11

The Sacred and the Profane

We do not understand much of anything, from the “big bang” all the way down to the particles in the atoms of a bacterial cell. We have a wilderness of mystery to make our way through in the centuries ahead.

—Lewis Thomas

Not everything that counts can be counted. Not everything that can be counted counts.

—Albert Einstein

Spirituality and Religion in Modern Society

The understanding of human nature and of the cosmos shared by modern technological societies is significantly different from the worldviews found in the ancient and pre-industrial cultures. To some extent, this is a natural result of historical progress and should be expected. Over the centuries, scientists from different disciplines have systematically explored various aspects of the material world and accumulated an impressive amount of information that was not available in the past. They have vastly complemented, corrected, and replaced earlier concepts about nature and the universe. However, the most striking difference between the two worldviews is not in the amount and accuracy of data about material reality. It is a fundamental disagreement concerning the sacred or spiritual dimension of existence.

All the human groups of the pre-industrial era were in agreement that the material world which we perceive and in which we operate in our everyday life is not the only reality.

Their worldviews, although varying in details, described the cosmos as a complex system of hierarchically arranged levels of existence. In this understanding of reality, which Arthur Lovejoy (1964) called the Great Chain of Being, the world of gross matter was the last link. Higher domains of existence included in pre-industrial cosmologies harbored deities, demons, discarnate entities, ancestral spirits, and power animals. Ancient and pre-industrial cultures had a rich ritual and spiritual life that revolved around the possibility of achieving direct contact with these ordinarily hidden dimensions of reality and receiving from them important information, assistance, or even intervention in the course of material events.

The everyday activities of the societies sharing this worldview were based not only on the information received through the senses, but also on the input from these ordinarily invisible realms. Anthropologists with traditional Western education were often baffled by what they called the “double logic” of the aboriginal cultures that they studied. While the natives clearly showed great practical intelligence, possessed extraordinary skills, and were able to produce ingenious implements for survival and sustenance, they combined their pragmatic activities, such as hunting, fishing, and building shelters, with strange, often complex and elaborate rituals. In these they appealed to various entities and realities that for the anthropologists were imaginary and nonexistent.

These differences in the worldviews find their strongest expression in the area of death and dying. The cosmologies, philosophies, and mythologies, as well as spiritual and ritual life, of the pre-industrial societies, contain a very clear message that death is not the absolute and irrevocable end of everything, that life or existence in some form continues after the biological demise. The eschatological mythologies of these cultures are in general agreement that a spiritual principle, or soul, survives the death of the body and experiences a complex series of adventures in consciousness in other realities.

The posthumous journey of the soul is sometimes described as a travel through fantastic landscapes that bear some similarity to those on earth, other times as encounters with various archetypal beings, or as a progression through a sequence of nonordinary states of consciousness. In some cultures the soul reaches a temporary realm in the Beyond, such as the Christian purgatory or the lokas of Tibetan Buddhism, in others an eternal abode—heaven, hell, paradise, or the sun realm. Many cultures have independently developed a belief system in metempsychosis or reincarnation that includes return of the unit of consciousness to another physical lifetime on earth.

All pre-industrial societies seemed to agree that death was not the ultimate defeat and end of everything, but a transition to another form of existence. The experiences associated with death were seen as visits to important dimensions of reality that deserved to be experienced, studied, and carefully mapped. The dying people were familiar with the eschatological cartographies of their cultures, whether these were shamanic maps of the funeral landscapes or sophisticated descriptions of the Eastern spiritual systems, such as those found in the Bardo Thödol, The Tibetan Book of the Dead.

Bardo Thödol deserves a special notice in this context. This important text of Tibetan Buddhism represents an interesting contrast to the exclusive pragmatic emphasis on productive life and denial of death characterizing the Western industrial civilization. It describes the time of death as a unique opportunity for spiritual liberation from the cycles of death and rebirth and a period that determines our next incarnation, if we do not achieve liberation. From this perspective, it is possible to see the experiences in the bardos, or intermediate states between lives, as being in a way more important than incarnate existence. In view of this fact, it is absolutely essential that we prepare ourselves for this journey by systematic practice during our lifetime.

