The Way of the Psychonaut

The Way of the Psychonaut by Stanislav Grof is his definitive book on psychedelics, psychology, and Holotropic Breathwork. The book presents case studies, Grof’s theories, and a strong argument why psychedelics can be an effective tool for therapy.

Publisher Summary

“The Way of the Psychonaut is one of the most important books ever written about the human psyche and the spiritual quest. The new understandings were made possible thanks to Albert Hofmann s discovery of LSD the microscope and telescope of the human psyche as well as other psychedelic substances. This comprehensive work is a tour de force through the worlds of psychology and psychotherapy, Holotropic Breathwork, maps of the psyche, birth, sex, and death, psychospiritual rebirth, the roots of trauma, spiritual emergency and transpersonal experiences, karma and reincarnation, higher creativity, great art, and archetypes. Written in his late eighties, at the height of his magnificent career, The Way of the Psychonaut is possibly Grof s greatest contribution. The commanding breadth and depth of his knowledge is astounding, the tone of his writing easy and accessible, and his narratives brightened with amusing anecdotes, intriguing personal accounts, and brilliant case studies. Grof reviews the history of depth psychotherapy, the important revisions that are needed to make it more effective, and why the inner quest is such an essential pursuit. As one of the fathers of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, its most experienced practitioner, and deeply deserving of a Nobel Prize in medicine, in these two volumes Grof has successfully unveiled a new and sweeping paradigm in self-exploration and healing. The vast and practical knowledge in this book is sure to be an invaluable and treasured resource for all serious seekers.”

Summary Notes of ‘The Way of the Psychonaut’

These notes were kindly provided by Liam, founder of Brighter Pathways, a London-based legal psychedelic guide.

The Way of the Psychonaut – Volume 1

Foreword

  • On the one hand Grof’s analysis of the psyche validated Freud’s intuition of the ways that unconscious memories of early life experiences and trauma shape the growing psyche. On the other hand Grof’s research demonstrated that Freud’s model of the psyche was limited as it only acknowledged postnatal biography and the individual unconscious. 
  • Grof recognised the psychotraumatic impact of physical injuries, diseases, biological birth, and a wide range of transpersonal influences (ancestral, collective, racial, karmic, phylogenetic, and archetypal). Grof offered a much wider range of interpretations once he’d broken free of his reductionist conceptual constraints.

Preface

  • Early into his career he discovered (to his surprise) that we carry a detailed record of all stages of biological birth in our unconscious psyches. The brain of a newborn is sufficiently developed to carry the memory of hours of a potentially life-threatening experience. Research also shows the sensitivity of the fetus in the womb, and the capacity to form memories exists in organisms much less sophisticated than a human infant.
  • Later in his career was a conceptual shift from birth to archetypal dynamics – past life experiences, being a plant or animal, historical and archetypal domains of the collective unconscious, synchronicities, cosmic consciousness and “higher creativity”. 
  • Basic Perinatal Matrices (BPMs) linked each stage of birth with a specific expression and manifestation of these archetypal dynamics. 
  • LSD was a wonder child born into a dysfunctional family (great line)
  • Radical revisions are needed for mainstream psychology and psychiatry:
    • Overwhelming evidence that the brain mediates consciousness, but doesn’t produce it
    • The human psyche is not limited to postnatal biography and the Freudian individual unconscious. It must also include the perinatal layer (closely related to trauma of biological birth) and the transpersonal layer (source of experiences that transcend the limitations of space, time, and the range of our physical senses). 
    • Many psychosomatic and emotional disorders that are psychogenic in nature (have no biological bias) don’t always originate in childhood / infancy – that have roots in the perinatal and transpersonal 
    • Spirituality isn’t superstitious, unscientific or primitive. It’s a legitimate dimension of the human psyche and of the universal order.
  • When age regression in holotropic states reaches the perinatal and transpersonal levels, the experiences assume a new quality that Jung calls numinosity – a direct appreciation of the extraordinary, otherworldly nature of what is being experienced.
  • Entering holotropic states activates an inner-healing intelligence that automatically guides the process to unconscious material that has a strong emotional charge and close to the threshold of consciousness. It then spontaneously brings this material to the surface for processing. 
  • Limitations of others:
    • Freud – specialised in postnatal biography and ignored the perinatal domain, and reduced mythology and psychic phenomena to biology 
    • Rank – recognised significance of birth trauma, but reduced archetypal phenomena to birth.
    • Jung – recognised and correctly described the vast domain of the collective unconscious, but denied that biological birth had any psychological significance
  • Birth trauma is a process of life and death. Extremes of human behaviour (violence / suicide etc) have to have a source of comparable intensity and relevance 

The History of Psychonautics 

  • Limitations of names:
    • Altered state of consciousness – suggests distorting the “right way” of experiencing oneself or the world
    • Non-ordinary state – too broad / general, and includes infectious diseases, abuse of booze, etc.
  • Holotropic states –  “moving towards wholeness”. Ancient cultures have used these states in rites of passage in healing ceremonies. All major religions invoke holotropic states through meditation, dance, breathing exercises, prayer, fasting, etc. 
  • Most powerful way of inducing holotropic states is by ingesting psychedelic plants, and the alkaloids extracted from them (alkaloids, like tryptamines, are naturally occurring compounds), and synthetic entheogens like LSD.
  • Such states help us “break the taboo of knowing who we are” (Watts) and realise we are not “skin-encapsulated egos” (also Watts). “We are not human beings having spiritual experiences, we are spiritual beings having a human experience” (Pierre Teilhard de Chardin)
  • In ancient Indian / Hindi Upanishad (sanskrit texts), the answer to the question “who am I?” is “thou are that” or “you are godhead”. Suggests we are not “namarupa” (body / ego) but that our deepest identity is a divine spark of cosmic creative energy that we carry in us (Atman) which is identical to the universal principle that creates the universe (Brahman)
  • Hinduism not the only religion that has made this discovery. Could also be called: the Tao, Buddha, Shiva, Cosmic Christ, Allah etc.
    • Buddhism: “look inside, you are the Buddha” (point of practicing Buddhism is not to attain something, but to realise who you are already)
    • Mystical Christianity: “father you and I are one” 
    • Confucianism: “heaven, earth, humans are the same” 
    • Mohammed (founder of Islam): “whoever knows himself, knows his Lord”
  • Holotropic experiences (HE) have the potential to help us discover our true identity and our cosmic status – either gradually or suddenly 
  • Rites of passage:
    • HE expands consciousness of native cultures, called rites of passage. RoPs aim to transform individuals, groups, or even entire cultures. They are conducted at times of important biological or social transition – childbirth, circumcision, puberty, marriage, menopause, before death. 
    • RoPs are similar to initiations into secret societies, calendrical festivals of renewal, healing ceremonies.
    • Represents dying in the old role and being born into new one
    • Deliberately induced crisis that reaches the very core of the person’s being and is at times terrifying
    • Provide example of a situation of temporary disintegration and turmoil leads to greater sanity and wellbeing 
    • Differences: shamanic initiation is spontaneous, whereas RoP is deliberate 
  • Ancient Greeks celebrated the mysteries of Eleusis, where initiates drank a sacred potion called kykeon that induced visions of the afterlife and immortality so they would no longer fear death. Celebrated every 5 years for 2000 years (1600 BC to 392 AD). Kykeon was most likely an alkaloid of ergot, similar to LSD
  • Professional painters underwent psychedelic psychotherapy, encouraging their art to be bolder and more colourful. Argument that delics led to impressionism, cubism, surrealism, dadaism (for an overview, see Kripner, 1985)
  • Delic-induced mystical experience (ME) no different from non-delic-induced one 
  • Delic research (originally designed for psychological experts to understand their patients better) led to updated understanding of the psyche – not simply postnatal nor Freudian individual unconscious
  • Psyche needs to include:
    • Perinatal (closely related to memory of birth 
    • Transpersonal (overlapping with Jungian archetypal collective unconscious)
  • Delic research shows that roots of emotional / psychosomatic disorders aren’t limited to childhood and infancy – go into perinatal and transpersonal 
  • Shift from reductionist laboratory perspective to larger revolutionary paradigm-breaking view of the psyche
  • Delics are a tool to observe hidden parts of the psyche, like the telescope did for cosmology and the microscope did for biology 
  • “To fathom hell or soar angelic, just take a pinch of psychedelic” – Humphry Osmond in correspondence with Aldous Huxley 
  • Entheogen also a chosen name “generating the God within”
  • Counter culture movement led by Timothy Leary turned Hofmann’s “wonder child” into “problem child”
  • One study showed structural changes to chromosomes in babies whose mothers had taken LSD – which can happen with aspirin, caffeine and antibiotics. Baby was healthy and well. One newspaper ran the headline “IF YOU TAKE LSD ONLY ONCE YOU CAN HAVE A DEFORMED BABY”
  • Theodore “Sasha” Shulgin synthesised MDMA and other phenethylamines like the 2C family. Gave his name to the Shulgin Rating Scale – visual / auditory / physical effects. Did this work in the 40 years ban  
  • Ralph Metzner responsible for promoting 5MEO-DMT in his book the Toad and the Jaguar 
  • Rick Doblin is responsible for promoting research with MAPS over the 40 year ban. 
  • More US soldiers commit suicide due to PTSD than are killed in war 
  • Drugs policy advisor under Carter wrote an open letter to scientists after reading Pollan’s New Yorker article apologising for not reversing the Nixon-Ford policy putting delics on DEA’s Schedule 1 list
  • MK ULTRA – CIA agents hired prostitutes to put LSD in clients’ drinks, and put it into drinks in public places while agents observed the reaction. The CIA said they had to do this, as China, North Korea and Russia were using LSD to brainwash US agents. CIA interested in LSD as a chemical weapon

The Revision and Re-Enchantment of Psychology: Legacy from a Half Century of Consciousness Research 

  • Our industrialised civilization is the only one that hasn’t utilised holotropic states 
  • Shifts in paradigms (constellation of metaphysical beliefs) have occurred throughout the ages: shift from geocentric to heliocentric system of Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler; shift from hegemony of Newtonian physics to Einstein’s theory of relativity then quantum physics in this first 3 decades of the 20th century 
  • Lord Kelvin in 1900 (only 10 years before quantum-relativistic physics was discovered) declared “there is nothing new to discover in physics, only more and precise measurements”)
  • Psychedelic research offers a paradigm shift in understanding the psyche / psychiatry / psychology / psychotherapy in 7 main areas:
  1. The nature of consciousness and its relationship to matter 
  2. New cartography of the human psyche: as above, so below 
  3. Architecture of emotional and psychosomatic disorders 
  4. Effective therapeutic mechanisms
  5. Strategy of psychotherapy and self-exploration 
  6. The role of spirituality in human life 
  7. The importance of archetypal astrology for psychology 

The nature of consciousness and its relationship to matter 

  • Current view: consciousness is an epiphenomenon of material process – emerges from neurophysiological processes in the brain 
  • However there is still no proof for consciousness being generated in the brain, no proof that the brain can fulfill the work of the mind. Yet the origin of consciousness from matter is taken as fact, based on the metaphysical assumption of the primacy of matter in the universe
  • David Chalmers calls it the “hard problem” of consciousness – how / why do we have a subjective experience? How can tangible neurons generate intangible things like feelings, sensations, intuitions? (“Easy problem” = describing a mechanism for how a function is performed, i.e. how we focus attention, integrate info etc.)
  • Scientists focus on material processes (e.g. how the eye creates vision via the optical system from the retina to the brain) rather than how physical processes create consciousness 
  • Similar to the old Sufi story of the man who was searching for his lost key under a street lamp. His neighbour asked where he lost his key, and the man pointed to a dark patch. “Then why not look there” asked the neighbour?”, to which the man responded, “because there’s light here so I can see”. Similarly, scientists can’t explain consciousness where they are looking (the brain)
  • Of course, there is suggestive evidence that consciousness is created in the brain – lots of evidence for close correlations between biochemistry and states of consciousness. Evidence for this clear, but conclusions less so – called a non sequitur fallacy. 
  • TV set vs program analogy – TV set (brain) mediates the TV program (consciousness). Changes to the TV set can alter the quality of the program (sound, vision, etc), but it isn’t the source of the program. 
  • Out-of-body experiences (OBEs) or near-death-experiences (NDEs) imply consciousness is separate from the body
  • Disembodied form of consciousness is called the bardo body in the Tibetan Book of the Dead 
  • Computer analogy explaining transpersonal experiences: information is entered into the computer using code. This code can recall the information on another computer connected to the network (e.g.via the Cloud) – suggests consciousness is non-local / transpersonal.  
  • Such a natural memory field is what Ervin Laslo called the Akashic field – a sub-quantum field containing a holographic record of everything that happens in the universe.
  • However, this networked computer analogy is limited in one sense – rather than consciousness merely being copied and uploaded to the cosmic network, we have units of consciousness in us that we don’t create. 
  • Jung experienced this phenomenon throughout his spiritual emergency, when he encountered a spirit guide he called Philemon, who was able to answer questions Jung had with no way of knowing himself 
  • Jung said “the psyche is not a product of the brain and it is not located in the skull; it is part of the generative, creative principle of the cosmos”
  • In “The Tao of Physics” it suggested that Western science had reached an understanding of the world of matter – quantum-relativistic physics – that the ancient sages of India saw millenia ago in their meditations. Now psychedelic research is showing the same thing happening for our understanding of the psyche 

A new cartography of the human psyche: as above, so below

  • Early in his career Grof saw patients enter a “bad trip”, experiencing choking, tremors, pressure, headaches, pain in various parts of the body. This was accompanied by a triad of emotions – fear of death, of insanity, never returning from this nightmarish world. 
  • By providing support and encouragement most patients were able to break through into a psychospiritual death and rebirth
  • This led to the 4 Basic Perinatal Matrices (BMP I-IV)
    • BPM I – related to the advanced stage of pregnancy before the onset of the delivery 
    • BPM II – related to the stage of pregnancy when the uterus is contracted, but the cervix isn’t open yet 
    • BPM III – related to the propulsion through the birth canal after the cervix is fully open
    • BPM IV – related the experience of birth, emerging from the the birth canal and having the umbilical cord cut
  • Assumption up to 1980s that babies didn’t have fully developed pain receptors (hence why procedures like heart surgery and circumcision were done without anesthesia)
  • Each BPM stage could be linked to the transpersonal: experiencing the consciousness of other people, groups of people, plants, animals – or experiencing ancestral, collective memories, or mythologies of various cultures

From Freud to cosmic consciousness 

  • Most psychiatrists and psychologists use a Freudian model of the psyche – postnatal and individual unconscious 
  • According to Freud a newborn is a clean slate – nothing interesting happened before / during birth 
  • Freud’s individual unconscious = have we have forgotten, rejected, or repressed 
  • Developed iceberg model of the psyche – most happening beneath the surface, driving us 
  • Grof added transpersonal and perinatal domains, which would sit beneath the tip of Frued’s entire model. In the words of Joseph Cambell – “Freud was fishing while sitting on a whale”

Postnatal biography an the individual unconscious 

  • Differences between verbal therapy vs holotropic states:
  1. In holotropic states, one doesn’t merely recall events from the past as in verbal therapy. One experiences the original emotions and sensations. During this experience one can physically look like they’ve regressed in age – wrinkles temporarily disappear, behaviours become childlike etc.
  2. Working on biographical material in the holotropic state can reveal the psychotraumatic impact of physical traumas, making it possible to heal them. Traditional psychology handbooks don’t acknowledge physical trauma as psychosomatic (although Scientology does, weirdly!)
  • Holotropic can make us relive physical traumas even if they were under anesthetic (like surgery). 
  • Believes psychosomatic symptoms can always be traced back to physical traumas 
  • Traditional explanations for psychosomatic symptoms: pain in shoulder because bearing too much emotional weight; pain in stomach because they patient can’t “stomach something” 
  • One patient didn’t overcome his psychosomatic symptoms until he re-lived his death during a transpersonal experience where he was in the gallows for betraying a king in medieval times 
  • COEX system (systems of condensed experiences): 
    • Emotionally charged memories from different periods that resemble each other in the quality of emotions or physical sensations they share. 
    • Each COEX has a theme that connects various experiences to common denominator. Common denominator might be anxiety / rejection / distrust 
    • Unconscious can contain several major constellations 
    • COEX doesn’t necessarily have to be unpleasant – it’s the intensity of the experience that leaves an imprint, good or bad (although bad is more common)
    • COEX involves biographical, perinatal (BPMs) and transpersonal memories 
  • COEX is similar to Jung’s theory of psychological complexes – Jung defined a complex as a complex mass of memories that share a tone (irritation, fear, anger). At the bottom of each complex has a universal governing principle, or archetype. Complex was comprised of biographical and archetypal material (but not perinatal because he didn’t believe in that shiz)
  • We have complexes, but complexes also have us – they are behind what Freud called the “psychopathology of everyday life”, such as slips of the tongue and false memories. 
  • COEXs can influence how we see and act in the world in a dynamic relationship – external events can activate a COEX, and a COEX can determine how we perceive and act in the world
  • Importance of set and setting – environment can trigger certain COEX systems – eg can be sensitive to what they perceive to be cold, uninterested, “professional” treatment when experiencing memory constellations that involve neglect or rejection. Or patients may want to be considered the “favourite” patient when experiencing memories of sibling rivalry 
  • So far we discussed the “common denominator” COEX systems, layers of a shared emotional quality. There are also the “interpersonal” COEX systems, dynamic constellations where the common denominator is a certain type of relationship – authority figures, sexual partners, peers. Understanding these systems is important for the therapist to know how the process will go
  • Therapeutic compatibility between therapist and patient is crucial – the patient must feel they are being unconditionally accepted. Breaking repetitive traumatic patterns in interpersonal relations (or interpersonal COEXs) is key.
  • Timothy Leary’s “interpersonal diagnostic test of personality” can be used to assess interpersonal relationships 
  • Critical period is age 5-6 when child starts to apply behaviours learned at home to their school environments
  • Question then becomes will the dysfunctional behaviours be corrected or reinforced – the role of the therapist is to respond in an atypical way to break the repetitive pattern (therapy cannot be neutral – if either reinforces or corrects)
  • When working in holotropic states we must be aware of patient’s repetitive interpersonal patterns, because they may become activated and amplified. Presence of a strong and loving male or female may have a deeply healing impact

