Showing posts with label Transpersonal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Transpersonal. Show all posts

Dialogues on the Experience of Divine Guidance Video Interview Series




The Dialogues on the Experience of Divine Guidance video interview series is collection of all the psycho-spiritual teachers that have been interviewed as part of this research study. 

This series includes in depth interviews with advanced teachers and mystics from the Shamanic, Judaic, Christian, Sufi and Hindu spiritual traditions as well as advanced teachers from A Course in Miracles and Transpersonal Psychology. Divine guidance techniques were used in the preproduction, production and post-production of these interviews and the researcher used the practices of each of the participants tradition before, during and after each interview. The results of this process included the occurrence of synchronicities in the lives of the researcher and each participant.  


Conscious Media-Making Course Video and Presentation



In this introductory course for the Conscious Good Creators Network, Integral Cinema Project founder Mark Allan Kaplan, Ph.D. explores what is conscious media and conscious media-making, what are some of the different potential forms of conscious media-making, and how different states and stages of consciousness effect the media-making process. Mark also explores how these structures of consciousness within us are communicated between us, the works we create and the individuals and collectives that experience our works…and how this knowledge can be used to create deeper and more transformative media experiences for creators and viewers on the individual and collective levels. Mark Allan Kaplan, Ph.D. is an award-winning filmmaker, transdisciplinary artist and media psychologist and researcher. As an artist and media-maker Mark has been exploring conscious art and media since childhood, attempting to use these creative mediums to help himself transcend his own communication challenges of being a severe childhood stutterer and find his "voice" and use that voice to help raise the consciousness of himself, others and the world. He is considered by many to be one of the pioneers in the conscious and transpersonal media movements and is the world's leading researcher and theorist in the application of Integral Theory to the cinematic arts. www.markallankaplan.com & www. integralcinema.com Conscious Media Creators Network is a community-driven online media platform for visual storytellers dedicated to raising consciousness. Conscious Good launched the Creators’ Network as a place where conscious creators and audiences can connect. It’s a place to interact with fellow conscious media tribe members, share resources, ideas and support one another. Use the following link to join the network: https://conscious-good.mn.co/share/7i... This talk was presented on Sunday February 24, 2019 between 12pm to 1:30pm PST on the Conscious Good Creators Network as part of their "Stream of Consciousness" speaker series.

The complete course video is available at: https://youtu.be/A5P2DmRk23w

The presentation slides are available at: https://www.slideshare.net/markallankaplan/conscious-mediamaking-101




Announcing LIVING A DIVINELY GUIDED LIFE Online Course



LIVING A DIVINELY GUIDED LIFE
A Special 8-Week Interfaith and Integral Spirituality Holiday Season Course

With Mark Allan Kaplan, Ph.D., internationally-acclaimed film and spirituality scholar-practitioner and author of the newly released book “The Search for a Divinely Guided Life

MAKE THIS HOLIDAY SEASON A SACRED DANCE BETWEEN THE DIVINE AND YOUR SELF

From: December 7, 2014 (Sunday) at 1:00 pm Pacific Time 
To: January 25, 2015 (Sunday) at 5:00 pm Pacific Time 

Eventbrite - Living a Divinely Guided Life (8 Week Course)

About this Course
The LIVING A DIVINELY GUIDED LIFE course is a transformational interfaith and integral spirituality journey through the holiday season. It is designed to foster a more sacred and deeply transformative season, and to help you more fully open to and embrace your own evolutionary quest for the Divine. Using holiday season celebrations from many cultures and traditions as archetypal containers, we will explore how the Divine has already been guiding your life through the creation of your own spiritual autobiography, uncovering and reframing your past and current life situations and challenges in the context of your evolutionary journey toward a higher, deeper, and more expansive way of being. You will also learn how to develop your own integral spirituality guidance practice for seeking, receiving and following guidance from your highest, deepest, and most expansive Divine Source on a daily and moment-by-moment basis.

Location:
This event takes place online.

Who is this Course For?
This course is for anyone who is interested in exploring and living a divinely guided life from a non-denominational, interfaith, and integral spirituality evolutionary perspective.

