VARIOUS MEANINGS OF TRANSCENDENCE'
Abraham H. Maslow
Brandeis University
1. Transcendence in the sense of loss of self—conscious-
ness, of self-awarenessand of self-observingof the adolescent
depersonalization type. It is the same kind of self-forgetful-
ness which comes from getting absorbed. fascinated, con-
centrated. In this sense, meditation or concentration On
something outside one's own psyche can produce self-forget-
fulness and therefore loss of self-consciousnestsnd in this
particular sense of transcendence of the ego or of the con-
scious self.
2. Transcendence in the metapsychological sense of tran-
scending one's own skin and body and bloodstream, as in
identification with the Bvslues so that they become intrinsic
to the Self itself (See Maslow, 1967 for more detail).
3. Transcendence of time. For example, my experience of
being bored in an academic procession and feeling slightly
transcendence ridiculous in cap and gown, and suddenly slipping over into
Of Mme being a symbol under the aspect of eternity rather than just
a bored and irritated individual in the moment and in the
specific place. My vision or imagining was that the academic
procession stretched way, way out into the future, far, far
away, further than I could see, and it had Socrates at its head,
and the implication was,I suppose, that many of the people
far ahead had been there and in previous generations, and
that I was a successor and a follower of all the great aca-
demics and professors and intellectuals. Then the vision was
also of the procession stretching out behind me into a dim,
hazy infinity where there were people not yet born who
would join the academic procession, the procession of
scholars, of mtellectuals,of scientisttand philosophers. And
I thrilled at being in such a procession and felt the great
dignity of it, of my robes, and even of myself as a person
who belonged in this procession. That is,I became a symbol;
r Printed by arrangement with Beacon Press, Copyright @ 1969
BeaconPress.
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I stood for something outside my own skin. I was not exactly
an individual. I was also a "role" of the eternal teacher. I was
the Platonic essence of the teacher.
This kind of transcendence of time is also true in another
sense,namely that I can feel friendly,in a very personal and
affectionate way, with Spinoza,Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson,
William James, Whitehead, etc., as if they still lived. Which
is to say that in specific ways they do still live.
In still another sense, one can transcend time, namely in
the sense of working hard for not yet bom great—grand—
children or other successors.But this is in the sense in which
Allen Wheelis (1958), in his novel, The Seeker, had his
hero on the point of death thinking that the best thing he
could dOwould be to plant trees for future generations.
4. Transcendence of culture. In a very specific sense, the
self—actualizing man, or the transcendent self—actualizing
man, is the universal man. He is a member of the human
species. He is rooted in a particular culture but he rises
above that culture and can be said to be independent of it
in various ways and to look down upon it from a height,
perhaps like a tree which has its roots in the soil but whose
branches are spread out very high above and are unable to transcendence
look down upon the soil in which the roots are rooted. I gfcultuyg
have written about the resistance to enculturation of the self-
actualizing person. One can examine one's own culture in
which one is rooted in a detached and objective way of a
certain kind. This parallels the process in psychotherapy of
simultaneously experiencing and of self-observing one's own
experience in a kind of critical or editorial or detached
and removed way so that one can criticize it, approve or
disapprove of it and assume control, and, therefore, the pos-
sibility of changing it exists. One's attitude toward one's
culture, the parts of it which one has consciously accepted,
is quite different from the unthinking and blind, unaware,
unconscious total identification with one's culture in a non-
discriminating way.
5. Transcendence of one's past. Two attitudes toward
one's past are possible. One attitude may be said to be a
transcendent attitude. One can have a B-cognition of one's
own past. That is, one's own past can be embraced and ac-
cepted into one's present self This means full acceptance.
It means forgiving one's self because of understanding one's
self It means the transcendence of remorse, regret, guilt,
shame, embarrassment and the like.
This is different from viewing the past as something be-
fore which one was helpless, something that happened to
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one, situations in which one was only passive and completely
determined by outside determinants. In a certain sense this
is like taking responsibility for one’s past. It means "having
become an agent as wen as now being an agent."