The perinatal level of the unconscious 

  • Birth is first major painful / stressful situation in life 
  • Nature of birth and how it was handled has powerful implications for how we handle life
    • If birth is normal / easy we are hopeful and optimistic, confident we can overcome challenges 
    • If birth was overly difficult we are pessimistic and easily defeated – the world is too hard
  • The reason for denying birth memory is that the cerebral cortex is too undeveloped to make a record
  • However the capacity for memory exists in lifeforms much more primitive that don’t even have a cerebral cortex (eg sea slugs). Some unicellular organisms even have a protoplasmic memory
  • Biological birth is the most profound trauma in our lives – it is recorded in our cells and affects our psychosocial development 
  • The 4 stages of the BPMs can act as gateways to the collective unconscious described by Jung. E.g. the experience of the infant facing the ordeal of passing through the birth canal may link to other sentient beings facing a similar predicament
  • Regression to the perinatal stage allows an experience of what Jung calls “numinosity” (aka spiritual, mystical, magical)
  • The specific symbology comes from the collective unconscious rather than the individual, thus can be independent from the individual’s own cultural or religious background 
  • Archetype examples:
    • BPM I: Mother Nature; Great Mother Goddess; Heaven; Paradise 
    • BPM II: Terrible Mother Goddess: Hell 
    • BPM III: Sabbath of the witches: Satanic rituals 
    • BPM III-IV: Purgatory; Deities representing death and rebirth 
    • BPM IV: Divine epiphany; Rainbow arc  

BPM I – primal union with mother

  • AKA the amniotic universe 
  • At this stage of existence we have no concept of boundaries or inner / out. Thus in the holotropic state we can experience regions with no boundaries or limits: interstellar space, galaxies, the entire cosmos / floating in the sea and identifying with aquatic animals (reflecting that the fetus is essentially an aquatic creature pre-birth 
  • Mother Nature – safe, beautiful, nourishing like a good womb. Fruit-bearing orchards
  • Ecstasy – transcendence of time and space, peace, tranquility, cosmic unity 
  • Can also have memories of disturbances, or a bad womb – dark and ominous threat of being poisoned. 
  • Memories of violent interferences (eg. attempted miscarriage) may experience a universal threat or bloody apocolyptical visions. Which further suggests the link between biological history and Jungian archetypes 

BPM II – cosmic engulfment, no exit or hell 

  • Reliving the onset of birth can feel like being sucked into a whirlpool or swallowed by a mythical beast. Associated with images of devouring monsters (leviathans, dragons, whales, giant snakes, tarantulas, or octopuses)
  • First major life struggle 
  • Can also experience descending into the depths of hell (see Joseph Cambell’s Hero’s Journey)
  • Fetus can feel constricted due to contractions and the cervix isn’t open yet. This is one of the worst experiences in the holotropic state. Might feel trapped in, hopeless or helpless. 
  • Typical triad of experiences: fear of dying, going crazy, never coming back
  • Transpersonal experiences may include people / animals / mythological creatures in similarly hopeless / helpless situations. Might identify with prisoners, people in concentration camps, etc.
  • Can experience torture of sinners in hell / agony of Jesus on the cross
  • Blinded to anything positive in one’s life. 
  • Understandable that people don’t want to experience this state, however paradoxically the fastest way to end this unbearable state is to fully accept and embrace the suffering and despair we felt in the birth canal. Acceptance is the only way to move from BPM II to BPM III, where the cervix is open and escape is possible 
  • AKA the Dark Night of the Soul
  • BPM II is an important stage of spiritual opening and with time can have a purging / liberating effect 
  • Only in retrospect, after the perinatal process has unfolded, (at least partially) resolved, and integrated can BPM II be seen in a new light with new meaning. Then positive aspects of contraction, separation, loss, suffering, encounter with death of biological/spiritual rebirth become apparent – join the “grateful dead” club, because now one is happily reborn. 

BPM III – the death-rebirth struggle 

  • This stage the cervix dilates, allowing the fetus to move through the birth canal 
  • First major life struggle, where this time there is a window of hope 
  • Can involve crushing pressures – may experience intense anxiety 
  • Dangerous time for the fetus: umbilical cord can be squeezed or twisted around the neck / fetus can inhale biological material. 
  • Archetypal / transpersonal experiences of a titanic fight / aggressive sadomasochistic sexuality / demonic episodes. 
  • Violent process – might identify with natural violent forces like volcanoes, electrical storms, tornados or earthquakes, or tech ones like tanks, electrical power plants, atomic bombs etc
  • Might experience cruelty – murder, suicide, bloody wars, torture, sadomasochistic practices 
  • Regarding sexuality of this stage – humans seem to have an inbuilt mechanism that translates inhuman suffering (particularly suffocation) into sexual arousal and then ecstatic rapture – well known that men dying at the gallows had erections and even orgasmed. Particular plant would grow in the semen 
  • At the level of the psyche, sexual arousal can be linked to problematic elements (extreme danger, threats, anxiety, afflicting pain) and is the basis of sexual deviation. Freud never “solved” sadomasochism in the end – so perhaps it’s linked to the perinatal domain. (He also couldn’t solve extreme violence or spontaneous genius in his model of the psyche – this is explored in vol 2) 
  • The scatological aspect of the death-rebirth process links to the fetus ingesting fecal matter during the birth process. 
  • Other experiences of BPM III include: crawling through sewage systems, wallowing in poop, drinking blood or urine
  • When BPM III comes close to resolution it becomes less violent – imagery can change to exciting conquests of new territories and adventures 
  • Can also encounter archetypal figures of death and rebirth, such as Jesus and crucifiction 
  • Might experience fire or burning – might signify a purification to prepare for spiritual rebirth. A classical symbol is the phoenix. 
  • Big difference from BPM II is that although difficult, it’s not hopeless – it is a fierce struggle, but there is a point and purpose to it

BPM IV – the death-rebirth experience 

  • This stage is related to the birth and the cutting of the umbilical cord 
  • Reliving biological birth involves not just the mechanical process, but the psychospiritual process of death and rebirth 
  • Ego death that precedes rebirth is the death of old concepts of who we are and what the world is like
  • We attach to our old self so it can feel like the end of existence or the world. But letting go can be hugely healing and transformative. 
  • What dies is a false ego that we mistook for our true self – we lose the reference points we know and don’t know what’s on the other side. Fear can create a resistance – without careful guidance we can become stuck here. 
  • When we let go of fear we experience total annihilation on many levels – physical, moral, spiritual. All reference points disappear. Immediately following this annihilation we see white or golden light of supernatural radiance and divine beauty. 
  • Might encounter the archetypal Great Mother Goddess
  • After death-rebirth we feel divine and bliss, and overcome with positive emotions towards ourselves, others and nature
  • If birth was too debilitating or confounded by anesthesia, it might not feel like a sudden ecstatic experience, but a slow gradual awakening 

The transpersonal domain of the psyche 

  • The common denominator in these rich and varied experiences is the realisation that our consciousness has expanded beyond the body/ego and has transcended the limitations of linear time and 3-dimensional space 
  • In everyday consciousness we experience:
    • Ourselves within the boundary of the body
    • Our perception of the external world is limited by the range of our sense organs
    • Defined by categories of 3-dimensional space and linear time 
    • We experience our present situation in the immediate environment 
  • Transpersonal experiences transcend one or many of the above 
  • In ordinary consciousness we experience ourselves as material objects separated from the rest of the world by our skin. We are “skin-encapsulated egos” (Watts). We can’t see through walls or hear across continents. 
  • In transpersonal states we can experience episodes at any place and time. 

Varieties of transpersonal experiences 

  1. Experiential extension within spacetime 
  • Transcendence of spatial boundaries 
    • Experience of dual unity 
    • Experience of identification with other persons 
    • Experience group consciousness 
    • Experience of identification with animals 
    • Identification with plants and botanical processes 
    • Identification with life and all creation 
    • Experience of inorganic materials and processes 
    • Experiences of extraterrestrial beings and worlds 
    • Psychic phenomena involving transcendence of space (telepathy, OBEs, astral projection, horizontal clairvoyance) 
  • Transcendence of temporal boundaries 
    • Fetal and embryonal experiences 
    • Ancestral experiences 
    • Racial and collective experiences 
    • Past life experiences 
    • Phylogenetic experiences 
    • Experiences of the evolution of life 
    • Cosmogenetic experiences 
    • Psychic phenomena involving transcendence of time (past life reading, psychometry, vertical clairvoyance)
  • Experiential exploration of the microworld 
    • Organ and tissue consciousness 
    • Cellular consciousness 
    • Experience of DNA 
    • Experiences of the molecular, atomic, and subatomic worlds 
  1. Experiential extension beyond spacetime and consensus reality 
  • Energetic phenomena of the subtle body (auras, nadis, chakras, meridians)
  • Experiences of animal spirits (power animals)
  • Encounters with spirit guides and suprahuman beings 
  • Experience of universal archetypes 
  • Sequences involving specific blissful and wrathful deities 
  • Intuitive understanding of universal symbols 
  • Creative inspiration and the Promethean impulse 
  • Experience of the Demiurge and insights into cosmic creation 
  • Experience of Absolute Consciousness 
  • The Supracosmic and Metacosmic Void 
  1. Transpersonal experiences of a psychoid nature
  • Synchronicities (interplay between intrapsychic experiences and spacetime) 
  • Spontaneous psychoid events 
    • Supranormal physical feats 
    • Spiritistic phenomena and physical mediumship 
    • Recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis (poltergeist phenomena)
    • UFOs and alien abduction experiences 
  • Intentional psychokinesis
    • Ceremonial magic 
    • Healing and hexing 
    • Yogic siddhis
    • Laboratory psychokinesis 

3 categories of the transpersonal experience:

  1. Experiential extension within spacetime
    1. Space: beyond the limitations of the “skin-encapsulated ego” / dual unity / becoming another person / becoming a group of people / becoming all humanity / becoming a tree, animal / becoming the universe 
    2. Time: reliving birth / Jung’s racial or collective unconscious. Materialistic worldview is that memory requires a material substrate. As holotropic states go back so far in time, in suggests memories are connected to / birthed from an immaterial substrate (like Lazlo’s Akashic field / Sheldrake’s morphogenetic field / the field of consciousness itself) 
    3. What’s surprising in this category is we know these things exist (other human / animal / plant etc) but we can actually experience them now as if we were them
  2. Experiential extension beyond spacetime and consensus reality
    1. This category is weirder as it involves things we don’t normally consider “real” – we can know what it’s like to be a cross or deities or mythological creatures or universal symbols of yin/yang
    2. Might experience cosmic consciousness / universal mind (AKA Brahman / Buddha / the cosmic Christ / Allah / the Tao / the Great Spirit)
  3. Transpersonal experiences of a psychoid nature
    1. Includes intrapsychic experiences associated with external events that are meaningfully related 
  • Transpersonal experiences shatter the Newtonian-Cartesian Paradigm (this paradigm proposes to analyze phenomena from the analogy of a machine where knowing the operation of the isolated parts it is possible to be able to understand the whole formed by these parts) – that we’re Newtonian material objects whose body is separate from the mind (or is it mind separate from matter?). 
  • On one hand they involve biological memories (perinatal etc) suggesting they come from the individual psyche, on the other hand they tap into memories far beyond the individual
  • We can transition from the internal journey of the psyche to experiencing everything. “As above so below” or “as without so within”.  Suggests each of us is a microcosm containing the entire universe 
  • Confirm Jung’s idea that, besides the Freudian individual unconscious, we have access to the collective unconscious that contains the cultural heritage of all of humanity
  • Everyday consciousness: we are separate Newtonian objects existing in 3-dimensional space and linear time. In holotropic states of consciousness: we are infinite fields of consciousness transcending space and time 

Optical holography and the mystical worldview 

  • Understanding holographic principles helps us to understand the transpersonal experience
  • Each fragment of a hologram illuminated by laser can retrieve the entire information from the image of the object (see picture below). Similarly, every individual psyche has the ability to access the entire field of consciousness – each individual is a microcosm that contains the macrocosm – “as above so below” “as without so within” 
  • If we are only interested in what we can measure and weigh, then science doesn’t care about 1/100th of the whole. But if we are not interested in what the part weighs or measures, but what information it contains, then the 1/100th provides info on the whole. Similarly, each of us contains an insignificant amount of the universe, but we can experience any component of it, or all of it. 
  • Psychonauts is ultimately about information, not about material phenomena – you can experience being an elephant, but that doesn’t mean you’ll suddenly weigh 3 tonnes
  • Thus we can be separate (us experiencing being an elephant) and one (being the elephant) at the same time 

Maps of the psyche in depth psychology 

Sigmund Frued 

  • Freud linked psychotraumatic events to situations in childhood 
  • Freud shifted his focus over the years: 
    • From working with patients in holotropic states (via hypnosis) making the “unconscious conscious” to free association in normal consciousness 
    • From the conscious reliving to psychodramas and emotional abreactions (expression of pent up emotions and blocked physical energies) to transference neurosis / analysis 
    • From actual traumas to Oedipal fantasies 
  • In retrospect this arguably sent psychoanalysis and Western psychotherapy down the wrong road for 50 years 
  • He discovered many things:
    • The existence of the unconscious 
    • Developed technique for dream interpretation 
    • Brought attention to infantile sexuality 
    • Transference and countertransference 
    • Created first model of the human psyche (although limited to postnatal biography and the individual unconscious)
  • Freud was on the cutting-edge, so many of his theories were being updated as he confronted issues with them
  • Heavily influenced by the science of the time (eg. libido energy resembled a machine – getting jammed and causing congestion)
  • Believed newborns to be “blank slates” (tabula rasa) 
  • Saw the human psyche as a battle between the libido and the nonsexual ego instinct related to self-preservation (he concentrated much more on the libido) 
  • He discovered that origins of sexuality are found in early childhood, not puberty 
  • Believed the psychosexual activities occur in different stages:
    • Oral phase: starts during nursing when the mouth of the infant functions as an erogenous zone 
    • Anal phase: during toilet training the emphasis shifts to sensations ascociated with poopin’
    • Urethral phase: emphasis shifts again to sensations associated with peeing 
    • Phallic stage: finally, around the age of 4, the above stages integrate under one genital interest involving the penis or clit 
  • Coincides with the development of the Oedipus or Electra complex – a positive attitude towards parent of opposite sex and an aggressive stance towards parent of same sex. 
    • Boy gives up Oedipal tendencies out of fear of being castrated 
    • Girl moves from primary attachment from mum to dad because she is disappointed by the “castrated” mum, and hopes to get a penis or child from her father 
  • Freud said it is fate to have first sexual impulse towards mother and first murderous wish towards father (for boys)
  • Pleasure principle: the psyche is designed to maximise pleasure and minimise pain 
  • Reality principle (counteracts pleasure principle): reality gets in the way of pleasure causing frustration 
  • Used term “beyond the pleasure principle” for people who didn’t tend towards pleasure (depressed / suicidal / sadomasochistic) 
  • Saw the psyche as driven by base instincts and contains destructiveness an an essential component 
  • Developed 2 basic instincts
    • Eros: sexual instinct to preserve life 
    • Thanatos: death instinct which wants to destroy the organism 
  • Critics of Freud said he should stick to talking about sex – that his later theories of death were too influenced by his personal experience (lost relatives, WW1, developing cancer of the tongue)
  • Psyche split into 3 parts: the unconscious, the preconscious and the conscious 
  • This model was later replaced the Id, Ego and Superego
    • Id – instincts. The primitive and instinctive component of personality. It consists of all the inherited (i.e., biological) components of personality present at birth, including the sex (life) instinct – Eros (which contains the libido), and the aggressive (death) instinct – Thanatos.
    • Ego – reality. The part of the id which has been modified by the direct influence of the external world. 
    • Superego – morality. Incorporates the values and morals of society which are learned from one’s parents and others. It develops around the age of 3 – 5 years during the phallic stage of psychosexual development.
  • Most psychoanalytic therapy reflects Cartesian dichotomy between mind and mind (i.e. mind and body are separate, and body can’t think). Exclusive focus on mental process. No physical touch (some schools suggest not shaking hands as it influences transference / countertransference). Strong physical expressions were considered as “acting out”
  • There are major revisions needed to the Freudian framework:
    • There are dynamic governing systems organising emotionally relevant memories – COEX (system of condensed experience) 
    • There is an important psychotraumatic impact of physical trauma 
    • Memories can develop in the perinatal stage (he called perinatal memories “fantasies”)
    • Consciousness does beyond the individual psyche (transpersonal)
  • Thus, psychoanalysis is a useless framework for understanding holotropic states
  • Freud had a limited view of the female psyche – ignored pregnancy and birth, and saw women as castrated males 
  • Saw religions as an obsessive-compulsive neurosis, rather than being founded on the transpersonal experiences of their founders 
  • Birth and death are the alpha and omega of existence – any framework that doesn’t consider their importance will be superficial 
  • Couldn’t explain sadomasochism or genius in his model of the psyche (and admitted it might be from a force beyond the individual)

Alfred Adler

  • Links neurosis to feelings of inadequacy and inferiority
  • Memory of infantile helplessness and fear of death can cause inferiority
  • Saw inability to control death as core reason for feelings of inadequacy 
  • Superiority complex is an overcompensation for inferiority (but can create genius in rare cases)
  • Empathised active role of the therapist, who could interpret society for the patient and make specific suggestions – the patient’s insight into their own needs are secondaryto the therapist’s
  • Link between sexuality and power (eg. sadomasocism) can’t be explained using the individual model of the psyche (relevant for both Adler and Freud). Can be explained by BPM III – intense sexual arousal (activation of errogenous zones) linked to feelings of helplessness / trying to mobilise one’s strenght 
  • Co-athored study interviewing high-end call girls, inquiring into the sexual requests of their powerful clients, who had elaborate desires to be humiliated (often being peed and pooped on) then would regress to an infantile stage (sucking on the woman’s nipple, being held etc.). Sharp contrast to public image. Authors linked tortures to parental punishments / toilet training / frustrated nursing. 
    • Grof believes they were infact acting out perinatal scenes (combination of pyshcial restraint, pain, then regression classic examples of BPM III and BPM IV)
  • Grof believes feelings of inadequacy can’t be solved by external means (eg. getting a promotion) – one must surrender to the feelings fully and be reborn 

William Reich 

  • Believed the suppression of sexual feelings cause neurosis 
  • Emotional traumas and sexaul feelings are held in muscular tensions – “character amour” – a neurotic person stores excess energy in muscular tension (thus limiting sexual excitement) whereas a healthy person doesn’t need to do this and flows freely
  • Significant and necessary departure from psychoanalysis – treatment of neurosis from a biophysical standpoint – used hyperventilation / physical touch to remove blocked energy 
  • In later years saw repressive role of society as major influence in emotional disorders, and became prominent member of the Communist Party (which he was later excommunicated from when he suggested the Nazi party came into being because of a social pathology due to repressed sexuality) 
  • Later in career became convinced of a cosmic energy called orgone – created orgone machines (that he sent to Einstein, who dismissed it) that became a physical therapy dealing with the autonomic system 
  • He came close to the worldview suggested by quantum-relativistic physics – emphasising the unity underlying the universe.

