Recent updates
- Belik A. A. The significance of I. Kant’s ideas for the studies of the altered states of consciousness phenomenon
- Kupriyanova V. A. Adaptive potential of altered states of consciousness
- Krippner S. The varieties of dissociative experience: A transpersonal, postmodern model
- Alanis P. Altered States of Consciousness as Transformational Coaching Tools
- Wistrand K. Swedish – Russian Research: Near Death Experiences and other transpersonal experiences among women during childbirth
A. A. Belik on the value of emotional responsiveness
Tuesday, 26 March 2013 08:56 | 
Written by Administrator | 
| 
| 
I will surely write [a review of] Hegel and also a review and reflection paper on Winkelman’s work. But you can’t imagine how important for me was the work on Kant and [altered states of consciousness, ASC]. He is so prominent in his idea on the role of imagination in the human activities in general and the role of imagination and images in ASC in particular. It is now when it is especially evident, when there is a highly explicit tendency to use images on a larger scale in mass media. So sad that Kant is not known from this side well enough. It is that much of his ideas he developed in Anthropology and it’s not read often. Many ideas of The Critique of Pure Reason were developed there. And there is one important detail. Many of Kant’s propositions that he makes in Anthropology are more clear if you know 20th-century cultural anthropology. Especially this is so in terms of emotions and communication. In a traditional society sensibility is an important part of life, and values must have emotional responsiveness. And communication of people with each other is a foundation of life and a primary value. This is so not only for a traditional society but also for our contemporary society (and one range of the spectrum of the emotionally sensible perception of the world is ASC).
Invitation to CollaborationWednesday, 08 August 2012 15:03 | Written by Administrator | | |
The academic project altstates.net invites undergraduate and graduate students and professional researchers who conduct academic research of altered states of consciousness (ASC) to collaborate. We also welcome volunteers (translators, editors and those with an expertise in Joomla). If you are interested in collaboration with us in terms of publishing your articles and theses at this website as well as if you are willing to help us with translation and editing of materials please contact the project’s administrator Eugene Pustoshkin ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ). Last Updated (Wednesday, 08 August 2012 15:08) Charles T. Tart’s note on the role of ASC and endorsement of altstates.netWednesday, 17 November 2010 13:11 | Written by Administrator | | |
Any serious look at human history will show how frequent and important altered states of consciousness (ASCs) are. Sometimes some can be pathological, but some are sources of great insight and inspiration, and often ASC experiences were the keys that started spiritual disciplines which became our great religions. Ordinary, apparently rational, consciousness is wonderful for many tasks, but too often it rejects the very existence of ASCs, much less understanding that they are real, they can be valuable if used properly, and they can be trained and cultivated. — Charles T. Tart, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, Palo Alto, California, U.S.A. Last Updated (Thursday, 18 November 2010 23:08) |
Altstates.net at the conference Towards a Science of Consciousness 2011Saturday, 04 June 2011 13:08 | Written by Administrator | | |
In 2011 an abstract of the concept of the web portal as a collaborative scientific online project was included into the program of the prestigious international conference Towards a Science of Consciousness which was held in Stockholm (Sweden) in May. We thank the organizing committee of the conference for their assistance and understanding.
Online networking as a way to catalyze and coordinate a transdisciplinary community of scientists studying altered states of consciousness Eugene Pustoshkin, Andrey Khlopushin (in collaboration with Dimitry Spivak, PhD, senior research fellow at N. P. Bechtereva Human Brain Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences, Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation) Abstract: The world today becomes increasingly complex; the same processes are reflected in science. In the 20th century there has been a trend of specialization, but the 21st century brings the need of transdisciplinary collaboration and action. The emerging science of consciousness is essentially a transdisciplinary field. Our argument is that in today’s informational society it is important to co-create and develop online platforms that support international academic transdisciplinarity. The case is made on the example of a non-profit, non-governmental international academic web project altstates.net devoted to studying altered states of consciousness (ASC). The platform is designed to support the growth of practical transdisciplinary links and cooperation among specialists of psychology, neuroscience, medicine, anthropology, cultural sciences, and other fields who explore the phenomenon of ASC and its cultural and psychophysiological correlates. This helps to further establish the notion of ASC as a legitimate topic of research in the mainstream academia worldwide. Comment: Science is usually associated in our minds to the scientific process of making hypothesis, doing experiments, and interpreting their results. Most often the metaperspective on science, the meta-awareness of its basic pragmatical manifestation in sociocultural dimensions of life is lacking. Every scientific paradigm has its roots, its history; and it is possible to influence the history of a scientific paradigm through systemic means. The creation of an online platform that would support catalyzing of a transdisciplinary community of scientists who are established in their fields and, nevertheless, want to pursue academic research of the phenomenon of altered states of consciousness (which is still marginalized in the mainstream academia of many countries around the world due to often—if we are to use C. T. Tart’s term—a state-specific nature of the subject matter) is explored through the perspective of an attempt for consciously influencing public opinion, de-marginalizing and legitimizing the topic of inquiry in the collective consciousness of academicians and non-academicians, and catalyzing the growth of interest in studying the field. The States of Consciousness (http://altstates.net/) International Academic Web Portal, supported by Russian Foundation for Basic Research and organized in partnership with specialists of the Human Brain Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences is such an initiative which is aimed at reviving the framework of altered states of consciousness as a legitimate topic of in-depth transdisciplinary scientific study. The initial idea of the project has had its origins in the scholarly activities and struggles of several Russian scientists who found out that “consciousness” and especially “altered states of consciousness” are still taboo topics in the mainstream Russian academia. They organized an academic team who brought forth the project under in collaboration with Dr. Dimitry Spivak (senior research fellow at N. P. Bechtereva Human Brain Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences) who acts as a scientific consulting of the project. Last Updated (Saturday, 04 June 2011 18:24) Ralph Metzner endorses altstates.netWednesday, 17 November 2010 12:28 | Written by Administrator | | |
The concept of states of consciousness, both ordinary and altered, has been emerging as a useful integrative paradigm for psychological, philosophical and neuroscientfic approaches to the study of consciousness. This website makes an important contribution to the international spread of that integrative paradigm. — Ralph Metzner, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco, California, U.S.A. Last Updated (Thursday, 18 November 2010 23:07) |
