The main objective of the techniques used in experiential psychotherapy is to activate the unconscious, unblock the energy bound in emotional and psychosomatic symptoms, and convert a stationary energetic balance into a stream of experience. In many instances, this balance is so precarious that it is maintained only by great subjective effort on the part of the subject. In psychotic states, such equilibrium comes from the client’s residual resistances, fear of social pressures and measures, therapeutic and institutional deterrents, and tranquilizing medication. Even in less profound dynamic disturbances, such as depressions, psychosomatic disorders, and neurotic states, it is frequently more difficult to suppress the emerging experiences than to allow them to surface. Under such circumstances, no powerful techniques are necessary to initiate the process. It is usually sufficient to provide a new understanding of the process, establish a good relationship and an atmosphere of trust, and create a supportive and permissive environment in which the client can fully surrender to the process. Focusing attention on the emotions and sensations, a few deep breaths, and evocative music are usually enough to mediate a deep therapeutic experience.
When resistances are strong, it is necessary to use specific techniques to mobilize the blocked energy and transform symptoms into experiences. The most effective way of achieving this is without doubt the use of psychedelic substances. However, this approach is associated with many potential dangers and requires special precautions and observance of a set of strict rules. Since I have described the therapeutic use of psychedelics in several books and since this treatment modality is not easily available, I will focus here on nondrug approaches that I find particularly useful, powerful, and effective.1 Because they all follow the same general uncovering strategy, they are mutually compatible and can be used in various combinations and sequential patterns.
The first of these techniques was actually developed gradually during the years of my LSD research, originally as a method of clearing residual problems persisting after incompletely resolved psychedelic sessions. Since I started using it apart from psychedelic therapy about ten years ago, I have been repeatedly impressed by its efficacy as an independent therapeutic tool. The major emphasis in this approach is on a release of pent-up energies by maneuvers focusing on the physical symptoms as points of least resistance. Traditional psychotherapists may have serious doubts about the usefulness of this technique because of its strong emphasis on abreaction. In psychiatric literature, the value of abreaction has been seriously questioned outside of the realm of traumatic emotional neuroses. An important precedent in this sense was Freud’s rejection of his early concepts attributing great importance to abreaction of affect as a major therapeutic mechanism and his shift of emphasis to the analysis of transference.
The work with psychedelics and the new experiential techniques have rehabilitated to a great extent the principles of abreaction and catharsis as important aspects of psychotherapy. My experience has been that the seeming failure of abreaction described in psychiatric literature was the result of its not having been carried far enough or used in a systematic way. It was kept on the relatively superficial level of biographical traumas and was not encouraged or allowed to go to the experiential extremes that usually lead to successful resolution. On the perinatal level, these can involve alarming suffocation, loss of control, blackout, projectile vomiting, and other quite dramatic manifestations. It is also important to emphasize that mechanical abreaction is of no use; it must come in a rather specific form reflecting the nature of the experiential gestalt and the type of energy blockage involved.
If the subject systematically avoids one particular aspect of the experiential complex, mechanical repetition of all the other facets brings no resolution. It is absolutely essential that the emotional and motor discharge be experienced in connection with the corresponding unconscious content. Thus, abreactive approaches that do not give the client unlimited freedom for the entire experiential spectrum, including the perinatal and transpersonal phenomena, cannot expect dramatic therapeutic success. In spite of all I have said in defense of abreaction, it would be a mistake to reduce the technique I am about to describe to abreaction alone, since it involves many other important elements.
A person who wants to use this nondrug technique is asked to assume a reclining position on a comfortable large couch, on a mattress, or on a floor that is padded or covered with a rug. He or she is asked to focus on breathing and on the process in the body and to turn off the intellectual analysis as far as possible. As the breathing gradually becomes deeper and faster, it is useful to imagine it as a cloud of light traveling down through the body and filling all the organs and cells. A short period of this initial hyperventilation with focused attention will usually amplify the preexisting physical sensations and emotions, or induce some new ones. Once the pattern is clearly manifested, the experiential work can begin.