These descriptions of the sacred dimensions of reality and the emphasis on spiritual life are in sharp conflict with the belief system that dominates the industrial civilization. Our worldview has been to a great extent shaped by materialistically oriented science, which assert that we live in a universe where only matter is real. Theoreticians of various scientific disciplines have formulated an image of reality according to which the history of the universe is the history of developing matter. Life, consciousness, and intelligence are seen as more or less accidental and insignificant epiphenomena of this development. They appeared on the scene after billions of years of evolution of passive and inert matter in a trivially small part of an immense universe. Clearly, the understanding of human nature and of the universe based on such premises is in principle incompatible with any form of spiritual belief. When we subscribe to this image of reality, spirituality appears to be an illusory, if not delusional, approach to existence.

This seeming incompatibility of science and spirituality is quite remarkable. Throughout history, spirituality and religion had played a critical and vital role in human life, until their influence was undermined by the scientific and industrial revolution. Science and religion represent extremely important parts of human life, each in its own way. Science is the most powerful tool for obtaining information about the world we live in and spirituality is indispensable as a source of meaning in our life. The religious impulse has certainly been one of the most compelling forces driving human history and culture. It is hard to imagine that this would be possible, if ritual and spiritual life were based on entirely unfounded fantasies and fallacies. To exert such a powerful influence on the course of human affairs, religion has to reflect a very fundamental aspect of human nature, in spite of the fact that it has often been expressed in very problematic and distorted ways.

If the worldview created by materialistic science really were a true, full, and accurate description of reality, then the only group in the entire history of humanity that has ever had adequate understanding of the human psyche and of existence would be the intelligentsia of technological societies subscribing to philosophical materialism. All the other perspectives and worldviews, including the great mystical traditions of the world and the spiritual philosophies of the East, would by comparison appear to be primitive, immature, and deluded systems of thought. This would include the Vedanta, various schools of yoga, Taoism, Vajrayana, Hinayana, and Mahayana Buddhism, Sufism, Christian mysticism, the Cabala, and many other sophisticated spiritual traditions that are products of centuries of in-depth explorations of the human psyche and consciousness.

Naturally, since the ideas described in this book are in basic congruence with various schools of the perennial philosophy, they would fall into the same category. They could be dismissed as irrational, ungrounded, and unscientific and the evidence on which they are based would not even be seriously considered. It seems therefore important to clarify the relationship between religion and science and to find out if these two critical aspects of human life are truly incompatible. And if we find out that there is a way of bringing the two of them together, it would be essential to define the conditions under which they can be integrated.

The belief that religion and science have to be mutually incompatible reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of both. Correctly understood, true science and authentic religion are two important approaches to existence that are complementary and do not in any way compete with each other. As Ken Wilber very appropriately pointed out, there cannot really be a conflict between genuine religion and true science. If there seems to be such a conflict, we are very likely dealing with “bogus religion” and/or “bogus science” (Wilber 1983).

Much confusion in this area is based on serious misconceptions concerning the nature and function of science, resulting in improper use of scientific thinking. An additional source of unnecessary problems is a misunderstanding concerning the nature and function of religion. For the purpose of our discussion, it is essential to distinguish true science from scientism and to clearly differentiate between spirituality and organized religion.

Scientific Theory and Scientific Method

Modern philosophy of science has clarified the nature, function, and proper use of theories in the exploration of various aspects of the universe. It exposed the errors that allowed materialistic monism to dominate Western science and indirectly also the worldview of the industrial civilization. In retrospect, it is not difficult to see how this has happened. The Newtonian image of the physical world as a fully deterministic mechanical system was so successful in its practical applications that it became a model for all the other scientific disciplines. To be scientific became synonymous with thinking in mechanistic terms.

