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Stanislav Grof is, without exaggeration, the Freud of the 21st century. Living classic. Some even believe that Grof is the founder of a new religion that allows its adherents to avoid physical death.

We will hardly meet soon.
Behind the pain is pain,
Beyond the distance is the distance.
V. Pelevin

In fact, everything is not so fantastic: it just gives people the opportunity to remember the circumstances of their birth. And he sees in this the future of psychiatry, and more broadly, of the spiritual evolution of humanity in general, which, in his opinion, has now reached a dead end.

He still personally gives trainings all over the world (he recently completed such a training in Moscow - “The Adventure of Self-Discovery”) and teaches at the California Institute of Integral Studies. He looks much younger than his 78 years. During sessions of the so-called “holotropic breathing”, Grof was “born” again more than four thousand times. This is the number of sessions the pioneering psychiatrist conducted during his more than 45 years of practice. He returned to the consciousness of a newborn thousands of times - maybe that’s why he looks so young?

I like Grof because he introduced the concept of “spiritual experience” into psychology. Previously, a person who experienced a revelation was placed in a madhouse, his condition extinguished by tranquilizers. Now such moments have a legitimate place in a person’s life, and he won’t even be considered crazy.

Grof has written more than ten scientific and educational books, created a successfully functioning International Transpersonal Organization, trained more than one hundred thousand certified teachers... His trainings have been attended by millions of people around the world. The owner of the highest scientific degrees and prestigious awards, Grof is, in addition, a very wealthy person. It would seem that you can “retire” and rest on your laurels! But no.

One of Grof’s books is called “Frantic Search for Oneself” (1990): it seems that what he realizes in his example is an “eternal battle” with a shadow, a search for perfection. But if you look at it, in Grof’s system the notorious “frantic search for oneself” is a problem that faces only spiritually fragmented individuals, and then only until recovery. In the course of practice, it turns into another task facing mentally healthy people - the super task of expanding consciousness, spiritual evolution. And the first stage in this struggle, which Grof, with his characteristic optimism, called “adventure”, should be overcoming the invisible “last border” - the human barrier, behind which lie mysterious areas about which little can be said in words, except that “here they can there are tigers,” as in the famous story by R. Bradbury.

As Grof notes from his own “journeys” into the unconscious (or, more precisely, the “superconscious”) and observations of thousands of “journeys” undertaken by his patients, three conditions allow one to go beyond this limit: taking LSD (which is an illegal drug), the method of holotropic breathing proposed by Grof and the psychospiritual crisis, or “spiritual aggravation i“. What these three situations have in common, as Grof writes in the preface to the book “Call of the Jaguar” (2001), is that they cause unusual states of consciousness, including the subtype of them that he calls “holotropic” ii, that is, transcendental, in contrast to ordinary experience, which he calls “hylotropic,” that is, earthly.

Grof notes in Call of the Jaguar that in psychedelic therapy (now illegal, but formerly legal in Grof's youth), such states were induced by taking psychoactive drugs, including LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, tryptamine, amphetamine derivatives (DMT, ecstasy and etc.). The holotropic breathwork method, developed by Grof and his wife Christina in 1975, uses a combination of so-called connected breathing (when there is no pause between inhalation and exhalation, exhalation and inhalation) and trance-inducing music (often ethnic, tribal) to change consciousness. : African drums, Tibetan trumpets, etc.); Sometimes body work is additionally used. In the case of “spiritual exacerbations,” holotropic states arise spontaneously, Grof notes, and their causes are usually unknown. Thus, the third method is uncontrolled, the first is illegal: only holotropic breathing remains.

Grof conducted his research for more than forty-five years. He began with experiments with LSD. After the discovery of the psychotropic properties of the drug in 1943, it was for some time assumed that it caused symptoms similar to schizophrenia (and was therefore recommended for use by psychotherapists), but this hypothesis was subsequently refuted. After this drug was banned in the United States in the late 1960s, Grof began to use in his research the method of special holotropic breathing, in which he actively used the experience gained during experiments with psychoactive drugs (including precautions).

Perhaps the prototype of the specific breathing used in the holotropic method was the rapid breathing of Grof’s patients under LSD - in the case when a problem that emerged from the depths of the subconscious could not be immediately worked out and integrated into a healthy psyche. Such breathing helped them remain in an expanded state of consciousness and discharge the psychological material that manifested itself in the form of unpleasant symptoms. This is how the “bad trip” turned into a method of psychotherapy.