The basic principle is to encourage the client to surrender fully to the emerging sensations and emotions and find appropriate ways of expressing them—by sounds, movements, postures, grimaces, or shaking—without judging or analyzing them. At an appropriate moment, the facilitator offers assistance to the client. The facilitating work can be done by one person, although the ideal situation seems to be a male-female dyad. Prior to the experience, the client is instructed to indicate all through the process with as few words as possible what the energy is doing in his or her body—the location of blockages, excessive charges of certain areas, pressures, pains, or cramps. It is also important for the client to communicate the quality of emotions and various physiological sensations, such as anxiety, guilt feelings, anger, suffocation, nausea, or pressure in the bladder.
The function of the facilitators is to follow the energy flow, amplify the existing processes and sensations, and encourage their full experience and expression. When the client reports pressure on the head or chest, they produce more pressure in exactly those areas by mechanically laying on their hands. Similarly, various muscular pains should be amplified by deep massage, sometimes approaching Rolfing. The facilitators provide resistance if the client feels like pushing against something. By rhythmical pressure or massage they can encourage gagging and coughing spasms to the point of breakthrough vomiting or dischage of mucus. Feelings of suffocation and strangulation in the throat, which are very common in experiential therapy, can be worked through by asking the client to engage in forceful twisting of a towel while projecting the choking sensations into the hands and the wringing of the fabric. It is also possible to produce pressure on some hard spot near the throat, such as the mandible, the scalenus muscles, or the clavicle; for obvious reasons, the larynx is one of the places where one cannot apply direct pressure.
For working on certain areas of blockage, one can use eclectically various bioenergetic exercises and maneuvers, or elements of Rolfing and polarity massage. The basic principle is to support the existing process rather than impose an external scheme reflecting a particular theory or the ideas of the facilitators. However, within these limits there is ample opportunity for creative improvisation. This can be quite specific when the facilitators know the nature and the content of the experience that is unfolding. In that case their intervention can reflect very concrete details of the theme involved. They can enact mechanically a convincing replica of a particular birth mechanism, offer comforting physical contact during reliving of an early symbiotic situation with the mother, or enhance by localized finger pressure the pain experienced in the context of a past incarnation sequence that involves a wound inflicted by a sword, lance, or dagger.
The behavior of the assisting persons should sensitively follow the nature of the experience. Ideally, it should reflect the intrinsic trajectory of the process unfolding from within the client rather than therapeutic concepts and convictions of the facilitators. Individuals who have experienced this technique as protagonists, assistants, or participant observers frequently liken it to biological delivery. The process unfolds in an elemental fashion; it has its own trajectory and intrinsic wisdom. The role of the facilitator, like that of a good obstetrician, is to remove the obstacles, not to impose his or her own alternative pattern on the natural process unless absolutely necessary.
In congruence with this basic strategy, it is clearly communicated to the client that it is his or her own process and that the facilitators represent only “supporting cast.” If assistance seems appropriate, it is offered to the client, not imposed or enforced. In each stage of the process, the client has the option to interrupt all the external intervention by a specific agreed-upon signal. We ourselves use the word “stop”; this is considered to be an absolutely mandatory and imperative message for the facilitators to stop any activity, no matter how convinced they might be that continuation of what they are doing is indicated and would be beneficial. Any other reactions of the subject are then ignored and are considered part of the experience. Such statements as “You are killing me,” “It hurts,” “Don’t do this to me,” unless they come in connnection with the word “stop,” are taken as reactions the the symbolic protagonists, whether they be parental figures, archetypal entities, or persons from a past incarnation sequence.
This work requires observance of fundamental principles of ethics and the facilitators should under all circumstances respect the physiological and psychological tolerance of the subject. It is important to use one’s judgment as to what constitutes a reasonable amount of pressure or pain. Since it is applied in places of the original trauma, it is frequently experienced by the client as far more intense than it actually is. Even so, the client will typically ask the facilitators to increase the discomfort beyond the level they might feel is appropriate. This seems to reflect the fact that the original amount of pain by far surpasses that which is imposed externally, and the client senses that, in order to complete the gestalt, he or she must experience consciously the full extent of the emotions and sensations that are involved in the emerging theme.