DETAILS

Join Mark for this transformative interfaith and integral spirituality course, which explores how we can open to, connect with, and more fully and deeply enter into a co-creative and co-evolutionary dance with the living universe. This course will be taught through eight weekly 90-minute conference calls (recordings for the calls will be posted for participants who are not able to join a call). Each week we will deeply explore a dimension of the process of opening to living a divinely guided life with assigned practices, readings and self-reflection assignments, along with online threaded discussions to connect with fellow participants and deepen your understanding and application of this work. Throughout this process we will be uncovering the signs and stories of your life that reveal the divine’s participation in your life journey, and developing skills and practices to help you more fully engage with and participate in your divinely guided life adventure.

Topics covered will include:
  • Searching for the Divine Through Time and Memory;
  • Deconstructing and Rebirthing our Relationship with the Divine;
  • Transforming the Primal Wound into the Primal Calling;
  • Cultivating the Witness;
  • Tapping into the Evolutionary Impulse;
  • The Art of Transformational Reframing;
  • Interpreting Life Situations and Events from a Transcendent Educational Perspective;
  • Using Holy Days as Gateways to the Personal and Collective Kosmic Curriculum;
  • Discovering and Applying Universal Patterns and Practices of the Experience of Divine Guidance;
  • Living in the Divine Flow in the Everyday World.

This course uses an Integral Spirituality approach, which is a form of spirituality that seeks to integrate the theories and practices of all faith traditions in a way that recognizes the universal aspects of all paths while also honoring the unique gifts that each path offers. In addition, the Integral spiritual approach helps us integrate spirituality itself with all other dimensions of our being and becoming. From this Integral Spirituality perspective, the “Divine” refers to a higher, deeper and/or more expansive source of wisdom and guidance that can be perceived in various ways, including as a 1st Person Higher or Deeper Self; a 2nd Person “Thou” or “Other;” a 3rd Person Force or System; and/or a simultaneously individual and collective Evolutionary Impulse.

Don’t miss this exciting opportunity – to open more fully to the blessings, graces, miracles, and tender mercies of a divinely guided life.

Dates: 8 weeks: December 7, 2014 – January 25, 2015   

Cost: $345.00 USD plus handling fee (Includes a free download of the book The Search for a Divinely Guided Life* in PDF eBook format)


Eventbrite - Living a Divinely Guided Life (8 Week Course)


Scholarships and Discounts: Discounts and Sliding-Scale Scholarships are available for those in need – For more information contact:  divineguidanceproject@gmail.com

Number of Participants: Up to 20

Instructor: Mark Allan Kaplan, Ph.D.

Weekly Conference Calls:  Sundays 1-2:30 pm Pacific Time

  • December 7
  • December 14
  • December 21
  • December 28
  • January 4
  • January 11
  • January 18
  • January 25

PRESENTER
MARK ALLAN KAPLAN, Ph.D. is an internationally-acclaimed integral and transpersonal film and spirituality scholar-practitioner. He has conducted and published groundbreaking lived inquiry and academic research in integral and transpersonal approaches to art, media and spirituality, and practices professionally as an interfaith spiritual director, transformative personal development coach, award-winning filmmaker, and media psychologist and consultant. Mark is also a celebrated transdisciplinary artist, author and educator. His spiritual writings include the newly released "The Search for a Divinely Guided Life" and "The Experience of Divine Guidance," and he is the founder and Executive Director of the Divine Guidance Project, a trans-denominational research initiative devoted to the study and advancement of the experience of Divine guidance across religious traditions, cultures and domains of experience. Mark has studied and practiced the experience of divine guidance for over twenty-five years both personally and in an academic setting, and he is the researcher and author of one of the first cross-cultural and cross-traditional academic studies on the experience.


Eventbrite - Living a Divinely Guided Life (8 Week Course)


*The Search for a Divinely Guided Life book is also available in paperback and Kindle editions on Amazon.com. SPECIAL OFFERS INCLUDE: Free Kindle Edition with Purchase of Paperback Edition and Kindle Unlimited Subscribers Read for Free




