Fasting Research




Transpersonal Psychology and Fasting
By Randi Fredricks

Just as with other time-honored spiritual practices, fasting addresses many of the principal concerns of transpersonal psychology. The primary way it accomplishes this is by initiating transformative change through peak experiences. Roger Walsh and Frances Vaughan (1993) outlined the significance of these events in the development of transpersonal psychology:

One discovery in particular was to have an
enormous impact and eventually give birth
to transpersonal psychology. Exceptionally
psychologically healthy people tend to have
"peak experiences": brief but extremely
intense, blissful, meaningful, and beneficial experiences of expanded
identity and union with the universe. Similar experiences have been
recognized across history and have been called mystical, spiritual,
and unitive experience, or in the East, samadhi and satori. (p. 3)

Walsh and Vaughan held that transpersonal psychology developed in part to explore the characteristics of such experiences (p. 3). In a public lecture in 1962, Abraham H. Maslow (1962) described the features of peak experiences: These moments were of pure, positive happiness, when all doubts, all fears, all inhibitions, all tensions, all weaknesses, were left behind. Now self consciousness was lost. All separateness and distance from the world disappeared as they felt one with the world, fused with it, really belonging to it, instead of being outside, looking in. (p. 9)

As a spiritual practice, fasting provides the opportunity for releasing earthly ties, joining with the sacred, and creating feelings of deep connectedness. In a lecture titled Exceptional Human Experiences (EHEs): Their Relevance to Transpersonal Psychology, William Braud (2009) said:

The experiences serve as reminders of Something More, of our
interconnectedness with others and with all nature, and
sometimes they serve as confirmations or affirmations of
decisions made and paths taken. (p. 2)

One of the chief aims of transpersonal psychology is to examine the characteristics of this type of exceptional human experience. Rosemarie Anderson explained the scope of this inquiry as follows:

Whenever possible, transpersonal psychology seeks to delve deeply
into the most profound aspects of human experience, such as
mystical and unitive experiences, personal transformation,
meditative awareness, experiences of wonder and ecstasy, and
alternative and expansive states of consciousness. (Anderson,
1998, p. xxi)

As a spiritual custom, fasting addresses all of these occurrences, many of which have been classified under the umbrella of exceptional human experiences (EHEs). Fasting is often done in religio-spiritual practice as a means to gain access to other rituals or experiences, many of which involve multiple EHEs. In 1994, Rhea White created a system of classifying EHEs, the majority of which have been found to occur during periods of fasting.

Within White’s classifications are five specific categories of EHEs; mystical, psychic, encounter-type, death related, and exceptional normal.

Under the first category, “mystical experiences,” the majority of EHEs listed have been associated with fasting, including conversion, peak experiences, numinous dreams, revelations, species consciousness, stigmata, transcendental odors, transformational experiences, and wilderness experiences.

Under the category of “psychic experiences” the most common experiences related to fasting are intuition, out-of-body experience, precognition, sense of presence, shared EHEs, synchronicity, unorthodox healing, and xenoglossy (speaking in tongues).

The next category, “encounter-type experiences,” accounts for many of the experiences of the fasting Catholic saints and Native Americans. These EHEs include apparitions and encounters with angels, divine figures, and other species.

All of the occurrences under White’s category of “death-related experiences” can potentially be attributed to fasting experiences due to the fact that in some religions (most notably Jainism) adherents intentionally fast to death. These types of death-related experiences include events such as life review, past-life recall, and near-death and deathbed experiences. The last of White’s categories of EHEs are termed “exceptional normal experiences,” most of which can be readily experienced while fasting. These EHEs include aesthetic experiences, “aha” experiences, déjà vu, dreams, empathy, exceptional human performances, experience of the new, hypnagogic/hypnopompic experiences, inner movement, inspiration, lucid dreaming, nostalgia, microscopic vision, and performing/witnessing noble acts.

Many of the EHEs described by White have been reported in association with fasting. The following represents some of these examples.

Individuals often experience a number of EHEs simultaneously during an ongoing experience. When Stephen Larsen discussed the healing power of fasting dreams, he indicated how the ancient Greeks would fast for three days before being healed in a dream by an apparition of God (Larsen, 2001). This set of EHEs represent—at minimum—numinous dreams and divine encounters. Visions and communication with divinity have long been a goal of fasting participants.