The facilitators should follow the movement of energy and encourage full experience and expression of whatever is happening until the subject reaches a tension-free, pleasant, and clear state of mind. At this time, suportive physical contact might be appropriate, especially if the experience involved early childhood memories. Enough time should be allowed for the subject to integrate the experience and to return to everyday consciousness. An average duration of this work is between half an hour and an hour and a half. If it is not possible to reach full completion of the gestalt, the rule is to deal with the emotions and sensations that are easily available without forceful maneuvers on the part of the facilitators. The work then should continue whenever the tensions build up again to a sufficient degree; this can be a matter of hours or days.
The client is encouraged to keep the experiential channels open and not to let the situation develop to the point where extreme effort has to be exerted to control the emerging emotions and sensations.
The above technique is very effective in bringing fast relief from emotional and psychosomatic distress. I have repeatedly seen individuals whose emotional condition would, from a conventional psychiatric point of view, justify hospitalization, reach within an hour or two not only symptomatic relief but a state of active well-being or even ecstasy. The potential of this approach to resolve acute emotional and psychosomatic distress is so striking that I would never consider psychiatric hospitalization or tranquilizing medication without first trying it. However, the value of this technique seems to go beyond the momentary relief. Continued on a systematic basis, it becomes a powerful means of self-exploration and therapy. Whereas, in traditional psychoanalysis and related forms of verbal therapy, it can take months or years to reach memories from early stages of childhood development, here clients can frequently not only recall but fully relive events from early postnatal life and even birth sequences within minutes or hours.
An important byproduct of this therapeutic strategy is the development of the sense of mastery in the clients. They realize very quickly that they can help themselves and that they are the only ones who can do it. This insight tends to cut down very drastically the belief in and reliance on some magic external intervention of the therapist, brilliant interpretation, revealing intellectual or emotional insight, advice, or guidance. Even one experiential session of this kind may show clearly where the problems are and what has to be done to work them through. In this connection, clients are not asked to believe anything that they have not directly experienced. The connections discovered in this way are not a matter of opinion or conjecture; they are usually so self-evident and convincing that the client would defend them against the facilitators, should they disagree.
This process can be further intensified and deepened by an appropriate use of music. High-fidelity, stereophonic music selected and combined in a particular way can in itself be a powerful tool for self-exploration and therapy. The principles of using acoustic input for consciousness expansion have been developed by Helen Bonny (1973), a former member of the team at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, in Catonsville, Maryland, where she participated in psychedelic research as a music therapist. During her work with psychedelics, she recognized the mind-altering potential of music and created a technique call Guided Imagery with Music, or GIM.
If used with special preparation and in an introspective mannner, music tends to evoke powerful experiences and facilitates a deep emotional and psychosomatic release. It provides a meaningful dynamic structure for the experience and creates a continuous carrying wave that helps the subject move through difficult sequences and impasses, overcome psychological defenses, and surrender to the flow of the experience. It tends to convey a sense of continuity and connection in the course of various states of consciousness. On occasion, a skillful use of music can also facilitate the emergence of specific contents, such as aggression, sensual or sexual feelings, emotional or physical pain, ecstatic rapture, cosmic expansion, or an oceanic atmosphere of the womb.
To use music for self-exploration as a catalyst of deep experiences, it is essential to abandon the Occidental ways of listening to music, such as the disciplined and intellectualized approach of the concert hall, the irrelevance of the acoustic input characteristic of piped, recorded light music (Muzak), or. of background music at cocktail parties, as well as the dynamic and elemental but extroverted style of rock concerts. The clients are asked to assume a relaxed reclining position on the floor or a couch and open themselves completely to the flow of music. They should let it resonate in the entire body and allow themselves to react in any way that seems appropriate—cry or laugh, make sounds, move the pelvis, grow tense, go through contortions, or be seized by violent tremors and shakes.
Used in this way, music becomes a very powerful means of inducing unusual states of consciousness that can be used either independently or in combination with other experiential techniques like the body work described earlier. For this purpose, the music must be of high technical quality and of sufficient volume to have a driving effect on the listener. The most important rule is to respect the intrinsic dynamics of the experience and select the pieces accordingly, rather than trying to influence the situation by a specific choice of music.
