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There has been so much to explore about any particular type of experience,
and rarely
has anyone ventured to step back and begin to look at these
experiences as a whole, what they suggest together. An early
exception to this was the humanistic psychologist Robert Maslow who
studied what he called ecstatic or "peak experiences"
in the 1960s, which could have been anything from a mystical encounter
to a "runner's high." He did similar research into
desolation-type experiences.
In the meantime the explosive field of consciousness studies and also
a fusion of psychology and spirituality known as
transpersonal psychology have emerged, and through these potent
avenues, disciplined studies of all possible types of these anomalous,
paranormal, spiritual experiences have continued to burgeon rapidly
into an amazing number of new institutes, university programs,
scientific conferences, and a now extensive literature. And of
course the popular press and other media have been similarly affected
and impressive in their impact, especially in the publication of
Experiencers' stories.
Two people who have each taken different but quite methodical
approaches to the study of these experiences as a whole are John
Heron
[transpersonal psychologist] and Rhea
A. White
[parapsychologist], both of whom have had considerable
personal exposure to the "realer than the real"
stretching outside the familiar materialistic Western scientific
perspective. Although little has been said about him thus
far on Ahhh-theLight,
Heron's work
will be a major influence within the second website highlighted in
Part II, below.
Rhea
White's story,
what led her to this field of inquiry, begins with a dramatic
near-death experience as a college student. By entering the
field of parapsychology, she hoped to gain an understanding of
"her accident." She did not find any satisfying
answers from this source, but over the course of the more than four
decades that followed and as a result, she did find her direction for
more fruitful exploration. Quite against the grain of the then
prevailing approach to the study of these events in that field and
their impact on people's lives, White developed a heart- [or
experience-]centered model, which she calls the "exceptional
human experience paradigm." It is a thorough work, a work
of genius, and her Voice is unique and essential to an expansive
understanding of the significance of these experiences in our lives.
In the first edition of her journal, Exceptional Human Experience,
she says, "The concepts of exceptional human experience ...
initially grew out of my lifelong engagement with
parapsychology. Initially the papers were primarily concerned
with breaking away from parapsychology in the way the chick breaks
away from the egg. ... I have taken an experiential rather than
an evidential approach. I have chosen meaning instead of
proof. I think they are like the waves and particles of quantum
mechanics -- you can't have both at the same time."
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If
you start with this
article about Rhea A. White,
you can walk this entire website in her excellent company, as if with the
special friend she was to all who knew her.
At 20 years old, any conception of death, the paranormal, or
spirituality were just not in her golf bags [she had planned to be a
professional woman golfer -- in the early 1950s, yet!
One way or the other she was going to make her unique mark on the
world]. This is her story that had
barely begun before the first time she ‘died’.
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Arriving
at that shift in consciousness is not "an event," but a process, the
fullness of an important life passage. If the Experience itself and the
process that follows comprise the whole adventure, the momentous event itself
is merely one's opening the door and taking the first step out into the world
beyond. The
[EHE] Process is the
rest of the journey that gets you to the "happily ever after."
Here are some introductory articles that give definition to that process:
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