All through the history of modern science, generations of investigators have pursued with great enthusiasm and determination the various avenues of research offered by the Newtonian-Cartesian paradigm, readily discarding concepts and observations that would have questioned some of the basic philosophical assumptions shared by the scientific community. Most scientists have been so thoroughly programmed by their education or so impressed and carried away by their pragmatic successes that they have taken their model literally as an accurate and exhaustive description of reality. In this atmosphere, countless observations from various fields have been systematically discarded, suppressed, or even ridiculed on the basis of their incompatibility with the mechanistic and reductionistic thinking that for many became synonymous with a scientific approach.
For a long time the successes of this endeavor were so striking that they overshadowed the practical and theoretical failures. In the atmosphere of the rapidly developing crisis in the world that accompanies precipitate scientific progress, it has become increasingly difficult to maintain this position. It is quite clear that the old scientific models cannot provide satisfactory solutions to the human problems we are facing individually, socially, internationally, and on a global scale. Many prominent scientists have voiced in different ways a growing suspicion that the mechanistic world view of Western science has actually substantially contributed to the present crisis, if not generated it.
A paradigm is more than simply a useful theoretical model for science; its philosophy actually shapes the world by its indirect influence on individuals and society. Newtonian-Cartesian science has created a very negative image of human beings, depicting them as biological machines driven by instinctual impulses of a bestial nature. It has no genuine recognition of higher values, such as spiritual awareness, feelings of love, aesthetic needs, or sense of justice. All these are seen as derivatives of base instincts, or compromises essentially alien to human nature. This image endorses individualism, egoistic emphasis, competition, and the principle of “survival of the fittest” as natural and essentially healthy tendencies.
Materialistic science, blinded by its model of the world as a conglomerate of mechanically interacting separate units, has been unable to recognize the value and vital importance of cooperation, synergy, and ecological concerns.
The stupendous technical achievements of this science, which have the potential for solving most of the material problems that plague humanity, have backfired. Their success has created a world in which its greatest triumphs—nuclear energy, space-age rocketry, cybernetics, lasers, computers and other electronic gadgets, and the miracles of modern chemistry and bacteriology—have turned into a vital danger and a living nightmare. As a result, we have a world divided politically and ideologically, which is critically threatened by economic crises, industrial pollution and the specter of nuclear war. In view of this situation, more and more people are questioning the usefulness of precipitate technological progress that is not harnessed and controlled by emotionally mature individuals and a species sufficiently evolved to handle constructively the powerful tools it has created.
As the economic, sociopolitical, and ecological situation in the world deteriorates, more and more individuals seem to be giving up the strategy of one-sided manipulation and control of the material world and turning within themselves for answers. There is a growing interest in the evolution of consciousness as a possible alternative to global destruction. It is manifested in the increasing popularity of meditation or other ancient and Oriental spiritual practices, experiential psychotherapies, as well as clinical and laboratory research into consciousness. These activities have brought to a new focus the fact that traditional paradigms are unable to account for and accommodate a vast number of seriously challenging observations from many different areas and sources.
In their totality, these data are of critical importance; they indicate an urgent need for a drastic revision of our fundamental concepts of human nature and the nature of reality. Many open-minded scientists and mental health professionals have been aware of the abysmal gap between contemporary psychology and psychiatry and the great ancient or Oriental spiritual traditions, such as the various forms of yoga, Kashmir Shaivism, Tibetan Vajrayana, Taoism, Zen Buddhism, Sufism, Kabbalah, or alchemy. The wealth of profound knowledge about the human psyche and consciousness accumulated within these systems over centuries, or even millenia, has not been adequately acknowledged, explored, and integrated by Western science.
Similarly, anthropologists conducting field research in non-Western cultures have been reporting for decades a variety of phenomena for which traditional conceptual frameworks offer only superficial and unconvincing explanations, or no explanations at all. Although many extraordinary, culture-bound observations have been repeatedly described in well-documented studies, they tend to be discarded or interpreted in terms of primitive belief, superstition, or individual and group psychopathology. We can mention in this connection shamanic experiences and practices, trance states, fire walking, aboriginal rituals, spiritual healing practices, or the development of various paranormal abilities by individuals and entire social groups. This situation is far more complicated than might appear on the surface. Informal and confidential contact with anthropologists has convinced me that many of them have decided not to report certain aspects of their field experiences for fear they would be ridiculed or ostracized by their Newtonian-Cartesian colleagues and would endanger their professional image.
The conceptual inadequacies and failures of the old paradigm are not limited to data from exotic cultures. Equally serious challenges have emerged from Western clinical and laboratory research. Experiments with hypnosis, sensory isolation and overload, voluntary control of internal states, biofeedback, and acupuncture have cast new light on many ancient and Oriental practices, but they have generated more conceptual problems than satisfactory answers. Psychedelic research clarified in one way many previously puzzling historical and anthropological data concerning shamanism, mystery cults, rites of passage, healing ceremonies, and paranormal phenomena involving the use of sacred plants. However, at the same time, it validated much of the ancient, aboriginal and Oriental knowledge about consciousness and undermined some of the basic philosophical assumptions of mechanistic science. As will be discussed later, the experimentation with psychedelic drugs has shattered the conventional understanding of psychotherapy, the traditional models of the psyche, the image of human nature, and even basic beliefs about the nature of reality.