Another powerful and extremely interesting technique for self-exploration and healing uses the activating effect of fast breathing on the unconscious. It is based on entirely different principles than the technique of focused abreactive body work described above. However, in spite of their differences, these two techniques seem to be mutually compatible and complementary. The approach through body work and music stems from the therapeutic tradition and was developed in the context of experiential work with psychiatric patients. At the same time it has the potential for taking the individual through the biographical realm and the death-rebirth level to the transpersonal domain.
In contrast, the following method is by its very nature primarily a spiritual procedure. It has the power to open very quickly the transcendental experiential domain. In this process of spiritual opening many individuals must confront various traumatic areas of a biographical nature and experience the encounter with birth and death. Although there is no specific therapeutic emphasis, healing and personality transformation occur as the side-effects of this process. Various procedures using breathing maneuvers have played an all-important role in certain ancient Indian practices and in many other spiritual traditions. The approach was rediscovered by Orr and Ray (1977), and one of its varieties is currently being used in the context of Orr’s “rebirthing” programs.
Our own approach is based on a combination of intense breathing and an introspective orientation. The client is asked to assume a reclining position with the eyes closed, focus on breathing, and maintain a respiratory pattern that is faster and more effective than usual. In this context, abreaction and external manipulation are explicitly discouraged. After an interval that varies from individual to individual, usually between forty-five minutes and an hour, the tensions in the body tend to collect into a stereotyped pattern of muscular armoring and are eventually released as the hyperventilation continues. The bands of intense constriction that tend to develop occur approximately where the Indian system of Kundalini Yoga places the centers of psychic energy, or the chakras. They take the form of an intense belt pressure, or even pain, in the forehead or the eyes, constriction of the throat with tension and strange sensations around the mouth and locking of the jaws, and of tight belts in the areas of the chest, the navel, and the lower abdomen. In addition, the arms and hands, as well as the legs and feet, tend to develop characteristic contractions that can reach painful dimensions. In actual clinical work, subjects do not usually undergo the whole spectrum of constrictions and tensions, but show individual patterns of distribution in which certain areas are dramatically represented, others not involved at all.
In the context of the medical model, this reaction to hyper-ventilation, particularly the famous carpopedal spasms—contractions of the hands and feet—has been considered a mandatory physiological response to fast and intense breathing and referred to as the “hyperventilation syndrome.” It has been associated with an aura of alarm and is usually treated with tranquilizers, injections of calcium, and a paper bag placed over the face when it occasionally occurs in neurotic patients, particularly hysterical persons. The use of hyperventilation for self-exploration and therapy proves this view to be incorrect. With continued breathing, the bands of tight constriction, as well as the carpopedal spasm, tend to relax instead of increasing, and the individual eventually reaches an extremely peaceful and serene condition associated with visions of light and feelings of love and connectedness.
Frequently, the final outcome is a deep mystical state that can be of lasting benefit and personal significance for the subject. Ironically, the routine psychiatric approach to occasional episodes of spontaneous hyperventilation thus interferes with a potentially therapeutic reaction of neurotic patients. It is interesting to mention in this connection individuals whose Kundalini became activated either spontaneously or as a result of shaktipat—direct transmission of energy from an accomplished spiritual teacher. In Kundalini Yoga and in Siddha Yoga, in contrast with contemporary psychiatry, these episodes of hyperventilation and the concomitant motor and emotional manifestations, or kriyas, are seen as a purging and healing process.
During the hyperventilation, as the tensions build up and gradually disappear, it seems useful to assume a mental set that involves imagining an increase of pressure with each inhalation and its release with each exhalation. While this is happening, the individual can have a variety of powerful eperiences—reliving important biographical events from childhood or later life, confronting different aspects of the memory of biological birth and, quite commonly, also encountering various phenomena from the broad spectrum of transpersonal experiences. In the holotropic therapy we use in our work, the already powerful effect of hyperventilation is further enhanced by the use of evocative music and other sound technology. If administered in a supportive context and after proper preparation, these two methods potentiate each other to what is undoubtedly the most dramatic means of changing consciousness with the exception of psychedelic drugs.