Transpersonal 2.0



The writings of Ken Wilber have been a lightening rod in the transpersonal movement from early on, being both heralded as foundational theory and attacked for being too linear, hierarchical, complex, etc. Recently I have found myself straddling across two realms of the transpersonal movement, and the demarcation point appears to be pre-SES (“Sex, Ecology, Spirituality”) Wilber and post-SES Wilber influenced. The pre-SES realm of the transpersonal movement focuses on Wilber’s early works as foundational to the movement and continues to hold this early work as representational of Wilber’s theories in general while not seriously taking into account Wilber’s post-SES works as being essential to transpersonal theory. This dimension of the transpersonal movement I am calling Transpersonal 1.0, or pre-Integral Theory Wilber. With the publication of SES, Wilber shifted his theories away from his previous works in essential ways; instead of primarily addressing patterns and structures of psychology, spirituality, and consciousness Wilber moved into the development of a “Theory of Everything” attempting to integrate all dimensions of human perception and experience. At this stage, many perceive that a rift grew between the transpersonal movement and Wilber (and his followers).

 To be fair, many contend that Wilber himself contributed to this rift by separating himself from the transpersonal movement and attempting to form a new approach based on his Integral Theory. The common perception is that Wilber’s reasoning for this was that the transpersonal movement was stuck in a limited worldview. In Wilber’s post-SES model or Integral Theory, he places a major emphasis on altitudes of consciousness and the corresponding worldviews. From this perspective, we can see that the transpersonal movement was born out of the pluralistic worldview, and for the most part, transpersonal 1.0 was and is essentially stuck in this worldview. One of the problems with this is that while being born in the pluralistic structure of consciousness, the transpersonal movement is attempting to explore realms beyond this structure. Wilber’s post-SES work introduces a perspective from the next evolutionary structure of consciousness, the Integral structure, which is a stage closer to the transpersonal waves of development. 

Now, after several years of two fairly separate movements, the transpersonal and the integral, there appears to be some loosening of the boundaries. It seems that many transpersonalists are integrating Wilber’s post-SES model into transpersonal theory and many Integralists are reintegrating the transpersonal dimensions into their work. This emerging integrated movement is what I am calling Transpersonal 2.0, and to put it in post-SES terms…I would say that Transpersonal 1.0 is looking at the transpersonal waves of experience and development from the more limited perspective of the pluralistic wave (stage, worldview); Wilber’s post-SES Integral Theory introduces us to the missing stage of development between the pluralistic and the transpersonal, namely the Integral; and Transpersonal 2.0, as I am applying it, looks at the transpersonal waves from the closer worldview perspective of the Integral wave and brings the other structures of consciousness into greater perspective. To shack this out a little further, it seems to me that through a post-SES, Transpersonal 2.0 lens we could say that transpersonal studies is basically the theoretical and practical exploration of transpersonal (trans-egoic, non-ordinary, mystical, etc.) states and stages of development. 

Okay, so how is this definition different than the one held by the Transpersonal 1.0 movement. Well, on the surface it is the same, but when we go deeper I believe there are some subtle differences. One of these differences is that those operating out of the Transpersonal 1.0 perspective tend to have a conscious or unconscious resistance to structure, since the pluralistic level of consciousness tends to be anti-hierarchical. When we cross the bridge into Transpersonal 2.0 we can accept holarchical structures, that is, we can more easily accept and work with structured stages of increasing depth and complexity without falling into the hierarchical judgment trap (thinking this stage is better or worse than another; or throwing the stage-structure baby out with the bathwater entirely). Understanding that development occurs through a process of transcend and include, each stage both transcends and includes the previous stage, we see that every stage is a whole that is part of another whole, or a holon that is part of a holarchy. So in keeping with this spirit I have to remind us that Transpersonal 1.0 is not inferior to Transpersonal 2.0, it is a stage that is transcended and included… Every stage has its blessings and its challenges; and every station on the path must be passed through on the journey…


Fragmentation and Wholeness


I was standing in the rotating rooftop restaurant of the Atlanta Hyatt Regency Hotel, gazing out the passing windows and the moving cityscape beyond them. One of the buildings across the way had mirrored windows and was reflecting back a fragmented image of the Hotel I was in. In that moment I felt a strange mix of fragmentation and wholeness; as I stood inside a moving cylinder-shaped room, looking out at the image of the exterior of the space I was in reflected back at me in the fragmented mirrored windows across the way…it was like I was part of a spinning planet at the center of the whole universe, and at the same time, that planet was made up of pieces of something, that was a piece of something else. My mind went blank as I lifted my camera and captured the moment. Reflection upon reflection upon reflection, spinning and turning, a whole with parts of another whole…

Image, Form and Formlessness


I remember walking along the base of the Tetons’ and seeing the rays of the setting sun striking a giant cloud formation in front of me. I stopped dead in my tracks as the beauty of the sight filled my being and for a brief moment I was breathless. The giant cloud looked like an anvil.