The observations from psychedelic research are in no way limited to the use of psychoactive substances; essentially the same experiences have been reported from modern nondrug psychotherapies and body work, such as Jungian analysis, psychosynthesis, various neo-Reichian approaches, Gestalt practice, modified forms of primal therapy, guided imagery with music, Rolfing, various techniques of rebirthing, past life regression, and auditing in scientology. The technique of holonomic integration or holotropic therapy, developed by my wife, Christina, and myself, a nondrug approach combining controlled breathing, evocative music, and focused body work, can induce a wide spectrum of experiences that practically coincides with the spectrum of psychedelic experience. This technique is described in chapter 7.
Another important source of information challenging the established paradigms of mechanistic science is modern parapsychological research. It has become increasingly difficult to ignore and deny a priori data from many methodologically sound and carefully conducted experiments on the sole basis of their incompatibility with the traditional belief system. Respectable scientists with good credentials, such as Joseph Banks Rhine, Gardner Murphy, Jules Eisenbud, Stanley Krippner, Charles Tart, Elmer and Alyce Green, Arthur Hastings, Russell Targ, and Harold Puthoff, have accumulated evidence on the existence of telepathy, clairvoyance, astral projection, remote viewing, psychic diagnosis and healing, or psychokinesis that might provide important clues for a new understanding of reality. It is interesting that many modern physicists familiar with quantum-relativistic physics seem to show a generally more serious interest in paranormal phenomena than do traditional psychiatrists and psychologists. We should also mention here the fascinating data from the field of thanatology, suggesting among other things that clinically dead persons can frequently accurately perceive the situation in their surroundings from vantage points that would not be available to them even in a fully conscious state.
Instead of discussing all these topics in a synoptic and comprehensive way, I will focus in what follows on the observations from psychedelic research, particularly from LSD psychotherapy. I have chosen this approach, after some consideration, for several important reasons. Most researchers studying the effects of psychedelics have come to the conclusion that these drugs can best be viewed as amplifiers or catalysts of mental processes. Instead of inducing drug-specific states, they seem to activate pre-existing matrices or potentials of the human mind. The individual who ingests them does not experience a “toxic psychosis” essentially unrelated to how the psyche functions under normal circumstances; instead, he or she takes a fantastic inner journey into the unconscious and superconscious mind. These drugs thus reveal, and make available for direct observation, a wide range of otherwise hidden phenomena that represent intrinsic capacities of the human mind and play an important role in normal mental dynamics.
Since the psychedelic spectrum covers the entire range of experiences that are humanly possible, it includes all the phenomena occurring in nondrug contexts mentioned earlier—in aboriginal ceremonies, various spiritual practices, experiential psychotherapies, modern laboratory techniques, parapsychological research, and in biological emergencies or near-death situations. At the same time, the amplifying and catalyzing effects of psychedelics make it possible to induce unusual states of consciousness of extraordinary intensity and clarity under controlled conditions and with great consistency. This fact represents a considerable advantage for the researcher and makes psychedelic phenomena particularly suitable for systematic study.
The most important and obvious reason for limiting this discussion to the field of psychedelic research is my long-term scientific interest in the subject. Having conducted several thousand sessions with LSD and other mind-altering substances, and having myself experienced many psychedelic states, I have a degree of expertise concerning drug-induced phenomena that I lack in regard to the other types of related experiences. Since 1954, when I first became interested in and familiar with psychedelic drugs, I have personally guided more than 3,000 sessions with LSD and have had access to more than 2,000 records of sessions conducted by my colleagues, in Czechoslovakia and in the United States. The subjects in these experiments were “normal” volunteers, various groups of psychiatric patients, and individuals dying of cancer. The nonpatient population consisted of psychiatrists and psychologists, scientists from various other disciplines, artists, philosophers, theologians, students, and psychiatric nurses. The patients with emotional disorders belonged to a variety of diagnostic categories; among them were individuals with various forms of depression, psychoneurotics, alcoholics, narcotic drug addicts, sexual deviants, persons with psychosomatic disorders, borderline psychotics, and schizophrenics. The two major approaches used in this work—psycholytic and psychedelic therapy—have been described in detail elsewhere (Grof 1980).
During the years of my clinical work with psychedelics, it has become increasingly obvious that neither the nature of the LSD experience nor the numerous observations made in the course of psychedelic therapy can be adequately explained in terms of the Newtonian-Cartesian, mechanistic approach to the universe and, more specifically, in terms of the existing neurophysiological models of the brain. After years of conceptual struggle and confusion, I have concluded that the data from LSD research indicate an urgent need for a drastic revision of the existing paradigms for psychology, psychiatry, medicine, and possibly science in general. There is at present little doubt in my mind that our current understanding of the universe, of the nature of reality, and particularly of human beings, is superficial, incorrect, and incomplete.7
In what follows, I will briefly, describe the most important observations from LSD psychotherapy that I consider to be serious challenges to contemporary psychiatric theory, to present medical beliefs, and to the mechanistic model of the universe based on the views of Isaac Newton and René Descartes. Some of these observations are related to certain formal characteristics of the psychedelic states, others to their content, and yet others to some extraordinary connections that seem to exist between them and the fabric of external reality. I emphasize again at this point that the following discussion applies not only to psychedelic states, but also to a variety of nonordinary states of consciousness that occur spontaneously or are induced by nondrug means. Thus, all the issues in question have general validity for the understanding of the human mind in health and disease.