The efficacy of this technique can be increased even further if it is used in a group context, where the participants form working dyads and alternate in the roles of sitters and experiencers. Here the experiences in both roles tend to be very profound and meaningful. In addition, they seem to have a mutually catalyzing influence and tend to create an atmosphere that breeds chain reactions. In a group of randomly selected individuals under these circumstances, at least one out of three can reach transpersonal states of consciousness within an hour of the first session. It is quite common for participants to report authentic experiences of the embryonal state or even conception, elements of the collective or racial unconscious, identification with human or animal ancestors, or reliving of past incarnation memories. Equally frequent are encounters with archetypal images of deities or demons and complex mythological sequences. The spectrum of experiences that are available for an average participant include telepathic flashes, experiences of leaving the body, and astral projection.
Ideally, the individuals need do nothing but maintain a certain pattern of breathing and be entirely open to whatever happens. With this approach, many subjects end in a totally resolved and relaxed state of a deeply spiritual nature, or at least with mystical overtones. Occasionally, deep breathing will trigger elements of abreaction, such as screaming, gagging, or coughing; this is particularly common in those persons who have previously been involved in such abreactive therapies as primal treatment or some neo-Reichian approaches. It is important to let the abreactive response pass and return the individual to controlled breathing as soon as possible. Occasionally, the hyperventilation activates an experiential sequence, but does not bring it to a successful resolution. In that case, it is useful to apply the abreactive approach to complete the gestalt, rather than to leave the experience unfinished. The combination of deep breathing, evocative music, focused body work, and an open-minded approach with an extended cartography of the psyche, in my experience, surpasses the efficacy of any other existing nondrug technique and deserves a prominent place in the psychiatric armamentarium.
Another technique that should be mentioned is a particular use of the mandala drawing. Although perhaps of limited value as an independent therapeutic tool, it is extremely useful if combined with various experiential approaches. Developed by Joan Kellogg (1977; 1978) a psychologist and art therapist from Baltimore, it was used with success during psychedelic therapy at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center. The subject is given crayons or magic markers and a large piece of paper with the outline of a circle, and is asked to fill the circle in any way that seems appropriate. It can be simply a combination of colors, a design composed of geometrical patterns, or complex figurative drawing.
The resulting “mandala” can be subjected to formal analysis according to the criteria developed by Kellogg on the basis of her work with large groups of psychiatric patients. However, it can also be used as a unique device facilitating interaction and sharing of experiences in small groups. In addition, certain mandalas lend themselves to further experiential work with the use of Gestalt practice, expressive dancing, or other techniques. The mandala method can be used to document an experience with psychedelics or with the experiential approaches described above. In our workshops and during four-week seminars, it became very popular among participants to keep a “mandala log,” illustrating the ongoing process of self-exploration.
This graphic form of documenting one’s experience is also extremely useful as a tool for sharing one’s inner states with other group members and working on them with their help. My wife and I have been using a three-step process of mandala work that seems particularly effective. It is done with groups of six to eight people who bring together into a small circle their mandalas, reflecting their experiences with hyperventilation and music. Each is asked to choose a mandala painted by another group member to which he or she has a particularly powerful emotional response, either positive or negative. After the mandalas are distributed, the group members proceed working successively on each of them.
The first step is a discussion of the mandala by the person who has selected it on the basis of his or her strong emotional reaction to it. After this person finishes an account of his or her subjective reaction, the other members of the group add their observations. The third step then is an account of the experience that was expressed in the mandala by its creator. This process requires full awareness that in the comments of the group members their personal projections are inextricably mixed with what might be accurate and valuable insights into the mental processes of the creator.
Fig. 44. Two paintings from an advanced stage of psychedelic therapy, providing interesting insights into the dynamics of mandalas. When the process of LSD self-exploration was moving from the personal to the transpersonal stage, the patient felt a strong need to draw a synoptic diagram that would contain the most important events from her life in a condensed and stylized way. The first version of this diagram is shown on the first picture. Although all the individual elements had personal biographical meaning for the patient, she chose unbeknownst many symbols with deep transpersonal connotation to depict them (svastika, Star of David, Eye of God, rainbow, cardinal points). The second picture shows a further simplification of the diagram. On about twenty typewritten pages, the patient was able to explain, how this diagram was applicable not only to her personal problems, but also to such general problems as life and death, origin of cancer, birth, and the relationship between matter and consciousness.
