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The Share Guide:
Dr. Grof, you've written extensively about the phenomenon of
synchronicity--meaningful coincidences which defy a rational
explanation. This seems to dovetail with our previous interview, which
was with Jack Canfield, on The Law of Attraction (described in the
bestseller The Secret). Both
concepts relate to the idea that there's
an interaction between the psyche and the world of matter, and that our
thoughts can affect reality.
Stanislav
Grof: I have personally experienced over the years many examples
of this kind
of thing--an interaction between the psyche and what we consider the
material world, the objective reality. This is something that should
not be happening if the universe is really the way it's described
by materialistic science. I have also seen countless examples of
synchronicity with my clients and other people. It is an unquestionable
phenomenon. Dr. Carl Jung was the first to describe this
phenomenon, and his radical discovery challenged some of the most
basic assumptions of the materialistic world. It took Jung 20 years of
collecting observations before he dared to present this information to
his colleagues.
The Share Guide:
Did people believe him?
Stanislav Grof:
No! And even now, it's not generally accepted by academic circles.
Because it challenges something that's very, very essential to
traditional science--which is the idea that the universe is basically
governed by chains of cause and effect.
The Share Guide:
To better illustrate this concept of synchronicity, can you give an
example?
Stanislav Grof:
Here's an amazing story that I heard from Joseph Campbell during one of
his seminars at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur. He used to live in
Greenwich Village in Manhattan on the 14th floor of a high-rise
building. His study had two sets of windows--one was overlooking the
Hudson River, which was a very beautiful view and those windows were
open much of the time. The other two windows faced Sixth Avenue, and
they were hardly ever opened. Joseph said those particular windows were
only opened a couple of times during the 14 years he lived there.
Joseph
was, at the time of this story, working on
his World Encyclopedia of Mythology--in particular, the first volume
called The Way of the Animal Powers, a comprehensive encyclopedia of
shamanic mythologies of the world. And he was specifically working on a
chapter on the mythology of the African bushmen of the Kalahari Desert.
In that mythology, the praying mantis is a central, heroic figure. So
Joseph was surrounded by all these articles about the praying mantis
and pictures of the praying mantis. Just as he was working on this, he
suddenly had this completely irrational impulse to go and open one of
the windows on the side that he never opened. So he does this and looks
out of the window, and he automatically turned his head to the right
without really knowing why, and there on the 14th floor of the
high-rise building was a great specimen of praying mantis. And Joseph
said the praying mantis gave him this meaningful look, and then just
continued up the wall. So that's a remarkable example of synchronicity,
because you don't see many praying mantis in lower Manhattan!
The Share Guide:
Synchronicities happen all the time, especially once you're open to the
concept. It seems crazy that so many people chalk much of this up to
coincidence. Do you think this is due to rigid thinking?
Stanislav Grof:
Yes, this is something that you find very often in the scientific
circle. These people practice something I call "scientism" rather than
science--they have a rigid conviction that the current worldview is
definitive and it's absolutely accurate; no major surprises are
accepted. They cannot imagine that the worldview would change
radically, but this is how science naturally proceeds.
The Share Guide:
In the past you've done extensive research and therapy using
psychedelic drugs, including LSD. But don't you currently use
Holotropic Breathwork instead to achieve non-ordinary states of
consciousness?
Stanislav Grof:
Yes. Holotropic Breathwork is a method that my wife, Christina, and I
developed when we lived at Esalen Institute, because we did not have
permission to use psychedelics anymore. So we experimented with breath
and music and bodywork, and we put these together to create a very
powerful method of therapy and self-exploration. We started this back
in the mid-70's. You can actually induce the same spectrum of
experiences that we used to do with psychedelics. Holotropic Breathwork
is now used all over the world, in many workshops, seminars, etc.
The Share Guide:
You've found that people can achieve therapeutic results as dramatic as
those with psychedelic drugs?
Stanislav Grof:
Yes, the results are very similar. Actually, we feel that the
combination of breathing and releasing bodywork that we're using is
more effective at clearing psychosomatic symptoms than psychedelics
were.
The Share Guide:
For our readers who are unfamiliar with Holotropic Breathwork, can you
give a brief description?
Stanislav Grof:
First, we normally do this work with groups, although it can also be
done individually. But when people experience it in a group with
connection to others, it's a much more powerful way of using this
method. I've tried to dispel some of the misconceptions that people
have about non-ordinary states of consciousness, so when these groups
meet, we spend several hours preparing for the experience. It
seems that during the industrial and scientific revolution, these
non-ordinary states were basically rejected. And many of the
tools used and the context in which they can be produced have actually
been outlawed. We don't have a category in current psychiatry that
would say, "This is a spiritual experience." Many people over the years
who have experienced non-ordinary states of consciousness have been
diagnosed as mentally ill and hospitalized. They've been given
tranquilizing medication when in other cultures this type of experience
would be considered to be perfectly normal. So with our Holotropic
Breathwork workshops, we try to dispel some of the misconceptions
beforehand and explain the range of experiences that people can have.
