The Possible Human

The Possible Human is Jean Houston's manual of the Human Potential Movement, arguing that most people use only a fraction of their physical, sensory, mental, and spiritual capacities. Its central claim is that these latent faculties can be deliberately evoked and expanded through structured experiential work.

Houston draws on mythology, psychology, and a repertoire of practical exercises, including guided imagery and sensory awakening, to turn the archetypal idea that myth carries patterns of transformation into active, participatory practice. The method is experiential and capacity-building, designed to awaken under-used human faculties rather than to acquire external outcomes.

The book serves as a bridge between the Jungian and Campbellian understanding of myth and the experiential growth culture of Esalen and humanistic psychology. Its optimistic emphasis on evoking "the possible human" exemplifies the self-actualizing strand of the consciousness movement, closer to humanistic development than to acquisitive manifestation while sharing the premise that human potential is far greater than ordinarily realized.