Stanislav Grof – without exaggeration, Freud of the XXI century. Alive classic. Some even believe that Grof is the founder of the new a religion that allows its followers to avoid physical of death.
In fact, everything is not so fantastic: it just gives people the opportunity to recall the circumstances of his birth. And sees in this is the future of psychiatry, and more broadly – in general spiritual evolution humanity, which, in his opinion, is now at an impasse.
A photo from open sources
He still personally provides training around the world (recently passed such training in Moscow – “The adventure of discovering yourself”) and teaches in California Institute for Integral Studies. He looks much younger than their 78 years. In so-called sessions “holotropic breathing” Grof again “born” more than four thousand time. It is this number of sessions that the psychiatrist-innovator conducted for their more than 45 years of practice. Thousands of times regained consciousness a newborn – maybe that’s why it looks so young?
Grof wrote over ten educational books and created successfully functioning international transpersonal organization, prepared more than one hundred thousand certified teachers … His trainings were attended by millions of people around to the world. Winner of the highest scientific degrees and prestigious awards, Grof is, in addition, a very wealthy man. It would seem that, You can already “retire” and rest on our laurels! But no.
One of Grof’s books is called The Frantic Search for Self (1990): Now, it seems that what he realizes by his example is “eternal battle” with shadow, search for perfection. But if you look at Grof’s system the notorious “frantic search for oneself” – a problem facing only spiritually fragmented personalities, and then only to cure. During practice, she goes into facing mentally healthy people another task is the super-task of expanding consciousness, spiritual evolution.
A photo from open sources
And the first step in this struggle, which Grof with his characteristic optimism called “adventure”, should be overcome the invisible “last frontier” – the human barrier, beyond which mysterious areas about which little can be told in words, except that “tigers can be found here,” as in famous story of R. Bradbury.
As Grof notes from his own “travels” in unconscious (or rather, “superconscious”) and observations of by the thousands of “trips” undertaken by his patients to marry this the limit allows three states: LSD reception (which is illegal drug), proposed Grof method of holotropic breathing and psycho-spiritual crisis, or “spiritual aggravation”. Common for these three situations, as Grof writes in the preface to The Call Jaguar “(2001), is that they cause unusual conditions consciousness, including their subspecies, which he calls “holotropic” ii, that is, transcendental, in contrast to the ordinary experience, which he calls “hilotropic”, that is, terrestrial.
Grof notes in The Call of the Jaguar that in psychedelic therapy (in currently banned but formerly legal in his youth Grof) such conditions were caused by the use of psychoactive drugs, including LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, tryptamine, derivatives amphetamine (DMT, ecstasy, etc.). In the method of holotropic breathing, developed by Grof and his wife Christina in 1975, for changes in consciousness a combination of the so-called associated breathing (when between inhalation and exhalation, exhalation and inhalation is not done pauses) and trance music (often ethnic, tribal: African drums, Tibetan pipes, etc.); sometimes in addition, work with the body is used. In the case of “spiritual exacerbations “holotropic states occur spontaneously, Grof notes, and their causes are usually unknown. Thus, the third method is uncontrolled, the first is illegal: it remains only holotropic breathing.
A photo from open sources
Grof conducted his research for more than forty-five years. He began with experiments with LSD. After the discovery of psychotropic properties drug in 1943 for some time it was assumed that he causes symptoms similar to schizophrenia (and therefore recommended for admission to psychotherapists), but later this hypothesis has been disproved. After banning this drug in the USA at the end 1960s Grof began to use the special holotropic breathing, in which he actively used experience, obtained during experiments with psychoactive drugs (including including precautions).
Perhaps the prototype of the specific breath used in holotropic method, there was rapid breathing of Grof patients under LSD – in the case when a problem emerging from the depths of the subconscious could not be immediately worked out, integrated into a healthy psyche. Such breathing helped them stay in an expanded state of consciousness and discharge the psychological material that manifested itself in the form unpleasant symptoms. So the “bad trip” turned into a method psychotherapy.
Grof never talked about this, but a natural conclusion from his medical practice may become an assumption – only the assumption is that Grof himself may have been under LSD when he invented his holotropic method. Similar way, for example, 1962 Nobel Prize laureate Francis A scream revealed the famous double helix under the influence of LSD molecular structure of DNA. One way or another, Grof’s experiments with LSD refer to the period when this drug was completely legal.