We ask people to find a partner and we work with half of the group at a
time. So half of the group are "breathers" and half of the group are
what are called "sitters." We do an introduction, which is
designed to relax people as much as possible, and make way for the
inner healer to take them wherever they need to go. And then we ask
them to breathe fast in a particular way, tying the inhalation and the
exhalation into kind of a circle of breath--and then allow anything
that
emerges to happen. People can make any sound that emerges, any kind of
body movement. The only restriction is not to do anything that would
hurt them or others or destroy the precious property of the place
that's hosting the workshop.
The Share Guide:
This is pretty far from traditional talk therapy!
Stanislav Grof:
It resembles in many ways what happens in Kundalini yoga, only people
are not in the lotus position; they are in the reclining position.
The Share Guide:
Traditional talk therapy seems to have very limited success for those
with deep-seated problems. With a method like Holotropic Breathwork,
you seem to get much faster results. Many people stay in talk
therapy for years and never seem to resolve their issues. What are your
thoughts on this?
Stanislav Grof:
One of the problems is that the definition of the psyche which is
currently accepted in psychiatry and psychology is painfully limited
and superficial. It's limited to what we can recall that happened to us
since the time we were born. Freud introduced the concept of the
unconscious mind, but it's still limited to the time after birth.
Freud described the newborn as a clean slate. In other words, there's
nothing that precedes birth that's of any interest for a psychiatrist
or psychologist--including birth itself, which is incredible.
Psychiatrists put a lot of emphasis on the conditions of nursing, and
the importance of the early relationship between the mother and the
child, but at the same time they ignore the fact that the hours before
and during birth are a major psychological event that's tremendous.
The Share Guide:
They don't think that we're conscious then, right?
Stanislav Grof:
Right, but this is incorrect. So one of the things that you have to do
when you work with these non-ordinary states--or the special
subcategory
of holotropic states [holo means "whole" and tropic means "moving
toward" so holotropic means "moving toward wholeness"]--is deal with
the
fact that the psyche is larger than traditional psychiatry defines
it. Besides the biographic domain, there is what I call the
perinatal domain, which contains all the stages of birth that we went
through, recorded in photographic detail. There are also prenatal
experiences. In addition, there is another domain of the psyche which
we now call transpersonal. This includes such things as experiencing
oneness with other people, experiencing group consciousness,
experiencing identification with various animals or other life forms,
transcending time, and having collective karmic experiences. We can
even have experiences and encounters with various mythological figures
from cultures that we never personally studied. It's observing these
experiences that led Jung to the conclusion that we don't have just the
Freudian individual unconscious, but also what Jung called the
"collective unconscious," which is actually two different domains or
aspects: the historical, where we carry the history of humanity in our
psyche; and the archetype, where we carry our cultural heritage and
mythologies.
The Share Guide:
You stated in your latest book that biological birth is the most
profound trauma of our lives. Can you explain?
Stanislav Grof:
When we started working with LSD years ago, we discovered that it's a
misconception that we are not aware during the birth process. What
happened was that during LSD sessions, people without any guidance or
prompting suddenly started reliving in photographic detail what
happened to them when they were in the clutches of childbirth. For me
this came as a surprise, because in my traditional medical training I
was taught that there can't be any consciousness at birth--the child
doesn't notice that something strange is happening; it's not recorded
anywhere. The reason that's usually given for this is the cortex of the
newborn is not mature enough to record that kind of experience. This is
incorrect. Because of course, the same would then apply to the nursing
experience, which is immediately following and much more subtle than
the experience of birth. Yet in spite of this, psychiatry generally
accepts that the experiences of nursing are perceived and very
important, but not birth itself. So there is an unbelievable paradox
that's so surprising for a discipline that prides itself on being
logical.
The Share Guide:
Was there any backlash in your field when you first started writing
about these unconventional ideas about birth?
Stanislav Grof:
It was a mixed reaction. Some people in the academic circles found it
extremely interesting, and the argument that I just mentioned made a
lot of sense to them. Other people were stuck in their belief
that the brain is not developed enough. But you don't have to have a
developed cortex to have memory; in fact, there's species that don't
have any cortex at all and they still have memory. Several years ago,
the Nobel Prize was given to Eric Kandel for his work on the memory
mechanism of the sea slug. I think it's incredibly inconsistent to give
a Nobel Prize for studying the memory mechanisms in a sea slug and at
the same time deny that such a highly organized brain as that of a
newborn baby is incapable of recording memories of the first hours of
life.
The Share Guide:
Do you think the field is getting any better these days, and opened up
more?
Stanislav Grof:
Yes. There are numbers of professionals who have parted ways with these
traditional concepts. They often end up in our various workshops. Then
they experience for themselves memories of birth and so forth. But
often when they return to their academic setting, they just decide to
continue playing the game because they are afraid to be considered
unscientific or irrational.
The Share Guide:
So is the field of psychiatry rather polarized now?
Stanislav Grof:
Yes, because the new research and evidence is in such conflict with the
current world view that dominates science. And it's not just one field.
