in an objectivist view where he posit a hierarchy between the different system, and hence a definit objective abolute truth about the ultimate, Ferrer argue for a diversity of ways of unfolding the truth of the universe, which are neither hierarchically organised, neither reductible to each other. This is a very healthy view that gives theorical grounding to a real respect but also curiosity as a basic attitude for the relationships between poeple beloging to different spiritual schools.This is a book to read for anybody involved in the modern sprititual quest where one often mixes many different practices : a lot of buddhist meditation, a good deal of hata yoga, some christian devotion, without forgetting the nessesary participation to shamanic entheogenic rituals... it is a very useful tools to clarify one's own goals in the practice.but it is definitely a scholar book which speaks of philosophical controverseries and need some efforts to be read.

This was a difficult book for the first reading because I was not familiar with much of the information cited by Ferrer. It is not because the book is poorly written, just because it was new. There are many things to think about while reading the book. This is not a Washburn or Wilber spin off but something entirely different. Ferrer does a great job in presenting an original perspective in transpersonal theory. A must have book for the transpersonal theorist.

When I first read this book I hated it, but I have read and studied it for 2 years and find it one of the best books ever written on transpersonal psychology. Be sure that you get the reference book Ferrer references because his thesis will make much more sense. You may not agree with everything he states, but is a very significant book for those who question their own beliefs. A must read.

Anyone interested in the spiritual path in the 21st century should find this book illuminating and insightful. Ferrer's ideas are subtly subversive, slowly weaving a revolutionary spell. I have found that I return to it again and again. Ferrer is not only a brilliant thinker, he's good company.