6. Transcendence of ego, self, selfishness, ego-centering,
etc., when we respond to the demand-character of exeternal
transcendence tasks, causes, duties, responsibilities to others and to the
Of Self world of reality. When one is doing one’s duty, this also can
be seen to be under the aspect of eternity and can represent
a transcendence of the ego, of the lower needs of the self.
ACtually,of course, it is ultimately a form of metamotivation,
and identification with what "calls for" doing. This is a
sensitivity to extra-psychic requiredness, This in turn means
a kind of Taoistic attitude. The phrase "being in' harmony
with nature" implies this ability to yield, to be receptive to,
or respond to, to live with extra-psychic reality as if one
belonged with it, or were in harmony with it.
7. Transcendence as mystical experience, Mystic fusion,
either with another person or with the whole cosmos or
with anything in between, I mean here the mystical experi-
ence as classicallydescribed by the religious mystic.? in the
various religious literatures.
8. Transcendence of death, pain, sickness, evil, etc., when
one is at a level high enough to be reconciled with the
necessity of death, pain, etc. From a Godlike, or Olympian
point of view, Ell'Ihese are necessary, and can be understood
as necessary. If this attitude is achieved, as for instance it
can be in the Bcognition, then bitterness, rebelliousness,
anger, resentment may all disappear or at least be much
lessened.
9. (Overlaps with above.) Transcendence is to accept the
natural world, is to let it be itself in the Taoistic fashion, is
the transcendence of the lower needs of the self-that is, of
one’s selfishwithm—the—skin demands, of one’s egocentric
judgments upon extra-psychic things as being dangerous or
not dangerous, edible or not edible, useful or not useful, etc.
This is the ultimate meaning of the phrase "to perceive the
world objectively." This is one necessary aspect of Bcogni-
tion, B-cognition implies a transcendence of one’s ego, lower
needs, selfishness, etc.
10, Transcendence of the We-They polarity. Transcend-
ence of the Zero-Sum game as between persons, This
means to ascend up to the level of synergy (interpersonal
synergy, synergy of social institutions or of cultures. Maslow
& Gross, 1964).
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11. Transcendence of the basic needs (either by gratifying
them so that they disappear normally from consciousness,
or by being able to give up the gratifications and to conquer
the needs). This is another way of saying "to become pri-
marily metamotivatedf It implies identification with the
Bvalues.
12. Identification-love is a kind of transcendence, e.g., for
one's child, or for one's beloved friend. This means "un- identification
selfish." This means transcendence of the selfish Self. It
implies also a wider circle of identifications, i.e., with more
and more and more people approaching the limit of identi-
fication with all human beings. This can also be phrased as
the more and more inclusive Self The limit here is identifi-
cation with the human species. This can also be expressed
intrapsychically,phenomenologically, as experiencing one's
self to be one of the band of brothers, to belong to the
human species.
13. All examples of Angyal-typehomonomy, either high
or low (Angyal. 1941).
l4.Getting off the merry-go-round. Walking through the
abatoir without getting bloody. To be clean even in the
midst of filth. To transcend advertising means to be above
it, to be unaffected by it, to be untouched. In this sense one
can transcend all kinds of bondage, slavery, etc., in the same
way that Frankl, Bettelheim, et al could transcend even
the concentration camp situation. Use the example of The
New York Times front page picture in 1933of an old Jewish
man with a beard being paraded before the jeering crowd in
Berlin in a garbage truck. It was my impression that he had
compassion for the crowd and that he looked upon them
with pity and perhaps forgiveness,thinking of them as unfor-
tunate and sick and subhuman. Being independent of other
people's evil or ignorance or stupidity or immaturity even
when this is directed toward oneself, is possible, though very
difficult. And yet one can, in such a situation, gaze upon the
whole situation-including oneself in the midst of the situa-
tion-as if one were looking upon it objectively, detachedly
from a great and impersonal or suprapersonal height.