Otto Rank 

  • Main areas of disagreement with Freud:
    • Birth trauma > sexual dynamics
    • Denial of the Oedipus complex 
    • Saw ego as autonomous representative of the will, rather than the slave of the Id
  • Experience > verbal approach
  • Considered it essential to relive birth trauma 
  • Provided an end date to clients, thinking it would activate unconscious material regarding birth leading up to this date 
  • Freud was worried Rank would be remembered as more important than himself. Freud ended up writing a nice review of Ranks findings on birth trauma, suggesting there should be further exploration into the differences between people who had C-sections vs normal births
  • Freud came around to the significance of birth trauma, acknowledging the physiological challenges being born. This was more accurate than Rank’s views, who placed the significance with losing the comfort of the womb 
  • Rank saw birth trauma as main reason why we hate separation 
  • Saw sleep as resembling the intrauterine (within the uterus) life, and dreams as ways to relive birth trauma / return to the prenatal state 
  • Saw differences in sexes as woman = express their immortality through giving birth / men = sex is mortality, and express their creativity in non-sexual ways, like technology, science, painting, music, literature
  • Like Freud, Adler and Reich, Rank didn’t have a great understanding of the transpersonal realms 

Carl Jung 

  • Freud disciple – radically evolved psychoanalysis beyond Freud 
  • Realised his findings couldn’t be reconciled with Newtonian-Cartesian thinking, and was close to developments in the quantum-relativistic physics space. 
  • Had a genuine understanding of the mystical traditions and respect for the spiritual dimensions of the psyche (he was the first transpersonal psychologist, even though he didn’t call himself that)
  • Unconscious > conscious / mysterious > known / mystical > scientific / creative > productive / religious > profane (not relating to which is sacred / secular) 
  • Departure from Freud born when he read Miss Frank Miller’s writing – he noticed the motifs in her writing resembled those from around the world, suggesting the psyche reached beyond Freud’s biographical model 
  • Showed we have a collective unconscious which binds all humanity, nature and the entire cosmos 
  • Collective unconscious has a historical domain (contains entire history of humanity) and the archetypal domain (harbors the cultural heritage of mankind – mythologies from every culture that has existed) 
  • Archetypes are timeless cosmic principles underlying and informing the fabric of the material world 
  • Didn’t see humans as biological machines (like Freud). He saw we can transcend the ego and the personal unconscious and connect with the Self that is connected to the entire cosmos 
  • The Self has a goal for each of us and can guide us to it. He called this the individuation process.
  • Complexes – constellations of psychological elements (ideas, opinions, attitudes, convictions) that are clustered around a theme / associated with a feeling. 
  • Believed archetypes to be influencing the world – representing a link between matter and the psyche or consciousness (he called psychoids)
  • Freud thought the universality of myths speaks to the universality of the human experience. Jung disagreed, as his clients saw motifs they would never have access to 
  • Saw dreams as individual myths and myths as collective dreams 
  • Had many religious experiences – saw the spiritual elements as integral part of the psyche 
  • Jund didn’t see libido as a biological force needing a mechanical discharge (like Freud) but a force of nature
  • Synchronicities – meaningful coincidences separated in time and space
  • Freud was deterministic – found rational explanations for psychic phenomena tracing them back to biological roots (Cartesian-Netownian / logically understand the parts to understand the whole) whereas Jung was open to the paradoxical and the mysterious (which is why he was drawn to quantum-relativistic physics, which due to the “uncertainty principle” makes no sense at the micro scale). 
  • Drawn to and student of Eastern spiritual philosophies, like I Ching, and Kundalini awakening 
  • Holotropic states confirm many of Jung’s findings:
    • Complexes v similar to COEXs 
    • Collective unconscious 
    • Archetypes
    • Jung’s understanding of the libido 
    • Distinction between ego and the Self
    • Process of individuation 
  • However didn’t recognise:
    • perinatal domain
    • birth trauma 
    • Transpersonal experiences involving other people / plants / animals (thus ignoring past lives, which is odd considering his interest in Eastern philosophies)
  • Grof believes perinatal phenomena (with emphasis on death and rebirth) offers critical interface between individual biography and transpersonal 
    • At this level of the psyche death-rebirth experiences have close associations with biological / physical dimensions (suffocation, pain, tremors, etc)
    • Jung only looked into psychological / philosophical / spiritual components of death-rebirth, not psychosomatic 
  • Process Psychotherapy = Jungian approach + somatics 
  • Despite lacking elements, Jungian approach is most relevant to understanding the phenomenology of holotropic states 

Architecture of emotional and psychosomatic disorders 

  • Clinicians and academics see these disorders fitting into 2 categories
    • Biological 
      • Argue psyche is product of material processes in the brain
      • Rigid adherence to medical model
    • Psychological 
      • Looks at role of trauma throughout life / family dynamics / interpersonal relationships 
  • Differs from person to person, so applying straightjacket of medical model makes little sense 
  • Biological model dominates, despite some applying both (nature vs nurture)
  • Thus psychiatry has become a subspeciality of medicine with a strong biological bias 
  • Medical model fails to find biological root for 
    • Psychoneurosis
    • Psychosomatic diseases
    • Manic depressive disorders 
    • Functional psychosis 
  • The psychological angle started “depth psychology” 
  • Neuroses were linked to different stages of postnatal development:
  • However, narrow view as it only considers postnatal biography and individual consciousness
  • Physical symptoms like a shoulder pain can be relieved during holotropic states (eg pain can manifest in perinatal experience, or have a transpersonal experience – such a lance driven through the shoulder from a past life) 
  • PERHAPS our experience of birth is linked to our karma – if we were hanged in a previous life perhaps the umbilical cord will wrap around our neck during birth 
  • The following looks at the role of psychological factors in the formation of symptoms (excludes disorders that are clearly organic). 
  • Anxiety (whether free flowing / phobias etc.) is the most common psychiatric problem. Since anxiety is a response to situations that endanger survival or body integrity in nature, it makes sense that a primary source is birth trauma – an actual or potentially life-threatening situation. Freud himself thought maybe birth might be a prototype for all future anxieties. 

Anxiety Hysteria (phobias) 

  • In classic psychoanalysis phobias were conditions that began at age 4 as the result of fixation at the phallic stage
  • Holotropic states suggest they go back farther in time in the perinatal stages:
  • Claustrophobia (fear of closed / narrow spaces)
    • People who have this are under the influence of a COEX system associated with BPM II (uterus contracts closing in on fetus)
    • To overcome, people need to not avoid, but feel full experience / open up breath via bodywork / abreaction 
  • Agoraphobia (fear of open spaces)
    • Related to BPM III – when after many hours of confinement there’s a fear of losing all boundaries / being blown apart / ceasing to exist 
    • Many people who suffer from this are afraid they’ll get scared, take of their clothes and lie naked on the sidewalk – similar to being a naked baby being inspected by doctors 
  • Thanatophobia (fear of death)
    • Phobia has deep roots with extreme physical discomfort 
    • COEX systems involved are related to situations that endanger life – operations, diseases, etc.
    • To overcome one must relive the different layers of the COEX system and confront death 
  • Nosophobia (fear of contracting a disease)
    • Patients often have body sensations they attribute to somatic disease 
    • Symptoms involve pains, pressures, cramps, organ dysfunction, breathing difficulties, muscular tremors, fatigue 
    • Physical symptoms don’t have biological root – instead are memories of past physical traumas (like birth trauma) 
    • Linked to BPM III where feces is inhaled while travelling through the birth canal
  • Aichmophobia (fear of sharp things)
    • Not a pure phobia but includes OCD elements 
    • Usually begins for a parent after a child is born 
    • Involves violent urges towards a child along with fear of actually hurting it 
  • Siderodromophobia (fear of travelling by train or subway)
    • Based on experience of travel in birth. Sense of entrapment and sense of there being a huge power of which the person has no control 
    • Closely related to fear of travelling by car and plane
    • Interestingly, seasickness goes away after completing death-rebirth process
    • Needing to be in control related to BPM III and related COEX systems 
  • Acrophobia (fear of heights) 
    • Not a pure phobia – related to wanting to jump / throw oneself off 
    • Sense of falling with simultaneous fear of destruction relates to BPM III
    • People under the influence of BPM III in holotropic state can have the experience of falling, acrobatic diving, etc. 
  • Zoophobia (fear of animals)
    • Classic psychoanalytical reading: feared animal represents castrating father and bad mother. Had a sexual connotation 
    • Archetypal symbolism of BPM II is being swallowed and incorporated (ie eaten by a large animal) 
    • Giant tarantulas are symbols of BPM II / the Devouring Feminine 
    • Fear of snakes on a superficial level has a phallic connotation. However they are common symbols representing birth agony / imminent death (poisonous vipers) / strangulation (boa constrictors). Other snake symbols:
      • Snake from the Garden of Eden 
      • Kundalini 
      • Vishnu’s snake Ananta 
      • Rainbow serpent of the Oz Aborigines 
  • Entomophobia (fear of insects)
    • Bees represent reproduction and pregnancy (transfer pollen and fertilise plants)
    • Flies spread infection and love poop, thus linked to the scatological aspect of birth
  • Keraunophobia (fear of thunderstorms)
    • Related to transition from BPM III to BPM IV, thus ego death
    • Lightning represents energetic connection between heaven and earth – electricity a physical expression of divine energy 
    • Beethoven afraid of lightning (overcame by writing a storm in his pastoral symphony) 
  • Pyrophobia (fear of fire)
    • Roots in transition from BPM III to BPM IV
    • People approaching ego death often have visions of fire, or experience their body to be burning / passing through purifying flames 
  • Hydrophobia (fear of water) 
    • Relates to inhalation of amniotic fluid during birth / postnatal bathing accidents 
    • COEX system can include biographical elements (traumatic experiences with water in infancy) and transpersonal elements (shipwreck, flood, drowning in past life) 

Conversion Hysteria  

  • More prevalent in Freud’s time – played an important role in development of psychoanalysis 
  • Conversion refers to the symbolic transformation of unconscious conflicts / impulses into physical symptoms
    • Motor functions: paralysis of legs/arms, loss of speech, vomiting
    • Sensory organs: temp blindness, deafness
    • Set of symptoms can imitate pregnancy (nausea, vomiting, extension of the abdominal cavity)
    • Religious stigmata (simulating wounds of Jesus) 
  • Freud believed blushing of the face is displaced sexual excitement and picking the nose is a surrogate of masturbation 
  • Most complex manifestation of this hysteria is psychosomatic syndrome called “major hysterical spell / attack” (fainting, breathing difficulties, extreme backward arching of the body on the floor, crying / laughing, flailing around, pelvic movements simulatig sex)
    • Freud – thought these were expressions of forgotten events from childhood / fantasy stories surrounding these events. He thought loss of consciousness at the height of the attack mimicked loss of consciousness at point of orgasm 
    • Holotropic – powerful bioenergetic blockages which relate to BPM III – the behaviour of people reliving the final stage of birth (esp. the extreme backward arching) often resembles a hysterical spell

Obsessive-Compulsive Neurosis 

  • OCD is a spectrum – from playful (not stepping on cracks) -> double checking the home before leaving -> “psychopathology” of everyday life -> tortuous ordeals that make everyday life impossible 
  • Mental calculations can be attributable to getting head caught during birth 
  • General agreement in psychoanalytical lit that conflicts related to homosexuality, aggression and biologocal material form the basis for OCD – which point to the scatological aspects of BPM III
  • Other characteristics of OCD are a combination of ambivalence towards God with wanting to repent – close association of sexual, aggressive, scatological impulses with the numinous and divine can relate to the transition from BPM III to BPM IV
  • COEX themes might include trauma related to the anal area and to biological material (strict toilet training, painful enemas, anal rape, gastrointestinal disease)

Depression, Mania, and Suicidal Behaviour

  • Theories have shifted over time:
    • 40s-50s: psychoanalytical focus. Linked to overactive oral phase. Saw suicide as aggression towards introjected hated objects (killing of the introjected breast of the bad mother) 
    • 60s: shifted to neurochemical explanation – imbalance of neurochemicals
    • More recently: it’s complex! Depends on biological factors, psychological influences, social / environmental factors 
  • Biological explanations are limited:
    • Fails to show why it takes either manic or depressive form 
    • No specifics in terms of symptoms 
    • Despite depressive and manic phases looking like opposites, biologically they appear very similar 
  • Inhibited depression relates to BPM II experiences of mental and emotional pain: hopelessness, despair, overwhelming feelings of guilt, sense of inadequacy, anxiety, loss of interest, inability to enjoy existence 
    • Physical symptoms include feelings of oppression, constriction, suffocation, tension, pressures in various parts of the body (AKA BPM II sensations)
    • COEX systems can include feelings of loneliness, cold, hunger, fear – related to when fetus is cut off from oxygen 
  • Agitated depression relates to BPM III – energy not completely pent up like BPM II. Partial opening – compromise between energetic block and discharge (a full discharge would heal this condition)
    • Symptoms include tension, anxiety, psychomotor excitement, and restlessness (v active). Physical symptoms: muscular tensions, tremors, painful cramps, breathing problems, nausea
    • COEX systems can include: aggression, violence, cruelty, sexual abuse, assualt. Unlike with BPM II subjects are not passive but flight back (scenes of rape, fights, war battles etc)
  • Mania means avoiding awareness of the underlying depression, denial of painful inner reality. Reflects the victory of the Id and Ego over the Superego. Manic hunger for objects is typically seen as relating to a strong oral fixation (mania and depression linked cycle of satiety and hunger) 
    • Linked to transition from BPM III to BPM IV
  • Suicidal tendencies and behaviours
    • Psychology of suicidal tendencies has to answer 2 things:
      • What is overriding the powerful self-preservation drive 
      • What’s behind the choice of means of suicide 
    • Suicidal drive sometimes not about dying, but the method of death: reason behind using razor blades instead of drug overdose
    • Suicidal ideation can occur in any stage of the holotropic state – particularly frequent / urgent when the subject is confronting unconscious material related to negative perinatal matrices. 
    • Suicidal tendencies in holotropic states (including SEs) fall into 2 categories:
      • Nonviolent suicide: based on unconscious memory that the no-exit hell situation of BPM II was preceeded by bliss of BPM I. Might want to regress to BPM I (might be drawn to such situations in everyday life). Unconscious wants to eliminate the pain of BPM II. Manifests as not wanting to exist / fall into deep sleep forever. Actual suicide attempts involve overdosing on sleeping pills / being covered by snow and frozen to death / slitting wrists in bath 
      • Violent suicide: related to BPM III. Regression to womb unavailable to this person because it would involve going via hellish BPM II. Escape is memory of the liberation of biological birth – want to recreate the experiential qualities of biological birth (intensification of tension and suffering followed by explosive resolution amidst biological material). Fantasies include: blowing brains out, throwing oneself off cliff, stabbing oneself with a knife

Alcoholism and Drug Addiction 

  • Booze and drug addictions are closely related to manic-depressive disorders and suicide
  • Grof believes addicts don’t want to regress to the breast (Freudian reading) but the blissful unity of the womb – a deep craving for transcendance
  • Analogue of suicide – like a slow, drawn-out suicide 
  • Differences between addiction and transcendance – drugs dull senses, transcendance elevates them. Thus drugs offer only a pitiful caricature of the mystical state, yet similar enough to seduce addicts 
  • “The best treatment for addiction is religion” / Jung: “his craving for alcohol was the equivalent of the spiritual thirst for wholeness: the union with God”
  • Wanting to escape painful emotions associated with BPM II and related COEX systems most common mechanism underlying addiction 
  • Can also relate to BPM III if birth was under heavy anesthesia (medicate pain of birth away). Drug abuse in US rises alongside use of anesthetic 

Sexual Disorders and Deviations 

  • Sexual disorders and deviations in understood in classic Freudian psychoanalysis as:
    • Infantile sexuality: sexuality develops in early infancy not puberty. As the libido develops through the stages (oral, anal, urethal, phallic) frustration / overindulgance in any stage results in fixation. Stress in later life can cause regression to stage of development where fixation occurred 
    • Castration complex: Freud believed both sexes put great importance on the penis: boys fear they may lose it / girls believe they once had it. Thus girls are more prone to masochism and guilt (what did they do to deserve this). Limited: views women as castrated males and ignores aspects of womanhood like childbirth, motherhood etc 
    • Oedipus complex: sexual attraction males feel towards their mothers and aggression towards fathers. Results in fear of punishment. Opposite roles is called Electra complex 
    • Vagina dentata: children see vaginas as dangerous organs equipped with teeth – boys see girls as being penis-less, and become scared, or think the vagina can bite of the penis (lol) 
  • Grof: sexual feelings don’t start at the breast but in the birth canal (suffocation and agony of BPM III can generate sexual arousal)
  • Interactions with biological material (feces, blood, urine) can form the basis for many sexual deviations. Specific disorders arise when aspects of perinatal memories are reinforced by postnatal traumas in infancy and childhood 
  • Sadomasochism – Freud couldn’t find a reason for it as it undermined the pleasure principle. Related to BPM III – sexual arousal, physical confinement, aggression, pain and suffocation. Giving / receiving pain or domination = recreating sensations and emotions felt during birth. Misguided attempt of the psyche to integrate the original trauma. Acted out without the recognition of its sources
  • Same above goes for deviations involving pee and poop. 
  • Imagining rape as a victim involves serious danger, vital anxiety, physical restraint, struggle, choking etc. – elements of BPM III. Imagining as the rapist counteracts this, while taking revenge on the mother. 

