Goleman continues with a survey of eleven[1] types of meditation including Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, Sufism, Transcendental Meditation, Patanjali's Ashtanga Yoga, Indian Tantra and Kundalini Yoga, Tibetan Buddhism, Zen, the teachings of Gurdjieff as expressed by P. D. Ouspensky, and the teachings of Jiddu Krishnamurti.

According to Goleman, Westerners study psychopathology,[8] and the English language lacks the words needed to indicate nuances in consciousness.

[9] Goleman searches through modern Western psychology and finds Sigmund Freud failed to ever read and study Eastern texts, and that behaviorist John B. Watson bemoaned what he saw as the substitution of consciousness for soul.

[13] He finds a sympathetic ear in William James, Carl Jung, Abraham Maslow, Andras Angyal, Medard Boss, Martin Buber, Erich Fromm, and in Alan Watts, Anthony Sutich, Charles Tart and in contemporary works by Ken Wilber, Jack Engler, Daniel P. Brown, and Mark Epstein.

[16] Publishers Weekly wrote about the 1977 book: To a casual reader, Goleman's study is too full of arcane words and multilingual jargon about states of enlightenment.