Acid brought, first of all, liberation, the greatest freedom to comprehend the incomprehensible, to travel in worlds hidden from modern man. The system of priorities was completely replaced, boring routine pictures of ordinary life modern man seemed like a vulgar mockery of oneself, because, having tasted the apple of paradise once, it is quite absurd to try to believe that this is the real thing, that this is precisely why you came into this world. It is no coincidence that the first opponents of the substance tried to associate the nature of an acid trip with a schizophrenic attack.

Grof never said this, but a natural conclusion from his medical practice would be the assumption - just an assumption - that Grof himself may have been under the influence of LSD when he invented his holotropic method. Likewise, for example, laureate Nobel Prize In 1962, Francis Crick discovered the famous double helix molecular structure of DNA under the influence of LSD. One way or another, Grof's experiments with LSD date back to the period when this drug was completely legal.

Research in the field of psychedelic therapy and personal experience of holotropic breathing allowed Grof to make the discovery that beyond the “final frontier” human consciousness- the consciousness of the embryo - there is no blank wall (as a materialist might assume, based on the assumption that human life limited by the interval between conception and death). Behind this “wall,” as Grof found out, there is also life, or rather, many forms of life. There lie “superhuman” worlds, where time and space, the limitations of brain memory and, in general, the current human birth cease to be limiting factors. Namely, they cease to restrain what always lives inside us and conducts its “frantic search” both before and after our physical death. In some philosophical and religious systems, this “something” is called “soul”, “consciousness”, “true self”.

But even this, empirical proof of the existence of the notorious “life after death”, accessible to everyone, is not the most surprising thing in Grof’s experiments. The main thing is that from the height of spiritual, superhuman consciousness it becomes obvious: the boundaries of the human and those psychological barriers that cause various pathological effects that do not allow a person to become himself, and then go further, rise above himself - these boundaries are not created by the whim of fate and are fueled by no one -that is, by an evil will, but by the person himself - more precisely, by his false, limited self-identification.

That is, it turns out that we ourselves - with all our might - keep our “doors of perception” locked, preventing true health, prosperity and freedom from entering them. As he told his students, as he wrote in his books - and as Grof proves with his medical practice - a person spends very significant forces on maintaining his mental barriers (much more than he can afford!). And these forces can be used much more rationally and profitably. For example, these forces with which a person keeps his “doors of perception” shut could help him in his journey beyond these doors, and therefore allow him to become a happy and spiritually developed person. And even more than that - to step further, beyond the boundaries of the human, which we, it turns out, have set for ourselves. Ultimately, Grof is "furiously searching" superman- and calls on each of us to join this search.

In fact, during his long life, Grof created a whole new direction not just of psychoanalysis, but of total superhumanistic psychocorrection, which can be useful not only for mentally ill people, but for everyone. From Stan’s point of view, it wouldn’t hurt for all of us to “heal” using his method - after all, we must admit, even the healthiest people in terms of level of consciousness are far from the ideals demonstrated by spiritually developed individuals, teachers of humanity, and enlightened mystics. Stan Grof is not a mystic, he just sets the bar higher, much higher than is usually done in psychotherapy.

He draws our attention to the tragic gap between what humanity aspired to and the post-humanistic, mechanistic society to which it has now arrived. Grof, being himself a professional physician, a doctor of medicine, a psychiatrist with fifty years of experience, who grew up in the school of traditional psychoanalysis, notes that modern science sins of one-sidedness, bordering on blindness. Traditional medicine stubbornly turns a blind eye to the fact that the problem of a person’s mental health is organically connected with the problem of his spiritual development, even moreover, it actually contrasts these processes. Everything that goes beyond the traditional worldview, limited by very narrow boundaries, receives the label of “abnormality.” In one of his interviews, Grof notes: from the point of view of modern medicine, it turns out that if we discard rituals, leaving only specific behavior and unusual states of consciousness, then any religion and spirituality in general is pure pathology, a form of mental disorder. Buddhist meditation, from the point of view of a psychiatrist, is catatonia, Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa was a schizophrenic, St. John the Baptist was a degenerate, and Gautama Buddha - since he was still, so to speak, capable of appropriate behavior- at least stood on the verge of madness...