Psychosomatic Manifestations of Emotional Disorders 

  • Many emotional disorders (e.g. psychoneurosis, depression, functional psychosis) have physical manifestations: headaches, heart palpitations, excessive sweating, tics, tremors, psychosomatic pains, skin problems, gastrointestinal. 
  • Extreme cases are called psychosomatic diseases – migraines, colitis and peptic ulcers, asthma, psoriasis, various eczemas. 
  • Traditional view: psychosomatic symptoms result from the physiological consequences of psychological trauma and conflict 
  • Other factors also important in psychosomatic disorders: hereditary, organ pathology, nutritional status, environment, social, cultural
  • Talking therapy alone is insufficient – lots of blocked emotional and physical energy needed to be released in the holotropic state 
  • Wilheim Reich suggested the main factor in underlying emotional and psychosomatic disorders is blocked bioenergy in the muscles and viscera, what he called “character armour” (although he thought it was just sexaul in nature – due to the repressive nature of society). 
  • Grof believes it’s NOT unexpressed libido but emotional / physical charge bound in COEX systems. Part of this energy is due to postnatal biography (psychological / physical trauma from childhood and infancy). But much of energetic charge is in unprocessed memory of birth

Psychodynamics of Adult Psychotic States 

  • Extensive research has shown no biological root for functional psychosis 
  • Early research into LSD (“psychomimetic”) didn’t shed light on psychosis, but demonstrated the emergence of deep unconscious material into consciousness. 
  • Phenomenology of functional psychosis combines perinatal and transpersonal domains, and sometimes postnatal biographical elements 
  • Psychotic episodes can resemble BPM I in both its good and bad forms (union with Great Mother Goddess etc)
  • Many paranoid people think someone’s trying to poison them – related to prenatal chemical changes in the mother’s body 
  • Paranoid feelings can also be related to BPM II, an uncertain and unpleasant time for the fetus where the source of the danger is unknown 
  • Many psychotic patients experience hellish machines that torture them. Psychoanalytic studies say the machine represents the bad mother. Grof says yes, but the delivering mother, not the nursing one 
  • Other psychotic themes related to BPM II include experiences of meaningless, absurd automata and the atmosphere of grotesque circus sideshows. 
  • BPM III shares many psychotic states – imagery / ideation of violent wars, revolutions, massacres, often on gigantic scales – cosmic battles of good and evil. 
  • Transition from BPM III to IV – psychospiritual death and rebirth, apocalyptic visions of destruction and recreation, scenes of the Last Judgement, identification with Jesus or any other religious figure leading to ego inflation.
  • BPM IV – divine epithanies, encounters with angelic beings, salvation, redemption 
  • Inadequate nourishment and viral infections during pregnancy, long labours, oxygen deprivation consistently reported factors for schizophrenia. Mainstream clinicians believe it’s due to birth causing undetectable damage, not recognising the psychotrauma of birth itself 
  • Psychotic states also include past-life memories, contact with extraterrestrials, encounters with gods and demons. Can be spiritual – identification with God etc. 
  • Many such experiences have been reported by mystics, saints, prophets of all ages.
  • Mysticism vs mental disorder is less about nature of experience but the attitude towards it and the ability to integrate it
  • “The psychotic drowns in the same waters in which the mystic swims with delight” – Joseph Cambell (caveat: experience of mystics can often be challenging / not always delightful – but the mystic is able to see challenging period as part of larger journey)

Spiritual emergency: understanding treatment of crises of transformation 

Spiritual emergence: SE

Spiritual emergency: SEM

  • What might be diagnosed as psychosis and medicated away might actually be a difficult stage of radical personality transformation. 
  • If probably supported can result in:
    • emotional and psychosomatic healing
    • personality transformation 
    • consciousness evolution 
    • Increased zest for life 
    • Increased tolerance 
  • Episodes of this kind can be found in the life of shamans, yogis, saints, and mystics 
  • Mainstream psychiatrists have narrow focus, so often misdiagnosed as psychosis 
  • If it happens too quickly it becomes an emergency
  • Chinese ideogram for crisis contains picturgram of danger and picturgam opportunity
  • Increase awareness of spiritual practices – polls shows people have “spiritual experiences” have increased since the 2nd half of the 20th century – parallel increase of SEMs 
  • Individual loss of spirituality:
    • Increase of emotional psychosomatic disorders 
    • Unfulfilling way of life 
    • Alienating 
  • Collective loss:
    • Plundering of non-renewable resources 
    • Polluting the environment 
    • Disturbing ecological balance 
    • Use of violence 
  • Christina Grof founded the Spiritual Emergency Network (SEN)

Triggers of SEM

  • Physical stress (disease, accident, operation, extreme exertion, prolonged lack of sleep, childbirth, miscarriage, abortion, powerful sexual experience)
  • Emotional stress (loss of relationship, death of loved one, divorce, job loss)
  • Spiritual practices (meditation, Kundalini yoga, monastic contemplation, prayer) – increase if accompanied with fasting, sleep deprivation, extended periods of meditation 
  • Psychedelics 
  • Can be “last straw” 
  • Wide range of triggers suggests importance of person’s readiness
  • Common denominator is that creates shift in unconscious and conscious
    • Weakening of defenses 
    • Increase of energetic charge of unconscious, rising into consciousness 
  • Events can often break our idea of ourselves (end of job or relationship) and force us to look inward and activate the unconscious 

Diagnosis of SEM 

  • NB not all psychotic states are symptoms of SEM or have healing potential 
  • Non-ordinary states cover purely spiritual experiences to those that are biological in nature and require medical attention 
  • Problem of psychiatrists pathologizing mystical states, but ALSO problem of romanticising psychotic state / overlooking serious medical issue 
  • Health professionals want to know how to differentiate between psychosis and SEM – impossible. Psychotic states are not clearly organic is nature – “functional psychosis” (FS)  is not medically defined (questionable whether it should be called a disease)
  • FS diagnosis based solely on unusual behaviors and is based on limited model of psyche used in psychiatry 
  • Medical labelling of “endogenous” (having an internal cause/origin) and “functional” are meaningless. No reason behind labelling of “mental disease” – assuming it’s a product of a pathological process in the brain that hasn’t been discovered yet. How could abnormal processes explain transpersonal / mystical experiences?
  • Chemical changes can catalyze such experiences, but can’t fully explain complex imagery and rich philosophical and spiritual insights
  • To understand the phenomenology of psychedelic experiences you need to include transpersonal psychology, parapsychology, mythology, philosophy. Same with SEs/SEMs
  • To understand SEs/SEMs, you need to see the psyche as much larger than the individual (a la Jung seeing psyche as anima mundi or “world’s soul” – which inc. historical / archetypal collective unconscious). Closely related to Eastern philosophies and mystical traditions 
  • Since FS defined psychologically not medically, it’s impossible to differentiate 
  • HOWEVER – we can define criteria that would make it possible to determine who is a good candidate for therapy that validates and supports process
    • 1st step: good medical examination – eliminates possibility of organic conditions / require biological treatment 
    • Next: encourage people to surrender to the process / support emergence and full expression of unconscious material as it becomes available 
    • And: establish / deepen trust. For people who aren’t used to holotropic states, trust and guidance is needed
    • And: pay attention to how clients talk about experiences. 
      • Good: talks about experiences in a coherent way. Articulates process (mental, emotional, physical etc). Aware of emotional response (anxiety etc). Asks questions like “what’s happening?” and “am I going crazy?”
      • Bad: doesn’t describe symptoms and asks for psychiatric advice. Paranoid (“neighbour is out to get me” or  “my house is bugged”). Unlikely to get much from a therapeutic relationship. 

Varieties of SE 

  • No general agreement on DSM-V symptoms (often arguments surround additions as professionals can’t match symptoms to official diagnoses)
  • SEMs present similar issue, and even more so as phenomenology is unusually rich. Symptoms of psychospiritual crises represent manifestations / externalisations of the psyche (which is vast, multidimensional, multileveled, transpersonal). Thus, no clear definitions 
  • However, the following provides most important varieties:
    • Shamanic initiatory crisis 
    • Awakening of kundalini
    • Episodes of unitive consciousness (Maslow’s “peak experiences”)
    • Psychological renewal through return to centre (John Weir Perry)
    • Crisis of psychic opening 
    • Past life experiences 
    • Communication of spirit guides and “channeling”
    • Near death experiences (NDEs)
    • Close encounters with UFOs / alien abductions
    • Possession states 
    • Alcoholism and drug addiction 

Shamanic initiatory crisis

  • Career of shamans often starts with involuntary visionary state (anthropologists call “shamanic illness”). During such episodes future shamans withdraw psychologically / physically from the everyday environment. 
  • Undergo a hero’s journey into the underworld (realm of the dead) where they are attacked by demons / endure tortuous ordeals; death and dismemberment; rebirth; ascent into celestial realms 
  • Might involve transformation into a bird (eagle, falcon, condor) and flight into the realm of cosmic sun. 
  • During arduous journeys novice shamans develop deep connections with forces of nature and with animals, both in their natural and archetypal forms (“spirit / power animals”)
  • When journeys are completed they can heal emotional, psychosomatic, even physical diseases. Hence the term “wounded healers”
  • Return as a healer / priest / leader 
  • Westerners can experience similar states in holotropic states (hero’s journey / spontaneous chanting etc)
  • Shamanic cultures CAN in fact recognise difference between transformation and someone who is sick/crazy (shaman must be able to function at least as well as other members in the tribe)

Kundalini awakening 

  • SEs/SEMs resemble descriptions of the awakening of Kundalini (or Serpent Power) found in ancient Indian literature
  • According to yogis, Kundalini is the generative cosmic energy (feminine in nature) and responsible for generation of the cosmos
  • In latent form sits at base of spine in the subtle or energetic body (field that permeates and surrounds the physical body)
  • Latent energy can become activated by
    • Meditation 
    • Delics 
    • Intervention of guru 
    • Specific exercises
    • Childbirth 
    • Unknown reasons 
  • Activated kundalini (called shakti) rises through the energy channels (nadis) in the subtle body. As is rises it clears old traumatic imprints and opens centres of physic energy (chakras)
  • This process is highly valued and considered benevolent in the yogic tradition – however expert guidance is advised 
  • Most dramatic signs are physical and psychological manifestations called kriyas – intense sensations of energy streaming up the spine / violent shaking, spams, twisting movements 
  • Emotions (anxiety / anger / sadness / joy) can surface and temp dominate the psyche 
  • Can be accompanied by visions of bright light / archetypal beings / past life experiences / speaking in tongues / mantras / asanas / mudras / animal sounds and movements 
  • Jung dedicated a series of seminars to kundalini. However, in error he concluded kundalini was exclusively Eastern phenomenon and would take 1000 years for this energy to surface in the West. But in the last few decades many awakenings have been recorded in thousands of Westerners. 

Episodes of unitive consciousness (“peak experiences”)

  • Maslow coined the term  “peak experiences” (PE) having studied hundreds of people – criticised pathological model. Considered such states to be “supernormal” rather than abnormal   
  • If led to run their natural course can lead to “self actualisation” – the capacity to express one’s creative potential more fully and to live a more rewarding life 
  • Walter Pahnke (psychiatrist and consciousness researcher) developed a list of basic characteristics 
    • Unity (inner and outer)
    • Strong positive emotion 
    • Transcendence of time and space 
    • Sense of sacredness (numinosity)
    • Paradoxical nature 
    • Objectivity and reality of the insights 
    • Ineffability 
    • Positive aftereffects
  • State of wholeness. Also transcend distinction between subject and object – ecstatic union with humanity, nature, the cosmos, God 
  • Sense of leaving ordinary reality (3D / linear time). Enter a metaphysical, transcendental realm
  • Infinity and eternity become felt realities
  • Descriptions can be paradoxical – “contenless, yet all-containing” – it has no specific content but seems to contain everything in a potential form 
  • Can experience being both everything and nothing 
  • With the ego gone, expand to the size of the universe 
  • PEs seems to convey cosmic wisdom – which the Upanishads describe as “knowing That, the knowledge of which gives the knowledge of everything” 
  • Can be ineffable – the vocabulary of language (designed to communicate about objects and events in the material world) appear limiting. 

Psychological renewal through return to centre 

  • “Renewal process” (RP) – John Weir Perry (Jungian analyst)
  • Due to depth and intensity, this is the SEM most likely to be diagnosed as a mental disease
  • People who experience RP experience their psyche as a colossal battlefield where a cosmic fight is being played out between forces of Good and Evil / light and darkness 
  • Themes of death – ritual killing / sacrifice / martyrdom / afterlife 
  • Opposites can become fascinating – especially issues related to differences between sexes 
  • Experience themselves at the centre of fantastic events of cosmic proportions 
  • Visions tend to go back farther and farther until genesis and ideal state of paradise
  • After a period of turmoil and confusion, the experience becomes more and more pleasant, moving towards resolution. Often culminates of “sacred marriage” – person is elevated to divine status and experiences union with equally divine partner, indicating masculine and feminine aspects of personality are reaching a new balance 
  • Sacred union can also be with imaginary archetypal figure, or projected onto idealised person from their life, who then appears to soulmate / karmic partner 
  • At this time one can have experiences portraying that Jungian psychology interprets as symbols representing the Self – the transpersonal centre that reflects our deepest and true nature. Related to Hindu concept of Atman-Brahman, the Divine within
  • Can appear in the form of a source of light of supernatural beauty, radiant spheres, precious stones, jewels etc. 
  • Can raise sense of oneself to highly exalted status – world saviour, Lord of the Universe etc. Often associated with profound sense of spiritual rebirth that replaces earlier preoccupation with death
  • As process nears integration / completion, can bring visions of an ideal future – a new world governed by love and justice, with no ills or evil
  • RP moves people toward direction of what Jung called “Individuation” – a full realisation and expression of one’s deep potential 
  • Perry was able to show that experiences in RP exactly match the main themes of royal dramas that were enacted in many ancient cultures on New Year’s Day – these cultures existed during an ancient period where rulers were considered Gods (Egyptian pharaohs, Peruvian Incas, Chinese and Japanese emperors etc.). Hence why RP connected with archetypal symbolism 

The crisis of psychic opening (PO)

  • An increase of intuitive abilities and occurrence of psychic / paranormal phenomena are common during SEMs of all kinds. However, sometimes influx of info from non-ordinary sources overwhelm 
  • Most dramatic manifestation PO is out of body experience (OBE). Sometimes during everyday life, and often without warning / trigger, one’s consciousness seems to detach from the body and witness what’s happening from a remote location
  • Information obtained in such states reflects reality and can be verified 
  • Often occur alongside NDEs
  • Can also experience telepathy – might verbalise accurate insights into another’s life
  • Ditto clairvoyance – seeing into the future 
  • Can experience taking on another’s identity, assuming a person’s body image, postures, gestures, facial expressions, etc. 
  • Pro shamans, psychics and spiritual healers can use such experiences in a controlled and productive way – assuming the identity of another, then seamlessly switching back 
  • Can experience uncanny coincidences, what Jung called “synchronicities”
    • Studying synchronistic events helped Jung realise that archetypes were not principles limited to the psyche, they had a “psychoid” quality, which means they govern the psyche AND happenings in the world of consensus reality 
    • Jungian synchronicities represent authentic phenomena and cannot be ignored and discounted as accidental. They shouldn’t be pathologised as seeing meaning where there is none – “delusion of reference” 

Past life experiences

  • Sequences that take place in other historical periods and places. Usually accompanied by powerful emotions and physical sensations 
  • Convincing sense of remembering and reliving something already seen (deja vu) or experienced (deja vecu)
  • Perhaps these experiences give validity to concepts of karma and reincarnation 
  • Karma and reincarnation are cornerstones of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Taoism, as well as tribes in Africa, the Americas, Brazil, Gauls, Druids etc.
  • Karmic experiences can provide insights into issues experienced in daily life, and issues disappear when karmic influence is fully experienced
  • Issues occur when karmic influences rise in the middle of everyday activities and cause disruption 
  • One might also feel compelled to act out a karmic vision before understanding it fully (for example being drawn to a cosmic partner, someone whom has no basis for understanding the context) 
  • Difficulty reconciling experience with Western beliefs (Christian / materialism) 

Communication with spirit guides and “channeling”

  • Can encounter someone who assumes role of guide, teacher, protector (usually seen as superhuman entity / deity with extraordinary wisdom)
  • Channeling involves transmitting a message to other people, which were received from a source seemingly beyond his or her consciousness 
  • Remarkable example of channelled text is “the book of miracles” by Helen Schucman 
  • Person can think they’re going insane – hearing voices (well-known symptom of paranoid schizophrenia) 
  • Can lead to ego inflation in the channeler (the chosen one)

Near death experiences (NDEs)

  • Tibetan Book of the Dead, Egyptian Book of the Dead, and The Art of Dying (European counterpart) all discuss passage into death.
  • Mythology around dying has been discounted by Western scholars as a product of fantasy and the wishful thinking of primitive people. This changed after Raymond Moody’s book “Life After Life” which brough scientific confirmation of NDEs (based 150 accounts of NDEs in people who were pronounced clinically dead but regained consciousness) 
  • Moody wrote people who have NDEs witness their lives in colourful, condensed replay (a few seconds) 
  • Consciousness often detaches from body and floats freely above the scene
  • People report passing through a dark tunnel towards Divine light. This light is infinite and emits love, forgiveness, acceptance
  • Receive lessons from God regarding existence and universal laws 
  • Most survivors return from their NDEs changed – deep kinship with all living things, concern for the planet, new direction etc
  • Great potential of NDE doesn’t mean it’s easy – can undermine worldview. Might need counselling to integrate experience 

Close encounters with UFOs / alien abduction experiences 

  • Most people explain UFOs in 4 ways:
    • Actual visitation 
    • Hoax 
    • Misperception of natural events / devices of terrestrial origin 
    • Psychotic hallucination 
  • Jung did a special study into flying saucers, suggesting they are archetypal visions from the collective unconscious of humanity – supported by accounts of seeing flying disks over the past centuries
  • Extraterrestrial (ET) beings have close parallels in mythology and religion (e.g. fiery vehicle of the Greek sun god Helios)
  • Often reports of examinations using strange instruments, probing genitals (sometimes border on torture) – similar to shamanistic rites of passage 
  • Similar to channelers, can evoke ego inflation (chosen one)
  • People need professional help from people from people with archetypal psychology
  • Psychiatrists who say phenomena is merely pathological process in brain is reductionist 
  • Actual visits from UFOs are also implausible – travelling to us from such distances would require interdimensional travel through hyperspace 
  • Until more reliable information is available, it seems most plausible UFO experiences are manifestations of archetypal material from the collective unconscious 

Possession states 

  • Feeling that mind and/or body has been invaded, being controlled by an evil entity – something outside of themselves and hostile 
  • Can manifest as antisocial behaviour, suicidal depression, murderous aggression, drug abuse etc. 
  • Usually cause is hidden for some time, until “possession” becomes an option in experiential psychotherapy 
  • During an experiential session, hands and body might contort, voice may take on otherworldly quality (a la exorcism!). Resolution often comes after projectile vomiting, temp loss of control etc. 
  • If allowed to pass it can be healing (see book “when the impossible happens”)
  • However, it can lead to a person being scared, especially if possession occurs outside of the therapeutic context. Friends, family and even therapists can withdraw, leading to loneliness
  • Demonic archetype is mirror image of the Divine and transpersonal by nature
  • Can be transformational and healing if therapist / support isn’t put off and encourages its full expression and resolution 

Alcoholism and drug addiction 

  • Addiction can be described as an SEM – as with possession state, spiritual dimension is obscured by self-destruction
  • While in other forms of SEMs problem arises due to difficulty coping with spiritual / mystical emergence, addiction is caused by a strong spiritual longing and the fact that contact with the mystical dimension hasn’t been made 
  • Lots of research to points to addiction being the unrecognised craving for transcendence or wholeness 
  • Superficial similarity between mystical states and intoxication – dissolution of boundaries, reduction of disturbing emotions, transcendence of the mundane. But lacks serenity, numinosity, richness of philosophical insights (but enough overlap to seduce addict)  
  • Jung played a role in developing AA’s 12-step program – Jung had an alcoholic patient who became sober after a year of therapy with Jung. He then relapsed – Jung said the only chance he had was to join a religious community, which he did and which freed him of his alcoholism. He later helped Bill Wilson’s (founder of AA) friend, who in turn helped Bill Wilson. Jung responded to a letter from Bill Wilson, saying deep spiritual experiences are the antidote to alcoholism 