An important result of the technological triumphs of physics was strong support for philosophical materialism, a position that Newton himself did not hold. For him, the creation of the universe was inconceivable without divine intervention, without the superior intelligence of the Creator. Newton believed that God created the universe as a system governed by mechanical laws. For this reason, once it had been created, it could be studied and understood as such. Newton’s followers kept the image of the universe as a deterministic supermachine, but disposed of the notion of an intelligent creative principle as an unnecessary and embarassing leftover from the irrational dark ages. Sensory data about material reality became the only permissible source of information in all branches of science.

In the history of modern science, the image of the material world based on Newtonian mechanics entirely dominated the thinking in biology, medicine, psychology, psychiatry, and all the other disciplines. This strategy reflected the basic metaphysical assumption of philosophical materialism and was its logical consequence. If the universe is essentially a material system and physics is a scientific discipline that studies matter, physicists are the ultimate experts concerning the nature of all things and the findings in other areas should not be allowed to be in conflict with the basic theories of physics. Determined application of this type of logic resulted in systematic suppression or misinterpretation of findings in many fields that could not be brought into consonance with the materialistic worldview.

This strategy was a serious violation of the basic principles of modern philosophy of science. Strictly speaking, scientific theories apply only to observations on which they are based and from which they were derived. They cannot be automatically extrapolated to other disciplines. Conceptual frameworks articulating the information available in a certain area cannot be used to determine what is and is not possible in some other domain and to dictate what can and cannot be observed in the corresponding scientific discipline. Theories about the human psyche should be based on observations of psychological processes, not on the theories that physicists have made about the material world. But this is exactly the way mainstrean scientists have used in the past the theoretical framework of seventeenth-century physics.

The practice of illicit generalization of the worldview of physicists to other fields has been only part of the problem. Another serious but common error that further complicates the situation is the tendency of many scientists not only to adhere to outdated theories and generalize them to other fields, but to mistake them for accurate and definitive descriptions of reality. As a result, they tend to reject any data that are incompatible with their theoretical framework, rather than seeing them as a reason to change their theories. This confusion of the map with the territory is an example of what is known in modern logic as “error in logical typing.” Gregory Bateson, a brilliant generalist and seminal thinker who spent much time studying this phenomenon, once facetiously stated that when a scientist continues making errors of this type, he or she might one day eat in a restaurant the menu instead of the dinner.

A basic characteristic of a true scientist is not uncritical adherence to materialistic philosophy and unshakeable loyalty to the stories about the universe promulgated by mainstream science. What characterizes a true scientist is commitment to unbiased rigorous application of the scientific method of exploration to all the domains of reality. This means systematic collection of observations in specifically defined situations, repeated experimentation in any domain of existence that makes application of such a strategy possible, and comparing of the results with others working under similar circumstances.

The most important criterion of the adequacy of a particular theory is not whether it conforms with the views held by the academic establishment, pleases our common sense, or seems plausible, but whether it it congruent with the facts of systematic and structured observation. Theories are indispensable tools for scientific reasearch and progress. However, they should not be confused with an accurate and exhaustive description of how things are. A true scientist sees his or her theories as the best available conceptualization of the currently available data and is always open to adjusting or changing them if they cannot accommodate new evidence. From this perspective, the world view of materialistic science has become a straitjacket that inhibits further progress instead of facilitating it.

Science does not rest on a particular theory, no matter how convincing and self-evident it might appear. The image of the universe and scientific theories about it have changed many times in the history of humanity. What characterizes science is the method of obtaining information and of validating or disproving theories. Scientific research is impossible without theoretical formulations and hypotheses. Reality is too complex to be studied in its totality, and theories reduce the range of observable phenomena to a workable size. A true scientist uses theories, but is aware of their relative nature and is always ready to adjust them or abandon them when new evidence emerges. He or she does not exclude from rigorous scrutiny any phenomena that can be scientifically studied, including controversial and challenging ones, such as nonordinary states of consciousness and transpersonal experiences.