One of the problems of modern medicine, according to Grof, is that it tends to consider any altered states of consciousness that occur under certain circumstances in completely healthy people as pathological manifestations or even one of the symptoms of schizophrenia. In fact, medicine is now powerless to distinguish prophetic vision (examples of which are offered to us scriptures different nations world: the Bible, Koran, Torah, Bhagavad Gita, etc.) from painful schizophrenic delirium, drug trance - from religious trance. Where, then, should we draw the line of “normal”? And the next question from here is: where do we draw the line of the “real”, what is the reality in which we live? And who are we really, what can and cannot be done by the so-called “man”?

The anti-psychiatric movement, fueled by the same ideas of resistance to the use of psychiatry in the interests of power and violence against patients, grew, went beyond the scope of its original plan, and included other protests against discrimination against Others - primarily the gay movement. Szasz, ranked among the founders of antipsychiatry, no longer participated in its further development. He was minding his own business.

Grof began his medical career from traditional psychoanalysis according to Freud, but soon in the course of his practice he realized the one-sidedness of the traditional approach: after all, the Freudian is forced to reduce everything to sexual desire, libido, supposedly the main driving force of a person. But the most important thing that did not suit Grof was that the method of verbally oriented “speaking” on a leather couch, although, if successful, leads to an accurate diagnosis and identification of the event that caused the pathology, is not always effective in actually ridding the patient of the oppression of this events and actual pathological symptoms. Gradually Stan came to understand that it was not just formal remembering, but direct experience re-examine these key events iii - including the most traumatic event in the life of any person - his own birth! - is much better able to help both in curing illness and expanding consciousness.

It’s worth noting right away that modern medicine does not confirm the fact that a person can remember his own birth, much less intrauterine experience. In fact, on the contrary, there is evidence that the human brain is not able to remember anything that happened to the body before the age of two. However, the experience of Grof and millions of people using the holotropic breathing method suggests the opposite. To understand “how deep the rabbit hole goes” that Grof pointed out, it must be noted that people's experiences in holotropic breathwork sessions are not limited to perinatal (experienced at the moment of birth) or even prenatal (embryonic, intrauterine) experiences. It includes in highest degree vivid and unusual experiences, experiences that, before the invention of this technique, were available only to advanced mystics and saints of various faiths, as well as to people who took LSD. In particular, this is the activation of 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 of meetings with superhumans and spiritual, divine, as well as alien beings, beings from other universes...

In order to get to the true causes of symptoms, bypassing resistance, Freud initially used hypnosis. Being immersed in this twilight state, the patient could easily discover the connection of his illness with the events of the past, during which repression occurred and some not very convenient desire was replaced. (Hypnosis was necessary because in a normal, waking state, the patient, due to the strength of resistance, could not remember anything like that.) Having experienced his secret desires under hypnosis, the patient was cured, experiencing a state of catharsis akin to that experienced by spectators of ancient Greek tragedies. Freud called this the “cathartic cure.”

All this may sound like science fiction or, again, the ravings of a madman or drug addict. Indeed, unlike prenatal and perinatal memories, which in a number of cases were actually confirmed, it is not possible to refute or confirm such experiences. Just as, say, it is impossible to find out whether the Catholic saint, founder of the Jesuit Order, Ignatius de Loyola, in his meditations truly comprehended the sufferings of Christ on the cross! Science, as mentioned above, in such cases simply cannot fix the fundamental difference between “true” and “false.”

As one of Grof’s researchers (and followers), Vladimir Maikov, notes in his article “The World of Stanislav Grof”, the same law of uncertainty relationships that the outstanding German physicist W. Heisenberg discovered in the quantum world is also applicable to the world of psychology, the human world souls: the more accurately we try to determine the coordinates of an event, the more uncertain our knowledge of what actually happened becomes.