Let me begin with a brief description of the formal characteristics of nonordinary states of consciousness. In psychedelic sessions and other types of unusual experiences, dramatic sequences of various kinds can be experienced with a sensory vividness, reality, and intensity that match or surpass the ordinary perception of the material world. Although the optical aspects of these sequences tend to be prominent for most people, quite realistic experiences can occur in all the other sensory areas. On occasion, powerful isolated sounds, human and animal voices, entire musical sequences, intense physical pain and other somatic sensations, as well as distinct tastes and smells can either dominate the experience or play an important part in it. Ideation can be influenced in the most profound way, and the intellect can create interpretations of reality quite different from the one that is characteristic of the individual in his or her ordinary state of consciousness. The description of the essential experiential elements of unusual states of consciousness would not be complete without mentioning an entire range of powerful emotions that are their standard components.
Many psychedelic experiences appear to have a general quality similar to those in everyday life, with the sequences occurring in three-dimensional space and unfolding along a linear time continuum. However, quite typically, additional dimensions and experiential alternatives are readily available. The psychedelic state has a multilevel and multidimensional quality, and the Newtonian-Cartesian sequences, if they occur, appear to be arbitrarily teased out of a complex continuum of infinite possibilities. At the same time, they have all the characteristics that we associate with the perception of the material world of “objective reality.”
Although LSD subjects frequently talk about images, these do not have the quality of still photographs. They are in constant dynamic movement and usually convey action and drama. But again, the term “inner movie” that so frequently occurs in LSD reports does not really correctly describe their nature. In cinematography, the three-dimensionality of scenes is artificially simulated by the movement of the camera. The perception of space must be read into the two-dimensional display, and ultimately it depends on the viewer’s interpretation. In contrast, psychedelic visions are truly three-dimensional and have all the qualities of everyday perception, or at least they can have them in certain types of LSD experiences. They seem to occupy a specific space and can be seen from different directions and angles with a true parallax. It is possible to zoom in and selectively focus on different levels and planes of the experiential continuum, perceive or reconstruct fine textures, and see through transparent media of envisioned objects, such as a cell, an embryonic body, parts of a plant, or a precious stone. This intentional shift of focus is only one mechanism of blurring or clearing the images. The pictures can also be clarified by overcoming the distortions caused by fear, defenses, and resistances, or by letting the content evolve along the continuum of linear time.
An important characteristic of the psychedelic experience is that it transcends space and time. It disregards the linear continuum between the microcosmic world and the macrocosm that appears to be absolutely mandatory in the everyday state of consciousness. The represented objects cover the entire range of dimensions from atoms, molecules, and single cells to gigantic celestial bodies, solar systems, and galaxies. Phenomena from the “zone of middle dimensions,” perceivable directly by our senses, appear on the same experiential continuum with those that ordinarily require such complicated technology as microscopes and telescopes to be accessible to human senses. From the experiential point of view, the distinction between the microcosm and macrocosm is arbitrary; they can coexist within the same experience and are readily interchangeable. An LSD subject can experience himself or herself as a single cell, as a fetus, and as a galaxy; these three states can occur simultaneously, or in an alternating fashion by a simple shift of focus.
In a similar way, the linearity of temporal sequences is transcended in unusual states of consciousness. Scenes from different historical contexts can occur simultaneously and appear to be meaningfully connected by their experiential characteristics. Thus a traumatic experience from childhood, a painful sequence of biological birth, and what seems to be the memory of a tragic event from a previous incarnation can all appear simultaneously as parts of one complex experiential pattern. And again, the individual has the choice of focusing selectively on any one of these scenes, experiencing them all simultaneously, or perceiving them in an alternating fashion, while discovering meaningful connections between them. The linear temporal distance that dominates everyday experience is disregarded, and events from different historical contexts appear in clusters when they share the same strong emotion or an intense physical sensation of a similar kind.
Psychedelic states offer many experiential alternatives to the Newtonian linear time and three-dimensional space that characterize our everyday existence. Events from recent and remote past and future can be experienced in nonordinary states with the vividness and complexity that in everyday consciousness are reserved only for the present moment. There are modes of psychedelic experience in which time appears to slow down or accelerate enormously, to flow backwards, or to be entirely transcended and cease to exist. It can appear to be circular, or circular and linear at the same time, can proceed along a spiral trajectory, or show certain specific patterns of deflection and distortion. Quite frequently time as a dimension is transcended and acquires spatial characteristics; past, present, and future are essentially juxtaposed and coexist in the present moment. On occasion, LSD subjects experience various forms of time travels—regressing in historical time, passing through time loops, or stepping out of the time dimension altogether and reentering at another point in history.