Treatment of SEMs

  • Must realise such states aren’t manifestations of an unknown pathological process, but result of a spontaneous movement in the psyche that has healing and transformative potential – Appropriate treatment requires expanded model of the psyche that includes perinatal and transpersonal realms 
  • Nature and degree of therapeutic assistance depends on intensity of psychospiritual process involved
    • Mild – can cope in everyday life and only needs to talk about it with transpersonal oriented person, someone who provides constructive feedback to help integrate the experience 
    • Strong – might require regular sessions of experiential therapy to allow full expression of emotions and blocked energies 
  • When experiences are intense, encourage surrender to the process
  • If there is strong psychological resistance, encourage faster breathing and releasing bodywork 
  • Intense experiential sessions can be complemented with Gestalt practice, Dora Kalff’s Jungian sandplay, bodywork with a psychologically experienced practitioner 
  • Also helps: journalling, painting mandalas, expressive dance, jogging, swimming, other sport activities, reading transpersonal books 
  • Extreme cases require 24-7 support, which unfortunately don’t exist 
  • Can be accompanied by insomnia, loss of appetite, physical activity, intense emotions – danger of dehydration, vit and mineral deficiency and exhaustion 
  • So deep into process can forget about food, drink or hygiene – need help with basic needs
  • Minor tranquilizers / sleeping pills may be necessary 
  • Once intensity subsides constant supervision is no longer necessary – person gradually resumes care of themself and re-enters everyday life 
  • Addictions must be overcome in a special facility before attention on SEM
  • Mystical experiences likened to 11th step in 12-step program – “to improve through prayer and meditation our conscious contact with God as we understand God”
  • So MEs can help, but not if the person is actively using – chemical cycles are hard to break. Sobriety is necessary first. Then they can confront traumatic memories, process difficult emotions associated with them, and obtain valuable insights into the psychological roots of their abuse
  • Holotropic experiences can mediate death/rebirth process once user has hit “rock bottom”
  • Holotropic states show true spirituality, as opposed to inferior surrogate of drink and drugs
  • Some in the 12-step movement were critical, saying any experience of a “high” signals a relapse. 
  • Bill Wilson wanted to introduce LSD into the 12-step program, but was encouraged against it (and removed himself from the AA governing board so he could continue experimenting with LSD) 

Holotropic breathwork 

  • Combination of accelerated breathing (to create holotropic state), evocative music and a bodywork technique that helps to release residual bioenergetic and emotional blocks
  • Conducted in pairs of “breathers” and “sitters”, supervised by trained facilitators
  • Following breathing sessions are mandala drawings and a group share
  • Non-verbal, more experiential – like Gestalt practice which emphasises direct emotional expression and work with the body

Essential components 

  • Faster breathing, evocative music and releasing bodywork induced holotropic state, allowing access to biographical, perinatal, transpersonal domains / into deep psychospiritual roots of emotional and psychosomatic disorders 
  • Process is spontaneous and autonomous – led by inner healing intelligence 

The healing power of the breath 

  • In indian lit prana not only means physical breath and air but the sacred essence of life. Chi in Chinese refers to the cosmic essence and the energy of life, as well as air in we breath. In Japan it’s called ki. In ancient Greece word for air / breath also meant spirit / essence of life (pneuma)
  • Genesis: “then the Lord God formed man [Hebrew “Adam”] from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being”
  • In Latin spiritus meant breath and spirit  
  • Profound changes to consciousness can be induced by hyperventilation and prolonged withholding (even alternating these). Pranayama in india 
  • Buddha used mindful breathing to become enlightened, also used in some Christian and Taoist practices
  • Western medicine stripped breath of its sacred quality and connection to psyche and spirit – made it merely a physiological function 
  • Rapid breathing pathologized as “hyperventilation syndrome”, instead of seeing it as a gateway to healing
  • Holotropic breathing encourages faster, deeper breathing in a continuous cycle at the start, then allows inner wisdom to direct rhythm 
  • Deliberate increase of breathing typically loosens psychological defenses and leads to release / emergence of unconscious material 

The therapeutic potential of music 

  • Like breathing, music and sound technologies have been used for millennia as tools in rituals and spiritual practice (drumming, rattling, chanting, instrumental music) 
  • Indian teachings postulate a connection between certain acoustic frequencies and individual chakras / subtle energy centres 
  • Multivocal chants of tibetan monks / icaros in ayahuasca ceremonies / throat music of inuits / sacred chants of Sufi orders 
  • Unlike at a rock concert, must have sustained, focus introspection 
  • Must surrender completely to music, let it resonate in the entire body, and respond in a spontaneous way (including crying, coughing, laughing, screaming, baby talk, animal noises chanting etc.). 
  • Also important not to control physical reactions 
  • Must suspend intellectual activity – no judging the music or trying to guess the instrument 
  • Must be played loudly on a quality system to be effective 
  • No songs in the language of participants. Use music that is high quality but relatively unknown 
  • Structure:
    • Activating music (dynamic, flowing, reassuring)
    • 1.5 hours in: breakthrough music – sacred music (masses, requiems, other strong orchestral pieces
    • Heart music – less intense / more emotionally moving
    • Termination period – soothing, flowing, timeless, meditative 
  • Or:
    • Opening 
    • Trance-inducing
    • Breakthrough 
    • Heart 
    • Meditative

The use of releasing bodywork

  • Holotropic breathing can bring on dramatic psychosomatic manifestations 
  • Variation in responses: progressive relaxation, sexual feelings, mystical experiences. Also tensions, which reach a crescendo followed by a period of deep relaxation (like an orgasm)
  • Cycle of tension and relaxation tends to move from one part of the body to another
  • Number of tensions decrease with more sessions 
  • Faster breathing over a long period changes the body chemistry, so that blocked physical and emotional energies (which are associated with trauma) are released and become available for discharge and processing 
  • Needs to be supported and encouraged, not pathologized and suppressed
  • Physical manifestations aren’t merely physiological reactions, but complex psychosomatic structures that have psychological meaning for people
  • Sometimes they represent intensified versions of everyday tensions and pains. Other times they can be seen as a reactivation of old latent symptoms from childhood, infancy, another life…
  • Tensions in body can be released in 2 ways:
  1. Abreaction and catharsis – discharge of pent up energies (tremors, twitches, coughing, shakes, vomiting, crying, screaming, etc.)
  • Abreaction – emotional / physical discharge connected with emergence of traumatic memory (used in Gestalt)  
  • Catharsis – general discharge of emotions and physical energies without specific source or content 
  1. Bodywork 
  • Bodywork is offered if breathing doesn’t complete session / there are residual tensions or unresolved emotions 
  • Strategy: 
    • Breather is asked to focus attention on the area where there is unreleased tension
    • Asked to do whatever necessary to intensify sensation 
    • While focus is on energetically charged problem area, breather is asked to find a spontaneous reaction to the situation 
    • This response should not be conscious process – things like animal-like vocalisations, talking in tongues, baby talk, shamanic chant etc. / also tremors, shakes, animal-like actions like crawling, slithering etc
    • Facilitators support what spontaneously emerges (no techniques from schools of therapy)
    • Breather should end the session in a relaxed state 
    • End with mandala drawing

Supportive and nourishing physical contact 

  • There are two types of trauma 
    • Trauma by commission – external intrusion that damages future development (sexual abuse, frightening situations, destructive criticisms, etc). These traumas represent foreign elements in the unconscious that can be brought into consciousness, energetically discharged, and resolved 
    • Trauma by omission – lack of positive experiences that are essential for healthy development. Infants / older children have instinctual need to be held, experience skin contact, be caressed, comforted, played with, etc. 
  • Many people have a history of emotional deprivation, abandonment, and neglect in infancy / childhood. The only way to heal this type of trauma is to offer corrective experience of supportive physical touch in the holotropic state 
  • To be effective, person needs to be deeply regressed to the infantile state of development 
  • Based on prior consent – can be simple hand holding, touching the forehead, or full body contact 
  • Strict ethical considerations – must get approval and consent. For people with sexual abuse history touch can be sensitive issue
  • Often those who need touch the most are most resistant. Trust needs to be established 
  • Watch for countertransference (sitter’s need to be loved, desired etc.). 
  • No sexual touch!
  • Can spot regression by noticing wrinkles on forehead disappear, and looks / behaves like an infant (infantile gestures / postures / salvation / thumb sucking)
  • “Fusion therapy”, where a patient would take LSD and be “mothered ” in a regressed state, was criticised for crossing transference / countertransference boundary. However response was that many people enter therapy because of lack on nurturing – coldness of Freudian approach can be reactive wounds 
  • To answer “why should reliving traumatic memories be therapeutic rather than retraumatizing?” – in therapy we are not facing an exact replay / repetition of the original traumatic situation, but rather the first full experience of the appropriate emotional / physical response to it. This means the traumatic events are recorded in the person at the time when they happen, but are not fully consciously experienced, processed, and integrated. 
  • Also, the person is no longer the helpless and vitally dependent child / infant, but a grown adult. 
  • Two different selves are experienced: age regression allow experience to be felt from child’s perspective AND adult perspective to analyse and evaluate the memory 

Mandala drawing: the expressive power of art 

  • Mandala means “circle” or “completion” in Sanskrit 
  • In ritual and spiritual practice, mandala refers to anything that can be drawn, painted, modelled or danced. 
  • Can be used as meditation aids in Buddhism, Hinduism 
  • Jung noticed similar patterns emerged in patients who reached a certain psychospiritual development. According Jung the mandala is a “psychological expression of the totality of the self”… “The severe pattern imposed by a circular image of this kind compensates the disorder and confusion of the psychic state – namely through the construction of a central point to which everything is related”

The course of holotropic sessions 

  • Varies from person to person and from session to session 
  • Some remain quiet and still, others are activated and show rich motor activity (tremors, shakes, slithering, digging, climbing etc.)
  • Can assume yogic or animal postures that are not familiar to person 
  • Emotional responses are as varied. From profound peace / tranquility, to utter terror / guilt / aggression / doom 
  • In the middle is everyday anger / sadness / anxiety / hopelessness. Typically linked to biographical memories – sources are from traumatic experiences in infancy / childhood 
  • Sometimes faster breathing doesn’t evoke tensions or difficult emotions, but leads directly to increasing relaxation, a sense of expansion and visions of light, love, connection to self, others and God
  • Protestant ethics can discourage us from revelling in ecstatic experiences – however they can be healing and should be fully embraced without guilt 
  • Properly integrated sessions result in profound emotional release, physical relaxation, and sense of wellbeing 
  • Can connect to numinous aspects of psyche and of being 
  • Good bodywork can significantly facilitate emotional and physical resolution. 
  • Being in nature can help with integration, especially floating in water 

Mandala drawing and the sharing groups 

  • After the session, the breather goes into the mandala room, which is equipped with art supplies and sheets of white paper with circles on them (size of dinner plate). Asked to sit down, meditate on the experience, and find a way of expressing the session 
  • No specific guidelines for the mandala drawing
  • Sometimes drawings can predict what arises in the following session. This relates to Jung’s Individuation process, where material reveals itself in the forthcoming stage
  • Breathers then have a sharing session. Strategy of the facilitators is to encourage maximum openness and honesty in sharing
  • Willingness to share is conducive to level of bonding and trust in the group 
  • Facilitators refrain from interpreting experiences, due to 
    • Lack of agreement between schools concerning the functioning of the psyche
    • Material can be related to several layers of the psyche 
    • Danger of freezing the process and interfering with progress 
  • Instead, facilitators can ask questions that help to elicit more info from the perspective of the client (who is the ultimate expert). When we are patient resist temptation to share our own impressions the client will find their own explanation that fits 
  • On occasion it can be useful to share similar experiences / point out connections with other members of the group 
  • Concerning archetypal material, can use Jung’s method of amplification, pointing to parallels between an experience and similar mythological motifs from various cultures (can consult a dictionary of symbols)

Follow-up and use of complementary techniques

  • Several things can help with integration after:
    • Discussions with an experienced facilitator
    • Writing down the content of the session 
    • Additional mandala drawings 
    • Meditation 
    • Movement 
    • Bodywork that allows emotional expression 
    • Jogging 
    • Swimming (other forms of exercise) 
    • Expressive dance 

Therapeutic potential of holotropic breathwork 

  • In traditional verbal therapy, changes in symptoms occur over long periods, and can’t be precisely linked to therapy. In holotropic breathwork, profound transformations can occur in space of a few hours and can convincingly be linked to the experience
  • Can improve self-confidence and self-esteem, overcome phobias, disappearance of psychosomatic pains. Can also resolve conditions apparently biological in nature: such as chronic infections after bioenergetic unblocking opened up blood circulation 
  • Can help with arthritis – release of excessive bioenergetic blockage in afflicted parts of the body 

Biological mechanisms involved in holotropic breathwork

  • Many people think that when we breathe faster we simply bring more oxygen into the body and the brain. It’s actually more complicated (ok)
  • It’s true that faster breathing brings more oxygen into the lungs, but it also eliminates carbon dioxide (CO2) and causes vasoconstriction (constriction of blood vessels, which increases blood pressure) in parts of the body
  • Since CO2 is acidic, reducing its content in the blood increases the alkalinity of blood (pH) and in alkalinic setting, relatively less oxygen is being transferred into the tissues 
  • This triggers a homeostatic mechanism: the kidneys excrete urine that is more alkaline to compensate for the change 
  • Vasoconstriction also reduces oxygen to the brain 
  • Cortex (evolutionarily more modern part of the brain) is more sensitive to a variety of influences (such as alcohol) than older parts of the brain. Holotropic breathwork would inhibit cortical areas and intensify more archaic parts of the brain, making unconscious material more available.
  • Holotropic breathwork resembles being high on a mountain – where there is less oxygen and CO2 is decreased by compensatory faster breathing. Perhaps why cultures known for their advanced spirituality can be found on mountains (eg. yogis in the Himalayas, Tibetan Buddhists, ancient Incas etc)

Conclusion 

  • Huxley saw the brain as a reducing valve that shields us from an infinitely larger cosmic input. Concepts such as Sheldrake’s “morphogenetic fields” / Laszlo’s “psi field” or “Akashic holofield” might support Huxleys’ idea 
  • Comparison of holotropic therapy with traditional therapy:
    • Verbal methods try to get to root of emotional / psychosomatic issue indirectly by helping the client to remember relevant forgotten / repressed events, or reconstruct them through dreams, neurotic symptoms, or observing transference 
    • Verbal therapies use a model of the psyche limited to postnatal biography / Freudian individuals unconsciously. Employ techniques that cannot reach deeper levels of the psyche, thus the deeper roots of the disorders they intend to heal 
    • Verbal therapy particularly limited when it comes to physical components of trauma – cannot be resolved by talking about them. They have to be relived and the emotions / blocked physical energies attached to them fully expressed 
    • Advantage of holotropic breathwork is economic: number in a group vs number of facilitators (10 to 1)
    • Holotropic breathwork training also translates over to other forms of holotropic states (such as psychedelics). CIIS uses holotropic training until psychedelics are legal  

The Way of the Psychonaut – Volume 2

Self-exploration and therapy with psychedelics: importance of set and setting 

  • Set and setting includes
    • Who administers the substance
    • Personality of the subject 
    • Intention and purpose of the experience 
    • Interpersonal and physical environment 
    • Collective and individual astrological transits of the person involved 
  • LSD heals homeopathically (body can cure itself), but temporarily intensifying symptoms 
  • Better outcomes when have a high dose and use psychotherapy to support and integrate the experience (as opposed to earlier experiments using frequent small doses as an adjunct to therapy) 
  • Experiments in group LSD therapy split in 2:
    • Aggregate psychedelic therapy – where 2 trained facilitators oversee upto 16 patients. Patients must be experienced with LSD as they won’t have much / any oversight and must be able to embrace noise and the dynamic of a group. Sense of trust and community is important, as is group sharing after. (An extreme example of this is by a Mexican psychiatrist who gave LSD to 30 people then showed them violent / sexual films to initiate an ego death/rebirth process). Focusing on external stimuli distracts from introspection and the inner healing intelligence of the psyche)
    • Psychedelic rituals – used by many native cultures: Native American Church (peyote); Mazatecs (psilocybin mushrooms); ayahuasqueros, Santo Daime, Uniao do Vegetal (ayahuasca); natives in Central Africa (iboga). Known to develop sense of “communitas” (strong bond) which might be needed in industrialised places where alienation (from bodies, each other, nature, universe, Divine) is rife 
  • Psycholytic therapy – based on psychoanalysis. Consists of 15-100 sessions using a medium dose of LSD in 1-2 week intervals. Therapists might talk to patients. Patients have eyes open and were encouraged to describe what they saw (might also bring photos of significant people to look at). Pros: allowed greater understanding of the psyche (BMP, transpersonal, archetypal collective unconscious, and inner healer). Cons: eyes open and talking slowed down the therapeutic process. Vertical exploration > horizontal probing. Criticism: dwells on unnecessary biography and delays the healing peak experience
  • Psychedelic therapy – small number of higher dose sessions (400-600 mcg) and eye shades / limited talking. Beautiful treatment rooms. Two facilitators (pref male and female). Prep includes several hours of drug-free interviews (get to know life histories, symptoms, build the relationship, explain effects, help with integration). Dramatic changes in 1-3 sessions (mechanisms remain obscure). Criticism: not enough focus on biography and spiritually bypasses 

Microdosing with LSD

Recreational use of LSD and other psychedelics 

  • Small doses (25-75 mcg) that don’t interfere with everyday activities (other than driving). Can enhance hiking, swimming, love making (oi oi). Sharing can be special (listening to music, enjoying good food, talking about philosophy). Test first individually – even small doses can trigger strong reactions in some people. 