Moreover, physics has now come to understand that at the most microscopic level it is impossible to carry out research without making changes to the properties of the material. If, for example, an ingot of gold can be measured as much as you like without harming the “test”, then, say, one quark of gold will inevitably undergo significant changes. In addition, microscopic particles, constituent parts of matter, are more of a process, a wave, than a material particle... The same is with in-depth studies of the human psyche - with sufficient deep dive In this question, a person, as it were, ceases to be a person, but appears as a certain evolution 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 overcome a life crisis. Finally he sees and with more than what is available in ordinary life he experiences, say, his own birth with clarity, that is, as if he is born again. Having experienced and integrated (that is, dissolved) this trauma, he goes deeper, revealing other - perinatal - traumas. Experiences and integrates them too. The possibilities of “remembering” in this particular body are, as it were, exhausted; psychological trauma, it would seem, too. But then strange things begin to happen: a person is immersed in experiences outside the body, outside this life, experiences other incarnations, experiences of planetary, non-human consciousness, finally, the experience of the birth of the Universe, then... An infinity of perspective opens up to him - which in fact has always existed everywhere. In fact, everything that made him human disappears, V. Maikov concludes, noting the paradox: Grof’s patients often experienced complete mental healing only after experiencing precisely these “transcendental,” out-of-body and extraterrestrial experiences...

In general, it turns out that the whole trick is in what we identify ourselves with - the key point, by the way, in Yoga. It is curious in this regard that Grof’s wife Christina, who is the co-author of the holotropic breathing method and latest books Grof, was a student of Swami Muktananda Paramahamsa, leader of the Siddha Yoga tradition, until his death (entry into Mahasamadhi) in 1982.

But let’s return from the scientifically unprovable phenomena of the holotropic method and yoga, which may seem fantastic to some, to the reality of Grof’s medical practice. The fact remains that hundreds of thousands of people have found healing for their mental illnesses and emotional problems through Holotropic Breathwork sessions. And Stan Grof - perhaps the greatest “psychonaut” on the planet - does not slow down the pace of his research and psychotherapeutic work, which is essentially a “frantic search” for the superhuman: the eternal search for the Divine. As the notorious Heisenberg liked to repeat, “the first sip from the glass of natural science is taken by an atheist, but God awaits at the bottom of the glass.” After all, the truth is somewhere out there, at the bottom of the rabbit hole.

Coming out on August 1st A new book Grof, co-authored with his wife Christina, “Holotropic Breathwork: New approach to self-exploration and therapy" iv.

_________________________

i Originally, Spiritual Emergency, a term coined by Stan and Christina Grof. They co-authored the book "Spiritual Crisis" ( Spiritual Emergency: When Personal Transformation Becomes A Crisis (1989))

ii The term “holotropic” is derived from the Greek roots holos, which means “whole”, and trepein, which means “to move in a direction.” Together they mean “to move towards wholeness.”

iii What K. Castaneda calls the “remembering” technique, which has nothing to do with rational verbal analysis, and, by the way, also, like Grof, includes special breathing. Castaneda repeatedly emphasizes in his books and interviews that recollection the main, most emotionally intense and fateful events of your life - a necessary preliminary stage for a person to gain integrity and - then - to develop superpowers.

iv The book is published English language. Original title: “Holotropic Breathwork: A New Approach to Self-exploration and Therapy.”

In encyclopedias on psychology, the name of Stanislav Grof comes third, after Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, among the largest innovators of the science of the secrets of the human soul. Grof's revolutionary discoveries, still ignored by official medicine, inspired the cult directors the Wachowski brothers to create the Matrix film trilogy. The world-famous scientist gave an exclusive interview to Pravda.Ru.
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Dear Stanislav, let me thank you that in the year of your 75th anniversary you found the time for such a serious and large-scale conversation with us. Carl Jung also argued that the baby’s psyche is not a “tabula rasa”. Based on many years of clinical research, you have come to the conclusion that our unconscious contains perinatal (that is, prenatal) and transpersonal areas. But why does official medicine ignore these discoveries?

Modern research in the field of consciousness has brought a lot of evidence that the models of the human psyche that dominate today in official psychology and psychiatry are superficial and inadequate. Based on many years of data from psychedelic research, I had to create an extremely expanded model of the psyche by adding two large areas - perinatal and transpersonal.

The perinatal area refers to memories of intrauterine life and biological birth. This area consists of four basic perinatal matrices, corresponding to the four stages of labor - from blissful rest in the womb to birth. The transpersonal sphere contains the experience of identification with other people, other biological species, episodes from the lives of our ancestors, both humans and animals, as well as the historical collective unconscious as interpreted by Jung.

