Arthur J. Deikman

Arthur J. Deikman (September 27, 1929 – September 2, 2013) was an American physician who was a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, and a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Humanistic Psychology and Human Givens.

Intrigued by this altered awareness, Deikman became a pioneering investigator of mystical states in the 1950s and in the following decade created a humane form of psychotherapeutic treatment for patients with psychosis. He also became a student of zen meditation under Suzuki Roshi, of Sufism under Idries Shah, and explored the Human Potential Movement with Esalen leaders George Leonard and Michael Murphy.

Deikman took part in a one-year research seminar on new religious movements in order to gain a better understanding of the attraction these movements had exercised on many Americans in the 1960s and 1970s.

Arthur J. Deikman died on September 2, 2013, at his home in Mill Valley, CA after "a brave and patient encounter" with Parkinson's disease. At his side (since the 1950s) was his wife, abstract artist Etta Deikman.

Education Harvard College Harvard Medical School Board Certified, Psychiatry, Neurology, American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology

Published works Books Personal Freedom: On Finding Your Way to the Real World, 1976 The Observing Self, 1983 Evaluating Spiritual and Utopian Groups, 1988 The Wrong Way Home: Uncovering the Patterns of Cult Behavior in American Society, 1990 Them and Us: Cult Thinking and the Terrorist Threat, 2003, excerpted

Articles Arthur Deikman on Mystic Experience, "Mystic Experience and Two Modes of Consciousness", adapted from the work of Arthur J. Deikman, M.D. Article, Journal of Consciousness Studies, 1996 I = Awareness, Journal of Consciousness Studies, 3 (4), pp. 350–6. Spirituality Expands a Therapist's Horizons

Treating Former Members of Cults