"Thomas B. Roberts is Associate Professor in the Department of Learning and Development at Northern Illinois University. He is coauthor of The Second Centering Book and Transpersonal Psychology in Education, and has edited the anthology Four Psychologies Applied to Education: Freudian, Behavioral, Humanistic, Transpersonal." Psychedelic Reflections
NOTE TO MY STUDENTS: From my experiences and through reading, I have become increasingly respectful of the power of LSD. Like any powerful thing, it can be either destructive or constructive depending on how skillfully it is used. Among other things, it can concentrate your attention on the most vulnerable, most unpleasant parts of your mind. These should be explored only under the guidance of a qualified therapist, one who has had extensive psychedelic training. If you need help, most currently-trained mental health professionals are unlikely to be able to help you; in fact, because of their mistraining, they are likely to worsen your state. Furthermore, street dosages are of unknown strength and questionable purity. Until the time you can explore your mind using LSD of known strength and purity under qualified guidance within the law, I urge you to limit yourself to studying the literature and to working within professional and other organizations for the resumption of legal, scientific research.
In our modern world it has always been assumed... that in order to observe oneself all that is required is for a person to "look within. " No one even imagines that self-observation may be a highly disciplined skill which requires longer training than any other skill we know....The...bad reputation of "introspection" ...results from the particular notion that all by himself.. . a man can come to accurate and unmixed observations of his own thought and perception.... the heart of the psychological disciplines in the East and the ancient Western world consists of training at self-study.
A discipline comes of age and a student of that discipline reaches maturity when it becomes possible to recognize, estimate, and allow for the errors of their tools....Yet there is one instrument which every discipline uses without checking its errors, tacitly assuming that the instrument is error-free. This, of course, is the human psychological apparatus.
EDUCATION
Introduction of consciousness teaching in classrooms, as content as well as practice. Rewriting textbooks and curricula to include consciousness ideas.
Adding consciousness teaching techniques in colleges of education.
Research institutes to study consciousness on both applied and basic levels, a consciousness think-tank.
Foundations, institutes, and professional organizations to develop these possibilities.
HEALTH AND THERAPY
Research institutes to examine the relationships of SOCs to mental and physical health. Consciousness treatment and development centers, to apply what is found in research, e.g., psychedelic treatment centers and mind development centers.
Professional training institutes to teach this new specialty and to retrain existing professionals.
Certification and licensure, standards, boards, agencies, and professional standards committees.
Holistic health centers. Many are already thriving.
New centers and/or programs to train consciousness counselors and therapists. Rewriting and republishing of therapy books to include consciousness.
INDUSTRY AND BUSINESS
Biofeedback instruments, e.g., Kirlian biofeedback devices need to be invented. Centers to teach executives, engineers, etc., to use their consciousness capacities. Consciousness exploration as motivation, transcendence as a need beyond self-actualization in Maslow's hierarchy.
Long-range planning seminars and institutes.
GOVERNMENTThe use of consciousness as a criterion for laws, regulations, licenses.
Accreditation standards.
Recognition of a consciousness constituency.
Funding of research on consciousness and possible benefits, and on problems coming from its development.
Investigator(s) | Discipline/Field | Date | Title |
J. Campbell | symbolism and mythology | 1949 | The Hero with a Thousand Faces |
J. Campbell | symbolism and Mythology | 1972 | Myths to Live By |
S. Grof | psychotherapy | 1975 | Realms of the Human Unconscious |
S. Grof & C. Grof | thanatology and anthropology | 1979 | Beyond Death |
S. Grof & J. Halifax | thanatology and anthropology | 1977 | The Human Encounter with Death |
J. Halifax | anthropology | 1979 | Shamanic Voices |
A. Huxley | philosophy | 1944 | The Perennial Philosophy |
A. Maslow | psychology | 1964 | Religions, Values, and Peak Experiences |
R. Masters & J. Houston | psychology and education | 1966 | The Varieties of Psychedelic Experience |
J.W. Perry | abnormal psychology (schizophrenia) | 1976 | Roots of Renewal in Myth and Madness |
H. Smith | religion | 1976 | Forgotten Truth |
K. Wilbur | religion, philosophy, and psychology | 1981 | Up From Eden |
Bostrum, R.N., Vlandis, J.W., & Rosenbaum, M.E. Grades as reinforcing contingencies and attitude change. Journal of Educational Psychology, 1961, 52(2): 112-115.