My cartography of the psyche bears a great resemblance to Jung's views, except for one fundamental thing. I was surprised and disappointed that Jung vehemently denied that biological birth had any psychological significance, that it was a major psychological trauma. Even shortly before his death, in an interview, Jung denied any possibility of such a meaning.

ATTENTION:

This post is NOT a call for drug use, just as this entire blog is NOT a call for widespread immersion in trance states, opening of the third eye, contact with aliens and dancing naked with a tambourine around the fire.

Each reader has the right to take away from the information transmitted for reflection exactly as much as his personal comfort zone and its framework allow.

My (and not only my) experience of working with users of various drugs shows that they pollute the channels of perception in the long term, in some cases making meditative states and full-fledged energy cleansing/independent corrections difficult to implement, and can switch these channels to their own, egregorial ones ( cm. ).

Persons with extensive experience with psychedelics (any) usually have more difficulty maintaining focus, both in the normal state of consciousness and in the meditative state. Sometimes nervous system can be burned out until there is a complete lack of sensitivity to energies and the perception of subtle planes, the antennas are reconfigured to perceive illusory realities, the connection with the VY is blocked, a gray haze forms, sometimes condensing to a black oil-like substance (strong emotions of anger, grief, hatred, etc. can have the same effect). Depending on the natural protections, breakdowns in the aura can have extremely disastrous results and attract entities based on the principle of similarity (hence the difficulties with depression and addiction).

However, as has been said many times, there is no one-size-fits-all rule, there is only a statistical average, and it usually varies.

Transpersonal psychology views a person as a spiritual cosmic being, inextricably linked with the entire Universe, Cosmos, humanity, with the ability to access the global information cosmic field. Through the individual unconscious psyche, a person is connected with the unconscious psyche of other persons, with the collective unconscious of humanity, with cosmic information, the “world mind.”

The original founders of transpersonal (transpersonal) tendencies were K. G. Jung, R. Assagioli, A. Maslow. Their ideas about the collective unconscious, about the “higher self,” about the unconscious mutual influence of people on each other, about the role of “peak experiences” (on the verge of life and death) in personality development served as the basis for the development of transpersonal psychology.

Stanislav's experimental research Grof(b. 1931) confirm the correctness of C. G. Jung’s concept of the inextricable connection of human consciousness with the unconscious phenomena of the personal and collective unconscious, with archetypes, the possibility of human access to the global information field of the collective unconscious and cosmic consciousness in transpersonal experiences.

During experimental research conducted over 30 years, S. Grof discovered that when a person from the level of consciousness with the help special methods(such as meditation, rebirthing, holotropic breathing) begins to penetrate into the area of ​​​​his unconscious psyche, he goes through several levels:

• 1. Touch threshold. When passing the sensory threshold, a person experiences unusual sensations: a variety of physical and painful sensations in the body (physical barrier), unaddressed, previously often suppressed emotions (a person wants to cry or laugh without any specific reason - emotional barrier) actualization of visual and sound images (color spots, geometric shapes, some landscapes may flash into the field of vision behind closed eyelids, various sounds can be heard - figurative barrier).
• 2. Individual personal unconscious (biographical level). Any events or circumstances of a person’s life from the moment of birth to the present moment, which have a high emotional significance of experiences, are actually experienced again. Memories from the biography do not appear separately, but form the so-called systems of condensed experience, representing a dynamic combination of memories from different periods of a person’s life, united by a strong emotional charge of the same quality, intense bodily sensations of the same type.
• 3. Level of birth and death (perinatal matrices). Grof called the next level of the unconscious psyche perinatal(information is stored here about the peculiarities of intrauterine development and the birth of a child, about being on the verge of life and death). Perinatal matrices - these are the deep structures of the unconscious psyche, which contain information about the experiences and sensations of the body from the moment of conception to the completion of birth. Under normal conditions, they are not recognized by a person, although they can significantly influence his health, psyche, behavior and life.

With further immersion into the unconscious psyche, a person can go beyond the limits of his individual psyche, into the transpersonal area.

4. The transpersonal area reveals a person’s connection with the Cosmos, with the collective unconscious, with the world information field, when a person’s consciousness goes beyond ordinary limits and overcomes the limitations of time and space. Transpersonal experiences are interpreted by those who experience them as a return to historical times and the study of one’s biological and spiritual past, when a person lives through memories from the life of his ancestors, from his incarnations. An individual can go beyond the boundaries of purely human experience and tap into what appears to be the consciousness of animals, plants, or even inanimate objects and processes.

