Toward an Integral Methodology for Transpersonal Studies

This paper indicates the limitations of older, more conventional approaches to research (grounded in an exclusively positivistic paradigm) and suggests ways in which research and disciplined inquiry can be extended and expanded to more appropriately honor and address exceptional human experiences and transpersonal topics and experiences. An integral research approach is proposed—one that acknowledges pluralistic ways of knowing, being, and doing. The integral research approach is informed by the radical empiricism of William James and by recent developments in natural science, psychology, human sciences, philosophy, philosophy of science, parapsychology, spirituality, and transpersonal studies. This early paper was the seed of what later became the author’s chapter on integral inquiry in the book, Transpersonal Research Methods for the Social Sciences: Honoring Human Experience, by William Braud and Rosemarie Anderson (Sage, 1998).