The perception of space can undergo similar changes: unusual states of mind clearly demonstrate the narrowness and limitation of space with only three coordinates. LSD subjects frequently report that they experience space and the universe as being curved and self-enclosed, or are able to perceive worlds that have four, five, or more dimensions. Others have a sense of being a dimensionless point in consciousness. It is possible to see space as an arbitrary construct and a projection of the mind that has no objective existence at all. Under certain circumstances, any number of interpenetrating universes of different orders can be seen in holographic coexistence. As in the case of time travel, one can experience linear transfer to another place by mental space travel, direct and immediate transport through a space loop, or by stepping out of the space dimension altogether and reentering at another place.
Another important characteristic of psychedelic states is transcendence of the sharp distinction between matter, energy, and consciousness. Inner visions can be so realistic that they successfully simulate the phenomena of the material world, and, conversely, what in everyday life appears as solid and tangible “material stuff” can disintegrate into patterns of energy, a cosmic dance of vibrations, or a play of consciousness. The world of separate individuals and objects is replaced by an undifferentiated pool of energy patterns or consciousness in which various kinds and levels of boundaries are playful and arbitrary. Those who originally considered matter to be the basis of existence and saw the mind as its derivative, can at first discover that consciousness is an independent principle in the sense of psychophysical dualism and ultimately accept it as the only reality. In the most universal and all-encompassing states of mind, the dichotomy between existence and nonexistence is itself transcended; form and emptiness appear to be equivalent and interchangeable.
A very interesting and important aspect of psychedelic states is the occurrence of complex experiences with condensed or composite content. In the course of LSD psychotherapy, some of the experiences can be deciphered as multiply determined symbolic formations, combining in a most creative fashion elements from many different areas that are emotionally and thematically related.8 There is a clear parallel between these dynamic structures and the dream images as analyzed by Sigmund Freud (1953b). Other composite experiences appear to be much more homogeneous; instead of reflecting many different themes and levels of meaning, including those of a contradictory nature, such phenomena represent a plurality of content in a unified form, achieved by summation of various elements. The experiences of dual unity with another person (that is, sense of one’s own identity and simultaneously unity and oneness with another person), consciousness of a group of individuals, of the entire population of a country (India, czarist Russia, Nazi Germany), or all of humanity would belong to this category. Also the archetypal experiences of the Great or Terrible Mother, Man or Woman, Father, Lover, Cosmic man, or the totality of Life as a cosmic phenomenon can be mentioned as important examples.
This tendency to create composite images is not only manifested within the inner content of the psychedelic experience. It is also responsible for another common and important phenomenon— illusive transformation of the persons present in psychedelic sessions, or of the physical environment, by the emerging unconscious material in an LSD subject who keeps his or her eyes open. The resulting experiences represent complex amalgams, combining the perception of the external world with the projected elements originating in the unconscious. Thus a therapist can be simultaneously perceived in his or her everyday identity and as a parent, executioner, archetypal entity, or a character from a previous incarnation. The treatment room can be illusively transformed into the childhood bedroom, delivering uterus, prison, death cell, bordello, aboriginal hut, and many other physical settings, while at the same time retaining on another level its original identity.
The last extraordinary characteristic of unusual states of consciousness that should be mentioned is the transcendence of the difference between the ego and the elements of the external world, or, in more general terms, between the part and the whole. In an LSD session it is possible to experience oneself as somebody or something else, both with and without the loss of one’s original identity. The experience of oneself as an infinitely small, separate fraction of the universe does not seem to be incompatible with being at the same time any other part of it, or the totality of existence. LSD subjects can experience simultaneously, or alternately, many different forms of identity. One extreme is full identification with a separate, limited and alienated biological creature inhabiting a material body, or actually being this body. In this form, the individual is different from everybody and everything else and represents only an infinitesimal and ultimately negligible fraction of the whole. The other extreme is full experiential identification with the undifferentiated consciousness of the Universal Mind or the Void and, thus, with the entire cosmic network and with the totality of existence. The latter experience has the paradoxical quality of being contentless, yet all-containing; nothing exists in it in a concrete form, but at the same time all of existence seems to be represented or present in a potential or germinal mode.
The observations related to the content of nonordinary experiences represent an even more critical challenge for the Newtonian-Cartesian paradigm than do their formal characteristics, described above. Any open-minded LSD therapist who has conducted numerous psychedelic sessions has been confronted with an avalanche of data that cannot be accounted for within existing scientific frameworks. In many instances, the explanation is not only unavailable because of lack of information about the possible causal links, but also theoretically unimaginable if the existing postulates of mechanistic science are maintained.
During my LSD work, I long ago found it impossible to continue blinding myself to a steady influx of astonishing data on the sole basis of their incompatibility with the basic assumptions of contemporary science. I also had to stop reassuring myself that some reasonable explanations must exist for them despite my inability to imagine them in my wildest fantasy. I became open to the possibility that our present scientific world view might prove to be superficial, inaccurate, and inadequate, like many of its historical predecessors. At this point, I started registering carefully all the puzzling and controversial observations without judging them or trying to explain them. Once I was able to give up my dependence on the old models and simply become a participant observer in the process, I gradully recognized that there are important models in both ancient or Oriental philosophies and modern Western science that offer exciting and promising conceptual alternatives.