An important category of transpersonal experience will be a variety of phenomena extrasensory perception, for example, the experience of existing outside the body, telepathy, predicting the future, clairvoyance, movement in time and space, the experience of meetings with the souls of the dead or with superhuman spiritual entities. Sometimes transpersonal experience includes events from the microcosm and macrocosm; from areas inaccessible directly to human senses, or from periods historically preceding the appearance solar system, Earth, living organisms. These experiences clearly indicate that in some as yet inexplicable way, each of us has information about the entire Universe, about everything that exists, each has potential empirical access to all its parts.

A person simultaneously acts as a material object and a vast field of consciousness. People can become aware of themselves through two different modes of experience.

* The first mode can be called hylotropic consciousness(from Greek hyle - matter). It implies knowledge of oneself as a tangible physical being with clear boundaries and a limited sensory range. Experiences of this mode systematically support the following basic assumptions: matter is material; two objects cannot simultaneously occupy the same space; past events are irretrievably lost; future events are empirically inaccessible; It is impossible to be in two or more places at the same time.

* Another empirical mode can be called holotropic consciousness(from Greek holos - whole). Such consciousness is inherent in the few people who have the experience of "peak" and transpersonal experiences. This mode implies a field of consciousness without certain boundaries, which has unlimited experiential access to various aspects of reality without the mediation of the senses. Experiences in the holotropic mode are systematically supported by assumptions opposite to those of the hylotropic mode: the materiality and continuity of matter is an illusion; time and space are highly arbitrary - the same space can be occupied by many objects at the same time; past and future can be empirically transferred to the present moment; You can have the experience of being in several places at once.

Human nature reflects a fundamental duality between the experience of separate existence as material object and the experience of limitless existence as an undifferentiated field of consciousness, i.e. both hylotropic and holotropic modes are natural to humans.

Part of the audience was still crowding at the entrance, taking apart their headphones, when a large man leisurely came out from behind the scenes and sat down on the prepared sofa, comfortably and calmly, as if not on stage, but in his living room. The first impression is that he is younger than I expected (he is 81 years old). Even younger than his own photograph on the large poster to the right of the sofa. On the left is a poster with a famous portrait of Freud. I can't help but compare them. Grof's face is equally significant and unsmiling.

Transpersonal psychology is associated with the mystical (and not only for me: on the cover of the book, which is sold there at the entrance to the hall, Grof is all in concentric circles, with the slicked hair of an experienced gigolo, with a third eye in his forehead). And the mystical is often the work of charlatans. I went to meet him with trepidation and a great desire to check how it really was. But his behavior is very even, there is no steely shine in his eyes, there is no desire to charm in his manner, there is no desire to convince in his voice. In response to a question about working with cancer patients, he says: “We didn’t see the magic. The pain went away, sometimes for up to two weeks, pain that was no longer relieved by drugs. But there were no healings.”

The meeting begins with a conversation about psychedelics. Grof explains that he does not consider himself an LSD promoter. Using psychedelic plants should not be for fun, he emphasizes. They are sacred and deserve to be respected and handled responsibly. For him, it is just a tool, “like a microscope in biology or a telescope in astronomy.”

He says that he prefers to call states of consciousness “nonordinary” rather than “altered.” Changed means bad, defective. And this, on the contrary, is a state of expanded consciousness. In addition, in English the word “altered” is used to describe castrated animals. The owner of a cat can ask another: “Well, how did you “change” yours?” Of course, such a word is not suitable!

His way

• 1931 Born in Prague (Czechoslovakia).
• 1957 Graduated from Charles University in Prague.
• 1965 Received an academic degree (Ph.D.) in medicine.
• 1977 Became one of the founders of the International Transpersonal Association.
• 2012 Leads master classes in different countries world, including in Russia.

Psychologies:

Transpersonal psychology is an approach that makes use of non-ordinary states of consciousness and "supernatural" experiences. How would you describe them?

