Abstract

The concept of transliminality had its origin as the adjective "trans-liminal" and in related terms in the late 19th and early 20th centuries with the work of William James, F. W. H. Myers, and F. Usher and F. Burt. It later received elaboration at the hands of Harold Rugg and Donald MacKinnon. The author, in the early 1990s, gave the concept the name "transliminality," that is, the tendency for psychological material to cross thresholds into or out of consciousness from the subliminal, the supraliminal, and the outside world. Many correlates of this variable have been discovered by the author and his colleagues, especially belief in and experience of the paranormal and the anomalous, as well as psi itself. Transliminality also correlates with psychopathology, and it is hypothesized that high transliminality can lead to psychosis, although "happy high transliminals" do seem to exist. The purpose of this review article has been to describe the concept of transliminality, its origins and antecedents, the evolving ideas about its nature and constituents, its measurement by questionnaire, and the uses to which it has been (and can be) put, as well as the handful of criticisms to which it has thus far been subjected.