I have described in detail elsewhere the most important observations from LSD research that represent a critical challenge to the mechanistic world view. In this chapter, I will only briefly review the most relevant findings and refer the interested readers to the original source.9 Analyzing the content of the LSD phenomena, I have found it useful to distinguish four major types of psychedelic experience. The most superficial of these—in the sense of easy availability for an average person—are the abstract or aesthetic experiences. They have no specific symbolic content related to the personality of the subject and can be explained in terms of the anatomy and physiology of the sensory organs, as presented in traditional medical texts. I have found nothing on this level of psychedelic states that would defy interpretation in strictly Newtonian-Cartesian language.
The next type or level of the psychedelic experience is the psychodynamic, biographical, or recollective one. It involves complex reliving of emotionally relevant memories from various periods of the individual’s life and symbolic experiences that can be deciphered as variations on, or recombinations of, biographical elements in a way quite similar to dream images as described by psychoanalysis. The Freudian theoretical framework is extremely useful for dealing with the phenomena on this level; most of these experiences leave the Newtonian-Cartesian model unchallenged. This is not very surprising since Freud himself used the principles of Newtonian mechanics quite explicitly and consciously when he was formulating the conceptual framework of psychoanalysis.
It might come as somewhat of a surprise that, on occasion, memories from the first days or weeks of life can be relived with photographic accuracy of detail. Also, memories of serious physical traumas, such as episodes of near drowning, injuries, accidents, operations, and diseases, appear to be of greater importance than those of psychological traumas emphasized by contemporary psycho1ogy and psychiatry. Such memories of physical traumas seem to be of direct relevance for the development of various emotional and psychosomatic disorders. This is true even for memories of experiences associated with operations that were conducted under general anesthesia. However, as new and surprising as some of these findings may be for medicine and psychiatry, they have little significance as indicators of the need for a major paradigm shift.
Fig. 1. Drawing representing a vision of the “Bad Mother” experienced in an LSD session during deep regression to the oral level of development.
Fig. 2. Deep regression to the early oral stage of libidinal development experienced in a psychedelic session. The large gaping mouth with the pharynx in the shape of a heart reflects the ambivalence characteristic for this stage; swallowing means destruction, as well as loving incorporationof the object.
More serious conceptual problems are associated with the third type of psychedelic experience, which I term perinatal.10 Clinical observations from LSD psychotherapy suggest that the human unconscious contains repositories or matrices, the activation of which leads to the reliving of biological birth and a profound confrontation with death. The resulting process of death and rebirth is typically associated with an opening of intrinsic spiritual areas in the human mind that are independent of the individual’s racial, cultural, and educational background. This type of psychedelic experience presents important theoretical problems.
In this perinatal experience, LSD subjects can relive elements of their biological birth in all its complexity, and sometimes with astonishing objectively verifiable details. I have been able to confirm the accuracy of many such reports when the conditions were favorable; this frequently involved individuals who previously had had no knowledge of the circumstances of their birth. They have been able to recognize specificities and anomalies of their fetal position, detailed mechanics of labor, the nature of obstetric interventions, and the particulars of postnatal care. The experience of a breech position, placenta previa, the umbilical cord twisted around the neck, castor oil applied during the birth process, the use of forceps, various manual maneuvers, different kinds of anesthesia, and specific resuscitation procedures are just a few examples of the phenomena observed in the perinatal psychedelic experience.
The memories of these events appear to include the tissues and cells of the body. The process of reliving one’s birth trauma can be associated with psychosomatic re-creation of all the appropriate physiological symptoms, such as acceleration of the pulse rate, choking with dramatic changes of skin color, hypersecretion of saliva or phlegm, excessive muscular tension with energy discharges, specific postures and movements, and the appearance of bruises and birthmarks. There are indications that the reliving of birth in LSD sessions may be associated with biochemical changes in the body that represent a replica of the situation at the time of the delivery, as exemplified by low oxygen saturation of the blood, biochemical indicators of stress, and specific characteristics of the carbohydrate metabolism. This complex reenactment of the birth situation, which extends to subcellular processes and chains of biochemical reactions, represents a difficult task for conventional scientific models.
However, other aspects of the death-rebirth process are even more difficult to account for. The symbolism that accompanies the experiences of dying and being born can be drawn from many different cultures, even if the corresponding mythological themes had not previously been known to the subject. On occasion, this involves not only the well-known symbolism for the death-rebirth process that exists in the Judaeo-Christian tradition—the humiliation and torture of Christ, death on the cross, and resurrection— but details of the Isis and Osiris legend, the myths of Dionysus, Adonis, Attis, Orpheus, Mithra, or the Nordic god Balder, and their very little known counterparts from pre-Columbian cultures. The wealth of information involved in this process in some of the LSD subjects is truly remarkable.
Fig 3. Picture of an LSD subject from a psychedelic session in which he relived his biological birth. The destructive uterine forces are represented as mythological bird-like monsters. The frail and frightened fetus is shown suspended on the umbilical cord.
The most critical and serious challenge for the Newtonian-Cartesian mechanistic model of the universe comes from the last category of psychedelic phenomena, an entire spectrum of experiences for which I have coined the term transpersonal. The common denominator of this rich and ramified group of unusual experiences is the individual’s feeling that his or her consciousness has expanded beyond the ego boundaries and has transcended the limitations of time and space.
