The Revised Transliminality Scale: Reliability and validity data from a rasch top-down purification procedure

The concept of transliminality ("a hypothesized tendency For psychological material to cross thresholds into or out of consciousnes") was anticipated by William James (1902/ 1982), but it was only recently given an empirical definition by Thalbourne in terms of a 29-item Transliminality Scale. This article presents the 17-item Revised Transliminality Scale (or RTS) that co rrects age and gender biases, is unidimensional by a Rasch criterion. and h as a reliability of .82. The scale defines a probabilistic hierarchy of ite ms that address magical ideation, mystical experience, absorption, hyperaes thesia. manic experience, dream interpretation, and fantasy proneness. Thes e findings validate the suggestions by James and Thalbourne that some menta l phenomena share a common underlying dimension with selected sensory exper iences (such being overwhelmed by smells. bright lights. sights, and sounds ). Low scores on transliminality remain correlated with "tough mindedness" in on Cattell 16PF test, as well as "self-control" and "rule consciousness. " whereas high scores are associated with "abstractedness" and an "openness to change" on that test. An independent validation study confirmed the pre dictions implied by our definition of transliminality. Implications for tes t construction are discussed. (C) Academic Press.