Transformational experiences are as unique as they are profound, yet each portrays universal truths of human nature. In The Unfolding Self: Varieties of Transformative Experience, Ralph Metzner, Ph D, unveils common dynamics and archetypes of the transformative experience, offering seekers and those in the throes of personal or societal transformation a reliable guide.
Drawing from multiple disciplines ranging across the world’s cultures (beginning with his collaborations with Dr. Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert at Harvard University in the early 1960s), Dr. Metzner explores subtle concepts using a tapestry of myth, allegory, and historical context.
The Unfolding Self promises to provide its reader with valuable tools to become ‘wise, impartial judges’ in their process of transformation into becoming a more integrated and fulfilled person. Readers who immerse themselves in these masterful descriptions can catalyze their own process of evolution./
No comparable psychology of spirituality exists that draws from such a rich lifework of scholarship, experiment, and spiritual practice. Drawing from multiple disciplines and ranging across the world’s cultures, Dr. Metzner goes beyond his roots in transpersonal psychology to uncover universal structures of spiritual transformation. Readers who immerse themselves in these masterful descriptions can catalyze their own process of evolution.
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The Unfolding Self
Preface viii
Introduction: From Caterpillar to Butterfly 1
Symbols and Metaphors of Transformation
Theories of Human Transformation
Variations on the Theme of Self-Transformation
1. Awakening from the Dream of Reality 20
Ordinary Awareness as Dreamlike
Dreaming, Sleeping, and Waking in Everyday Life
Transformation as an Awakening
2. Uncovering the Veils of Illusion 36
The World Perceived as Maya
The Transformation of Vision
Unmasking the Self
3. From Captivity to Liberation 54
Body and Form as Prison
Knots, Ties, Nets, and Bonds in Relationships
Strategies of Escape and Liberation
4. Purification by Inner Fire 74
Fire Deities and the Spirit of Fire
Hell, Purgatory, and the Fire of Purification
Kundalini and the Yoga of Fire
The Mystical Fire of Union
5. From Fragmentation to Wholeness 94
Psychic Fragmentation in Ordinary Awareness and in Madness
Shamanic Dismemberment: Osiris and Dionysus
Alchemical Separatio in Meditation and Psychotherapy
Approaches to Wholeness
6. Reconciling with the Inner Enemy 114
On Integrating the Shadow
Accepting the Unacceptable
From Denial to Affirmation
Purification and Elimination
From Inner Warfare to Inner Peace
On Facing One’s Demons
7. On Dying and Being Reborn 136
Conscious Death and Intentional “Dying”
Nearness to Death as Transformative Experience
Thanatos and Psychic Death
Alchemical Mortificatio
The New Birth and the Eternal Child
8. From Darkness to Light 159
Enlightenment of the Physical Body
The Illumination of the Mind
The Self as a Being of Light
9. Integrating the Inner Wild Animal 177
Remembering Our Evolutionary Ancestry
Animals in Folklore, Mythology and Religion
Tales of Animal Transformations
10. Unfolding the Tree of Our Life 198
The Tree as a Symbol of Self-Unfoldment
Climbing the Tree, Straightening the Pillar
The World Tree and the Inverted Tree
The Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge
11. Journey to the Place of Vision and Power 223
The Myth of the Wanderer
Departure and Threshold Crossing
Descent into the Depths
“Flying” and the Upper Realms
Journeys into Nonordinary Reality
Returning Home
12. Returning to the Source 249
Man as Stranger, Life as Exile
The Outgoing Path and the Returning Path
The Homeward Journey
Notes 269
Bibliography 301
Index 312
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Ralph Metzner, Ph D, (1936-2019) was a world-renown pioneer in the study of consciousness and transformative experience. His work stretched the boundaries of traditional psychology by incorporating shamanic methods that transform consciousness and expand understanding of the human psyche. Metzner was involved in the study of transformations of consciousness since his time as a graduate student at Harvard University, where he worked with Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert (later known as Ram Dass) on the Harvard Psilocybin Projects. Metzner co-wrote The Psychedelic Experience in the 1960s and was editor of The Psychedelic Review. Metzner earned a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy and psychology from Oxford University and a Ph D in clinical psychology from Harvard University.During the 1970s, Ralph spent 10 years in the intensive study and practice of Agni Yoga, a meditative system of working with light-fire life energies. In the early 1970s he wrote Maps of Consciousness, one of the earliest attempts at a comparative cartography of consciousness; and Know Your Type: Maps of Identity, a comparative survey of personality typologies, ancient and modern. In the 1980s and for a 10-year period, Metzner served as Academic Dean at the California Institute of Integral Studies where he taught courses on “Altered States of Consciousness” and “Developing Ecological Consciousness.” He later became a Professor Emeritus at CIIS. Metzner’s books include The Well of Remembrance, Green Psychology, Birth of a Psychedelic Culture, and two edited collections on the science and the phenomenology of ayahuasca and teonanácatl. He also wrote The Unfolding Self: Varieties of Transformative Experience, first published in the 1990s. A new printing of The Unfolding Self was published by Synergetic Press in 2022.
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