Research in psychedelic therapy and personal experience holotropic breathing allowed Grof to discover what kind of the “last frontier” of human consciousness – embryo consciousness – there is no blank wall (as a materialist may suggest, proceeding from the assumption that human life is limited by the gap between conception and death). Behind this “wall,” as Grof found out, too there is life, more precisely, many forms of life.
There are “superhuman” worlds, where time and space, memory limitations of the brain and generally the current human birth cease to be constraining factors. Namely – they stop restrain what always lives inside us and conducts its “frantic search “before and after our physical death. In some philosophical and religious systems, this “something” is called the “soul”, “consciousness”, “true Self.”
But not even that, empirical evidence accessible to everyone the existence of the notorious “life after death”, the most amazing in Grof’s experiments. The main thing, from the height of the spiritual, superhuman consciousness becomes obvious: the boundaries of human and those psychological barriers that cause various pathological effects that prevent a person from becoming himself, and then move on, to rise above oneself – these boundaries are not created by the whim of fate and fueled not by someone’s evil will, but by the person himself – more precisely, his false, limited self-identification.
That is, it turns out, we ourselves – with all our might – keep locked their “doors of perception”, preventing them from entering true health, prosperity and freedom. As G. Gurdjieff told his students how K. Castaneda wrote in his books – and as he proves with his Grof’s medical practice – a person spends on maintaining his mental barriers are very significant forces (much larger than he can afford it!). And these forces can be used much more rational and profitable. For example, these are the forces by which a person keeps his “perception doors” locked, could help him in traveling through these doors, which means letting him become happy and spiritually developed personality. And even more than that, step on, beyond the borders of humanity, which we, ourselves, turn out to ourselves installed. Ultimately, Grof is “frantically seeking” the superman – and encourages each of us to engage in this search.
A photo from open sources
In fact, Grof created a whole new life for his long life. the direction is not just psychoanalysis, but total superhumanistic psychocorrection, which may be useful not only to mentally ill people, but to everyone and everyone. From point of view Stan, it would not hurt us all to “heal” by his method – after all, admittedly, even the most healthy people are far from the level of consciousness from ideals that show spiritually developed personalities, teachers of humanity, enlightened mystics. Stan Grof is not a mystic he just sets the bar higher, much higher than what is usually done in psychotherapy.
He draws our attention to the tragic gap between the what humanity sought, and the post-humanistic, the mechanistic society to which it has now come. Grof, being himself a professional physician, doctor of medicine, a psychiatrist with fifty years of experience who has traditionally grown up at school psychoanalysis, notes that modern science sins with one-sidedness, bordering on blindness. Traditional medicine stubbornly closes eyes on the fact that a person’s mental health problem organically linked to the problem of his spiritual development, even more Moreover, it actually contrasts these processes.
Anything that goes beyond the traditional worldview limited to very narrow frames, gets a shortcut “abnormalities.” In one of his interviews, Grof notes: from the point view of modern medicine, it turns out that if we discard the rituals, leaving only specific behavior and unusual conditions consciousness, then any religion and spirituality in general is pure pathology, a form of mental disorder. Buddhist meditation, with psychiatrist’s point of view is catatonia, Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa was a schizophrenic, St. John the Baptist a degenerate, and Gautama Buddha – because he was still capable, so to speak, of adequate behavior – at least stood on the verge of madness …
One of the problems of modern medicine, according to Grof, is that she is inclined to consider any altered states of consciousness, arising under certain circumstances in perfectly healthy people as pathological manifestations or even one of the symptoms schizophrenia. In fact, medicine is now powerless to distinguish a prophetic vision (examples of which the sacred offer us scriptures of various nations of the world: the Bible, the Qur’an, the Torah, the Bhagavad-gita and etc.) from painful schizophrenic delirium, narcotic trans – from religious trance. Where in this case to draw the border “normal”? And the next question from here: where to spend the border of the “real”, what is generally reality in which we live? And who we really are, what can and what cannot called “man”?
Grof began his medical career with traditional psychoanalysis. according to Freud, however, soon in the course of his practice he realized one-sidedness traditional approach: after all, the Freudian is forced to reduce everything to sexual desire, libido, supposedly the main driving force person. But the most important thing that did not suit Grof was itself method of verbally-oriented “talking” on a leather couch though and if successful, leads to an accurate diagnosis and identifying the event that caused the pathology is not always effective for the actual deliverance of the patient from the oppression of this event and proper pathological symptoms.