There was a time when I was interacting with anthropologists, and
several of them told me fantastic stories about their experiences doing
fieldwork in Shamanic cultures. They actually had manuscripts about
this work that they didn't dare to present to their professional
colleagues because they were afraid that they would damage their
reputation.
The Share Guide:
In your latest book, When the
Impossible Happens, you talk about how in
certain parts of the world, such as Brazil, people are more open
minded. Do you think that all of us would benefit from experiencing
Holotropic Breathwork and other non-ordinary states of consciousness?
And if everybody did this, how do you think it would affect Western
society?
Stanislav Grof:
I'm very interested in what responsible, supervised work with these
holotropic states would do for people--and also participation in
shamanic rituals and other powerful forms of extreme psychotherapy. I
am also interested in spontaneous near-death experiences and
spontaneous episodes of non-ordinary states that we call "spiritual
emergencies." Current psychiatry would see these as psychotic states,
but all these experiences can profoundly transform people. And people
who engage in responsible exploration with holotropic states tend to
develop a certain kind of world view and a certain kind of attitude.
For example, their level of aggression and anger is significantly
lowered and they develop a sense of compassion. They experience a
melting of boundaries--racial boundaries, gender boundaries, cultural
boundaries, political boundaries--and they tend to develop an
all-embracing attitude towards the world and a tremendous interest in
international peace. People also develop spontaneous, profound
ecological sensitivity when they experience holotropic states of
consciousness. They suddenly see the essential oneness with other
people, with other species, with nature, and so on. They realize that
we cannot do anything to the earth that we would not simultaneously do
to ourselves. So you don't have to teach people ecology; they just
experience it on a very personal, cellular level. I believe that people
who have these experiences become a different kind of human. They are
very much oriented towards service, towards synergy and cooperation,
rather than competition at the expense of others. If more people were
like this we'd have a much better chance for survival as a species.
The Share Guide:
You write a lot about reincarnation in your current book.
Stanislav Grof:
Yes, I have a significant chapter in the book entitled "Have We Lived
Before?" This is something that comes up a lot in Holotropic Breathwork
sessions and we also saw it daily when we worked with psychedelics.
It's a very common, very important category of human experiences.
The Share Guide:
Do you think past life memories are a result of people having actually
lived previous lives or could they relate to tapping into the
collective consciousness?
Stanislav Grof:
Past life memories are experiences that often happened in other
centuries and frequently in other countries that we know nothing about.
And so in that sense, it comes from the collective unconscious. But
does this prove that we have lived before as a separate unit of
consciousness? I would have to say no. It's a very good hypothesis that
explains certain observations, but it is still a hypothesis, and
there's always more than one to explain the facts. In the history of
humanity, there have been incorrect hypotheses to explain observations,
such as Aristotle who believed that the earth was the center of the
universe. Reincarnation is our hypothesis to explain the
characteristics of past life experiences that have been verified as
fact, with clear information about certain cultures and historical
periods. And these experiences also seem to be connected to various
forms of emotional and psychosomatic disorders. Those are all facts
that anybody who is open-minded and interested can verify by their own
research. But that's not necessarily proof that we have lived before.
Even in India, the cradle of ideas about reincarnation and karma, this
would be considered a very low-level, popular explanation of these
kinds of experiences. The high level spiritual teachings of India will
tell you that there's only one entity that ever incarnates, which is
Brama. The whole universe is just one being that assumes these
different roles--the split units of Brama take on autonomous
identities.
So the experience of being separate is an illusion; we are all
manifestations of the same being.
The Share Guide:
Some people have a profound fear of heights, yet can't relate this to
any direct experience in life. Is this related to a past life? Could it
be that a person died falling from a great height in a past lifetime
and that's why they don't like heights now?
Stanislav Grof:
In one of my books, Psychology of
the Future, there is a chapter on
emotional and psychosomatic disorders, and there is a section
specifically about fear of heights. Besides anything that might have
happened in childhood, for example, or what might have happened in
another lifetime, there is a very profound connection between the final
stages of birth and the experience of falling. So the fear of heights
could have something to do with what was experienced in the final
stages of birth.
The Share Guide:
Certain people with mental impairments, like autism, have extraordinary
abilities in certain areas. Some of these people can play music or
paint beautifully or do complicated math, but they can't take care of
themselves. What do you think causes this, and do we all have untapped
genius abilities?
Stanislav Grof:
There is no way there's a logical explanation for the idiot savant who
is able to tell you which day of the week was a particular date within
a range of 100 years. This is obviously information coming from sources
that are on another level.
I
think we all definitely have untapped abilities--and experiencing the
holotropic state increases the probability that you will be able to use
it in some creative way. I think this type of phenomenon is one more
challenge to the traditional view that you can explain everything by
studying the physiology of the brain. It's one of those things
that we call anomalous phenomenon and a lot of them happen in
non-ordinary states of consciousness.
To
learn more about Stanislav Grof and Holotropic Breathwork, visit his
website at www.holotropic.com.
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