In the course of the twentieth century, physicists themselves have radically changed their understanding of the material world. Revolutionary discoveries in the subatomic and astrophysical realms have destroyed the image of the universe as an infinitely complex, fully deterministic mechanical system made of indestructible particles of matter. As the exploration of the universe shifted from the world of our everyday reality, or the “zone of the middle dimensions,” to the miscroworld of subatomic particles and to the megaworld of distant galaxies, physicists discovered the limitations of the mechanistic worldview and transcended them.

The image of the universe that had dominated physics for almost three hundred years collapsed under the avalanche of the new observations and experimental evidence. The commonsense Newtonian understanding of matter, time, and space was replaced by the strange wonderland of quantum-relativistic physics full of baffling paradoxes. Matter in the everyday sense of “solid stuff” completely disappeared from the picture. The neatly separated dimensions of absolute space and time fused into Einstein’s four-dimensional space-time continuum. And the consciousness of the observer had to be recognized as an element that plays an important role in creating what earlier appeared to be purely objective and impersonal reality.

Similar breakthroughs have also occurred in many other disciplines. Information and systems theories, Rupert Sheldrake’s concept of morphogenetic fields, the holonomic thinking of David Bohm and Karl Pribram, Ilya Prigogine’s explorations of dissipative structures, the chaos theory, and Ervin Laszlo’s unified interactive dynamics are just a few salient examples of these new developments. These new theories show increasing convergence and compatibility with the mystical worldview and with the findings of transpersonal psychology. They also provide a new opening for the ancient wisdom that materialistic science rejected and ridiculed.

The narrowing of the gap between the worldview of hard sciences and that of transpersonal psychology is certainly a very exciting and encouraging phenomenon. However, it would be a serious mistake for psychologists, psychiatrists, and consciousness researchers to let their conceptual thinking be restricted and controlled by the theories of the new physics instead of the old one. As I mentioned earlier, each discipline has to base its theoretical constructs on the observations from its own field of inquiry. The criterion for the validity of the scientific findings and concepts in a certain area is not their compatibility with the theories in another field, but the rigor of the scientific method with which they were obtained.

The Worldview of Materialistic Science: Fact and Fiction

In general, Western science has been extremely successful in finding the laws governing the processes in the material world and in learning to control them. Its efforts to provide answers concerning some fundamental questions of existence, such as how the world came into being and developed into its present form, have been much less spectacular and impressive. To get a proper perspective on this situation, it is important to realize that what we know as the “scientific worldview” is an image of the universe that rests on a host of daring metaphysical assumptions. These are often presented and seen as facts that have been proven beyond any reasonable doubt, while in reality they stand on a very shaky ground, are controversial, or are inadequately supported by evidence.

In any case, the answers that materialistic science offers for the most basic metaphysical questions are not more logical or less fantastic than those found in perennial philosophy. Thus in regard to the origin of the universe, there are many competing cosmological theories. The most popular of them asserts that everything began some 15 billion years ago in the Big Bang when all the matter in the universe, as well as time and space, emerged into existence from a dimensionless point or singularity. The rival theory of continuous creation portrays an eternally existing universe without a beginning and an end, in which matter is continuously created out of nothing. Neither of these alternatives represents exactly a rational, logical, and easy to imagine solution to this fundamental question of existence.

Equally bold and problematic are the theories of materialistic scientists concerning the biological realm. The phenomenon of life, including the DNA and its capacity of self-reproduction, allegedly spontaneously emerged from random interactions of inorganic matter in the chemical ooze of the primordial ocean. The evolution from primitive unicellular organisms to the extraordinary variety of species constituting the animal and plant life on our planet then resulted from random mutations of the genes and natural selection. And probably the most fantastic assertion of materialistic science is that consciousness appeared sometime late in the evolutionary process as a product of neurophysiological processes in the central nervous system.