Little by little, Stan came to understand that it’s not just formal recall, and direct experience of these key eventsiii – including the most traumatic in life any person of the event – his own birth! – much better able to help both in curing ailment and expanding consciousness.
It is immediately worth noting that modern medicine does not confirm the fact that a person can remember his own birth and more intrauterine experience. In fact, on the contrary, there is data that the human brain is not able to remember anything that happened to body up to two years. However, the experience of Grof and millions of people, using holotropic breathing, says the opposite. To understand “how deep the rabbit hole” pointed to Grof, it should be noted that the experience of people in holotropic sessions respiration is not limited to perinatal (tested at time birth) or even prenatal (embryonic, intrauterine) experiences.
It includes highly vivid and unusual experiences, experiences that were available before the invention of this technique only advanced mystics and saints of various faiths, as well as people taking LSD. In particular, it is the activation of the chakras, experiences of past incarnations, foresight, clairvoyance and clairaudience, identification with other persons, with animals, plants, objects and even all creations at once (Mother Nature), the entire planet Earth, moreover – experiences meetings with the superhuman and spiritual, divine, as well as alien beings, beings from other universes …
A photo from open sources
All this may sound like science fiction or, again, nonsense. crazy or drug addict. And indeed, unlike prenatal and perinatal memories, which in some cases actually confirmed, refute or confirm such experiencing is not possible. Just like let’s say it’s impossible to inquire whether a Catholic saint is truly founder of the Jesuit Order Ignatius de Loyola in his meditations comprehended the crucifixion of Christ! Science, as mentioned above, in In such cases, it simply cannot fix a fundamental difference between true and false.
As one of Grof’s researchers (and followers) notes, Vladimir Maykov, in his article “The World of Stanislav Grof”, the same the very law of uncertainty, which is outstanding German physicist W. Heisenberg discovered in the quantum world, applicable to the world of psychology, the world of the human soul: the more accurately we try determine the coordinates of the event, the more uncertain it becomes our knowledge of what really happened.
Moreover, physics has now come to understand that on at the microscopic level, it is impossible to conduct research without in order not to make changes in the properties of the material. If, to For example, a gold bar can be measured as much as you like without damage to the “test”, then, say, one quark of gold is inevitable will undergo significant changes. In addition, microscopic particles, the constituent parts of matter, are rather a process, a wave, than a material particle … The same with deep studies of the human psyche – with a sufficiently deep immersion in this question a person as if ceases to be a man, and it appears as a kind of evolute of consciousness taken in a certain approximation, and only in this approximation is he a man.
For example, someone begins to practice holotropic breathing, to get rid of psychological trauma or to overcome life the crisis. Finally, he sees and exceeds what is available in ordinary life. experiencing clarity, say, his own birth, that is, as if born again. Having survived and integrated (i.e., dissolved) this trauma, it goes deeper, revealing others – perinatal – injuries. Survives, integrates them. Opportunities for “recalling” in this particular body is, as it were, exhausted; psychological trauma seemingly too.
But then strange things begin to happen: a person sinks in experiments outside the body, outside this life, it experiences other incarnations, experiments of planetary, non-human consciousness, finally, experience the birth of the universe, then … infinity is revealed to him prospects – which actually existed always and everywhere. In fact, everything that made him a man disappears, concludes V. Mikov, noting the paradox: often complete mental healing Grof’s patients only experienced these “transcendental” ones, out-of-body and extraterrestrial experiments …
In general, it turns out the whole trick is what we are with identify – a key point, by the way, in Yoga. It is curious in this regard that Grof’s wife Christina, who is co-author of the method of holotropic breathing and Grof’s latest books, was a student of Swami Muktananda Paramahamsa, a leader in the tradition of Siddha Yoga, until his death (departure to Mahasamadhi) in 1982.
But back from the scientifically unprovable phenomena of holotropic method and yoga, which to some might seem fiction, to the reality of Grof’s medical practice. The fact remains: during holotropic breathing sessions, hundreds of thousands of people have found healing their mental illnesses and emotional problems.
And Stan Grof – perhaps the greatest “psychonaut” of the planet – is not slows down the pace of its research and psychotherapeutic work, which is essentially a “frantic search” for the superhuman: the eternal search for the Divine. As I liked to repeat the notorious Heisenberg, “an atheist takes the first sip from a glass of natural science, but at the bottom of the glass God awaits. “For truth is somewhere out there at the bottom rabbit hole.
Time Universe DNA Life Health Crisis Evolution