Psychotherapy and self-exploration with psychedelics 

  • Sitter is essential 
  • Must be in good cardiovascular condition
  • High uncontrolled blood pressure, cardiac arrhythmia, history of heart attacks or strokes, presence of an aneurysm could be a serious risk
  • LSD is biologically safe, use of entheogens (MDMA) increases danger of cardiovascular episode 
  • Watch out for people who’ve recently been under intense physical strain (e.g. surgery)
  • Screen out people with brain tumours (experiences were disjointed and found it hard to integrate)
  • Screen out pregnant women (experience of rebirth can cause premature births, as it contracts the uterus). Postpartum great time though.
  • Good completion involves bodywork 
  • Ensure people are in good emotional health. Explore history of psychiatric hospitalisation (particularly longer one) – if misdiagnosis of SE/SEM then can accept 
  • Explore
    • Nature of prenatal life and birth (if info available)
    • Quality of the care they received as an infant / child 
    • Main events in their life 
    • The traumas they remember
    • Conflicts they’re aware of 
    • Repetitive patterns concerning relationships 
  • Discuss effects and length of session 
  • Useful to know perinatal and transpersonal realms 
  • Plant medicines advisable until delics are legalised (uncertain quality otherwise)
  • Use higher doses (250-500 mcg – equivalent to 6-12g of dried cubensis!) – faster, better results. Lower doses can activate symptoms and not bring experience to good resolution as it’s easier to use defense mechanisms
  • Keep session internalised – want to see what is emerging from the unconscious / what we’re dealing with 
  • Must stay focused on full experience of emotions and the processing of content 
  • Room where noises are possible is perfect 
  • If person opens their eyes, gently encourage them to refocus 
  • Music creates flow and helps bring material up to the surface 
  • Ideally do session in nature, for after the experience especially 
  • If session didn’t reach good closure – essential to use bodywork to release any residual emotions / physical tensions and blockages.
  • Grof would invite significant people (identified by patient) towards the end of the session to share a dinner with over soft music (Japanese / Chinese takeaway for its interesting tastes / textures). Still in holotropic state, but directed towards everyday activities (experiencing nature, taste and smell food, listen to music, interact with people – notice the differences) 

Synchronicity: Jung’s “acausal connecting principle” 

  • Extraordinary coincidences can bring elements of magic, numinosity, and cosmic artistry to everyday life 
  • They can also lead to ego inflation (believing oneself as the chosen one, prophet, saviour etc). Might also lead to paranoia – rapidly closing circle of circumstances 
  • Labelled as “delusions of reference” by mainstream psychiatrists (projection)
  • According to materialist science the universe is meaningless, random, disenchanted
  • Can be destabilizing for people to find comfort in a lawful, predictable world 
  • Jung waited for 20 years before unveiling this theory as he collected enough evidence, as he was aware that rigid determinism underpinned the Western scientific worldview. He identified large number of coincidences beyond statistical explanations 
  • Considered playful creations of cosmic intelligence (often contain humour) 
  • Events can be linked to dreams or visions – Jung defined synchronicity as “a simultaneous occurrence of a certain psychic state with one or more external events which appear as meaningful parallels to the momentary subjective state”. Suggests psyche can enter into a playful interaction with what appears to be the world of matter. 
  • Jung worked with Wolfgang Pauli, one of the founders of quantum physics 
  • World is not deterministic with linear causality – take quantum entanglement for example. Suggests world is radically nonlocal, connected by links beyond the constraints of the speed of light 
  • Einstein encouraged Jung to pursue synchronicity as it was compatible with new theories of physics
  • Synchronicity aids the understanding of tarot card reading and I Ching 
  • From: what caused this effect; To: what happens together in a meaningful way at the same moment (internal and external)
  • Must remain aware of how thoughts might influence material world 
  • Linear causality is an illusion. Metaphor of films: narrative seems sequential and linear, but it was edited to appear that way. Scenes were actually shot independently 
  • Hindus understand the universe as lila, a divine play created by a cosmic consciousness who is orchestrating experiences. Material science and linear causality replaced such magic 
  • Jung saw synchronicity as a reason for archetypes transcending both the psyche and the material world – believed they were autonomous patterns of meaning that inform both the psyche and matter. A bridge between inner and outer and suggested the existence of a twilight zone between matter and consciousness. Hence the term of archetypes “psychoid” (psyche-like quality)
  • Jung used synchronicity as a guiding principle. Grof recommends caution, to not act under their influence while in a holotropic state 

Holotropic states of consciousness and the understanding of art 

  • Extending understanding of the psyche (transpersonal + perinatal) & archetypal astrology = greater understanding of art 

Sigmund Freud 

  • According to Freud, an artist is a person who has withdrawn from reality into his/her fantasies – finds ways back the world by representing his (mostly oedipal / guilt-ridden) fantasies 
  • The public have their own oedipal guilts, so praise the artist for relieving them of their guilt 
  • Freud thought psychoanalysis could interpret the content of paintings like dreams 
  • Freud said it is fate to have first sexual impulse towards mother and first murderous wish towards father 
  • Freud attributed Leonardo Di Vinci’s homosexual tendancies to the dissappointment he experienced as a child when he discoverd his mother didn’t have a penis 
  • Freud attributed the “Leonardesque” smile on Mona Lisa to a complicated relationship with her mother (discredited as he lived with his father and was raised by his grandmother
  • Jungians believe genius comes from archetypal domains not biographical – his connection with the archetypal mother (both male/female, all-generating power of nature, uroboric, destructive, alluring, creative source of unconscious) was the source of his creativity. His driving force was spiritual not sexual in nature 
  • Mona Lisa (ambiguous, mysterious), then, represents Anima (the feminine part of a man’s personality) figure, Sophia 

Marie Bonaparte 

  • Big-time Freudean. She wrote a trilogy on The Life and Works of Edgar Allan Poe as a Freudean analysis. Attributed violent, dark unconscious to witnessing the Freudean “primal scene” – seeing his parents have sex and thinking it was an act of sadism 
  • However, Poe’s stories have unmistakable perinatal features – e.g. “A Descent into the Maelstrom” features 3 Norwegian brothers who are engulfed into a whirlpool. Classic BPM II (anxiety around onset of birth)
  • Motif of being buried alive is common in Poe’s written, and is a classic motif of the perinatal in holotropic states 
  • In Eureka, Poe posited the universe filled with matter after a single high-energy particle exploded. Became “Big Bang” theory. Said the universe must be expanding as the energy is pushing matter outward. Concluded gravity will eventually pull all particles back together and the process will start over again (aka the “pulsating universe” theory) 

Carl Jung 

  • “It was not Goethe who created Faust, but the archetype of Faust who created Goethe” – Jung 
  • Jung disagreed with Freud about the libido, thinking it was a creative universal force, rather than sexual 
  • According to Jung, genius functions as a channel for cosmic creative energy of the World Soul (Anima mundi) 
  • Jung’s first attempt at analysing art was in “Symbols of Transformations” where he analysed Frank Miller’s book (historically significant as it marked the split between him and Freud). Used method of “amplification” where he looked for parallels between folklore, history, literature, art, mythology around the world and revealed their archetypal sources / connections 
  • Archetypes (the Shadow, Anima, Animus, Trickster, Terrible Mother, Wise Old Man, etc.) made sense of previous art and influenced future art 

Contribution of psychedelic research to the understanding of art 

  • Research into LSD and art (sometimes using pro painters) showed how LSD would create richer, freer, more colourful paintings. 
  • Painters became channel for deep, archetypal expression

The Promethean Impulse: higher creativity 

  • Adding transpersonal & perinatal domains to the framework of the psyche provides deeper insights into works of art 
  • Some of the greatest discoveries, creations, and insights from science, art etc. come in the form of dreams, visions, fantasies (holotropic states)
  • Freud couldn’t explain genius in his model of the psyche (and finally admitted it might be from a force beyond the individual)
  • Newton, Jung, Descartes, Einstein, Tesla, Mozart, Puccini, Wagner, Rilke, Nietzsche all received their create inspiration in holotropic states and channeled cosmic creative energy 

Friedrich August Kekule von Stradonitz (1829-1896)

  • German chemist – founder of structural theory of chemical compounds
  • Had a vision where he saw a dance of smaller and larger atoms joining in various combinations (linking and forming chains) 
  • Another vision where he saw Ouroborous (archetypal snake eating its own tail – symbol of cyclity, eternal return, endless creation and destruction) which led to discovery of the benzene ring  

Dmitri Mendeleev (1834-1907)

  • Russian chemist – creator of the periodic table 
  • Idea came in a flash after a long period of fruitless struggle 

Otto Loewi (1873-1961)

  • German-born pharmacologist – discovered nerves weren’t just carrying an electrical current, but also a neurotransmitter – became foundation of theory of chemical transmission of the neural impulse 
  • Came to him in a dream 

Niels Bohr (1885-1962)

  • Danish physicist – made major contributions to understanding of atomic structure and quantum theory
  • Came to him in a dream 

Paradox of the Newtonian-Cartesian Paradigm 

  • “Newtonian-Cartesian paradigm is an ideology that had held Western science under the spell of mechanistic materialistic philosophy for 300 years” – The Tao of Physics 
  • Irony as neither Newton or Descartes were materialists – Descartes included proof of the existence of God in Discourse on Method. Newton believed the universe is a mechanical system, but its form came from God. 

Isaac Newton (1642-1727)

  • Maynard Keynes, Newton’s biographer, discovered a chest full of notes that showed a hidden side to Newton. 
  • Newton’s instincts were deeply occult and esoteric – he had many visions and became afraid of his thoughts. His discoveries weren’t new info, but verifying what he already knew.
  • Newton regarded the whole universe created by God, who left clues around for the esoteric brotherhood to discover 
  • After being knighted by Queen Anne and becoming the President of the Royal Society, he became the sage and monarch of the Age of Reason. But he never destroyed the contents of the chest, where he kept his secrets of God and universe 

Rene Descartes (1596-1650)

  • Irony that Discourse on Method, a cornerstone of reason, came to him in 3 dreams
  • He attributed great significance to these dreams, and did a pilgrimage from Venice to the Virgin Mary of Loretto as thanks 
  • Many scientists believed these dreams to signal a disease that compromised his thinking 

Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

  • Received inspiration in images and physical feelings, only to express them in words and symbols later 
  • His “thought experiments” were visions that gave birth to theory of general relativity 

Nikola Tesla (1856-1943)

  • Serbian-American inventor, born in a huge lightning storm (prophetic) 
  • Had visions that led to the ability to imagine complex designs in 3D
  • Registered more than 300 patents, including Alternating Current (AC), electric generator, electric motor, Tesla’s coil, wireless transmission of electricity, and radio (before Marconi “invented” it). Gave birth to developments in radar, lasers, x-rays, robotics, among many others

Inspiration for the great religions 

  • All great religions and spiritual systems were inspired by holotropic states of their founders, prophets, saints, and mystics 

Buddha (563-483 BC)

  • While sitting under the Bo tree, Buddha had a vision where Kama Mara (master of the world illusion) tried to tempt him with 3 of his bangin daughters. Buddha resisted and then experienced illumination and spiritual awakening 

Mohammed (570-632 AD)

  • Had a powerful vision where arch-angel Gabriel escorted Mohammed through 7 Muslim heavens, and met Allah in the 7th heaven, after which he experienced “ecstacy approaching annihilation”. This experience and others over 25 years gave birth to the Qur’an. 

Biblical visionaries 

  • In Judeo-Christian tradition, Old Testament offers impression account visions: Moses’ experience of Yahweh on Mount Sinai; Abraham’s interaction with the angel; the Isralites’ collective vision of Yahweh in the clouds, etc.
  • In the New Testament Jesus travels the desert for 40 days and is tempted by the devil (rejected Devil’s request for proof of being the son of God by turning stones into bread; and offer of having all the kingdoms of the world)

Helen Schucman and the Course in Miracles (1909-1981)

  • Jewish, atheistic scientist.
  • Experienced dreams and visions, which she came to call “the voice” (introduced himself as Jesus)
  • The voice would accurately quote long passages of the Bible, which she had never read at that point 
  • After encouragement, starting writing down the messages, which became the Course in Miracles. Was reluctant to publish it as she thought it might undermine her scientific career – became a best-seller and sold millions of copies 

Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961)

  • Jung had an SEM where he had many visions with several fantasy figures. The most important of them was where he met a spiritual guide called Philemon (first saw him in a dream as an old man with kingfisher wings and bullhorns, flying through the sky carrying a bundle of keys). Synchronicity – then saw a dead kingfisher in the garden, a bird that was rarely seen around Zurich 
  • Jung developed a relationship with Philemon, which gave birth to many ideas. He recorded these in the Red Book 
  • His family started to experience weird things in the house too (his daughters sheets would be snatched away in the night; the doorbell would ring incessantly, with no one there). As soon as he started writing the hauntings stopped (he had writer’s block for 3 years leading up to this)

Higher creativity in music 

  • Puccini said of Madam Butterfly – he didn’t write it, God did. He just held the pen.
  • Mozart said entire symphonies came to him in visions, he just needed to write them down 
  • Wagner – “atheistic upbringing is fatal. No atheist has ever created anything of lasting value”
  • Wagner said the same thing 

Archetypes: guiding principles of the psyche and the cosmos 

  • They are cosmic primordial patterns and governing principles – universal templates for the material world 
  • Broad – can include objects, processes, and situations – invisible forms of crystals; instinctual behaviour in animals; genres in literature; basic syndromes in psychology; thought models in science; global figures, rituals, relationships in anthropology 
  • “Every experience, every fantasy has its archetypal reason” – James Hillman 
  • 3 perspectives from which archetypes can be seen:
    • Mythological principles (Greek tragedy, world mythology)
    • Philosophical principles (philosophy of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle)
    • Psychological principles (psychology of Jung)
  • Mythological archetypes go back to the dawn of human history. Play an important part of shamanic lore – shamans are themselves archetypal and reach back 40,000 years into Paleolithic era
  • Initiatory crisis of shamans is archetypal – journey into the underworld, attacked by evil spirits, severe emotional and physical ordeal, dismemberment, death-rebirth, magical journey to the solar realm 
  • Archetypal symbolism in Tantric traditions of 3 major Indian religious – Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism (Serpent Power / Kundalini; maps of the subtle body / energy centres / chakras; aspects of 2 main deities Shiva and Mahakali) 
  • Greek mythology has lots of archetypes – Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Apollo, etc. These became their philosophical principles 
  • According to Plato – only real knowledge is knowledge of Forms (archetypes). Eg. something is beautiful to the extent to which it partakes in the archetype of beauty, however the archetype of beauty itself cannot be either added to or diminished 
  • Archetypes also apply to material objects, animals and people – a dog is a dog to the extent to which it partakes in the archetype of Dogness (similarly man to Humanness, the archetype of the Cosmic Man)
  • Archetypes of biology – archetype of skeleton in various vertebrates seen in human arms/hands, wings of birds, front legs of felines, flippers of whales etc 
  • Archetypes of maths – Pythagoras and Plato saw numbers as transcendent principles woven into the fabric of existence 
  • Eugene Wigner (Hungarian-American physicist and Nobel Prize winner) said “the enormous usefulness of mathematics in the natural sciences is something bordering on the mysterious and there is no rational explanation for it”
  • Sacred geometry – golden section, Pi, Fibonaci, fractals. Archetypal shapes by vibrating plates covered with powder at various frequencies 
  • Buddha warned that attachment to the material would lead to suffering. Ideas, however, are real, eternal, reliable and always remain the same. Plato said the only real knowledge is that of Forms 
  • Jung came to archetypes when he analysed Frank Miller’s book (historically significant as it marked the split between him and Freud). Used method of “amplification” where he looked for parallels between folklore, history, literature, art, mythology around the world and revealed their archetypal sources / connections. He saw the same connection in his and his patients’ dreams
  • Jung concluded we don’t have Freudian individual unconscious but also a collective unconscious. He saw this vast domain of the psyche as a manifestation of an intelligent and creative cosmic force which binds all of humanity, nature, and the entire cosmos. Split into historical (entire history of humanity) and archetypal (cultural heritage of humanity, including mythologies from every culture that has existed)

Archetypes in psychiatry and psychology 

  • Holotropic states can allow you to access to archetypes
  • Archetypes play an important role in the genesis of emotional and psychosomatic symptoms as part of COEX systems
  • Understanding archetypes is essential for healing and transformation. Closely related to the inner healing intelligence of the psyche (Jung’s Individuation process) 
  • Many psychonauts describe spirits of plants guiding them – Mescalito from peyote or Great Mother Goddess Pachamama from ayahuasca 
  • Hero’s Journey important – plays a key role in the ritual and spiritual history of humanity 
  • The term “Hero’s Journey” comes from Joseph Campbell, a mythologist. After researching various cultures around the world, he found that each one tells stories that have extraordinarily similar elements. In our culture, stories such as Star Wars, Harry Potter, and The Lord of the Rings all follow the Hero’s Journey format. As do shamanic initiatory crises, rites of passage, ancient mysteries of death and rebirth, Dante’s Divine Comedy, etc. 
  • Work with holotropic states has shown beyond reasonable doubt that archetypal experiences are not erratic products of brain pathology of unknown origin, but creations of anima mundi (world soul) emerging into individual consciousness. Discovery of systematic correlations of planetary transits with the timing and content of holotropic states is the most powerful evidence for this 

The archetypes and science 

  • Existence of hidden invisible dimensions of reality is an idea that’s alien to materialistic science, unless they are material in nature and can be made accessible by devices like the microscope, telescope, sensors etc. 
  • Academic and clinical psychiatrists are limited by postnatal biography and Freudian individual unconsciousness. Think archetypal beings aren’t real, rather figments of imagination or pathological products of the brain. Holotropic states say otherwise!
  • Archetypal figures fall into 3 categories:
  1. Persons embodying various universal roles and principles (Great Mother Goddess, Wise Old Man, the Lovers, Eternal Youths, Death, the Trickster). Jung discovered men harbour in their unconscious a generalised representation of the feminine principle called Anima. Generalised representation of the male principle called in women is called Animus. The unconscious representation of the dark, destructive aspect of human personality is called the Shadow.
  2. Deities and demons related to specific cultures, geographical areas, historical periods. So, instead of experiencing the Great Mother Goddess, you can experience her in a culturally-specific context – Christian Virgin Mary, Egyptian Isis, etc. Or Terrible Mother examples would be Indian Kali, Greek Medusa, etc. NB not limited to individual’s own racial / cultural heritage 
  3. Holographic agglomerates that represent an age, gender, race, culture, profession, etc. – the Soldier, the Child, the Mother, the Jew, the Tyrant, the Martyr, etc. Represent the Jews from all historical periods, all the mothers in the world, etc. 

