mally be reached by unaided human senses, or from historical periods that precede the origin of the solar system, formation of planet earth, appearance of living organisms, development of the nervous system, and emergence of Homo sapiens. Mainstream academicians and physicians adhering to the monistic materialistic worldview have no other choice but to deny the existence and authenticity of transpersonal experiences or relegate them to the category of “anomalous phenomena”. However, serious attempts have been made to provide for them a scientific conceptual framework and integrate them into a revolutionary new worldview. In an intellectual tour de force and a series of books, the world’s foremost system theorist, interdisciplinary scientist, and philosopher, Ervin Laszlo, has explored a wide range of disciplines, including astrophysics, quantum-relativistic physics, biology, and transpersonal psychology (Laszlo 1993, 1999, 2003, 2004a, 2004b). He pointed out a wide range of phenomena, paradoxical observations, and paradigmatic challenges, for which these disciplines have no explanations. Drawing on revolutionary advances of twentieth century’s science, he has offered a brilliant solution to the anomalies and paradoxes that currently plague many of its fields. Laszlo achieved this by formulating his connectivity hypothesis, which has as its main cornerstone the existence of what he called the “psi-field” and, more recently, renamed the “Akashic field” (Laszlo 2003, 2004b). Laszlo describes it as a subquantum field that is the source of all creation and holds a holographic record of all the events that have happened in the phenomenal world. He equates this field with the concept of “quantum vacuum” (or better “quantum plenum”) that has emerged from modern physics (Laszlo 2003, 2004ab). Laszlo’s connectivity hypothesis provides a scientific explanation for otherwise mysterious transpersonal experiences, such as experiential identification with other people and with representatives of other species, group consciousness, possibility of experiencing episodes from other historical periods and countries including past life experiences, telepathy, remote viewing and other psychic abilities, out-ofbody experiences, astral projection, the experience of the Supracosmic and Metacosmic Void, and others. An alternative conceptual framework that can account for many of the baffling properties of transpersonal experiences is the process philosophy of the English mathematician, logician, and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead (Whitehead 1978). Whitehead’s metaphysical system is of particular interest because it does not grant fundamental metaphysical status to matter but places central focus on experience or mind. According to process philosophy, the basic element of which the universe is made is not an enduring substance, but a moment of experience, called in his terminology “actual occasion”. The universe is composed of countless discontinuous bursts of experiential activity on all levels of reality, from subatomic particles to human souls. The relevance of Whitehead’s philosophy for transpersonal psychology and consciousness research has been explored in the writings of John Buchanan, David Ray Griffin, John Quiring, Leonard Gibson, 16 (14) Stanislav Grof
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MzgxMzI=