Understanding Bohm’s Holoflux: Clearing Up a Conceptual Misunderstanding of the Holographic Paradigm and Clarifying its Signifigance to Transpersonal Studies of Consciousness

Throughout the past 31 years transpersonal anthropologists and transpersonal psychologists seeking a scientific language to discuss anomalous phenomena and the farther reaches of human nature (or to invoke a discussion of ultimate reality, universal mind or cosmic consciousness) have referred to the holographic paradigm, the conceptual origin of which is directly related to David Bohm’s implicate order theory. In 1982 and 1984 Bohm discussed the holographic paradigm’s limitations (and more specifically his concept of holomovement) to accurately represent his implicate order theory, suggesting instead the more precise conceptual reference holoflux; yet the limited publication of this correction has not been noticed by those who continue to champion the holographic paradigm. This paper reiterates Bohm’s 1982 and 1984 correction, and discusses its implications for transpersonal theory

Bridging Transpersonal Ecosophical Concerns with the Hero’s Journey and Superheroes Through Comicbook Lore: Implications for Personal and Cultural Transformation

This paper explores how mythical figures and comicbook superheroes can 1) inspire personal growth, social and planetary change, and 2) explicate aspects of the deep ecology movement and transpersonal ecosophy that invite further academic inquiry while at the same time 3) speak to concerns that ignite the interests of popular culture and personal mythology. Likewise the ecopsychological significance of modern fictional characters in comicbooks, graphic novels, and films will be examined. It is divided into two parts. Part 1 provides a theoretical examination of how definitions of the terms myth and hero and hero’s journey are framed, and their implications for understanding personal and transpersonal growth. Part 2 provides portraits of individual characters from comicbook lore, their evaluation, and their significance toward raising collective archetypal awareness of the psyche’s relationship with Earth—an ecopsychological framework. In addition the paper offers practical examples of how this understanding of comicbook lore can be used for cultivating a new quality of life on a planetary scale

The Deep Ecology Movement: Origins, Development, and Future Prospects (Toward a Transpersonal Ecosophy)

The deep ecology movement, which began with Arne Naess’ introduction of the term in 1972, is compared with other movements for social responsibility that developed in the 20th century. The paper discusses Naess’ cross-cultural approach to characterizing grassroots movements via platform principles that can be supported from a diversity of cultures, worldviews, and personal philosophies, and explains his use of “ecosophy.” The deep ecology movement’s relationship with ecopsychology, ecocriticism, and humanistic and transpersonal psychology is described as part of an emerging synthesis referred to as transpersonal ecosophy. The inquiry concludes with a technical discussion of Naess’ Apron Diagram and reflections on the future of the movement in light of widespread concerns about global warming and destruction of cultural and biological diversity

Clearing Up Rollo May’s Views of Transpersonal Psychology and Acknowledging May as an Early Supporter of Ecopsychology

This paper explores Rollo May’s 1992 reassessment of transpersonal psychology, in which he reverses his 1986 and 1989 arguments against transpersonal psychology. Equally relevant, this paper shows that May was actually interested in supporting what is now called ecopsychology. Schroll (following Alan Drengson and Arne Naess) now refers to ecopsychology as transpersonal ecosophy. This paper offers a thorough examination of several key concerns that May had regarding his reservations toward accepting transpersonal psychology’s legitimacy, and includes May’s vigorous discussion with Ken Wilber. Wilber’s discussion with Kirk Schneider’s 1987 and 1989 critique of transpersonal psychology is also examined. Likewise Albert Ellis’ 1986 and 1989 rejection and misunderstanding of transpersonal psychology is discussed

User generated brands and their contribution to the diffusion of user innovations

It has been argued that users can create innovations and also diffuse them peer-to-peer independent of support or involvement by producers: that “user-only” innovation systems can exist. It is known that users can be incented to innovate via benefits from in-house use. But users’ incentives to invest in diffusion are much less clear: benefits that others might obtain from their innovation can be largely or entirely an externality for user innovators. Of course, effective distribution of information products can be done near-costlessly via posting downloadable content – for example, software – on the Internet. However, potential adopters must still learn about the product and trust its qualities. In producer systems, this aspect of diffusion is heavily supported via the creation of trusted brands. It has been shown that brands help to increase awareness, to communicate a product's benefits, and to reduce perceived risks of adoption. The development of brands by producers is traditionally seen as a very costly exercise – unlikely to be thought of as worthwhile by users who expect little or no benefits from the diffusion of their innovations to others. In this paper, we explore the creation of a strong and trusted brand by the Apache software community – and find it was created costlessly, as a side effect of normal community functioning. We think the costless creation of strong brands is an option that is generally available to user innovation communities. It supports, we propose, the existence of robust, user-only innovation systems by helping to solve the problem of low-cost diffusion of trusted user-developed innovations

Review/Essay on Integral Ecology: Uniting Multiple Perspectives on

No abstract needed

Reflections on Naess’ Humor and Ecosophy from Two Meetings

Recollections of my meetings with Naess, and their influence on the creation of my own view of ecosophy is the focus of this article

A prototypical model for tensional wrinkling in thin sheets

The buckling and wrinkling of thin films has recently seen a surge of interest among physicists, biologists, mathematicians and engineers. This has been triggered by the growing interest in developing technologies at ever decreasing scales and the resulting necessity to control the mechanics of tiny structures, as well as by the realization that morphogenetic processes, such as the tissue-shaping instabilities occurring in animal epithelia or plant leaves, often emerge from mechanical instabilities of cell sheets. While the most basic buckling instability of uniaxially compressed plates was understood by Euler more than 200 years ago, recent experiments on nanometrically thin (ultrathin) films have shown significant deviations from predictions of standard buckling theory. Motivated by this puzzle, we introduce here a theoretical model that allows for a systematic analysis of wrinkling in sheets far from their instability threshold. We focus on the simplest extension of Euler buckling that exhibits wrinkles of finite length - a sheet under axisymmetric tensile loads. This geometry, whose first study is attributed to Lam´e, allows us to construct\ud a phase diagram that demonstrates the dramatic variation of wrinkling patterns from near-threshold to far-from-threshold conditions. Theoretical arguments and comparison to experiments show that for thin sheets the far-from-threshold regime is expected to emerge under extremely small compressive loads, emphasizing the relevance of our analysis for nanomechanics applications

Reflections on Transpersonal Psychology’s 40th Anniversary, Ecopsychology, Transpersonal Science, and Psychedelics: A Conversation Forum

Recollections of humanistic and transpersonal psychology’s origin’s morph into the pros and cons of humanistic/transpersonal oriented schools developing APA accredited clinical programs. This discussion dovetails with the question will ATP ever become an APA division, raising an interesting alternative for those of us considering a career in counseling: becoming a spiritual coach. Enter the issue of psychedelic therapy and the Supreme Courts decision to allow ayahuasca as a sacrament by the Uniao Do Vegetal Church, and the importance of why humanistic and transpersonal psychology need to clearly map out the territories and sub-divisions of science and religion. Finally this conversation raises a concern, that Maslow’s call for a “trans-human” psychology sought to encourage creating what we now call ecopsychology