Donald Rothberg (2000) discussed the occurrence of visions, revelations, and divine encounters while fasting, explaining how ascetic practices bring about these experiences:

A number of different practices may induce the desired vision or
dream . . . Other means used include fasting and other ascetic
practices, community rituals, and the use of psychedelics.
Typically, these practices make possible a dream or vision in
which there are revelations from spirits, either from one’s own
guardian spirit or from other spirits. (p. 173)

Throughout history, visionaries have fasted in order to obtain mystical revelations. Huston Smith observed that visionary experiences have historically been brought on by fasting, mentioning both Buddha and Christ’s experiences (Smith & Cousineau, 2005). In shamanism, visions are an anticipated result of spiritual disciplines:

So practices such as solitude and fasting enhance access to the inner world and its images, visions, dreams, and spirits. The range of these inner experiences is vast, but commonalities emerge across cultures. For the successful candidate these practices climax in certain experiences which indicate that a degree of shamanic mastery has been attained. (Walsh, 2004, p. 67)

Exceptional human experiences were of concern to psychologist and philosopher William James (2007). His investigation into consciousness, psychic phenomena, healing, and spiritual experiences has been an ongoing study in the field of transpersonal psychology. Robert Frager and James Fadiman (2005) noted that James was one of the first authors to publish a “fully developed theory of consciousness,” before Joseph Breuer and Sigmund Freud (p. 201). Frager and Fadiman discussed the relationship between EHEs and activities like fasting:

Altered states of consciousness can be triggered by hypnosis,
meditation, psychedelic drugs, deep prayer, sensory deprivation,
and the onset of acute psychosis. Sleep deprivation or fasting
can induce them. (p. 201)

Firman and Vargiu (1996) remarked that fasting was a method of helping an individual move toward self-realization and “reach for superconscious energies and to facilitate their flow of expression” (p. 135). In this respect, a period of fasting can trigger exceptional human performances, paranormal abilities, and altered states of consciousnesses.

Prolonged periods of fasting—particular in conjunction with other ascetic methods—have a long history of use as a means of creating altered states of consciousness. Roger Walsh and Frances Vaughan (1993) explained the transpersonal aspect of this experience as follows:

Transpersonal experiences occur in altered states of consciousness,
and the study of both has made clear just how dramatically we have
underestimated the plasticity of human consciousness and its range
of potential states . . . The range of techniques for inducing
these states is vast and includes both ancient and modern methods.
Some time-honored methods are physiological strategies such as
fasting, sleep deprivation, and exposure to heat and cold; others
are psychological methods such as solitude, chanting, drumming,
dance, meditation, and yoga. (p. 9)

Vaughan (2005) later expanded her perspective on the manner in which a spiritual practice can affect consciousness:

When the ego that is subject to physical laws dissolves into an
identification with soul, it enters the timeless imaginal realms
that are perceived as other worlds or alternative realities. These
may be accessed by a variety of conscious-altering techniques such
as meditation, shamanic journeys, holotropic breathing, fasting,
solitude and contemplation. (p. 106)

Fasting provides a variety of transpersonal experiences, including supernatural, anomalous, and paranormal events (Berenbaum, Kerns, & Raghavan, 2000). As a mystical experience, fasting has been used a means of spiritual training, resulting in the occurrences of exceptional phenomena, inner voices, and abnormal bodily changes (Wulff, 2000).

When fasting is integrated into a personal belief system, it has been shown to have substantial health benefits with reports of healing across a variety of cultures (Cott, 1974; Kanazawaa, Hongob, & Fukudo, 2006; Krippner & Achterberg, 2000; Muhlestein et al., 2003). Fasting empties the body and clears the mind, sharpening intuition and other transpersonal ways of knowing. As William Blake (1996) said, “If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite” (p. 154). Transpersonal theoreticians claim that a psychic cleansing occurs while fasting through a process of purification (Grof & Grof, 1989; Sperry, 2001). In this way, fasting becomes an effective method for integrating lower unconsciousness and higher consciousness through somatic experience, all primary concerns of transpersonal psychology.

References
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Randi Fredricks is a Naturopathic Psychotherapist with a Doctorate in Naturopathy and a Masters in Psychology. She sees clients at her office in San Jose, California. She can be reached at 800-957-5655 or you can contact her online. This article is an excerpt from Randi Fredricks' book Fasting: An Exceptional Human Experience. Copyright © 2009. All rights reserved. No part of this article may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems.










When the ego that is subject to physical laws dissolves into an identification with soul, it enters the timeless imaginal realms ... These may be accessed by a variety of conscious-altering techniques such as meditation, shamanic journeys, holotropic breathing, fasting, solitude and contemplation.
~ Frances Vaughan










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