Introduction	Psychologists and other social and human scientists are (or should be) interested in a full range of human experience and action. This full range ought to include an interest in questions about optimal mental health, peak experiences, deep psychological values, spirit, and what Abraham Maslow called the "farther reaches" of healthy human experiences. Furthermore, this interest ought to include research as well as theory and practice. Good scientific research on these hard-to-define values and experiences ought to and can be done. The purpose of this chapter is to review several aspects of a scientific approach which is appropriate to the study of these questions. The value and characteristics of science are reviewed, along with several calls for a more expansive approach to science. Two approaches to science, natural science and human science, are described, showing that while these two approaches differ in some important assumptions about the study of human behavior and experience, they share common goals and values. The discussion of human science leads to an overview of arguments for a methodological pluralism. The question of scientific adequacy is considered because it is central to evaluating any approach to science. Finally, three examples of research are given to illustrate the value of such an integration of methods. The conclusion of this chapter is that a methodological pluralism offers behavioral and social scientists, clinicians, and policy-makers the means to a more thorough accounting of the full range of human experience and behavior.
Challenges for Science and Spiritual Discplines	The view that spirituality and similar issues can be scientifically researched may present challenges to both scientists and those in the spiritual disciplines. Conventional science has ruled most aspects of the human spirit out of bounds. Good science, in this view, requires that the phenomena we study be quantified, controlled, and repeated. Since spiritual experience, or for that matter, experience of any kind, cannot easily be studied in these ways, it cannot be approached by good science. In most cases, conventional scientists have dismissed the human spirit as fantasy or superstition. Others have argued that such matters are the province of philosophy or religion but not science. Thus, conventional science is skeptical, at best, about the existence&emdash;or at least, the scientific study&emdash;of the human spirit. At the same time, many of those most committed to study of consciousness, spirituality, and related aspects of human existence object to attempts by conventional science to manipulate and control these phenomena. They argue that the essential character of deep emotional experience, self-transcendence, and the miraculous is lost by subjecting it to the materialistic demands of modern science. This view is skeptical about the value of science, especially in its attempts to study the human spirit. Most conventional scientists discount the value of spiritual experience and many spiritual seekers discount the value of science. However, there is an approach to science that is adequate to the task of studying the human spirit. The essence of this approach is an integration of complementary scientific approaches, a "methodological pluralism." This approach challenges the limiting assumptions and practices of conventional science without rejecting its deepest values, including valuing truth over dogma and careful, critical analysis over bias. Similarly, it challenges the notion that spiritual experience is completely beyond empirical analysis. Scientists and spiritual seekers can come together, and the outcome will be better information on which to base decisions and actions, including counseling, psychotherapy, and healing. It should also be made clear at the outset that there are vital realms of human experience and activity that cannot be described adequately in ordinary, discursive language. These dimensions are inaccessible to, or beyond, rational analysis (Wilber, 1980). As much as good science can contribute to understanding, supporting, and expanding the human spirit, it is no substitute for poetry, art, song, love, and awe. Contemplation, along with careful philosophical analysis and empirical data gathering, is a necessary component of greater understanding. Science can expand our understanding of the spiritual but never substitute for direct experience of it.
Two Metaphors	A fitting metaphor for the approach in this article is the relationship of the brain's left and right hemispheres. In most people, the left hemisphere is specialized for linear, atomistic, and quantitative information processing, and the right hemisphere is specialized for spatial, holistic, and qualitative information processing. Logic and analysis are associated with the left brain while imagery, song, rhythm, and synthesis are associated with the right brain (Ornstein, 1977). By analogy, science has been considered a left-brain activity while a right-brain style is the realm of artists and poets. This chapter presents an approach to science that can encompass a right-brain approach as well as a left-brain approach. Just as two brain hemispheres, with different styles, strengths, and functions are integrated in a fully-functioning person, these two ways of knowing can be integrated. A fully-functioning science must be whole-brained. A second metaphor comes from Abraham Maslow, the founder of both humanistic and transpersonal psychology. Maslow criticized the reductionistic and mechanistic views of psychology promoted by the behaviorists and psychoanalysts and called for a psychological science which could study optimal psychological health including the human spirit. Pointing to the limits of conventional psychological research methods, he wrote, "I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail" (Maslow, 1966, p. 15-16). There are some scientific tasks which require a hammer, as it were, but other tasks call for different tools. This chapter suggests a more inclusive approach to methodology, arguing for a well-rounded tool box.

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