Stanislav Grof:

Any state of consciousness that differs from the usual, waking state, by definition, turns out to be “unusual”: meditation, trance, relaxation, the work of intuition, acting, mystical experience, erotic experiences, hypnosis, dreams, daydreams... Transpersonal psychology studies precisely these. They allow us to go beyond our personal biological and psychological history and gain access to the past, present and future of our Universe and other levels of reality described in the great spiritual traditions. There are also “supernatural” experiences - for example, clinical death, “memories” of previous lives and parapsychological phenomena such as telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition... What is inexplicable within the framework classical psychology. But we must remember that transpersonal psychology is not parapsychology. She expands her field of activity, including research in the field of experimental psychology, neuropsychology, biology, and quantum therapy. It is an open system, not a set of dogmas and beliefs.

How did your interest in such conditions arise?

S.G.:

It arose as a result of my mystical experience, for which I was not at all prepared... I was born into a non-religious family and was raised in the most materialistic spirit, because my country, when I was 17 years old, came under Soviet influence. Everything that more or less resembled spirituality was irreconcilably rejected. Once I discovered the works of Freud, they literally fascinated me. I became interested in psychiatry, enrolled in Prague Medical School, then joined a small group of psychoanalysts. But later psychoanalysis disappointed me, not the theory, but the practice, especially the fact that it required a lot of investment - time and money, and gave insignificant results. Even studying medicine, which was very orthodox among us, with a mechanistic idea of human body, closer to plumbing, than to healing, it became difficult for me. I almost began to regret choosing this career.

But you continued...

S.G.:

Yes, that’s how it all turned out... or that was fate. In 1956, our research department received a box of ampoules containing a strange substance from a large Swiss pharmaceutical laboratory. It was d-lysergic acid diethylamide, later known as LSD... In the letter, the laboratory asked us if we would agree to experiment with this drug, which had the property of causing special psychotic states: first we had to test it on our patients, then on ourselves... to find out from your own experience what psychosis is! Can you imagine? Of course, I volunteered to participate. I won’t go into details, but what happened transformed my life: after taking a small dose of this substance, I saw an extraordinary light. Later I realized that it was this ineffable light that was described in the Tibetan book of the dead": it said that we are destined to see him when we depart to another world. Suddenly I felt like I was flying out of my body, as if my consciousness was flying straight into space, through galaxies and black holes, ever expanding. It seemed to me that I had merged with all that exists, found myself inside physical universe. I felt emotions of such intensity that I had never imagined before. Then my consciousness seemed to “narrow”, circled around my body and finally returned to it.

Perhaps it could be a short-term mental disorder?

S.G.:

No. I was a psychiatrist and immediately realized that this episode was not a crisis, but an incredibly positive one. He transformed me so much that only from that day did I feel that I had truly become a human being. This profound change, sometimes called “return to self,” is, incidentally, one of the characteristics clinical death and some spontaneous mystical experiences. This is why I have devoted much of my psychiatric career to redefining psychosis and exploring the therapeutic effectiveness of non-ordinary states of consciousness. First at the Prague Institute of Psychiatric Research, where for 15 years I conducted research, systematizing all the “visions” of my patients, “travels”, experiences, the impact on their quality of life, in some cases - their recovery... It was the work of a pioneer, because I had no knowledge of the spirit.

Were you not familiar with Jung's work?

S.G.:

No, because in Marxist society his books were included in the list of forbidden literature! In 1967, I was invited to teach in the USA, and when a year later it happened Prague Spring, I decided to stay. In 1973, I became a full-time faculty member at the Esalen Institute for Human Performance in California. Later, my wife Christina and I developed holotropic breathing, a special technique of hyperventilation of the lungs that allows you to “travel” into the unconscious and the other world. At the same time, my intuitive discovery was confirmed: our consciousness - if you like, our “spirit” - is located outside our brain.

What is Holotropic Breathwork Like?

S.G.:

This combination of intense breathing, specially selected physical exercises and music helps relieve bioenergetic and emotional blocks. The method of holotropic breathing is fundamentally different from the methods of traditional psychotherapy and psychoanalysis, which are based on verbal communication. But he has common features with psychotherapy, where the emphasis is on the direct expression of emotions and exercises for the body (for example, Gestalt therapy). But our method is the only one that uses the healing potential that is inherent in altered states of consciousness.

How are classes going?