Campbell, J. Myths to Live By. New York: Viking, 1972.
Campbell, J. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1949.
Counseling and Values, 1975, 19(2), Topical issue on transpersonal counseling.
Cousins, N. Anatomy of an Illness as Perceived by the Patient. New York: W.W. Norton, 1979.
Edwards, B. Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. Los Angeles, J.P. Tarcher, 1979.
Elementary School Guidance and Counseling, 1979, 14(2): 84-176. Special Issue: Health, Wellness, and Transpersonal Approaches to Helping.
Grinspoon, L., & Bakalar, J.B. Psychedelic Drugs Reconsidered. New York: Basic Books, 1979.
Grof, S. Realms of Human Unconscious: Observations from LSD Research. New York: Viking, 1975.
Grof, S. Perinatal roots of wars, totalitarianism, and revolutions. Journal of Psychohistory, 1977, pp. 269-308.
Grof, S. LSD Psychotherapy. Pomona, CA: Hunter House, 1981.
Grof, S., & Halifax, J. The Human Encounter with Death. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1978.
Halifax, J. Shamanic Voices. A Survey of Visionary Narratives. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1979.
Harman, W., McKim, R., Mogar, R., Fadiman, J., & Stolaroff, M.J. Psychedelic Agents in Creative Problem Solving. In C.T. Tart (Ed.), Altered States of Consciousness, John Wiley & Sons, 1969.
Huxley, A. The Perennial Philosophy. Cleveland: World Publishing Company, 1968 (orig. 1944).
Huxley, L. This Timeless Moment: A Personal View of Aldous Huxley. Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1968.
Krippner, S. Song of Siren. A Parapsychological Odyssey. New York: Harper & Row, 1975.
Kubie, L.S. The forgotten man of education. Harvard Alumni Bulletin, 1954, 56: 349-353.
Maslow, A.H. Religions, Values, and Peak Experiences. Penguin, 1976 (orig. 1964.).
Masters, R.E.L., & Houston, J. Vaneties of Psychedelic Experience. New York: Delta, 1966.
Mogar, R.E., & Aldrich, R. The use of psychedelic agents with autistic schizophrenic children. Psychedelic Review, 1969, 10: 5-13.
Murphy, M., & White, R. The Psychic Side of Sports. Reading, MA: AddisonWesley, 1978.
Needleman, J. A Sense of the Cosmos. The Encounter of Modern Science and Ancient Truth. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1965.
Perry, J.W. Roots of Renewal in Myth and Madness. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1976.
Richards, W.A. Peak Experiences, Counseling, and the Human Encounter with Death: An Empirical Study of the Efficacy of DPT-Assisted Counseling in Enhancing the Quality of Life of Persons with Terminal Cancer and Their Closest Family Members. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America, 1978.
Roberts, T.B. Consciousness counseling: New roles and new goals. Elementary School Guidance and Counseling, 1 979 , I #(2): 1 03-1 07.
Roberts, T.B. Consciousness, Psychology, and Education. A Speculative Essay. DeKalb, IL, New Learning, 1980a. (Also ERIC, ed-184-950. Abridged in Jr. Suggestive Accelerative Learning and Teaching, 1981, forthcoming).
Roberts, T.B. Intelligence and consciousness: Some preliminary speculations. Human Intelligence, Sept./Oct., 1980b. 5.
Sagan, C. Broca's Brain. New York: Random House, 1979.
Satin, M. Mailing list. Box 3242, Winchester, PA 22601.
Smith, H. Forgotten Truth: The Primordial Tradition. New York: Harper & Row, 1976.
Tart, C.T. Altered States of Consciousness. John Wiley & Sons, 1969.
Tart, C.T. Transpersonal Psychologies. New York: Harper & Row, 1975.
Thomas, L., & Cooper, P.E. Incidence and psychological correlates of intense spiritual experiences. Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 1980, 12(1): 75-85.
Van der Horst, B. Cartographer of consciousness. Interview with Ronald Siegel. OMNI, May 1980, 55-58.
Walsh, R.N., & Vaughan, F. (Eds.), Beyond Ego. Transpersonal Dimension in Psychology. Los Angeles: J.P. Tarcher, 1980.
Wilber, K. Up from Eden. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor/Doubleday, 1981.
Zelman, R. Experiential Philosophy: Metaphysics and Altered States of Consciousness. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. San Francisco: Humanistic Psychology Institute, 1978.