The aim of this exercise is not to arrive at an “objective” assessment and diagnostic evaluation, but to facilitate the personal process of all the participants. Approached this way, the mandala work represents a unique catalyst of self-exploration and interpersonal interaction. It is also extremely useful and productive for those who have chosen each other’s mandalas to spend some time together exploring the psychodynamic factors underlying the affinity or aversion expressed by their choice.
Another powerful uncovering method is the therapeutic sand play developed by the Swiss psychologist, Dora Kalff (1971) who was Jung’s former disciple. The client undergoing therapy with this technique has at his or her disposal a rectangular box filled with sand and several thousand little figures and objects representing people, animals, trees, and houses from different countries and cultures. The task is to create an individual symbolic scene—shape the sand in the form of mountains, valleys or plains; expose the light blue bottom of the box to create rivers, lakes, and ponds and complete the scenery by adding figures and objects of one’s own selection. Unless one has tried this technique personally, it is difficult to imagine the unique power it possesses to mobilize the archetypal dynamics of the psyche. The transpersonal nature of the process is well illustrated by the fact that it tends to create an experiential field conducive to the occurrence of extraordinary synchronicities. Through the sand play, deep unconscious material is exteriorized and concretized to such an extent that it can be fully experienced, analyzed, and integrated. A series of sand-play sessions provides an opportunity to develop the themes involved in fine detail, resolve the underlying conflicts, and simplify one’s unconscious dynamics.
There is a variety of other approaches that are compatible with, and complementary to, those described above. Unlike the traditional techniques of psychotherapy, the process of holotropic therapy focuses much attention on the psychosomatic aspects of self-exploration. Although the emphasis on the body’s processes is implicit in both the abreactive technique and the breathing method, various procedures involving the body can and should be used in connection with them. Experimentation with such techniques as Esalen and polarity massage (Gordon 1978), Rolfing (Rolf 1977), acupuncture (Mann 1973), Feldenkrais (Feldenkrais 1972), Trager psychophysical integration (Trager 1982), tai chi, aikido, or various forms of dance therapy can make valuable contributions to the process of self-exploration. A useful complement is also physical exercise, particularly hiking, jogging, and swimming, or garden work. However, integration of all these body-oriented approaches into a comprehensive program of personality transformation requires a consistent introspective focus and a broad conceptual framework allowing the entire spectrum of experiences that might occur in the context of procedures that are seemingly strictly physical.
Gestalt practice (Perls 1976a; 1976b) deserves special notice since its basic principles are very similar to those outlined above. Gestalt work is a particularly suitable complement to the technique of holotropic therapy. It can be very useful in completing or further exploring the themes and issues that have surfaced in sessions using a combination of breathing, music, and body work. We have already mentioned (p. 000) the modifications necessary to make Gestalt practice fully compatible with the strategies advocated here. Additional uncovering approaches that can be useful are Assagioli’s psychosynthesis (1976) and Leuner’s Guided Affective Imagery (GAI). (1977; 1978).
It should also be emphasized that various techniques of meditation and other forms of spiritual practice are not in conflict with the general approach described here. Once a psychotherapeutic system acknowledges the perinatal and transpersonal levels of the psyche, it has bridged the gap between psychology and mysticism and has become compatible with, and complementary to, spiritual practice. I have observed in such diverse frameworks as the Brazilian umbanda, rituals of the Native American Church, ceremonies of the Mexican Huichol and Mazatec Indians, and the weekend intensives of the late master of Siddha Yoga, Swami Muktananda, that primarily spiritual or reIigious* events can have a powerful healing impact and can be easily integrated with in-depth self-exploration and therapy as described here.
