As it was designed for my study, my Greek-inspired contemplative method was a three-pronged technique. It involved (1) weekly philosophical readings, (2) guided, weekly transrational contemplative meditations based on that week's readings, and (3) fortyminute dialectical discussion groups led by me as facilitator.
This book's chapters on Pythagoras, Plato, and Parmenides are distilled from the weekly philosophical readings my participants had to do for my study, so those chapters can serve as the readings for anyone pursuing my method on their own. The twelve guided mediations (the exercises) throughout the book closely mirror the contemplative meditations that were done in the study. These meditations could be done over several days or weeks, or they can be done periodically as the reader feels necessary.
As the contemplations on the nature of reality progress, the movement of the meditations continues to expand outward from the rational (meditations on mathematics and the cosmos) to the transrational (logic paradoxes and quantum effects). This progression starts with Pythagoras and Plato and concludes with the most mystical session, a recreation of the incubation—“death before dying.”
This final incubation session can last anywhere from ninety minutes to several hours. For it, you can use a dark and quiet room or, if you want to go old school, an actual, honest-to-good-ness cave. For those who have the means and the access, a sensory-deprivation tank is highly suggested. But again, if you can't find a cave or get your hands on a sense-dep tank, then a dark and quiet room will do the trick.
As part of the incubation, you are asked to first read a certain passage from the ancients regarding the nature of being. (That passage is included in the instructions for exercise 12.) During the incubation, you are to contemplate the very nature of existence and “beingness,” as well as being the nature of non-being, or what some might call death.
When my study participants and I performed the incubation sessions, we experienced an almost surreal sense of consciousness expansion. Powerful imagery, unusual insights, a sense of equanimity— all of these things were reported during these sessions. It was pretty heavy-duty stuff.
I also strongly encourage readers who undergo the incubation process to write down their thoughts and experiences immediately afterward. These records are extremely helpful to further the process and integrate this profound experience.
Overall, my research subjects indicated that they experienced a real benefit in immersing themselves in the Greek miracle. They indicated that they had more of a sense of purpose in their lives, felt more connected, experienced an increased sense of concern for others, and felt an increased sense of spirituality, as well as a greater concern with social or planetary values. These effects were measured both qualitatively and quantitatively via standardized assessment tools.
I have included here the abstract from my study; it describes the methods I used, the participants, and the quite successful results that we were able to achieve. In fact, because of those results, I was asked to present my research findings at the 2007 American Psychological Association (APA) annual conference in San Francisco.
My Dissertation Abstract
Beyond Reason: Transrational Contemplation and Greek Mystical Philosophy
By Nicholas Kardaras
The researcher hypothesized that participants engaged in a method informed by Greek mystical philosophy could experience measurable increases in their levels of personal or transpersonal awareness. Thematic Content Analysis, Narrative Analysis, and statistically significant t-tests all confirmed the hypothesis that the Methodos Philosophia could increase levels of awareness.
Participants described meaningfully increased levels of personal as well as transpersonal levels of awareness, and the Greyson/Ring Life Changes Inventory-Revised (LCI-R) yielded statistically significant increases in values associated with an appreciation for life as well as death, a quest for meaning or a sense of purpose, concern for others, spirituality, self-acceptance, and a concern with social or planetary values.
Metaphysical ancient Greek philosophers had emphasized an almost-forgotten integral practice of deep transrational contemplation by which they used the rational, reasoning mind as a key to unlock the noetic awareness of the higher Mind. These mystical philosophers ranged their contemplations along a broad spectrum of subjects such as cosmology, mathematics, philosophy, and music.
Ancient Greek philosophers such as Pythagoras, Plato, and Plotinus believed that such contemplative meditations could have profound consciousness-expanding effects wherein the individual could have a deeper, more direct awareness of personal and cosmological reality.
For this study, the researcher developed a modern contemplative method, the Methodos Philosophia, which was an interpretive revisioning of Greek philosophical mystical contemplation. This 3-step method involved participants doing weekly readings, engaging in weekly dialectically active group discussions wherein the assigned readings were discussed, and then sitting for a guided contemplative meditation.
Twelve persons (six males and six females), ranging in age from twenty-three to sixty-seven and of varying spiritual and transpersonal temperaments, participated over an eight-week period in a mixed-methods study that examined the experience as well as the accompaniments and outcomes of the practice of this contemplative method.
The researcher collected four types of data: weekly qualitative questionnaires, post study semi-structured interviews, phenomenologically informed weekly interviews, and a post only standardized assessment of life changes (LCI-R).