Participatory Spirituality and Transpersonal Theory: a Ten-year Retrospective

This article examines the evolution of participatory thinking in transpersonal studies and related disciplines since the publication of Revisioning Transpersonal Theory (Ferrer, 2002). Following an introduction to participatory spirituality, the paper discusses three ways this approach has been understood in the transpersonal literature: as disciplinary model, theoretical orientation, and paradigm or paradigmatic epoch. It then reviews the influence of the participatory turn in transpersonal studies, consciousness studies, integral education, and religious studies. After responding to Wilberian-integral, astro-archetypal, and participatory critiques, the article concludes with reflections about the nature and future of the participatory movement. My contribution to the participatory turn in transpersonal studies was formalized in 2002, when Revisioning Transpersonal Theory (Revisioning) was published shortly after Tarnas’s (2001) preview of the book in the pages of this journal. The book had two general goals: (a) to critically examine some central ontological and epistemological assumptions of transpersonal studies, and (b) to introduce a participatory alternative to the neo-perennialism dominating the field thus far. At that time, Tarnas (1991) had already laid the foundations of a transpersonally informed participatory epistemology, Kremer (1994) had developed a participatory approach to indigenous spirituality, and Heron had introduced a participatory inquiry method as a relational form of spiritual practice and articulated a participatory ontology and epistemology (1992, 1996, 1998; Heron & Reason, 1997). Nonetheless, the prevalent transpersonal models conceptualized spirituality in terms of replicable inner experiences amenable to be assessed or ranked according to purportedly universal developmental or ontological schemes. Revisioning reframed transpersonal phenomena as pluralistic participatory events that can occur in multiple loci (e.g., an individual, a relationship, or a collective) and whose epistemic value emerges—not from any pre-established hierarchy of spiritual insights—but from the events’ emancipatory and transformative power on self, community, and world. On a scholarly level, I sought to bridge transpersonal discourse with relevant developments in religious studies (e.g., in comparative mysticism or the interreligious dialogue), as well as with a number of modern trends in the philosophy of mind and the The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology trps-43-01-02.3d 12/7/11 14:16:06 1 The author would like to thank Michael Daniels, Ann Gleig, Glenn Hartelius, John Heron, Kenneth Ring, and Jacob H. Sherman for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.