In addition, transit astrology, a discipline rejected and ridiculed by Newtonian-Cartesian science, can prove of unusual value as a source of information about personality development and transformation. It would require a long discussion to explain why and how astrology can function as a remarkable referential system. This possibility seems quite absurd from the point of view of mechanistic science, which treats consciousness as an epiphenomenon of matter. However, for an approach that sees consciousness as a primary element of the universe that is woven into the very fabric of existence, and that recognizes archetypal structures as something that precedes and determines phenomena in the material world, the function of astrology would appear quite logical and comprehensible. This topic is so complex that it requires a separate presentation.2
Advocating such a long list of approaches might at first seem to be therapeutic anarchy. Apparently there is an increasing number of individuals in the human potential movement who move from one therapy to another and do not stay long enough with any of them to derive any benefit. They certainly represent deterrent examples of therapeutic eclecticism. However, what may be wrong with this “therapeutic promiscuity” is not the experimentation with various approaches, but the failure to treat them as partial elements or steps in the process of self-exploration, rather than magic panaceas. It is thus the unrealistic expectation and uncritical reliance, followed by an equally strong disappointment, that is unhealthy, not the interest in, and experimentation with, different approaches. If one expects no more than a small piece of the overall jigsaw puzzle and sees the entire life as an ongoing adventure of self-exploration and search for knowledge, they can become extremely useful and synergistic.
To illustrate this point, I would like to mention our observations from four-week experimental educational programs that my wife Christina and I have been coordinating and conducting at the Esalen Institute, in Big Sur. I conceived the idea of these seminars more than ten years ago, originally as an opportunity for professionals and students from across the United States and from other countries to gain exposure to a wide variety of humanistic and transpersonal leaders, concepts and techniques in a relatively short time. These workshops combine information, experiential exercises, group process, body work, experimentation with various mind-altering devices, slide shows, and film performances. Each of these seminars has a different topic related to modern consciousness research, the psychotherapeutic revolution, and the paradigm shift in science. They use the resources of the Esalen staff, as well as those of a wide range of guest faculty members, specifically selected to deal with particular topics. The general orientation of these workshops can be illustrated by a few past titles: Schizophrenia and the Visionary Mind; Holistic Medicine and Healing Practices; Maps of Consciousness; New Approaches to Birth, Sex, and Death; Realms of the Human Unconscious; Energy: Physical, Emotional and Spiritual; Alternative Futures; Frontiers of Science; Paranormal Intelligence ; The Mystical Quest; and Evolution of Consciouness: Perspectives of Inner and Outer Space Research.
In these workshops the participants have been exposed in various unpredictable patterns to lectures expanding and stretching their conceptual horizons, emotionally evocative slide shows and movies, holonomic integration and other powerful experiential techniques, intense body work, group process, and occasional aboriginal rituals with visiting shamans. It should be emphasized that all this took place in the relaxing and aesthetically exquisite atmosphere of the Esalen Institute with its famous mineral hot springs. The guest faculty members ranged from scholars such as Gregory Bateson, Joseph Campbell, Fritjof Capra, Michael Harner, Jean Houston, Stanley Krippner, Ralph Metzner, Ajit Mookerjee, Karl Pribram, Rupert Sheldrake, Huston Smith, Russel Targ, Charles Tart, and Gordon Wasson, through human potential leaders of the stature of John Heider, Michael Murphy, Richard Price, and Will Schutz, to famous psychics, Western and oriental spiritual teachers, and North American and Mexican shamans.
This seminar format, which was originally conceived as an innovative educational tool, turned out to be the most powerful instrument of personality transformation I have ever experienced or witnessed, with the exception of psychedelic sessions. In systematic therapeutic work, limited to one particular technique, the client soon learns the language and the codes; after a while it becomes possible to play the therapy game and move through the process essentially untouched. In the Esalen format that combines a variety · of approaches in random patterns, people are suddenly influenced in many different ways, and from unexpected angles, in a supportive environment that explicitly encourages deep experience and self-exploration.
Under these circumstances, powerful transformative processes tend to occur at any hour of day or night. This full-time commitment to self-exploration for a certain limited period of time seems far superior to the usual, externally imposed psychotherapeutic schedule of short appointments. The latter are unlikely to coincide with the times when the psychological defenses are particularly low and, in addition, their format does not allow a process of sufficient depth and duration. In our Esalen monthlong seminars, we have systematically used the techniques and strategies described in this chapter. Numerous letters from former participants indicate that a four-week experience of this kind can initiate a deep process of transformation and have a lasting influence on one’s life.