Many experiences belonging to this category can be interpreted as regression in historical time and exploration of one’s biological, cultural, or spiritual past. It is not infrequent in psychedelic sessions to experience quite concrete and realistic episodes of fetal and embryonic life. Many subjects report vivid sequences on the cellular level of consciousness that seem to reflect their existence in the form of the sperm and ovum at the time of conception. Sometimes the regression appears to go even further and the individual has a convinced feeling of reliving episodes from the life of his or her biological ancestors, or even drawing on the pool of collective and racial memories. On occasion, LSD subjects report experiences in which they identify with various animals in the evolutionary pedigree, or have a distinct feeling of reliving memories of their existence in a previous incarnation.
Fig. 4. An experience of death and rebirth from a perinatal LSD session. The subject’s body rises from the realm of death and darkness with images of cemeteries, coffins and candles. Her arms are reaching up and her head is melting into the transcendental source of light.
Some other transpersonal phenomena involve transcendence of spatial rather than temporal barriers. Here belong the experiences of consciousness of another person, group of persons, or all of humanity. One can even transcend the limits of a specifically human experience and tune into what appears to be the consciousness of animals, plants, or inanimate objects. In the extreme, it is possible to experience the consciousness of all creation, of the entire planet, or of the entire material universe.
Individuals who encounter transpersonal experiences of this kind in their psychedelic sessions frequently gain access to detailed and rather esoteric information about the corresponding aspects of the material universe that by far exceeds their general educational background and their specific knowledge of the area in question. Thus, the reports of LSD subjects who have experienced episodes of embryonic existence, the moment of conception, and elements of cellular, tissue, and organ consciousness abound in medically accurate insights into the anatomical, physiological, and biochemical aspects of the processes involved. Similarly, ancestral experiences, elements of the collective and racial unconscious in the Jungian sense, and “past incarnation memories” frequently bring quite remarkable details related to specific historical events and costumes, architecture, weapons, art, or religious practices of the cultures involved. LSD subjects who relived phylogenetic memories or experienced consciousness of contemporary animal forms not only found them unusually authentic and convincing, but also acquired extraordinary insights concerning animal psychology, ethology, specific habits, complex reproductive cycles, and courtship dances of various species.
Fig. 5. A drawing by Terrell P. Watson entitled “Cellular Level of Consciousness: The Message of DNA.”
Many LSD subjects have independently reported their insights that consciousness is not a product of the central nervous system and, as such, limited to humans and higher vertebrates. They saw it as a primary characteristic of existence that cannot be further reduced to, or derived from, anything else. Those individuals who have reported episodes of conscious identification with plants or parts of plants had sometimes remarkable insights into such botanical processes as germination of seeds, photosynthesis in the leaves, pollination, or exchange of water and minerals in the root system. Equally common is a sense of identification with consciousness of inorganic matter or processes, such as gold, granite, water, fire, lightning, tornado, volcanic activities, or even individual atoms and molecules. Like the preceding phenomena, these experiences can be associated with surprisingly accurate insights.
Another important group of transpersonal experiences involves telepathy, psychic diagnosis, clairvoyance, clairaudience, precognition, psychometry, out-of-the-body experiences, traveling clairvoyance, and other paranormal phenomena. Some of them are characterized by a transcendence of ordinary temporal limitations, others by transcendence of spatial barriers, or a combination of both. Since many other types of transpersonal phenomena also frequently involve access to new information through extrasensory channels, the clear boundary between psychology and parapsychology tends to disappear or become rather arbitrary when the existence of transpersonal experiences is recognized and acknowledged.
The existence of transpersonal experiences violates some of the most basic assumptions and principles of mechanistic science. They imply such seemingly absurd notions as the relativity and arbitrary nature of all physical boundaries, nonlocal connections in the universe, communication through unknown means and channels, memory without a material substrate, nonlinearity of time, or consciousness associated with all living forms (including unicellular organisms and plants) and even inorganic matter.
Many transpersonal experiences involve events from the microcosm and macrocosm—realms that cannot be directly reached by human senses—or from periods that historically precede the origin of the solar system, of planet Earth, of living organisms, of the nervous system, and of Homo sapiens. These experiences clearly suggest that, in a yet unexplained way, each of us contains the information about the entire universe or all of existence, has potential experiential access to all its parts, and in a sense is the whole cosmic network, as much as he or she is just an infinitesimal part of it, a separate and insignificant biological entity.