There was something strange and wondrous about the juxtaposition between the fluffiness of the cloud itself and the heavy-mass-related anvil form of its shape. Several other people stopped and gazed up at the cloud. Some of us took photos, some just stared up silently, and others conversed about the sight they were sharing. For a few moments, we were a community of beings joining together in a shared mystical moment of beauty and grace. Then the shifting light of the sun, the currents of the wind, and the movement of the clouds began to transform the anvil-cloud back into just another cloud. The shared state of grace dissipated as well, and we all returned to our separate paths.

As I walked away and looked around me, I couldn’t help but wonder about the permanence and impermanence of any image or form…and I felt as though I had briefly touched the edge of formlessness. Deep gratitude and wonder filled me as I pondered the seemingly random string of simple everyday events and choices that brought me to this moment.

*Image: Anvil Cloud by MAK

Eli Stone and Transpersonal Television


There have been many wonderful television shows dealing with transpersonal themes over the years, including The Twilight Zone (Alternate Realities), Quantum Leap (Time Travel), The X-Files (Alien Encounters), Touched by an Angel (Angels), and Joan of Arcadia (Divine Guidance). There are also several superb transpersonal television shows currently on the air, including Lost (Metaphysical Realities), Life (Zen), Life on Mars (Time Travel), Heroes, Kyle-XY (Exceptional Human Capacities), and Eli Stone (Divine Guidance).

While all of these shows are excellent transpersonal television journeys, I believe Eli Stone must be singled out as one of televisions transpersonal masterpieces. The reason I believe Eli Stone deserves this mantle, is that it not only explores a transpersonal topic with great depth, grace, wit, and integrity, it also has the capacity to give the viewing audience a powerful experience of higher and illusive states of being. How often does a TV show induce a deep sense of grace, hope and faith in the face of life’s haunting mysteries? This is very rare…so I say, BRAVO to the creators of Eli Stone! But I also have to give a big BOO to the network (ABC) who never gave the show the chance it deserved and canceled this gem of television enlightentainment.

TCP on IndieGoGo

The Transpersonal Cinema Project is now on IndieGoGo at: http://www.indiegogo.com/transpersonalcinemaproject

Once complete, the TCP IndieGoGo site will act as a project funding, promotion, and social networking hub for those interested in supporting and/or participating in The Transpersonal Cinema Project.

Synchronization of the Senses


Renowned Russian filmmaker and film theory pioneer Sergei Eisenstein (1898-1948) postulated that the unique nature of the cinema produces a holistic and transcendent "synchronization of the senses" through the "integration of word, image and sound, and the accumulation of successive images and sounds [that serve] to construct perception, meaning, and emotion". After years of cinematic experimentation and "a thorough analysis of the nature of audiovisual phenomena," Eisenstein believed that the conscious manipulation of this sensory synchronization could allow the filmmaker to converse with his or her audience on higher, deeper, and subtler levels of communication by more closely replicating the multidimensional sensory stimulation of actual lived experience.


An example of the power of this consciously controlled sensory synchronization can be found in the film Chariots of Fire (1981). In this British cinema classic, the filmmakers combine the images and sounds of the experience of running with an emotionally expressive musical score to viscerally communicate the peak experience of running. When this synchronization of image, sound, and music integrates with the film’s plot, performances, and dialogue, the audience is able to experience the ephemeral and transformative emotions involved in the physical and spiritual struggle for glory.

Transpersonal Cinema Project Website Official Launch


The Transpersonal Cinema Project website launched at http://www.transpersonalcinema.com/

The Transpersonal Cinema Project is a groundbreaking research and production initiative seeking to investigate and advance these powerful transformational potentials of the cinema by integrating the latest theories, practices, and technologies of cinematic media, creativity, human perception, and consciousness.

