Carl Jung

Jung laid the foundations of Transpersonal Theory. Works too numerous to cite. A vast, sprawling body of ideas.

Erich Neumann

Continued Jung's work, adding substantially, modifying and clarifying. Went much further into the origin and evolution of mental-egoic consciousness, and the depiction of this in the Great Mother/Hero myths. Alluded to symmetries between social and psychological structures, contemporary mythic systems and artistic and other cultural expressions.

• The Origins and History of Consciousness (1954)
  My notes on "Origins"
  
  
• The Great Mother (1955, 1963)

Stanislav Grof

Builds on the work of Jung and others, particularly Otto Rank, whose Birth Trauma theory Grof adopts and extends. His decades of clinical and experimental work with LSD psychotherapy support and inform his original contributions. His work is not as clear or precise as that of Neumann or Washburn, but extensive and highly creative. Two of his most valuable ideas are COEX systems, or systems of condensed experience (related to Jung's Autonomous Complexes) and Basic Perinatal Matrices, which describe the birth experience in four different phases (BPM I to BPM IV) and relate these phases to the emergence of consciousness as depicted in the Hero myths, and to different psychopathologies and existential stances.

• Beyond the Brain: Birth, Death and Transcendence in Psychotherapy (1985)
• Realms of the Human Unconscious: Observations from LSD Research (1975)

Ken Wilber

A major figure in Transpersonal Theory. A bit too much of a Hindu Theologian for my taste.

• Up from Eden: A Transpersonal View of Human Evolution (1981, 1996)

Integrated the work of Jung, Neumann and Grof with extensive noteworthy material from diverse fields of investigation. Developed a concise model which accommodates and extends the prior work. Continued the development of a multidimensional view of psychosocial structures and motifs as elaborations of underlying fundamental properties of consciousness. His explication of the structure and development of consciousness is the clearest and most concise that I am aware of, and fits best with my own experimental data. The best roadmap available for those who choose to stray from the herd. A good starting-point is his research interests. He has also sketched a table of contents of his current project, Embodied Spirituality in a Sacred World.

• The Ego and the Dynamic Ground: A Transpersonal Theory of Human Development (1988, 1995)
• Transpersonal Psychology in Psychoanalytic Perspective (1994)

  In Progress:

• Embodied Spirituality in a Sacred World (working title)

Anne Baring and Jules Cashford

• The Myth of The Goddess: Evolution of an Image(1991)

Somewhat similar to Neumann's Great Mother in general area of research. Neumann focuses more on the non-Judeo-Christian sources; Baring and Cashford start with a survey of this which only partially overlap's Neumann's, but the core of their work is an analysis of the sad fate of the Goddess under Patriarchal Monotheism (i.e. Judeo-Christian-Islamist religions), and the persistent reemergence of this archetype despite sustained severe repression.

Julian Jaynes

His central thesis in "Origin" is that modern self-aware consciousness is a quite recent phenomenon, arising in Mesopotamia towards the end of the Second Millennium BC and later elsewhere. Essential reading regardless of one's interest in this thesis: his source material is a great intellectual journey in itself, comparable to Jung and Neumann. His prose is simply beautiful, and frequently forgets itself and takes wing into the poetic, much to our delight. Works with the same mythological, anthropological and historical material as Neumann, but lets it tell a different but equally riveting story. Makes extensive use of neuropsychology, particularly the split-brain work.

• The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind (1976)

Barbara and Dennis Tedlock

The Tedlocks are both initiated Quiche Mayan Daykeepers. Their writing is sensuous and powerful.

• Popol Vuh: The Mayan Book of the Dawn of Life (1985)
• Breath on the Mirror: Mythic Voices and Visions of the Living Maya (1993)

Ani Difranco

We are made to bleed
and scab
and heal
and bleed again
and turn every scar into a joke.

We are made to fight
and fuck
and talk
and fight again
and sit around and laugh until we choke
sit around and laugh until we choke.

• Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Chaos, M. Mitchell Waldrop (1992)
  The Santa Fe Institute
• Artificial Life: The Quest for a New Creation, Steven Levy (1992)
  The Artificial Life Group at The Santa Fe Institute
• Superstrings F. David Peat(1988)
  SuperString theory and Twistors.
• Anything by Roger Penrose
  Quantum Mechanics, Twistors, Q nature of consciousness.
• Hyperspace Michio Kaku(1990)
  Superstring theory, and hyperdimensional approaches in general. Riemann, Kaluza-Klein theory, etc.
• The Elegant Universe Brian Greene(1999)
  Superstring theory, M theory and so forth.
• Mathematical Mysteries Calvin C. Clawson(1996)