The content of the experiences discussed thus far involves elements of the phenomenal world. Although their content challenges the idea that the universe is composed of objectively existing material objects separated from each other, it does not go beyond what the Western world considers “objective reality” as perceived in ordinary states of consciousness. It is generally accepted that we have a complex pedigree of human and animal ancestors, that we are part of a specific racial and cultural heritage, and that we have undergone a complicated biological development from the fusion of two germinal cells to a highly differentiated Metazoan organism. Our everyday experiences indicate that we live in a world which involves an infinite number of elements other than ourselves— humans, animals, plants, and inanimate objects. We accept all this on the basis of direct sensory experience, consensual Validation, empirical evidence, and scientific research. In transpersonal experiences that involve historical regression11 or transcendence of spatial barriers, it is thus not the content that is surprising, but the possibility of having a direct experience of, and conscious identification with, various aspects of the phenomenal world outside of us. Under normal circumstances, we would consider those to be entirely separate from us and experientially inaccessible. With respect to lower animals, plants, and inorganic materials, we might also be surprised to find consciousness or awareness where we would not expect it. In the instances of classic extrasensory perception, again, it is not the content of the experiences that is unusual or surprising, but the way of acquiring certain information about other people, or perception of a situation that, according to common sense and the existing scientific paradigms, should be beyond our reach.
However, the theoretical challenge of these observations— formidable as it may be in itself—is further augmented by the fact that, in psychedelic sessions, transpersonal experiences correctly reflecting the material world appear on the same continuum and intimately interwoven with others whose content is not in agreement with the world view predominant in Western civilization. We can mention here the Jungian archetypes—the world of deities, demons, demigods, superheroes, and complex mythological, legendary, and fairy tale sequences. Even these experiences can be associated with accurate information about folklore, religious symbolism, and mythical structures of various cultures of the world that the subject has not been familiar with or interested in prior to the LSD session. The most generalized and universal experiences of this kind involve identification with cosmic consciousness, the Universal Mind, or the Void.
That transpersonal experiences can mediate access to accurate information about various aspects of the universe previously unknown to the subject requires in itself a fundamental revision of our concepts about the nature of reality and the relationship between consciousness and matter. Equally challenging is the discovery of archetypal and mythological realms or entities that seem to have existences of their own and cannot be explained away as derivatives of the material world. However, there are additional, quite striking observations that the new paradigm will have to account for or take into consideration.
In many instances, transpersonal experiences in psychedelic sessions seem to be inextricably interwoven with the fabric of events in the material world. Such dynamic interconnections between inner experiences and the phenomenal world suggest that somehow the network involved in the psychedelic process transcends the physical boundaries of the individual. A detailed discussion and analysis of this fascinating phenomenon must be reserved for a future publication, since it requires careful case histories. It is sufficient here to give a brief description of its general characteristics and a few specific examples.
When certain transpersonal themes emerge from the subject’s unconscious during the psychedelic process, this is often associated with a highly improbable incidence of certain external events that appear to be related in a very specific and meaningful way to the inner theme. The life of such a person shows at this time a striking accumulation of most unusual coincidences; he or she might live temporarily in a world governed by synchronicity, in Carl Gustav Jung’s terms (1960b), rather than simple linear causality. It has happened on a number of occasions that various dangerous events and circumstances started to accumulate in the lives of subjects who in their LSD sessions were approaching the experience of ego death. And, conversely, they cleared up in an almost magical way when this process was completed. It seemed as if these individuals had to face, for some reason, the experience of annihilation, but they had the choice of doing so in a symbolic way in the inner world or facing it in reality.
Similarly, when a Jungian archetype is emerging into the consciousness of an LSD subject during psychedelic therapy, its basic theme can become manifest and be enacted in the individual’s life. Thus, at a time when the problems related to the Animus, Anima, or Terrible Mother are being confronted in the sessions, ideal representatives of these archetypal images tend to appear in the subject’s everyday life. When elements of the collective, or racial, unconscious or mythological themes related to a specific culture dominate a person’s LSD sessions, this can be accompanied in everyday life by a striking influx of elements related to this particular geographic or cultural area: appearance of the members of that particular ethnic group in the subject’s life, unexpected letters from, or invitations to visit, the country involved, gifts of books or accumulation of the themes in question in movies or television programs shown at the time.
Another interesting observation of this kind was made in connection with past incarnation experiences in psychedelic sessions. Some LSD subjects occasionally experience vivid and complex sequences from other cultures and other historical periods that have all the qualities of memories and are usually interpreted by the individuals themselves as a reliving of episodes from previous lifetimes. As these experiences are unfolding, LSD subjects usually identify certain persons in their present lifetime as being important protagonists in these karmic situations. In that case present interpersonal tensions, problems, and conflicts with these persons are frequently recognized or interpreted as being direct derivatives of the destructive karmic patterns. The reliving and resolution of such karmic memories is typically associated with a sense of profound relief, liberation from oppressive “karmic bonds,” and feelings of overwhelming bliss and accomplishment on the part of the LSD subject.
Careful examination of the dynamics of the interpersonal constellation that was allegedly a derivative of the resolved karmic pattern often brings astonishing results. The feelings, attitudes, and behavior of the individuals whom the LSD subject identified as protagonists in the past incarnation sequence tend to change in a specific direction in basic congruence with the events in the psychedelic session. It is important to emphasize that these changes happen quite independently and cannot be explained in terms of conventional linear understanding of causality. The persons involved might be hundreds or thousands of miles away at the time of the LSD subject’s psychedelic experience. These changes can occur even if there is absolutely no physical communication between the persons involved. The feelings and attitudes of the alleged protagonists are influenced quite independently by factors that are in no way related to the subject’s LSD experience, yet specific changes in all the persons involved seem to follow a common pattern and to happen at almost exactly the same time, within minutes of each other.