Seeing the Light


"For the moment, look at cinema as a mystery religion. One enters the darkened place and joins the silent congregation. Then comes the beam of light out of the shadows: the Projector, the Great Projector up there behind us! Turn out the little lights so that the big light can penetrate the darkness! Ah, behold the unreeling of the real reality of practically everything: our dreams, our idiocies and raptures, our nativity, passion and death." 

- James Broughton (Seeing the Light, 1986)

Seeking the Heart of Darkness

Schindler's List (1993)

There is violence in the media. There is violence in the streets. My mind has been asking why… what is cause and what is effect? I have tried to rid my thoughts and actions of violence. I have boycotted violent films and the evening news. I have prayed for peace within and without. Yet I have come to see that I am in the realm of aversion and repression.

Is the violence in the media and in our streets from our collective repression of our fear of death and pain and suffering? In many cultures there are rituals around death and dying. Is our collective unconscious giving us the experiences we are not giving ourselves?

For weeks I thought about seeing Schindler's List (1993) yet the idea of the intense physical and psychological horrors I might see held me back. Finally I decided to create a spiritual practice. As I entered the theater I asked God (Higher Power, etc.) to use this experience for my awakening and healing around my perceptions of the body. As I watched blood spiriting out of a man's head I did not turn away. I allowed the waves of emotions to sweep over me as scores of naked human beings waited to be either showered with deadly gas or cleansing water. I cried as the acts of love and kindness amidst this vast darkness appeared like golden flowers rising from the mud. After the film I sat outside in front of a fountain. All the trials and tribulations of my life were gone. The beauty and impermanence of everything around me washed my mind.

Within this journey through the darkness there was love and hope and beauty. I also found both the darkness and the beauty inside my self. And for a moment they merged into a sort of sweet sorrow.

Now I am seeking a way not to condone yet not to abhor the violence around me. I wonder if I can use it to seek the violence in me and use its dark mud to grow the golden flowers of light.

I have noticed my own tendency to see Transpersonal films in terms of films of light and not of darkness. Yet now I can think of several films, which are clearly transpersonal odysseys through darkness. There are films which show the triumph of the human spirit through the dark horrors of existence (Schindler's List, 1993); films which take us to the horrors and madness deep inside us (Apocalypse Now, 1979); and films which take us through the darkness of our minds on our way to the light (Jacob's Ladder, 1990).

But perhaps every journey through darkness and violence can be consciously used for our own healing. And perhaps as we make this journey and face our fears, the external manifestations will dissolve into the golden lotus growing up from the dark mud.

(Originally published in Focus: The Quarterly Newsletter of the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, Winter, 2-3, 1994)

The Medium is the Transpersonal

It's a Wonderful Life (1946)

What is the connection between the Transpersonal and Cinema? Perhaps the very nature of any creative media is Transpersonal. Film and video, as well as all the arts . . . are ultimately the ideas, thoughts, and feelings of a "personal" mind (or minds) being extended outward to other minds. At this level we might say that the "medium is the message."

In the particular case of film, we have a medium steeped in alchemy, mythology, illusion, magic, and transcendence. When audiences first saw the image of a speeding train projected on a screen in front of them, they leaped from their seats and ran out of the theater screaming. A French magician made films in which people disappeared, became transparent, and flew to the moon. Like an ancient religious ritual we enter a darkened place in silence. As we sit before the giant alter, a great light slices the darkness and transforms the two-dimensional screen before us into a three-dimensional world.

Beyond the transpersonal nature of the medium itself, are some films more transpersonal than others? Surely films about angels (It's A Wonderful Life, 1946), life after death (Ghost, 1990), altered states (Altered States, 1980), dreams (Kurosawa's Dreams, 1990), archetypes (Star Wars, 1977), UFO phenomena (E.T.: The Extraterrestrial, 1982), mystical realities (The Last Wave, 1977) or religious experiences (The Last Temptation of Christ, 1988) are transpersonal in their content. And films that deal with shifts in temporal and spatial reality, like Field of Dreams (1989) and Groundhog Day (1993), weave the transpersonal into the dramatic structure itself. Then there are the films which embrace the transpersonal in the visual form as well as through the subject content and dramatic structure. In films like Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire (1987) and Lawrence Kasden's Grand Canyon (1991) the camera transcends all boundaries, moving through walls and floating through the air to capture the visceral reality of these other realms. Of course these categories tend to overlap and most transpersonal films are a combination of these elements.

