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ABSTRACT: In the nineteen months between heart attacks, one near fatal and the other fatal, Abraham Maslow-one of the most influential psychologists of modern times-experienced a significant paradigm shift. During this period he began describing a state of transpersonal consciousness resembling but distinct from his earlier concept of peak experiences, calling it the plateau experience. Despite his enthusiasm, intention to elaborate, and prominence in the field of psychology, after his death this emergent theory largely fizzled into obscurity. Almost fifty years on, this article is an attempt to dust off and look again with fresh eyes at a theory of potentially significant value to the field of transpersonal psychology and beyond in an increasingly troubled world. A review of the relevant literature preceding, bequeathed by, and succeeding Maslow is explored, highlighting the potential this theory holds now and into the future.
On June 8, 1970, at age sixty-two and in the midst of a distinguished career, Abraham Maslow silently collapsed and died from a heart attack. Approximately nineteen months earlier, he had experienced a near-fatal heart attack. This period between heart attacks was marked by a significant shift in his values and awareness-a distinctive experience of transcendence-which he came to call the plateau experience (Krippner, 1972), a name implying a retreat from the peak states or experiences (Heitzman, 2003) for which he had become so well known. In facing death, his attitude towards life changed, prompting a revision and expansion of his earlier thought on self-actualization and selftranscendence, and the relationship between them. Prior to his plateau experience, Maslow had stated, ''The greatest attainment of identity, autonomy, or self-hood is itself, a going beyond and above selfhood'' (Maslow, 1961, p.105). His plateau experience appears to have provided a deeper embodied understanding of this ultimate existential paradox that he spent the final months of his life seeking to philosophically apprehend (Cleary, 1996). Although his quest remained unfinished at the time of his death (Cleary & Shapiro, 1995), such open-endedness would have likely suited Maslow for, according to his biographer, ''he regarded himself as a psychological pioneer, broadly exploring new territories of human experience that later investigators would map in detail'' (Hoffman, 2008a, p. 442).
Almost fifty years on his ideas and ideals have not...