Similar instances of extraordinary synchronicities occur quite frequently in association with various other types of transpersonal phenomena. There seems to be a striking parallel between events of this kind and the basic assumptions of Bell’s theorem in modern physics (1966), which will be discussed later. Such observations are in no way specific for psychedelic states and occur in the context of Jungian analysis or various forms of experiential psychotherapy, in the course of meditative practice, or during spontaneous upsurges of transpersonal elements into consciousness under the circumstances of everyday life.
Having described the most important observations from psychedelic research that challenge common sense and the existing scientific paradigms, it is of interest to explore the changes in the world view of the individuals who have had first-hand experiences of the perinatal and transpersonal realms. This should be particularly interesting in view of the focus in the following section of this book on the dramatic changes of the scientific world view in the course of this century.
As long as LSD subjects are confronting phenomena that are basically of a biographical nature, they do not encounter any major conceptual challenges. While systematically exploring their traumatic past, they tend to realize that certain aspects or sectors of their lives have been inauthentic, since they represent blind, automatonlike repetitions of maladjustive patterns established in early childhood. The reliving of specific traumatic memories underlying such patterns tends to have a liberating effect and makes it possible to perceive and differentiate more clearly, as well as respond more adequately, in the previously afflicted categories of relationships and situations. Typical examples of such situations would be the contamination of the attitude toward authority by one’s traumatic experience with domineering parents, introduction of the elements of sibling rivalry into one’s interactions with peers, or distortion of sexual relationships by patterns of interaction established in the relationship with the parent of the opposite sex.
As LSD subjects enter the perinatal realm and confront the twin experiences of birth and death, they typically realize that the distortion and inauthenticity of their lives does not limit itself to partial segments or areas. They suddenly see their entire picture of reality and general strategy of existence as false and inauthentic. Many previous attitudes and behaviors that used to appear natural and were accepted without questioning are now perceived as irrational and absurd. It becomes clear that they are derivatives of a fear of death and remnants of the unresolved trauma of birth. In this context, a driven and hectic life pattern, haunting ambitions, competitive drives, a need to prove oneself, and the inability to enjoy are seen as unnecessary nightmares from which one can awaken. Those who complete the death-rebirth process connect with intrinsic spiritual sources and realize that a mechanistic and materialistic world view is rooted in fear of birth and death.
Following the ego death, the ability to enjoy life typically increases considerably. The past and future appear to be relatively less important than the present moment, and excitement about the process of life replaces the compulsion to pursue the achievement of goals. The individual tends to see the world in terms of energy patterns instead of solid matter, and his or her boundaries against the rest of the world seem less absolute and more fluid. Although spirituality is now seen as an important force in the universe, the phenomenal world is still seen as objectively real. Time continues to be linear, space is Euclidean, and the principle of causality is unchallenged, although the roots of many problems are now seen in the birth process rather than in early childhood.
The most profound and basic changes in understanding the nature of reality occur in connection with various types of transindividual experiences. As the LSD process extends into the transpersonal realms, the limits of linear causality are stretched ad infinitum. Not only biological birth, but various aspects and stages of embryonic development, and even circumstances of conception and implantation, appear to be plausible sources of important influences on the psychological life of the individual. The elements of ancestral, racial, and phylogenetic memories, conscious intelligence of the DNA molecule and metaphysics of the genetic code, dynamics of archetypal structures, and the fact of reincarnation with the law of karma must now be incorporated into the subject’s thinking to account for the enormous expansion of his or her experiential world.
If one adheres to the old medical model in which a material substrate is necessary for memory, the nucleus of a single cell— the sperm or the ovum—would have to contain not only the information discussed in medical books concerning the anatomy, physiology, and biochemistry of the body, constitutional factors, hereditary dispositions to diseases, and parental characteristics, but also complex memories from the lives of our human and animal ancestors, and retrievable detailed data about all the cultures of the world. Since the LSD experiences also involve consciousness of plants and inorganic matter down to its molecular, atomic, and subatomic structures, as well as cosmogenetic events and geological history, one would ultimately have to postulate that the entire universe is in some way coded in the sperm and ovum. At this point, the mystical alternatives to the mechanistic world view appear to be much more appropriate and reasonable.
At the same time, various transpersonal experiences tend to undermine the belief in the mandatory nature of linear time and three-dimensional space by offering many experiential alternatives. Matter tends to disintegrate not only into playful energy patterns but into cosmic vacuum. Form and emptiness become relative and, ultimately, interchangeable concepts. After the individual has been confronted with a considerable sample of transpersonal experiences, the Newtonian-Cartesian world view becomes untenable as a serious philosophical concept and is seen as a pragmatically useful, but simplistic, superficial, and arbitrary system of organizing one’s everyday experience.
Although for the practical purposes of daily life one still thinks in terms of solid matter, three-dimensional space, unidirectional time, and linear causality, the philosophical understanding of existence becomes much more complex and sophisticated; it approaches that found in the great mystical traditions of the world. The universe is seen as an infinite web of adventures in consciousness, and the dichotomies between the experiencer and the experienced, form and emptiness, time and timelessness, determinism and free will, or existence and nonexistence have been transcended.