Archetypes, religion, and spirituality 

  • Seeing archetypes as ontologically real gives credibility to the spiritual worldview / spiritual quest / religious activity that involves direct experience.
  • Makes it possible to distinguish between religions based on dogma, moralism, and secular ambitions, from the authentic spirituality found in monastic and mystical branches of religions and groups emphasizing spiritual practice and direct experience 
  • Mystics don’t need a special place or person for them to access the Divine – they just need their bodies, psyches, and nature 
  • Once a religion becomes organised it often loses the connection with spiritual sources and becomes a secular institution that exploits the human spiritual needs without satisfying them. They focus on power, hierarchical systems, politics, money, and other secular concerns. Genuine spiritual experiences are arguably minimised as that might lead to independence  
  • Jung recommended having direct spiritual experiences to those who’d lost the spark with organised religions 

Search for a new planetary myth 

  • Search for the Holy Grail myth might explain Western individualism – King Arther’s knights decided to search for the Holy Grail individually rather than in a group 
  • Other myths that created the modern era: Paradise Lost vs. The Ascent of Man; Death/Rebirth; Abduction and Rape of the Feminine; Faust, Frankenstein; Pordigal Son, etc. 
  • Myth of the future needs to act as global cohesive / planetary civilisation / live in harmony with each other and nature. For this we need Return of the Feminine, Rebirth and Liberation myths

Dangers of archetypes for psychonauts 

  • Biggest danger is what Jung called “inflation” – assuming the numinosity of the archetypal world for oneself and attaching it to one’s body / ego. Archetypes must point to the Absolute, not be mistaken for it. 
  • Worshipping archetypes is another danger 
  • We must see beyond the archetypes to the Absolute (the source of all religions) 
  • Trouble with teenagers is lack of rites of passage
  • Grof had an big MDMA experience where he came to the realisation that life isn’t made of stuff, but that it’s a virtual reality created by cosmic consciousness through an infinitely complex orchestration of experiences. A divine play (the Hindus call lila)
  • Archetype of the apocalypse functions as important landmark on the spiritual journey – it emerges into the consciousness of the seeker at a time when he/she recognised the illusory nature of the material world
  • Perhaps Mayan “end of the world” prophecy is archetypal representation of the end of the material world in the psyche of the seeker who sees through illusion 

Roots of human violence and greed: consciousness research and human survival 

  • Greed and violence have always been prevalent throughout history. However, although devastating for individuals and their families, there was no threat to the human species or the natural world. 
  • Now, with rapid tech progress, population explosion, development of hydrogen and atomic bombs, chemical and biological warfare, industrial production and pollution, we are the first generation capable of wiping out humanity and threatening evolution of life on this planet. 

Anatomy of human destructiveness 

  • Human aggression NOT just down to our animal origins. Animals exhibit aggression when they are hungry, competing for sex, or defending their territory (and sometimes violent raids against neighbouring camps). Nature and scope of human aggression must be something else…
  • Purely psychodynamic explanations (lack of love, sexual/violent abuse etc.) also don’t explain extreme violence like indiscriminate mass murders or mass social phenomena involving countries like Hitler’s Holocaust, Stalin’s Gulag Archipegalo, Mao’s Cultural Revolution, etc. Although they (and animal instincts) do account for some sources of aggression. 

Perinatal roots of violence 

  • Feelings of threat, pain, suffocation for hours during the birth process can generate huge amounts of aggression and remained repressed and stored in the organism
  • Repressed aggression turns into depression and self-destructive impulses (Freud)
  • Perinatal energies by their nature represent a mix of murderous and suicidal drives – often accompanied by a variety of violent experiences from the collective unconscious (scenes of wars, revolutions etc.)
  • Of course, wars and revolutions are complex and have many influences (historical, economic, political, religious, etc.) – perinatal is to add to these factors
  • Images of violent sociopolitical events can connect to different BPM stages 
    • BPM I – undisturbed intrauterine existence. Good womb: images of ideal societies, harmonious nature, utopian societies. Bad womb: images of industrial cities, polluted nature, all-pervading paranoia 
    • BPM II – uterus periodically contracts but cervix remains closed. Images of oppression totalitarian regimes, societies with closed borders that victimise their populations (Czarist Russia, Stalins’ Gulag Archipelago, Hilter’s Third Reich, Mao’s China etc.). Scenes of emotional and physical torture. Identify as the victim. 
    • BPM III – cervix is dilated, continuous contractions propel fetus through the birth canal. Images of bloody wars and revolutions, human or animal slaughter, demonic or scatological scenes, burning cities, rocket launches, explosions, nuclear bombs. Not limited to role of victim (like BPM II) – can be victim, perpetrator, or emotionally involved observer
    • BPM IV – birth and separation from mother (severed umbilical cord). Images of victory in wars and revolutions, liberation of prisoners, success of collective efforts (such as patriotic movements). Celebrations and parades. 
  • Explored why/how millions of peaceful civilians could be turned into killing machines by leaders. 
    • Leaders used BPM language like: the enemy is strangling us, not giving us enough space to live, squeeze the last breath out of our lungs. Allusions to dark caves, tunnels, dangerous abyss, threat of engulfment into whirlpool or quicksand.
    • For crisis resolution: light at the other end of the tunnel, we’ll be able to breathe freely, etc.
    • Enemies depicted as octopuses, multi-headed hydras, dangerous choking snakes. Scenes of strangulation and choking, ominous whirlpools, dangerous quicksand etc.
    • Hiroshima bombing: “the baby is born” message used by US to signal completion of mission 
    • After first atomic test, message to Churchill: “Baby is satisfactorily born” 
    • After first test of the hydrogen bomb: “it’s a boy” 
    • Male scientists dominating Mother Nature 
    • Leaders tap into collective BPM anxiety of population, and are simultaneously driven by a stronger BPM force while ignoring their shadow. Eradicating the enemy is presented as the solution. 
  • Activation of this material (that’s not in a conscious, safe container like delic ceremonies / holotropic breathwork) can lead to serious psychopathology, including unmotivated violence 
  • Once war erupts, unconscious aggressive perinatal urges can be expressed (sometimes even encouraged by leaders). Hence why decent people in peacetime can become monsters in war. 
  • This doesn’t lead to healing or transformation as impulses remain unconscious / it’s externalised. Need to become aware of the monsters within us to accept them and transform.
  • Similarly, wars etc. continue to happen because BPM impulses continue to remain unconscious

Transpersonal roots of violence 

  • Additional sources of aggression can be found in the transpersonal realms – scenes of tortuer and killings in past lives, mythological wrathful deities, grand archetypal destructive scenes 
  • Individuals AND nations could be enacting archetypal stories 
  • Aggressive leaders use archetypal imagery (eg. Hilter and the Vedic swastika) 

Biographical determinants of greed 

  • Freud said greed was due to overindulgence in nursing period
  • Focus on money was anal finxation, based on the ascociation between poop and gold (golden nuggets??)
  • Superficial and inadequate explanations 

Perinatal sources of greed 

  • Unconscious perinatal forces and fear of death drive our behaviour 
  • During biological birth we completed the process physically not not mentally 
  • Like a fetus stuck in the birth canal, we feel a strong desire to get to a better situation that lies somewhere in the future. The hedonic treadmill / rat-race 
  • “Reaching the top of the ladder then realising it’s against the wrong wall” – Joseph Campbell 
  • Only way out is the full conscious reliving and integration of birth trauma in order to reach nourishing memories of completed birth (BPM IV), the good womb (BPM I) and positive transpersonal states 

Transpersonal roots of insatiable greed 

  • Our true nature is divine (Brahman, Buddha, the Tao, God, Allah) and although the process of incarnation separates and alienates us, we’re still somewhat aware of this. Deepest motivating force of psyche is to return to divinity, however ego gets in the way – as to transcend we must let the ego die 
  • Only the experience of true divinity in the holotropic state will ever satiate us. Secular wants and desires will never satisfy us. 

Psychology of survival 

  • Improving the birth situation (emotional prep of mother, natural birth, creating psychospiritual birth environment, creating emotionally nourishing contact between mother and baby in postpartum period) could create healthier individuals and societies 
  • Stressful birthing environments (most hospitals) interferes with hormones that mediate positive bonding 
  • As the content of the perinatal level of unconsciousness emerges into consciousness and is integrated, it results in radical personality changes. Experience of psychospiritual death and rebirth and a conscious connection with positive post/prenatal memories reduce irrational drives and ambitions 
  • Remarkable synchronicities occur when you follow the path of Taoist we wei (creative quietude, doing by being)
  • Prejudices drop when we experience “overview effect” that we’re all one species and part of nature 
  • We need to wake up. “The history of the silly monkey is over, one way or another” – Terence McKenna. Either we wake up and start respecting nature, or we go extinct 

Psyche and Thanatos: psychospiritual dimensions of death and dying 

  • Death and dying is universal – so weird that until late 1960s industrialised Western civilisation showed almost complete lack of interest in the subject (fear and denial)
  • In the West – intelligence is a random / accidental / insignificant byproduct of matter. Where only material, tangible, measurable is real, no room for spirituality 
    • Direct experience = psychosis / pathologised 
    • Spirituality = magical thinking 
    • Religions have lost connection to direct experience, thus become empty and increasingly irrelevant to average Westerner 
    • In this form, religions can’t compete with science 
  • Start of all great religions were perinatal and transpersonal 
    • Buddha reliving various episodes from past incarnations 
    • Old testament – Moses’ vision of Jehovah in the burning bush 
    • New testament – Jesus’  temptation of the devil in the desert , St John’s experience of the Apocalypse 
  • Entire ritual / spiritual history of humanity has been pathologised – leaders had a “condition” 
  • Afterlife / reincarnation / journey of the soul seen as wishful thinking, and impossible if consciousness is linked to matter / body / brain (despite no proof consciousness resides in the brain) 
  • Emphasis on prolonging end of life, rather than increasing its quality 
  • We’re removed from death
    • Family unit dissolved – live away from dying grandparents
    • Death is clinical and sanitised experience 
    • Media glamorizes / trivialises death 
    • News makes death a statistic 
  • Different experience in ancient and pre-industrial societies. Death is prepared for, celebrated, revered, with narrative that it’s not an absolute and irrevocable end – that life continues in some form after biological demise. Powerful rituals are used to help with the passage into death (e.g. Tibeten Book of the Dead / bardos)
  • Rites of passage / holotropic states / “technologies of the sacred” / shamanism / Buddhism / Taoism / Christian mysticism / Kabbalah / meditation / breathing exercises / movement meditations – all used to “practice dying before death” to prepare and reduce fear
  • Reductionist differentiation between religions literal interpretation of scriptures, and sophisticated mystical and Eastern systems based on systematic exploration of the psyche 
  • Existing evidence that consciousness survives biological death falls into 2 categories:
    • Experiences and observations challenging the tradition understanding of the nature of consciousness and its relationship to matter 
      • Materialistic science says memory requires a material substrate (neuronal network in the brain / DNA molecules in genes). But what about:
      • Transpersonal experiences (transcend time, space, body/ego)
      • Archetypal experiences that tap into collective unconscious 
      • We are both Newtonian objects of matter (atoms, molecules, cells, tissues, organs) AND part of a larger field of consciousness. Similar to wave/particle paradox – how it’s observed 
    • Experiences and observations specifically related to the possibility of survival of consciousness after death  
      • Phenomena on the threshold of dying – OBEs, NDEs, blind people “seeing” people surround scene of death, rapid life reviews, entering tunnel of light/seeing demonic scenes
      • Past life experiences – Hindus, Buddhists, and open-minded consciousness researchers say reincarnation is not a matter of belief but empirically true. The power to forget (not remember) is necessary for survival
      • Spontaneous past life memories in children – story of Indian boy who knew all the intimate details of a previous life in another city, without any access to that city (how to work machinery, location of shop and favourite chair, names of family, etc.)
      • Spontaneous past life memories in adults – mostly in holotropic states
      • Evoked past life memories in adults – somehow (in ways we don’t yet understand) emotionally charged memories can be imprinted in the genetic code and transmitted through centuries to future generations

Individual and social implications of the research on death and dying

  • Plato said that not having a consideration for the afterlife consequences of one’s deeds would be “a boon to the wicked”. 
  • Modern authors (Alan Harrington and Ernest Becker)  have said denial of death leads to social pathologies with dangerous consequences for humanity. 
  • We have rampant greed, malignant aggression, weapons of mass destruction – consideration of death / karma / reincarnation could lead to better future (although aggression throughout history in the norm)
  • Radical inner transformation and the rise to a new level of consciousness might be the only real hope we have in the current global crisis

The cosmic game: exploration of the farthest reaches of human consciousness 

  • Despite original intention for the journey, people often end up asking the big life questions after (how did the universe come into being, etc.)
  • Grof’s paper “LSD and the cosmic game: outline of psychedelic ontology and cosmology” argued universe is NOT a mechanical Newtonian supermachine, but an infinitely complex virtual reality created and permeated by superior cosmic intelligence, Absolute Consciousness, Anima mundi, or the Universal Mind 

Experience of the immanent divine and of the unsouled universe 

  • If we keep eyes open during journey we can experience divine – seeing people, animals, objects as radiant manifestations of creative cosmic energy / boundaries between the are illusory and unreal / under separation is unified field of cosmic creative energy 
  • TV analogy: black and white picture suddenly turns to colour 
  • Sense of numinosity (sacredness) 
  • We start to understand animistic cultures – entire universe as conscious 

Experience of the transcendent divine and of the archetypal realm 

  • Experiencing people / creatures from mythologies from around the world (collective unconscious), as well as the heavens and paradises described within them
  • TV analogy: surprised to realise different channels exist, each one radically different to what we’re used to 
  • We discover our psyches have access to vast pantheons of archetypal / mythical histories
  • Most people experience sacred realms as part of death-rebirth process, when memories of different birth stages are accompanied by analogous archetypal scenes from collective unconscious 
  • However, transpersonal realm (beyond perinatal and biographical) is were the real spiritual shit is at 
  • If we’re reluctant to accept the worldview of ancient / native cultures, we can use terms like numinous instead of sacred, or archetypal figures instead of deities / demons. But we can’t dismiss these experiences as mere fantasies 
  • It’s not “magical thinking” it’s direct experience of alternative realities 
  • Jungians use term “imaginal” to distinguish between transpersonal reality from hallucinations or imaginary experiences 
  • Difference between spirituality and religion – spirituality involves direct experience / special, private relationship between self and cosmos. Organised religion involves institutionalised group activity led by those who may or may not have had direct experience 
  • People don’t tend to confuse archetypes with supreme cosmic principle – “a useful deity should be transparent to the transcendent” – Joseph Campbell. They should point to the Absolute and function as bridges to it 
  • Mistaking an archetype (can be specific culture archetype, like Jesus) for the ultimate source of creation leads to idolatry – this creates division, whereas genuine religion is all-inclusive (must transcend culture-bound archetypal images)

Experience of the Supreme Cosmic Principle 

  • Experience of the Absolute doesn’t include meeting archetypal figures 
  • It includes:
    • Transcendence of all limitations of analytical mind / logic
    • Not bound by 3D space or linear time 
    • Transcends duality: contains all conceivable polarities as an inseparable amalgam 
    • Radiant source of light (but not light as is traditionally known)
    • Immense field of consciousness that is endowed with infinite intelligence and profound creativity 
    • Sense of humour (“cosmic humour”)
    • Distinct personal characteristics 
  • Supreme cosmic principle can be experienced in 2 ways:
    • All personal boundaries dissolve and we merge with the divine source 
    • Experiencing Divine as a Father or Mother 
  • Both ways of experiencing the Divine can lead to positive changes in personality structures, ecstatic feelings of peace and security, access to higher meaning 

The cosmic abyss: supracosmic and metacosmic void 

  • 2nd type of experience with the ultimate reality / creative principle of the cosmos has no specific content – identification of the Cosmic Emptiness / Void (although not every experience as emptiness counts as the Void)
  • People describe unpleasant lack of feeling, initiative, content, or meaning
  • Primordial emptiness on cosmic scale
  • We become pure consciousness aware of both absolute emptiness AND fullness (because nothing seems to be lacking). 
  • Contains everything in potential form rather than material form 
  • This cosmic abyss has intelligence, creativity and energy to create universes
  • Unchangeable and lies beyond usual dichotomies (light/dark, good/evil, existence/nonexistence)
  • Lazlo’s book “What is reality: the new map of cosmos, consciousness, and existence” brings together philosophy, metaphysics, science to propose brilliant new paradigm – Lazlo’s connectivity hypothesis offers a solution for many paradoxes that plague various disciplines of Western science and provides bridge between science and spirituality 

The beyond within 

  • We can transcend ordinary boundaries of body-ego – we discover boundaries in the material world are arbitrary and negotiable 
  • When we reach experiential identification with the Absolute, we realise that our being is ultimately commensurate with the cosmic source
  • What am I? – “Thou art that” in the Indian Upanishad. “You are Godhead” 
  • It reveals that our everyday identification with “skin-encapsulated egos” is an illusion. Our true nature is our identity with the entire field of cosmic creative energy (Atman-Brahman)
  • Revelation that we are divine is the source of all great spiritual traditions 

Words for the ineffable 

  • Language we use to describe the everyday aren’t up to describing such experiences. Must be experienced
  • “The Tao that can be told of is not the eternal Tao: The name that can be named is not the eternal name” – Lao-tzu (famous Chinese Taoist philosopher) 
  • Poetry seems better suited, as does Eastern language (they have more technical language for such experiences, such as Tao, bardo, chi, etc.)

The process of creation 

  • Those who experience the cosmic creative principle become fascinated by its immense scale and design, and try to understand the impulse that moves the Divine to create infinite number of worlds
  • Cosmic source is overabundant and overflowing with possibilities that it has to give itself expression in the creative act 
  • In act of creation, it also seeks something that it lacks in the original pristine state 
  • Divine seeks to get to know itself, so it can explore and discover its hidden potential. This can only be done by manifesting all latent possibilities in the form of a creative act 
  • Dimensions of the creative process include playfulness, enjoyment, cosmic humour of the Creator (Hindu idea of cosmic play, or “lila” includes such descriptions)
  • Creation can also be seen as a huge experiment that expresses the immense curiosity of Absolute Consciousness
  • Aesthetic side to creation, other dimensions are like works of art 
  • Creation can also represent lack or absence of something. Absolute Consciousness realises it is alone, which is expressed in longing for partnership, communication, and giving/receiving love – Divine Longing 
  • Spirit is curious and might want to experience what is opposite or contrary to its own pristine nature (being infinite, unlimited, eternal it longs to be transient, limited by time and space, solid, etc.)
  • Transpersonal psychiatrists use capitalisation of words to get around banality of language – Love, Craving, Boredom, etc.
  • Besides revelations on the “why” of creation, holotropic states can reveal the “how”:
    • Splitting of original undifferentiated unity of Absolute Consciousness into infinite number of “consciousness units”
    • A form of partitioning / forgetting, through which the conscious entity gradually loses contact with original source / awareness of pristine nature 
    • In the universal fabric, separate units of consciousness are identical to their source and with each other 
    • “As above, so below”. Or, “as without, so within” 
    • Buddhism saying that explains relationship between Buddha-Nature and all creations in 4 sentences: “one in one”; “one in many”; “many in many”; “many in one” 
    • Metaphor for understanding “many in one” etc.: enter a room where all the walls, floor and ceiling are covered in mirrors. Then light a candle. You are surrounded by an infinite number of candles. This is how the One is contained in the Many. Now take out a crystal ball. All the candle reflections are in the ball. This is how the Many is in the One. Optical holography offers scientific explanation. 