15 .Transcending the opinions of others, i.e., of reflected
appraisals. This means a self-determining Self. It means to
be able to be unpopular when this is the right thing to be, tmnscending
to become an autonomous, self-decidingSelf; to write one's the 0pini0n
own lines, to be one's own man, to be not manipulatable or gf Others
seduceable. These are the resisters (rather than the con-
formers) in the Aseh-type experiment. Resistance to being
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rubricized, to be able to be role-free,i.e., to transcend one's
role and to be a person rather than being the role. This
includes resisting suggestion, propaganda, social pressures,
being outvoted, etc.
l6.Transcending the Freudian superego and coming up
to the level of intrinsic conscience, and intrinsic guilt, de-
served and suitable remorse, regret, shame.
l7.Transcendence of one's own weakness and depend-
ency, 'to transcend being a child, to become one's own
mother and father to one's self, to become parental and not
only filial, to be able to be strong and responsible in
addition to being dependent, to transcend one's own weak-
ness, and to rise to being strong. Since we always have both
of these within us simultaneously, this is really a matter of
degree in large part. But after all, it can be said meaning-
fully, of some individuals, that they are primarily weak, and
that they primarilyrelate to all other human beings as the
weak relate to the strong, and that all mechanisms of
adaptation, coping mechanisms, defense mechanisms, are
the defenses of weakness against strength. lt's the same for
dependency and independence. lt's the same for irresponsi-
bility and responsibility. lt's the same for being the captain
of the ship, or the driver of the car on the one hand, and
of beng merely the passenger on the other hand.
l8.Transcending the present situation in the sense of
Kurt Goldstein (1939), "to relate to existence also in terms
of the possible as well as the actual." This, is, to rise above
being stimulus-bound and here-now situation-bound, and
actuality-bound. Goldstein's reduction to the concrete can be
transcended. Perhaps the best phrase here is to rise to the
realm Of the possible as well as of the actual.
l9.Transcendence of dichotomies (polarities, black and
tY3¤$€€¤d€¤€€ white oppositions, either-or, etc.). To rise from dichotomies
OfdiChOTOmi9$ to superordinate wholes. To transcend atomism in favor of
hierarchical-integration. To bind separates together into an
integration. The ultimate limit here is the holistic perceiv-
ing of the cosmos as a unity. This is the ultimate transcend-
ence, but any step along the way to this ultimate limit is
itself a transcendence. Any dichotomy may be used as an
example; for instance, selfish versus unselfish, or masculine
versus feminine, or parent versus child, teacher versus stu-
dent, etc. All these can be trancended so that the mutual
exclusiveness and oppositeness and Zero-Sum game quality
is transcended, in the sense of rising above to a higher view-
point where one can see that these mutually exclusive dif-
ferences in opposites can be coordinated into a unity which
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would bc morc rcalistic, morc truc, morc in accord with
actualrcality.
20. Transccndcncc of thc D-rcalm into thc Brcalm, (Of
coursc this ovcrlaps with cvcry othcr kind of transccndcncc.
As a mattcr of fact, thcy cach ovcrlap with cach othcr.)
21. Transccndcncc of onc's own will (in favor of thc spirit
of "not my will bc donc but Thinc"). To yicld to onc's
dcstiny or fatc and to fusc with it, to lovc it in thc Spinoza
scnsc or in thc Taoistic scnsc. To cmbracc, lovingly, onc's
own dcstiny. This is a rising abovc onc's own pcrsonal will,
bcing in chargc, taking control, needing control, ctc.
22. Thc word transccnd also mcans "surpass" in thc scnsc
simply of bcing ablc to do morc than onc thought onc could
do, or morc than onc had donc in thc past, c.g.,simply to bc
ablc to run fastcr than onc uscd to, or to bc a bcttcr danccr
or pianist, or a bcttcr carpcntcr, or whatcvcr.
