The Unfolding Self: Varieties of Transformative Experience

This book is similar in content to Campbell's "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" (The title itself doesn't make much sense -- should be "The Thousand Faces of the Hero", shouldn't it?), except that you feel like the author isn't always stumbling over his vast knowledge, as with Campbell. This work is full of pellucid insights.

This book is an organized inventory of the various metaphors that have been used to describe the phenomena encountered in the mystic dissociative state. Dissociative psychoactives are mentioned in an integrated manner throughout the book. This is a revised edition of Opening to Inner Light: The Transformation of Human Nature and Consciousness. Benny Shanon's book Antipodes of the Mind is a good companion volume similarly explaining dissociative-state cognitive phenomenology as the origin of mythic metaphor.

I loved this book, and intend to re-read it. It is valuable for people first starting out on their transformative journey, but also contains enough information to interest those who've been on the path a while. The title of the introduction is "From Caterpillar to Butterfly," and that states the theme of the book--how we transform. The phases we move through during transformation follow a general sequence, although this is not a linear, predictable process. The author has arranged the chapters to reflect the general ordering of the stages of growth; thus one can see that there really is a pattern to what may seem at times random and pointless. This is helpful because the transformation process can be difficult, even scary at times--this book provides much wisdom and information for understanding and moving through both the good and the difficult times. It has an extensive bibliography and notes which provide good suggestions for further learning. This book is written from the perspective of transpersonal psychology and there is much in here about consciousness and how it develops. Although the author obviously has very high standards for scholarship and intellectual inquiry, the book is enjoyable and entertaining to read. I highly recommend it.