When we subject the above concepts to rigorous scrutiny based on modern philosophy of science, systematic application of the scientific method, and logical analysis of the data, we will discover that they are hardly sober facts and that in many instances they lack adequate support by the facts of observation. The theory suggesting that the material constituting the universe with its billions of galaxies spontaneously exploded into existence from a dimensionless singularity certainly does not satisfy our reason. We are left with many burning questions, such the source of the material that emerged in the Big Bang, the cause and trigger of the event, the origin of the laws governing it, and many others. The idea of the eternally existing universe in which matter is continuously created out of nothing is equally staggering in its own way. The same is true about the remaining scientific theories describing the origin of our universe.

We are told that the cosmos essentially created itself and that its entire history from the hydrogen atoms to Homo sapiens did not require guiding intelligence and can be adequately understood as resulting from material processes governed by natural laws. This is not a very believable assumption, as many physicists themselves realize. Stephen Hawking, considered by some the greatest living physicist, admitted that “the odds against a universe like ours emerging out of something like the Big Bang are enormous.” And Princeton physicist Freeman Dyson once commented: “The more I examine the universe and the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe in some sense must have known we were coming” (Smoot and Davidson 1993).

Reconstructive studies of the early processes during the first few minutes of the existence of the universe have revealed an extraordinary and astonishing fact. Had the initial conditions been only somewhat different, for example, had one of the fundamental constants of physics been altered by a few percent in either direction, the resulting universe would not have been able to support life. In such a universe, humans would never have come into being to function as its observers. These coincidences are so numerous and unlikely that they inspired the formulation of the so-called Anthropic Principle (Barrow and Tipler 1986). This principle strongly suggests that the universe might have been created with the specific intention or with the purpose of bringing forth life and human observers. This points to participation of superior cosmic intelligence in the process of creation or at least allows interpretation in those terms.

The failure of the Darwinian theory to explain evolution and the extraordinary richness of life forms simply as a result of mechanically operating natural forces is becoming increasingly obvious. The problems and loopholes of Darwinism and neo-Darwinism have been summarized in Phillip Johnson’s book Darwin on Trial (1993). While evolution itself is a well-established fact, it is highly unlikely that it could have occurred without the guidance of higher intelligence and that it has been—to borrow Richard Dawkins’ famous term—the work of a “blind watchmaker” (Dawkins 1986). There are too many facts in evolution that are incompatible with such an understanding of nature.

Random mutations in the genes that represent the basic explanatory principle of the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution are known to be in most instances harmful and are an unlikely source of advantageous changes in the organism. Moreover, emergence of a new species would require a highly improbable combination of a number of very specific mutations. An example is the evolutionary transition from reptiles to birds that required, among other things, simultaneous development of feathers, light hollow bones, and a different skeletal structure. In many instances, the transitional forms leading to new organs would not offer evolutionary advantage (as exemplified by a partially developed eye), or would even represent a liability (such as an incompletely formed wing).

To make things even more complicated for Darwinians, nature has often supported the emergence of forms that clearly represent an evolutionary disadvantage. For example, the beautiful tail of the peacock clearly makes the male more vulnerable to predators. The Darwinians argue that this is outweighed by the fact that beautiful tail attracts the females and increases the opportunities for copulation and transmission of genes. This appears to be a desperate effort to save the materialistic perspective at the price of conceding that peahens might have quite extraordinary aesthetic and artistic sensibilities. As Phillip Johnson (1993) pointed out, this situation is certainly more compatible with the concept of intelligent divine creation than with the Darwinian theory that gives all credit to blind material forces: “It seems to me that the peacock and the peahen are just the kind of creatures a whimsical creator might favor, but that an ‘uncaring mechanical process’ like natural selection would never permit to develop.”

Important challenges against the Darwinian interpretation of evolution can also be drawn from the analysis of paleontological findings. In spite of enormous investments of time and energy, the existing fossil record has so far failed to fill in the missing links between species. Its general profile has not as yet been able to support a single transition from one species to another. The “Cambrian explosion,” a sudden appearance of new multicellular organisms with widely differing body plans within a geologically negligible period of 10 million years (“the biological Big Bang”) clearly demands a mechanism other than natural selection for its explanation.