23. Transccndcncc also mcans to bccomc divinc or god-
likc, to go bcyond thc mcrcly human. But onc must bc carc-
ful hcrc not to makc anything cxtra-human or supcrnatural
out of this kind of statcmcnt. I am thinking of using thc
word "mctahuman" or "B'human" in ordcr to strcss that
this bccoming vcry high or divinc or god-likc is part of
human naturc cvcn though it is not oftcn sccn in fact. It is
still a potcntiality of human naturc.
To risc abovc dichotomizcd nationalism, patriotism, or
cnthnoccntrism, in thc scnsc of 'thcm" against "us," or of
wc-thcy, or Ardrcy's (1966) cnmity-amity complcx. For ex-
amplc, Piagct's littlc Gcncvan boy would couldn't imaginc
bcing both Gcncvan and Swiss.Hc could think of bcing only luUmcmbcr of
cithcr Gcncvan or Swiss. It takcs morc dcvclopmcnt in ordcr human gpggigg
to ablc to bc morc inclusivc and supcrordinatc, morc intc-
grativc. My idcntification with nationalism, patriotism, {ar
with my culturc docs not ncccssarily mitigatc against my
idcntification and morc inclusivc and highcr patriotism with
thc human spccics or with thc Unitcd Nations. As a mattcr
of fact, such a supcrordinatc patriotism is, of coursc, not
only morc inclusivc,but thcrcforc morc hcalthy, marc fully-
human, than thc strict localism which is rcgardcd as
antagonistic or as cxcluding othcrs. That is, I can bc a good
Amcrican, and of coursc must bc an Amcrican (that's thc
culturc I grcw up in, which I can ncvcr shakc off and I
don't want to shakc off in favor of bcing a world citizcn).
Strcss that thc world citizcn who has no roots, who docsn't
bclong any placc, who is uttcrly and mcrcly cosmopolitan,
is not as good a world citizcn as onc who grcw up in thc
61

family, in a place, in a home with a particular language, in
a particular culture, and therefore has a sense of belonging-
ness on which to build toward higher need and metaneed
levels. To be a full member of the human species does not
mean repudiating the lower levels; it means rather including
them in the hierarchical integration, e.g., cultural pluralism,
enjoying the differences, enjoying different kinds of restau-
rants with different kinds of food, enjoyingtravel to other
countries, enjoying the ethnological study of other cultures,
etc.
24. Transcendence can mean to live in the realm of
realm Of Being, speaking the language of Being, Bcognizing, plateau-
being living. It can mean the serene B-cognition as well as the
climactic peak-experience kind of Bcognition. After the in-
sight or the great conversion, or the great mystic experience,
or the great illumination, or the great full awakening, one
can calm down as the novelty disappears, and as one gets
used to good things or even great things, live casually in
heaven and be on easy terms with the etemal and the in-
finite. To have got over being surprised and startled and
to live calmly and serenely among the platonic essences, or
among the Bvalues. The phrase to use here for contrast
with the climactic or emotionally poignant great insight and
B-cognition would be plateau-cognition. Peak experiences
must be transient, and in fact are transient so far as I
can make out. And yet an illumination or an insight re-
mains with the person. He can't really become naive or
innocent again or ignorant again in the same way that he
was. He cannot un-see. He can't become blind again. And
yet there must be a language to describe getting used to
the conversion or the illumination or to living in the
Garden of Eden. Such an awakened person normally pro-
ceeds in a unitive way or in a B-cognizing way as an every-
day kind of thing-certainly, whenever he wishes to. This
serene B-cognition or plateau-cognition can come under one's
own control. One can tum it off or on as one pleases.
The (transient) attainment of full-humanness or of final-
ity or being an end is an example of transcendence.
Taoistic 25.The attainment of Taoistic (B-level) objectivity in
(b€iUS‘l€V€l) the transcendence of non-involved, neutral, non-caring, spec-
objectivity tater-type objectivity (which itself transcends the purely
egocentric and immature lack of objectivity).
