It is the beginning attempt of science to understand these most meaningful of human experiences. Transpersonal psychology recognizes and studies the different states and stations of consciousness. Further, transpersonal psychology recognizes that not only are there different states of consciousness that one may move into and out of during the course of a day but that there are also stages or stations of consciousness that, through development, one can come to live in relatively permanently. Rather than being a recent innovation, transpersonal psychology is largely a return to the perennial philosophy identified by Aldous Huxley. Mystical experience and shamanistic healing practices, which have been central concerns of humankind for millenia, are also a focus of transpersonal psychology.
Transpersonal psychology is depth psychology.
It is part of the therapeutic stream started by Freud and his successors, Jung, Rank, and Reich. Roberto Assagioli, who posited a superconscious, as well as a subconscious, integrated transpersonal and depth psychology, as did Carl Jung. The simplest definition is that transpersonal psychology is spiritual psychology. It recognizes that humanity has both drives toward sex and aggression and drives toward wholeness, toward connecting with and experiencing the divine.