More importantly, all the above arguments against Darwinism and neo-Darwinism focus only on the level of anatomy and physiology. They are superficial and negligible as compared to the problems that have emerged from biochemical understanding of various life processes. Modern science has shown that the secret of life is on the molecular level. Until recently, evolutionary biologists could be unconcerned with the molecular details of life, because very little was known about them. The complexity and intricacy of the molecular arrangements responsible for the structures and mechanisms underlying life processes is so spectacular that it represents a mortal blow for the Darwinian theory. In his recent book Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution, Michael J. Behe (1996) clearly demonstrated the failure of Darwinian thinking to account for the molecular structure and dynamics of life. The power of his argument is so devastating that it makes the problem of anatomy and fossil records irrelevant to the question of evolution.

The statistical improbability of life emerging out of random chemical processes is astronomical, as was clearly demonstrated by scientists of the stature of the world-famous astrophysicist Fred Hoyle and Francis Crick, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA. The existence of over 200,000 proteins that have highly specialized biochemical and physiological functions in living organisms represents, in and of itself, an insurmountable problem. Fred Hoyle (1983) found the solution to this dilemma in embracing the theory of panspermia, according to which microorganisms are distributed throughout the universe and were brought to our planet by interstellar travel, possibly in the tail of a comet. Hoyle concluded that life is “a cosmological phenomenon, perhaps the most fundamental aspect of the universe itself.”

Francis Crick (1981) went even farther. According to him, to avoid damage by the extreme interstellar conditions, the microorganisms must have traveled in the head of a spaceship sent to earth by a higher civilization that had developed elsewhere some billions of years ago. Life on our planet started when these organisms began to multiply. Hoyle’s and Crick’s approach does not, of course, solve the mystery of the origin of life; it simply defers it to another time and location. Both of them avoid the problem how life came into existence in the first place.

Information theorist H. Yockey (1992), who had attempted to assess the mathematical probability of the spontaneous origin of life, concluded that the information needed to begin life could not have developed by chance. He suggested that life be considered a given, like matter or energy. On the basis of the existing scientific evidence, it is highly implausible that the origin of life on our planet and the development of the rich plethora of species are the result of random mechanical forces. It is hard to imagine that they occurred without the intervention and participation of superior cosmic intelligence.

This brings us to the most critical point of our discussion, the claim of materialistic science that matter is the only reality and that consciousness is its product. This thesis has often been presented with great authority as a scientific fact that has been proven beyond any reasonable doubt. However, when it is subjected to closer scrutiny, it becomes obvious that it is not and never was a serious scientific statement, but a metaphysical assumption masquerading as one. It is an assertion that cannot be proved and thus lacks the basic requirement for a scientific hypothesis, namely testability.

Consciousness and Matter

The gap between matter and consciousness is so radical and profound that it is hard to imagine that consciousness could simply emerge as an epiphenomenon out of the complexity of material processes in the central nervous system. We have ample clinical and experimental evidence showing deep correlations between the anatomy, physiology, and biochemistry of the brain, on the one hand, and conscious processes, on the other. However, none of these findings proves unequivocally that consciousness is actually generated by the brain. The origin of consciousness from matter is simply assumed as an obvious and self-evident fact based on the belief in the primacy of matter in the universe. In the entire history of science, nobody has ever offered a plausible explanation how consciousness could be generated by material processes, or even suggested a viable approach to the problem.

The attitude that Western science has adopted in regard to this issue resembles the famous Sufi story. On a dark night, a man is crawling on his knees under a candelabra lamp. Another man sees him and asks: “What are you doing? Are you looking for something? “The man answers that he is searching for a lost key and the newcomer offers to help. After some time of unsuccessful joint effort, the helper is confused and feels the need for clarification. “I don’t see anything! Where did you lose it?” he asks. The response is very surprising; the owner of the key points his finger to a dark area outside of the circle illuminated by the lamp and mumbles: “Over there!” The helper is puzzled and inquires further: “So why are you looking for it here and not over there?” “Because it is light here and I can see. Over there, I would not have a chance!”