The ways to reunion 

  • “Holotropic” = move towards wholeness 
  • Individual units of consciousness move towards reuniting with Absolute Consciousness, eventually dissolving all boundaries
  • This sequence of fusions occur in many forms and on many levels and complete the overall cyclical pattern of the cosmic dance 
  • Nature (Grand Canyon, tropical islands etc.) and art (music, painting, sculpture) can trigger unifying experiences. As can rigorous exercise, sex, pregnancy/delivery. 
  • Unitive experiences can also happen in negative scenarios where the protective ego is shattered / overwhelmed as opposed to dissolved and transcended – eg. NDEs 
  • Maslow said such Peak Experiences are positive and can lead to “self-actualisation” 

The taboo against knowing who you are 

  • If it’s true that our deepest nature is divine, and we’re identical with the creative principle of the universe, how do we account for our conviction that we’re physical bodies existing in a material world?
  • How can an infinite and timeless spiritual entity create (from itself and within itself) a virtual facsimile of a tangible reality populated by sentient beings who experience themselves as separate? 
  • Best explanation is that the cosmic creative principle traps itself with its own perfection:
    • The creative intention of the Divine Play is to call experiential realities into being that would offer the best opportunities for adventures in consciousness 
    • Our world has many characteristics that the supreme principle doesn’t – polarity, multiplicity, density, change, impermanence. It wants to explore these. 
    • To meet this requirement, these realities have to be believable (as when you forget you’re watching an actor because their performance is so good). Has to be convincing otherwise we won’t believe it and the adventure fails. Created atheism to deepen the story – “an atheist is God playing hide and seek with himself”
    • A ploy that’s used is the creation of the trivial and ugly. If everything was the Grand Canyon, Taj Mahal, Michelangelo and Bach then the divine nature our world would be apparent 
    • Similarly, our bodies excrete, smell, get sick etc. further hiding our divinity.
    • Materialist science is yet another hurdle 
  • Other important reasons why it’s made so difficult to free ourselves from the delusion we’re separate individuals living in a material world:
    • The cosmic scheme wants to maintain itself 
    • Thus the ways to reunion are fraught with many risks, challenges, hardships  
    • However, there are loopholes, and protagonists can move beyond self-deception to reunite with the source (enlightenment) 
    • As such, major breakthroughs (such as psychospiritual death/rebirth) can be preceded with terrifying encounters with evil forces to deter the seeker
    • Pathologising the mystical experience also acts as a deterrent 
    • Organised religions can denigrate its members and instil guilt, making it hard for members to see divinity within 

The problem of good and evil 

  • Hard to come to terms with the existence of evil on the spiritual journey 
  • Possible explanation: cosmic creation has to be symmetrical. Everything that’s created has to be counterbalanced by its opposite 
  • Absolute Consciousness must know all aspects of itself, including the shadowy parts 
  • Darkness has to exist otherwise there wouldn’t be light. We need contrast. 
  • We need darkness:
    • Without disease = no healers, history of medicine, good Samaritans, Mother Teresa etc.
    • Without violence/war = no triumph of victory, tech advances, Samurai armor, pageantry and parades, books/music/art based on war, ecstacy of ending war, animals (most are violent), nature (volcanoes, tsunamis, storms, etc.)
    • “If you want to create a flop at the box office, make a film a peaceful village where nothing bad happens”
  • Danger of seeing the world as virtual reality is that we might minimise the importance of suffering and evil, or justify pursuit of egotistical goals. However, such profound insights usually come after powerful holotropic experiences, which actually increase love and compassion for all things. 

Playing the cosmic game 

  • Most religions play down the earthly plane and focus on the transcendental realms to help with dealing with the hardships of life – physical reality framed as a quagmire of pain and tears. 
  • Heavens and paradises are presented as available to those who meet the necessary requirements (as defined by their respective theology)
  • More sophisticated systems see heaven/paradise as only a stage of the spiritual journey, where the final destination is the dissolution of personal boundaries and union with the Divine
  • Some spiritual orientations embrace nature and the material world as containing of embodying the Divine
  • Many spiritual systems define the goal of the spiritual journey as the dissolution of personal boundaries and union with the Divine – however those who’ve experienced the identification with Absolute Consciousness realise that the final goal of the spiritual journey as the experience of oneness with the supreme principle of existence involves a serious problem:
  • They become aware that Absolute Consciousness/Void represents not only the end of the spiritual journey, but also the source and the beginning of creation
  • The Divine is the principle offering reunion for the separated AND also the agent responsible for the separation / division in the first place
  • If this principle were complete in its pristine form, there would be no reason for it to create, and experiential realms would not exist 
  • But they DO exist, so there’s clearly a “need” for Absolute Consciousness to create – the worlds of plurality represent an important complement to the undifferentiated state of the Divine 
  • This cosmic drama involves dynamic interplay of 2 forces in relation to cosmic principle: centrifugal (moving away from centre / hylotropic / matter-oriented) and centripetal (moving towards centre / holotropic / aiming for wholeness)
  • If it’s true that the psyche is governed by these 2 competing forces, is there a way to cope in this situation, since neither separate existence nor undifferentiated unity is fully satisfactory?
  • Clearly the solution is NOT to reject the embodied experience as inferior and try to escape from it – the world of matter is an essential complement to the immaterial, undifferential state of the creative principle. Any satisfactory solution will have to embrace both the earthy (forms) AND transcendental (formless) dimensions 
  • The material world offers countless opportunities for adventures in consciousness – we can witness the heavens with its billions of galaxies / fall in love / enjoy ecstacy of lovemaking / listen to Beethhoven’s music / admire a Rembrant painting 
  • However identification with body-ego can’t become absolute – must ALSO look inward to unveil hidden dimensions of ourselves and reality. This way our identification with the body-ego becomes less compelling – we continue to identify with the “skin-encapsulated ego” for pragmatic purposes, but relationship becomes more playful
  • As exploration continues, we discover sooner or later the essential emptiness behind all forms – in Buddhism, the teaching of the awareness of the essential emptiness of forms and the realisation there are no separate selves is called anatta (“no self”). This realisation is said to offer freedom from suffering. 
  • Awareness of our divine nature and of the essential emptiness of all things form the foundations of a meta-framework that can help with dealing with the complexities of life – when things get too difficult or devastating, we can call on the broader cosmic perspective
  • Thus, it’s important to cultivate the transcendent while in the mundane world in order to have access to both. Pre-industrial societies did this through “technologies of the sacred” – shamanic rituals, rites of passage, healing ceremonies, meditation, etc. This important dimension of existence was wiped out by the Industrial and Scientific Revolutions with their materialistic philosophy. 
  • We must self-explore so we can connect to what Jung called the Self, and to receive its guidance on the way to “individuation” 
  • Important life decisions can be based on creative synthesis, integrating knowledge of the material world with the wisdom of the collective unconscious

Epilogue: psyche and cosmos (by Richard Tarnas)

  • “Cosmos and the psyche: intimatations of a new world view” by Richard Tarnas – discusses in detail the connection between planetary transits and holotropic states (personally and globally)
  • While at Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California throughout the 70s and 80s, Richard and Stan researched the variability of psychedelic experiences – either different people in the exact same conditions would have different experiences, or the same person would have different experiences over time. 
  • People also seemed to take on constellations (COEX) of themes that became apparent over multiple sessions
  • Unbeknownst to them at the time, Jung had been exploring another potential variable several decades earlier – astrology. 
  • Jung saw astrology as providing an extraordinary window for understanding the qualitative dimension of time (specifically archetypal dynamics at work at any given time, including birth)
  • He saw time as being qualitative and somehow connected to the positions of the sun, moon, and planets relative to the earth: “our psyche is set up in accord with the structure of the universe, and what happens in the macrocosm likewise happens in the infinitesimal and most subjective reaches of the psyche” – Jung, Memories, Dreams, and Reflections
  • Jung used birth charts in his work with clients, but was hesitant to make it public (he’d already pushed the public discourse far enough!)
  • Stan and Richard saw astrology as the gold standard of superstition and didn’t ever consider to take it seriously. But they ended up looking at possible correlations after an artist called Arne Trettevik persuaded them 
  • Arne looked into planetary “transits” – the ongoing movement of planets from day to day, year to year, as they move into specific alignments with respect to an individual’s birth chart. He studied ways in which transits seemed to correspond with the variable kinds of experiences people undergo in the course of life (entering a new phase, falling in love, failure etc.). Suggested transits might be relevant for understanding kinds of psychedelic experiences people will have 

Initial correlations 

  • They were impressed. Using their own personal journey records (time of journey, themes etc.) – what they had experienced seemed to be archetypally intensified versions of the more common experiences described in astrological texts 
  • Eg – based on the specific planets and alignment involved, the text might indicate that the period of a particular planetary transit was potentially a good time for expanding one’s intellectual horizons / learning new perspectives / travelling etc OR might indicate it being a time for greater anxiety / depression / accident proneness etc.
  • These general descriptions helped to gain a sense of underlying archetypal energies that might be at play 
  • Each planet was understood as bearing an underlying cosmic association with a particular archetypal principle, which could be expressed psychologically, circumstantially, interpersonally, physically, etc.
  • LSD catalysed more intense (often perinatal or transpersonal) versions of the more common states and themes described in standard astrological texts 
  • Initially noticed a divide between sessions that were either smooth (with resolution) or difficult (no resolution) depending on transits involving planets and alignments. Then they realised it went much deeper…

Correlation with perinatal experiences

  • Robust correlation between the 4 BPMs and the archetypes of the 4 of the 5 slower moving outer planets (Pluto, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune – Jupiter being the 5th) as described in astrological texts 
  • BPM I 
    • Associated with prenatal condition immediately prior to the beginning of the birth process. Reflected in positive experiences of floating in amniotic universes, floating oceanic sensations, melting of boundaries, interstellar, galactic experiences, mystical unity, spiritual transcendence, dissolution of material identity, idyllic nature, merging with mother/all life. Reflected in negative experiences as disorienting loss of boundaries, losing reality / structure, delusion thinking, feeling enveloped by threatening atmosphere, pollution. 
    • Similar to symbolic representations of Neptune – spiritual, mystical experiences, unitive, timeless, longing for the beyond, water / sea / mist / fog. BPM I would appear mostly in Neptune transit.
  • BPM II
    • Associated with uterine contractions when the cervix is closed. Reflected in experiences of claustrophobic constriction, images of imprisonment and hell, physical and emotional pain, helpless suffering, “no exit” etc. 
    • Similar to symbolic representations of Saturn  – constraint, limitations, contraction, weight of the past, pressures of time, death, ending of things, pessimism, dark, etc. BPM II would appear mostly in Saturn transit.
    • Whereas in other 3 BPMs both positive and negative aspects of the astrological principe involved, in BPM II only the negative aspects of Saturn were evident
    • Only in retrospect, after the perinatal process has unfolded, (at least partially) resolved, and integrated can BPM II be seen in a new light with new meaning. Then positive aspects of contraction, separation, loss, suffering, encounter with death of biological/spiritual rebirth become apparent – join the “grateful dead” club, because now one is happily reborn. 
  • BPM III
    • Associated with propulsion of the baby through the birth canal with the cervix fully dilated. Reflected in experiences of titanic elemental energy of volcanic proportions, intense arousal and sexual libido and aggression, bloody biology, war, scenes of destruction, descent into the underworld, scatology. In general represents intense elemental energies within a cathartic, transformational experience of death and rebirth. 
    • Uncannily similar to symbolic representations of Pluto – elemental intensity, depth, sexuality, power, lower chakras, aggression, destruction, regeneration, transformation, Freud’s Id, violent purging of repressed energies. BPM III would appear mostly in Pluto  transit. 
    • As with other BPMs, subjects often had direct experience of specific deities when reaching the deeper dimensions of that matrix. With BPM III they were deities of destruction and regeneration, descent and transformation, death and rebirth (Dionysus, Hades, Kundalini activation and Serpent energy, Shiva, Kali
  • BPM IV
    • Emergence from birth canal. Reflected in positive experiences of sudden breakthroughs, unexpected liberation, brilliance of vision/understanding, etc. Negative experiences (activated but uncompleted) of manic inflation, restless impatience, eccentric ideation. 
    • Similar to symbolic representations of Uranus – described as principle of sudden change, unexpected openings, creative breakthroughs, brilliance of inspiration, impulse toward freedom/rebellion. BPM IV would appear mostly in Uranus transit. 
  • Regarding all 4 BPMs – on the level of comparative study of symbols, seems probabilistically low that 2 entirely different systems – psychology and astrology – could independently have 4 fundamental sets of qualities / meanings with so much overlap
  • On top of clear parallels of meaning – astounding that the subjects had BPM experience of related planet archetype when that planet was in transit 

Correlations with COEX systems 

  • Timings of major events that contributed to COEX system (death of a parent, numinous childhood experience, romantic awakening) coincided with major transits crossing the specific planetary configurations in the natal chart that related to that COEX
  • Subjects became aware of COEX systems during a delic session when the relevant natal configuration was undergoing a major transit. This suggests a planetary magnification of unconscious COEX system (increasing its psychological power) or in case of negative COEX systems release jammed energies 
  • Research implies importance of birth and astrology’s focus on the planetary positions at birth – can say both birth and the birth chart mediate access to archetypal and transpersonal dimensions.
  • Both the perinatal level of the psyche AND the astrological natal chart seem to represent a gateway, opening up consciousness to the depths of the unconscious 
  • Diagram below can be viewed top-down AND bottom-up:
    • Top-down: Journeys over time / self exploration usually follow the sequence of starting with recent experiences -> then earlier experiences of similar emotional/somatic character from youth and infantile stages -> then perinatal level and the death-rebirth complex of experiences -> then transpersonal experiences in the collective unconscious. Informing all the above is the archetypal realm, which is someone associated with the vast cosmos and the starry sky
    • Bottom-up: factors from the transpersonal realms (ancestral, karmic, historical) translate into specific/powerful aspects of the birth experience, of which have implications to adult life (eg. death by hanging in a past life -> experience umbilical cord wrapped around neck -> postnatal difficulties breathing / whooping cough)
  • Later their research showed that you don’t need to have the biographical-perinatal-transpersonal-sequence to meet with Gaia – people can level up at any time, depending on the catalysing method (delic session, breathwork, kundalini yoga, gestalt therapy, SEM, etc.), the setting, the stage of therapy or self-exploration, the delic and the dose, and perhaps less knowable factors – spontaneous intelligence of inner healer, karma, grace, etc. 
  • What proved to be key over these variables was the archetypal character of the experience, which consistently correlated with specific natal and transiting planetary alignments, which could express itself at any level (biographical/perinatal/transpersonal)
  • Dominant qualities of delic session / holotropic session / SEM etc. could be discerned in archetypal terms and correlated with the natal chart and transits

World transits 

  • Transits / alignments of the 5 outer planets can be used to explore not only individual patterns, but also global ones (eg counterculture of 60s and 70s)
  • Some cycles are long and rare (lasting decades), whereas others are frequent (lasting 14 months every 7 years) and can be linked to zeitgeist movements of the time that shared same archetypal signature 
  • Faster moving inner planets could trigger / catalyse the specific timing of events and experiences associated with the longer, more powerful transits of slower loving outer planets 

The issue of causality 

  • An explanation could be that the universe has woven into its very fabric a meaningful coherence between the macrocosm and the microcosm
  • Instead of a Cartesian-Newtonian form of linear causality involving something physical (like electromagnetic radiation) the nature of the correspondences suggests a synchronistic orchestration between planetary movements in the heavens and archetypal patterns in human experience
  • Synchronicity had previously been invoked by Jung as a possible explanation for why astrology works, despite modern assumptions that it should not 
  • Can’t be explained by material factors alone. Range of correspondences between planetary positions and human existence is
    • Too vast and multidimensional 
    • Too clearly ordered by structures of meaning rather than physical forces
    • Too suggestive of creative intelligence 
    • Too experientially complex and nuanced 
  • More plausible and comprehensive explanation of evidence points to a conception of the universe as a connected whole, informed by creative intelligence and pervaded by patterns of meaning and order that extend through every level
  • This represents a cosmic expression of the principle of synchronicity, and of “as above, so below” 
  • Planets do not “cause” specific events any more than the hand of a clock “cause” a specific time. Instead, the planetary positions seem to be indicative of the cosmic state of the archetypal dynamics at that time
  • There is some causality in the form of archetypal causation – archetype of Saturn might “influence” or “govern”, but other considerations are necessary: human agency, level of consciousness, cultural context, concrete circumstance, interpersonal field, genetic inheritance, past actions, etc. 

The nature of archetypes 

  • Archetypes as universal constants that structure the deep levels of the human psyche 
  • Background was the ancient mythological experience of gods and goddesses – personified expressions of Platonic Forms and Jungian archetypes 
  • While Plato understood the transcendent Forms or Ideas to be the fundamental structuring principles of the ensouled cosmos, Jung understood the archetypes to be the fundamental structuring principles of the human psyche
  • Jung saw archetypes as an underlying unitive principle of both psyche and world
  • Archetypes can express themselves as psychological forms, cosmic principles or mythic beings 
  • Evidence of planetary correlations with archetypal patterns of experience suggests that the cosmos is a living, ever-evolving matrix of being and meaning within which the human psyche is embedded as a co-creative participant.
  • In jungian terms, it suggests possibility that the collective unconscious is in some way embedded in the universe itself, whereby planetary motions reflect at a macroscopic level the unfolding archetypal dynamics of human experience
  • In Platonic terms, it reflects the existence of an anima mundi informing the cosmos, a world soul in which the human psyche participates as a microcosm of the whole 
  • In Homeric mythic terms, the evidence indicates a continuity of great archaic civilizations (like ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt) with their intimate relationship between the gods and the heavens that inspired and structured their religious and social life, astronomical observations, and monumental architecture 
  • Manifestation of archetype can be either “positive” or “negative”, creative or destructive, profound or trivial. 
  • Because of its deep complexity and influence of human co-creation, astrology is best regarded not as concretely predictive, but as archetypally predictive. Can’t predict specific outcomes but rather the precise discernment of archetypal dynamics and their complex unfolding in time. 
  • Understanding of archetypes helps to deepen depth psychology – another tool for making the unconscious conscious
  • Doesn’t spell things out or prescribe, but allows room for human co-creation, agency, and participation to work with archetypal forces 

Final notes

  • Movement from seeing consciousness that experiences itself as evolved from a universe that is unconscious, purposeless, and unknowable, to a universe that’s ensouled
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