I believe there is also a more subtle way that the transpersonal enters the cinema. There are films that move us in ways that are beyond just the stimulation of thoughts, ideas and emotions; beyond content, drama and form. These films cause a subtle shift inside us, they touch us on the level of soul or spirit. Sometimes these films deal directly with transpersonal realms; sometimes they are simple films about love and the human spirit; sometimes they are dark journeys into the underworld.

The power of these films seems to depend on the intersection of our own life's journey with the journey of the film. When this connection is made it seems as though this film was made for us. A chill moves through us and the notion of a grand design touches our awareness. In this way any film becomes transpersonal. From great works of filmic art to pop culture escapist adventures. Somehow the divine seems to be woven into the light of the movie projector. As the images and sounds dance before us, our realities and projections meet. Sometimes we are moved and entertained . . . and sometimes we are transformed.

(Originally published in Focus: The Quarterly Newsletter of the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, Fall, 1-2, 1993)

Transpersonal Dimensions of the Cinema


Announcing the publication of…
Transpersonal Dimensions of the Cinema
By Mark Allan Kaplan, Ph.D.

ABSTRACT: Transpersonal dimensions of the cinematic art form are explored, including transpersonal elements inherent in the nature of the cinematic medium; transpersonal influences on cinematic content, structure, and style; and potential transpersonal effects of the cinematic experience. A preliminary classification of transpersonal cinematic effects indicates potential synchronization effects between constructed cinematic reality and various aspects of creator/viewer realities. Personal filmmaker observations and a review of theoretical, empirical, anecdotal, and historical sources suggests that the transpersonal or boundary-transcending nature and capacities of the cinematic medium make it a potentially powerful and valuable tool for the mediation of transpersonal experience and perception.

Published in The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 2005, Volume 37, Number 1, Pages 9-22.

View and Download the Complete Article at: http://www.markallankaplan.com/text/tpcinema.htm

The Experience of Divine Guidance


Announcing the publication of...


The Experience of Divine Guidance: A Qualitative Study of the Human Endeavor to Seek, Receive, and Follow Guidance from a Perceived Divine Source

By Mark Allan Kaplan, Ph.D. 

ABSTRACT

This research study examined the experience of seeking, receiving, and following guidance from a perceived source of divine wisdom. Nine advanced spiritual teachers (5 men and 4 women) from 7 spiritual traditions participated as coresearchers in this study. Coresearchers were North American or European born, predominantly Caucasian, California (USA) residents between the ages of 52 and 74. Coresearcher participation consisted of individual semistructured in-depth interviews. The questions and topics of discussion used for the interviews were developed through a process of researcher heuristic and spiritual self-inquiry. The results of a grounded-theory-based qualitative content analysis of the interview transcripts suggested that the experience of divine guidance, as measured in the current study, is characterized by a common structuring of the experience that includes general categories, factors, and patterns which appear to manifest into various particular and contextual forms depending on the individual person, event, and circumstance. The reported common structures of the experience included: The perception of a divine source of guidance; the experience of seeking, receiving , and following guidance from this perceived source; and various contributing, impeding, developmental , and mediating factors . Additionally, each coresearcher reported a unique metaphor of divine encounter that appeared to give them an archetypal and visceral way of describing and holding the experience. The researcher appeared to experience each of the coresearcher's metaphors of divine encounter through some kind of resonant learning or mimicking process. A Guidance Experience Template, Guidance Experience Evaluation Checklist, and Synthesized Guidance Practice were developed as aids to counselors, practitioners, and researchers exploring the experience of divine guidance. The findings of this study, and the development and implementation of guidance-related applications in this research, may advance the understanding of this common and historically significant human experience, and offer a valuable contribution to the fields of transpersonal psychology, spiritual guidance, and spiritual psychology.

Proquest Dissertations And Theses 2005.  462 pages; [Ph.D. dissertation].United States -- California: Institute of Transpersonal Psychology; 2005. Publication Number: AAT 3174544.

Index terms (keywords): Divine guidance, Guidance, Spirituality, Religious experience, Transpersonal psychology

Source: DAI-B 66/05, p. 2855, Nov 2005

Source type: DISSERTATION

Subjects: Developmental psychology, Religion, Theology

ISBN: 0542126788