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| Stanislav Grof at Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Dr Grof was a firm believer that our lives are holographically interconnected.
Taken from The Holographic Universe.
Grof had one female patient who suddenly became convinced she had assumed the identity of a female of a species of prehistoric reptile. During the course of her hallucination, she not only gave a richly detailed description of what it felt like to be encapsuled in such a form, but noted that the portion of the male of the species's anatomy was a patch of colored scales on the side of its head. What was startling to Grof was that although the woman had no prior knowledge about such things, a conversation with a zoologist later confirmed that in certain species of reptiles colored areas on the head do indeed play an important role as triggers of sexual arousal. The woman's experience was not unique. During the course of his research, Grof encountered examples of patients regressing and identifying with virtually every species on the evolutionary tree (research findings which helped influence the man-into-ape scene in the movie Altered States). Moreover, he found that such experiences frequently contained obscure zoological details which turned out to be accurate.
Regressions into the animal kingdom were not the only puzzling psychological phenomena Grof encountered. He also had patients who appeared to tap into some sort of collective or racial unconscious. Individuals with little or no education suddenly gave detailed descriptions of Zoroastrian funerary practices and scenes from Hindu mythology. In other categories of experience, individuals gave persuasive accounts of out-of-body journeys, of precognitive glimpses of the future, of regressions into apparent past-life incarnations.
Grof neglected to examine something in greater detail that is either completely denied by scientists, or woefully misunderstood, which is the spiritual realm. Thus he failed to understand the potential for there to be deceptive spiritual beings who would feed subjects whose minds were in a state of emptiness under the effects of the LSD (or other drugs, or hypnosis). It would be very helpful to see how his patients fared many years after their supposed "cure."
ReplyDeleteHello Dave, there is more to Grof than this article covers.
ReplyDeleteExperimenting with application of LSD with various mental health issues in 50ties lead him to developing technique called holotropic breathwork, which is totally LSD free. It is based on breathing technique and meditation which allows subjects to enter altered states of consciousness and have the same experiences as after using LSD.
He has also entered spiritual areas in his work. Here is the quote from his website. http://www.stanislavgrof.com/
"After more than fifty years of intensive study of holotropic states of consciousness, I have come to the conclusion that the theoretical concepts and practical approaches developed by transpersonal psychology, a discipline that is trying to integrate spirituality with the new paradigm emerging in Western science, could help alleviate the crisis we are all facing. These observations suggest that radical psychospiritual transformation of humanity is not only possible, but is already underway.The question is only whether it can be sufficiently fast and extensive to reverse the current self-destructive trend of modern humanity."
Here is another of Gorf's quotation.
DeleteWestern science is approaching a paradigm shift of unprecedented proportions, one that will change our concepts of reality and of human nature, bridge the gap between ancient wisdom and modern science, and reconcile the differences between Eastern spirituality and Western pragmatism.
- Stan Grof from Beyond the Brain
Didn't collective spiritualism lead the Incas and many others to offering human sacrifices to the "Gods"?
ReplyDeleteI also did a search on the holotropic term and it appears this author is about the only one onto this stuff. After doing a bit more research on this topic I came across John Mackey of "Whole Foods". http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/01/04/100104fa_fact_paumgarten
My takeaway from this little bit of research into the topic? This path was born through mental illness. Many of the folks that thrive on this are really weird and typically rejects of society or extremely successful folks that cannot handle their success. The references are full of transexual, gay folks, and other folks considered weird or not normal by the average person or even the psychologists that treat them. Simply to justify their weirdness, or malady. If it works for you that's great. I noted in most of the information I found was created or born from this one man's work. Timothy Leary went down the LSD road too. Was he a weird one? Probably. IMHO
Thanks for sharing and hope my comments aren't taken negatively. anytime collective is used to describe something, caution flags fly and discernment increases.
One take away I really liked this quote from John Mackey, "
One of the books on the list was “Heaven and Earth: Global Warming—the Missing Science,” a skeptical take on climate change. Mackey told me that he agrees with the book’s assertion that, as he put it, “no scientific consensus exists” regarding the causes of climate change; he added, with a candor you could call bold or reckless, that it would be a pity to allow “hysteria about global warming” to cause us “to raise taxes and increase regulation, and in turn lower our standard of living and lead to an increase in poverty.”
Maybe John isn't weird and whackey as his above observation is right in line with mine. Or maybe I am weird and whackey too. ;)
Another takeaway quote from Mackey is this, "“But I don’t like to argue to be right. I like to argue because that’s how I get to the truth. I think dialectically.” Hey that's me to a tee.
Jim III
Hi Jim, there is nothing wrong with having different opinion as long as this is done in civil maner.
ReplyDeleteThe article I have written based on those studies was not really to support LSD or main stream science or even medical discoveries in this area, but to show that science recognizes spiritual world and that holographic view of world is probably how our perception can be explained.
I use current scientific consensus to support my views in respect to understanding of spirituality and hidden knowledge about our world. It is known fact that there is large sector of science even today which assumes purely mechanistic view of the world and those scientist who break through those barriers are seen by me as equal to Copernicus or Galileo in their times.
We know that there are many unscientific (considering all religions) views of spiritual world, but there is nothing to argue or prove there if all you have is just your believe. This is merely an opinion which is fine, but this can't be used as solid argument in this world.
So I don't really know if 40 years of studies by Grof can be properly summarized in one page article. I don't really know much about LSD except from what I have ready when preparing myself for this article.
I wasn't talking in this article about collective spiritualism, but global consciousness or unconsciousness. These are totally two different concepts. First is about collective effort to access spiritual world, the other is about existing area of our consciousness to which we typically have no controlled access.
First can be organized and implemented through various practices and groups of people, the second exists regardless of if you know about it or not.
The first is doing it, the second simply is.