In a similar way, materialistic scientists have systematically avoided the problem of the origin of consciousness, because this riddle cannot be solved within the context of their conceptual framework. There have been instances where some researchers claimed to have found the answer to the brain-consciousness problem, but these efforts do not withstand a closer scrutiny. The most recent example of this kind is the widely publicized book The Astonishing Hypothesis by the British physicist and biochemist Francis Crick (1994), Nobel laureate and co-discoverer with James Watson of the chemical structure of the DNA. As we read his book, “the astonishing hypothesis” turns out to be nothing more than a restatement of the basic metaphysical assumption of materialistic science: “You, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.”

In the specific treatment of the problem, Crick first simplifies the problem of consciousness by reducing it to the process of visual perception. He then proceeds to review a long list of experiments showing that the act of visual perception is associated with the activities in the retina and in the neurons that belong to the optical system. This is nothing new; it has long been known that seeing an object involves chemical and electric changes in the retina, in the optical tract, and in the suboccipital cortex. More refined and detailed study and analysis of these processes do not contribute anything to the solution of the basic mystery: What is it that is capable of transforming chemical and electric changes in the cerebral cortex into a conscious experience of a reasonable facsimile of the observed object?

What materialistic science wants us to believe is that it is possible that the brain itself has the capacity to somehow translate these chemical and electric changes into a conscious subjective perception of the observed material object. The nature of the process and mechanism capable of carrying out this operation eludes any scientific analysis. The assertion that something like this is possible is a wild and unsubstantiated conjecture based on a metaphysical bias rather than a scientific statement supported by solid evidence. Crick’s book lists impressive experimental evidence of correlations between consciousness and the neurophysiological processes, but it avoids the central and critical issue. We are back to the Sufi story mentioned earlier.

The idea that consciousness is a product of the brain naturally is not completely arbitrary. Like Crick, its proponents usually refer to the results of many neurological and psychiatric experiments and to a vast body of very specific clinical observations from neurology, neurosurgery, and psychiatry, to support their position. When we challenge this deeply ingrained belief, does it mean that we doubt the correctness of these observations? The evidence for a close connection between the anatomy of the brain, neurophysiology, and consciousness is unquestionable and overwhelming. What is problematic is not the nature of the presented evidence but the interpretation of the results, the logic of the argument, and the conclusions that are drawn from these observations.

While these experiments clearly show that consciousness is closely connected with the neurophysiological and biochemical processes in the brain, they have very little bearing on the nature and origin of consciousness. There actually exists ample evidence suggesting exactly the opposite, namely that consciousness can under certain circumstances operate independently of its material substrate and can perform functions that reach far beyond the capacities of the brain. This is most clearly illustrated by the existence of out-of-body experiences (OOBEs). These can occur spontaneously, or in a variety of facilitating situations that include shamanic trance, psychedelic sessions, hypnosis, experiential psychotherapy, and particularly near-death situations.

In all these situations consciousness can separate from the body and maintain its sensory capacity, while moving freely to various close and remote locations. Of particular interest are “veridical OOBEs,” where independent verification proves the accuracy of perception of the environment under these circumstances. There are many other types of transpersonal phenomena that can mediate accurate information about various aspects of the universe that had not been previously received and recorded in the brain.

Let us now take a closer look at the relevant clinical observations and laboratory experiments, as well as the interpretations of the evidence provided by traditional science. There is no doubt that various processes in the brain are closely associated and correlated with specific changes in consciousness. A blow on the head leading to brain concussion or compression of the carotid arteries limiting the oxygen supply to the brain can cause loss of consciousness. A lesion or tumor in the temporal lobe of the brain is often associated with very characteristic changes of consciousness that are strikingly different from those observed in persons with a pathological process in the prefrontal lobe. The differences are so distinct that they can help the neurologist to identify the area of the brain afflicted by the pathological process. Sometimes a successful neurosurgical intervention can correct the problem and the conscious experience returns to normal.