26. Transcending - the split between facts and values.
Fusion of facts and values in which they become one (see
paper on Fusions of Facts and Values, 1963).
62

27. A transcendence of negatives (which include evil,
pain, death, etc., but also include more than that) is seen
in the report from the peak-experiences in which the world
is accepted as good and one is reconciled to the evils that
one perceives. But this is also a transcendence of inhibitions,
of blocks, of denials, of refusals.
28.Transcendence of space. This can be in the very
simplest sense of getting so absorbed in something that one
forgets where one is. But it can also rise to the very highest
sense in which one is identified with' the whole human
Speciesand therefore in which one's brothers on the other
side of the earth are part of oneself] so that in a certain
sense one is on the other side of the earth as well as being
here in space. The same is true for the introjection of the
Bvalues since they are everywhere, and since they are de-
fining characteristics of the self, and one's self is every-
where too.
29.0verlapping with several of the above is the tran-
scendence of effort and of striving, of wishing and hoping,
of any vectorial or intentional characteristics. In the simplest
sense this is, of course, the sheer enjoyment of the state of
gratification, of hope fulfilled and attained, of being there
rather than of striving to get there, of having arrived rather
than of traveling toward. This is also in the sense of "being
fortuitous" or of Mrs. Garrett's use of the phrase, "high
carelessness." It is the Taoistic feeling of letting things hap-
pen rather than of making them happen, and of being per-
fectly happy and accepting of this state of non-striving,
non-wishing, non-interfering, non-controlling, non-willing.
This is the transcendence of ambition, of efficiencies. This
is the state of having rather than of not having. Then of
course one lacks nothing. This means it is possible to go
over to the state of happiness, of contentment, of being
satisfied with what iS.Pure appreciation. Pure gratitude. The
state and the feeling of good fortune, good luck, the feeling
of grace, of gratuitous grace.
Being in an end-state means the transcendence of means
in various senses. But this has to be very carefully spelled
out.
3D.Specially noteworthy for research purposes as well as
therapy purposes is to pick out of the special kinds of tran-
scendence, the transcendence of fear into the state of not-
fearing or of courage (these are not quite the same thing).
31. Also useful would be Bucke's (1901) use of cosmic
consciousness. This is a special phenomenological state in
63

which the person somehow perceives the whole cosmos or
at least the unity and integration of it and of everything in
it, including his Self. He then feels as if he belongs by right
in the cosmos. He becomes One of the family rather than
an orphan. He comes inside rather than being outside look-
ing in. He feels simultaneously small because of the vastness
ofthe universe, but also an important being because he is
there in it by absolute right. He is part of the universe
rather than a stranger to it or an intruder in it. The sense of
helongingness can be very strongly reported here, as con-
trasting with the sense of ostracism, isolation, aloneness, of
rejection, of not having any roots, of belonging no place in
particular. After such a perception, apparently one can feel
permanently this sense of belonging, of having a place, of
being there by right, etc. (I have used this cosmic conscious-
ness type of B-cognition in the peak-experience to contrast
with another type, namely, that which comes from narrow,
ing down consciousness and zeroing in in an intense and
total absorption and fascination with one person or one
thing or one happening which somehow then stands for the
whole world, the whole cosmos. I have called this the
narrowing-down kind of peak experience and B-cognition.
32.Perhaps a special and separate statement ought to be
made of transcendence in the particular meaning of intro-
jection of and identification with BvalueS,with the state of
being primarily motivated by them thereafter.
