Michael Thalbourne’s Australian Studies of Transliminality

Record summary

Michael Thalbourne developed and applied the concept of transliminality, describing a proposed tendency for psychological material to cross thresholds into consciousness. His Australian studies linked this construct with mystical experience, creativity, absorption, hypomanic traits, and paranormal belief. The lead matters because it offers a psychological bridge between unusual experiences and psi interpretations without presuming that the experiences are paranormal. Researchers should retrieve the individual papers and instruments, since the construct’s definitions, samples, and factor relationships changed across publications and remain debated.