S.G.:

Typically this is group classes. Participants pair up and take turns acting as the breather and the “observer.” During breathing sessions, they draw mandalas in which they express their experiences. And then in small groups they talk about their experience of immersing themselves in the subconscious. Professional instructors constantly monitor the process. Their task is to provide assistance if necessary. At the end of the class they talk to each member of the group. Sometimes participants resort to the help of an instructor in order to more fully comprehend the experience, since new experiences can be very unusual. For this purpose, additional psychotherapeutic techniques are used.

Risk and breathing

“The holotropic breathing method seems easy, but this impression is extremely deceptive,” warns Stanislav Grof. It is not difficult to induce an unusual state of consciousness if you breathe quickly and to stimulating music. However, this can only be done under the guidance of experienced instructors. “The main risk is that the breather's subconscious will remain open and, if the session is not successfully completed, the unusual state of consciousness may persist for a long time and interfere with Everyday life person." In addition, this practice is contraindicated for those who suffer from heart and vascular diseases, those who have had serious emotional problems in the past that led them to hospitalization in psychiatric institutions. “It is known that hyperventilation can also provoke attacks of epilepsy,” continues Stanislav Grof. - There are some contraindications, determined using common sense, such as recent surgery, injury, or simply a serious illness.”

Most scientists attribute mystical experiences to the activation of certain areas of our brain. What will you answer them?

S.G.:

To say this is to ignore a significant body of research that shows that consciousness is not produced by the brain, like bile by the liver, but is located “somewhere else.” I compare the brain to a television: you can take it apart, study it, understand why it has a color picture and different programs, but this will not tell you anything about how the programs are produced and where they come from. To say that consciousness is just a product of the brain is the same as saying that television creates a program!

You claim that holotropic breathwork changes the lives of those who practice it. How?

S.G.:

Those who have come into conscious contact with the transpersonal part of their psyche gain a new appreciation for their existence and begin to respect the life of any being. Their attention shifts from the past and future to the present moment, they are less angry and offended and know how to enjoy life. Simple circumstances bring them joy: daily activities, food, lovemaking, nature and music. Another important consequence is the acquisition of universal spirituality. Unlike religious dogmas, it is based on deep personal experience and therefore reliable and convincing. In addition, people who have had a transpersonal experience feel wholeheartedly that they are citizens of planet Earth, and not members of one or another racial, social, ideological, political or religious group.

How did you meet Abraham Maslow, with whom you founded transpersonal psychology?

S.G.:

Arriving in the USA, I sent him the results of my observations, since at that time he was conducting research on spontaneous mystical experiences, which he called “paroxysmic experiences.” He was fascinated by my work and my conclusions about the transcendental character of the human mind, and he invited me to participate in the meetings of his humanistic psychology group. I once put forward the idea that in order to better understand why our psyche is able to transcend the boundaries of space and time, we must take into account research in the field of neurophysiology, biology and quantum physics. And he proposed to found a new school of transpersonal psychology, that is, psychology that goes “beyond the personality.”

How was this movement received by the American psychological community?

S.G.:

He was completely ignored in official circles*. But we have received support from renowned researchers working in different disciplines, including Nobel Prize winners in physics. Thinking that any spiritual impulse is psychopathology, and looking for its causes in unresolved conflicts early childhood- means at least 30 years behind the current level of our knowledge about human consciousness.

In Russia, your views evoke constant interest and at the same time a certain skepticism, if not fear. How do you explain this?

S.G.:

The fact is that my method radically questions the usual models of work. It must be admitted that it is not easy for a specialist to abandon the theory on which he based his entire practice and even his existence in order to accept a different system of thinking. But I see that more and more people every day realize their need to establish a connection with the spiritual dimension, their higher self. This need urgently and urgently requires satisfaction! Now I have no doubt: the psychology of the 21st century will be transpersonal, because it is involved in the transformation of the consciousness of the planet.

*The American Psychological Association does not recognize transpersonal psychology as scientific discipline and the Association of Transpersonal Psychology as a scientific structure. However, the British Psychological Society has established a department of transpersonal psychology since 1996, and it has thus gained recognition in the professional community.

About it

• “Healing our deepest wounds. Holotropic paradigm shift” Stanislav Grof (Ganga, 2012).
• “Journey in Search of Self” Stanislav Grof (AST, 2004).