Thesis (Ph.D.)--Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, 2011
This research used intuitive inquiry to explore the peak experiences, plateau experiences, and consequent transpersonal growth of 9 classically trained singers including the researcher, and 1 advanced practitioner of sacred chant. Participants were exemplars (singers who had had transpersonal experiences through singing). They included 6 adult women and 4 adult men; of whom 6 were professional singers and 4 were well-trained amateurs; 2 were South African, 3 were Dutch, and 5 were U.S. citizens. Participants described rich narratives of transpersonal experiences that they had had while singing, psychological blocks that they confronted through their singing, and consequent transpersonal growth that was catalysed. The researcher's personal journey through singing was reported through narrative, embodied writing, and the researcher's visual art. It was found that singing did indeed catalyse peak spiritual experiences as well as transpersonal growth, and that there were multiple participating loci (mind, body, soul, Spirit, others, and place) in singers' peak experiences and their developmental trajectories (called events of spiritual knowing and growing when interpreted though a participatory lens). It showed that freedom from psychological defence and alignment of the physical body through a reflexively coordinated vocal tract correlates with spiritual openness and may lead to transpersonal development. This transpersonal development in singers was found to follow established maps of transpersonal development, and was interpreted using and extending Transpersonal Psychology's participatory paradigm. The narratives in turn provided evidence for the on-going participatory revisioning of transpersonal theory