33. One can even transcend individual differences in a
very specific sense. The highest attitude toward individual
differences is to be aware of them, to accept them, but also
to enjoy them and finallyto be profoundly grateful for them
as a beautiful instance of the ingenuity of the cosmos-the
recognition of their value, and wonder at individual differ-
ultimate ences. This is certainly a higher attitude and I suppose there-
humanness fore a kind of transcendence. But also, and quite different
from this ultimate gratitude for individual differences, is the
other attitude of rising above them in the recognition of the
essential commonness and mutual belongingness and identi-
fication with all kinds of people in ultimate humanness or
species-hood, in the sense that everyone is one's brother or
sister, then individual differences and even the differences
between the sexes have been transcended in a very particular
way. That is, at different times one can be very aware of the
differences between individuals; but at another time one can
wave aside these individual differences as relatively unim-
portant for the moment by contrast with the universal
humanness and Similczritiebetween human beings.
64

34.A particular kind of transcendence useful for certain
theoretical purposes is the transcendence of human limits,
imperfections, shortcomings, and finiteness. This comes
either in the acute end experiences of perfection or in the
plateau experiences of perfection, in which one can be an
end, a god, a perfection, an essence, a Being (rather than a
Becoming), sacred, divine. This can bG phrased as a tran-
scendence of ordinary, everyday humanness in favor of extra-
ordinary humanness or metahumanness or some such phras-
ing. This can be an actual phenomenological state; it can
be a kind of cognizing; it can also be a conceived limit of
philosophy or ideal-for instance, the platonic essences or
ideas. In such acute moments, or to some extent in plateau
cognition, one becomes perfect, or can see oneself as perfect, metahumanness
e.g., in that moment I can love all and accept all, forgive
all, be reconciled even to the evil that hurts me. I can under-
stand and enjoy the way things are. And I can then even
feel some subjective equivalent of what has been attributed
to the gods only, i.e., omniscience, omnipotence, ubiquity
(i.e., in a certain sense one can become in such moments a
god, a sage, a saint, a mystic). Perhaps the best word in
order to stress that this is part of human nature even though'
at its best, is the word metahumanness.
35. Transcendence of one's own credo, or system of values,
or system of beliefs. This is worth discussing separately be-
cause of the special situation in psychology in which the
first force, the second force and the third force have been
seen as mutually exclusive by many. Of course this is errone-
ous. Humanistic psychology is more inclusive rather than
exclusive. It is epi-Freudian and epi-pcsitivistic science.
These two points of view are not so much wrong or in-
correct as they are limited and partial. Their essence fits
very nicely into a larger and inclusive structure. Of course
integrating them into this larger and more inclusive structure
certainly changes them in some ways, corrects them, points
to certain mistakes, but yet includes. their most essential,
though partial, characteristics. There can be the enmity.
amity complex among intellectuals, in which loyalty to Freud
or to Clark Hull, or for that matter to Oalileo or Einstein
or Darwin, can be a kind of local excluding-others type of
patriotism in which one forms a dub or fraternity as much
to keep other people out as to include some in. This. is a
special case of inclusiveness or heirarchical integration or
holism, but it is useful to make a special point of it for
psychologists, as well as for philosophers, scientists, and other
intellectual areas where there is a tendency to divide into
so-called "schools of thought." This is to say that one can
65

take either the dichotomous or the integrative attitude
toward a school of thought.
A coNDENsED srArEMENr
Transcendence refers to the very highest and most in-
clusive or holistic levels of human consciousness,behaving
and relating, as ends rather than as means, to oneself, to
significant others, to human beings in general, to other
species,to nature, and to the cosmos. (Holism in the sense
of hierarchical integration is assumed; so also is cognitive
and value isomorphism.)
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ARDREYI;. Territorial imperatives. New York: Atheneum
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BUCKE, R. Cosmic eohseioushesdslew York: Dutton, 1921
Cm.DsTElNK., The orgahism.New York: American Book
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MAsLow, A. H. Resistance to acculturation. J. Soc. Issues,
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MAsLow, A. H. Fusions of facts and V&lU€S.AH1€Y,J.PSycllO-
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MAsLow, A. H., & Gnoss, L. Synergyin society and in the
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wHEEL1s, A. The seel