Nigel S D'Sa

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professor, filmmaker, screenwriter
Phone: +66 6 2982 9067
Address: Mayfair Place. 48/209 Soi Sukhumvit 64,
Bang Chak, Phra Khanong, Bangkok
10260

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Andrei Rublev: Religious Epiphany in Art

Andrei Rublev (1966) was Andrei Tarkovsky's second feature film. It was banned for five years... more Andrei Rublev (1966) was Andrei Tarkovsky's second feature film. It was banned for five years in his own country but won the International Critics Prize at Cannes in 1969. Other films by the director include Solaris (1972), Mirror (1975), Stalker (1979), Nostalgia (1982) and Sacrifice (1986). The Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky (1932-1986) was especially interested in the relationship between art and religious experience. This concern is exemplified in his 1966 feature Andrei Rublev, still considered by many today as one of the greatest achievements in the history of film. It was Tarkovsky's belief that art should have a metaphysical function, urging the observer to strive with "the crucial questions of his existence", and, at its most sublime, to be expressive of the Transcendent and induce in the beholder what can be called a Religious Epiphany. Here this term denotes the core religious experience common to all spiritual efforts: an apprehension of the absolut...

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Trajectory of the Mind - Transpersonal Psychology in Context

This paper charts the development of transpersonal psychology as it grew out of and in relation t... more This paper charts the development of transpersonal psychology as it grew out of and in relation to the main branches of psychology. It contextualizes the need for a psychology that addressed aspects of lived experience often neglected by the materialist scientific paradigm yet coming to the fore in the countercultures of the 1960s. An overview of the historical precursors provides interdisciplinary perspectives on the transpersonal school. After defining and placing the transpersonal school within the postmodern turn against mono-logical orders, we consider the theories of Stanislav Grof and his LSD-therapy work with terminally ill patients. The significance of transpersonal psychology as a truly integrative system of thought is discussed. It brings mythology, anthropology, psychology and the sciences together in order to rediscover the universe as a multidimensional experience that unfolds as we unfold. We conclude with the missing dimension in the transpersonal: social engagement.

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Self-Actualization and its Philosophical Underpinnings

This paper examines the use and origins of the concept of self-actualization as it came to be emp... more This paper examines the use and origins of the concept of self-actualization as it came to be employed in psychotherapy. The term is most often associated with the theory and work of Abraham Maslow. An interdisciplinary approach is employed to contextualize the history and origins of self-actualization theory, with a primary emphasis on philosophy and psychotherapy, along with broader references to historical and literary contributions to the development of self-actualization. Aristotle coined the Greek work entelechy to explain an intrinsic force that drives the organism to realize its full potential. This concept has been taken up and developed further both in myth, literature and from the Enlightenment era onwards by philosophers such as Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Heidegger. Carl Rogers and Maslow further developed self-actualization within the burgeoning field of psychotherapy in the 1950s.

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AMBIGUOUS INTRUSIONS: THE UFO / ALIEN ENCOUNTER PHENOMENON

Despite a growing body of scholarly and scientific literature, the topic of UFOs (Unidentified Fl... more Despite a growing body of scholarly and scientific literature, the topic of UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects) – and the related question of alien encounters – still elicits profound scepticism, dismissal, and ridicule within the academic community and the sciences. This reaction is indicative of a ‘UFO taboo’ – a concerted effort to marginalize and suppress recognition of the UFO. The UFO taboo operates in society as an ‘epistemology of ignorance’ that relegates the subject to the realm of science fiction, tabloid journalism, fringe theories and collective cultural fantasy. A literature review of the leading scholarly work on the subject will serve both to contextualize the history of the UFO problem, and counter the inviolability of the taboo. This paper will outline some disciplinary perspectives beginning with an examination of the political theory behind the taboo. The school of Transpersonal Psychology, the pioneering work of John E. Mack, and a parallel approach in Anthropology will help us conceptualize the most controversial aspect of the phenomenon: the alien abduction experience. The paper concludes with a summary of the major explanatory hypotheses for UFOs and abductions, and points to the need for an international interdisciplinary research project. This paper makes no attempt to solve the UFO problem. But by asking what the UFO – through its insistent presence and our strange apathy towards its presence – can tell us about our world, our systems of knowledge, and our systems of rule, the paper argues for the importance of the phenomenon and the onus that is placed on science and the academy to legitimate its study and contribute to our understanding of it.

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Andrei Rublev: Religious Epiphany in Art

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Trajectory of the Mind - Transpersonal Psychology in Context

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Self-Actualization and its Philosophical Underpinnings

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AMBIGUOUS INTRUSIONS: THE UFO / ALIEN ENCOUNTER PHENOMENON

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Nigel S D'Sa

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