These facts are usually presented as conclusive evidence that the brain is the source of human consciousness. At first glance, these observations might appear impressive and convincing. However, they do not hold up when we subject them to closer scrutiny. Strictly speaking, all that these data unequivocally demonstrate is that changes in the brain function are closely and quite specifically connected with changes in consciousness. They say very little about the nature of consciousness and about its origin; they leave these problems wide open. It is certainly possible to think about an alternative interpretation that would use the same data, but come to very different conclusions.

This can be illustrated by looking at the relationship between the TV set and the TV program. The situation here is much clearer, since it involves a system that is human-made and incomparably simpler. The final reception of the TV program, the quality of the picture and of the sound, depends in a very critical way on proper functioning of the TV set and on the integrity of its components. Malfunctions of its various parts result in very distinct and specific changes of the quality of the program. Some of them lead to distortions of form, color, or sound, others to interference between the channels. Like the neurologist who uses changes in consciousness as a diagnostic tool, a television mechanic can infer from the nature of these anomalies which parts of the set and which specific components are malfunctioning. When the problem is identified, repairing or replacing these elements will correct the distortions.

Since we know the basic principles of the television technology, it is clear to us that the set simply mediates the program and that it does not generate it or contribute anything to it. We would laugh at somebody who would try to examine and scrutinize all the transistors, relays, and circuits of the TV set and analyze all its wires in an attempt to figure out how it creates the programs. Even if we carry this misguided effort to the molecular, atomic, or subatomic level, we will have absolutely no clue why, at a particular time, a Mickey Mouse cartoon, a Star Trek sequence, or a Hollywood classic appear on the screen. The fact that there is such a close correlation between the functioning of the TV set and the quality of the program does not necessarily mean that the entire secret of the program is in the set itself. Yet this is exactly the kind of conclusion that traditional materialistic science drew from comparable data about the brain and its relation to consciousness.

Western materialistic science has thus not been able to produce any convincing evidence that consciousness is a product of the neurophysiological processes in the brain. It has been able to maintain its present position only by resisting, censoring, and even ridiculing a vast body of observations indicating that consciousness can exist and function independently of the body and of the physical senses. This evidence comes from parapsychology, anthropology, LSD research, experiential psychotherapy, thanatology, and the study of spontaneously occurring nonordinary states of consciousness. All these disciplines have amassed impressive data demonstrating clearly that human consciousness is capable of doing many things that the brain (as understood by mainstream science) could not possibly do.

Science and Religion

The authority that materialistic science enjoys in modern society has made atheism the most influential ideology in the industrial world. Although in the last decades this trend seems to be reversing, the number of people who seriously practice religion and think of themselves as “believers” has certainly decreased considerably with scientific progress. Because of the spell that materialistic science exerts on industrial societies, even believers often find it difficult to avoid the undermining and discrediting influence that Western science has had on religion. It is very common for people with religious upbringing to reject religion of any kind when they receive scientific education, because they start seeing any spiritual inclination as primitive and undefendable.

Organized religion, bereft of its experiential component, has largely lost the connection to its deep spiritual source and as a result has become empty, meaningless, and increasingly irrelevant in our life. In many instances, live and lived spirituality based on profound personal experience has been replaced by dogmatism, ritualism, and moralism. The most belligerent partisans of mainstream religion insist on literal belief in the exoteric versions of spiritual texts that appear childish and blatantly irrational to the educated modern mind. This is further confounded by the untenable positions that religious authorities maintain in regard to some important issues of modern life. For example, denying women the right of ministry violates democratic values and dwelling on the prohibition of contraception in face of such dangers as AIDS and overpopulation is absurd and highly irresponsible.

If we consider the descriptions of the universe, nature, and human beings developed by materialistic science, it is clear that they are in sharp contrast with the accounts offered by the scriptures of the great religions of the world. Taken literally and judged by the criteria of various scientific disciplines, the stories of the creation of the world, origin of humanity, immaculate conception, death and rebirth of divine personages, temptation by demonic forces, and judgment of the dead belong to the realm of fairy tales or handbooks of psychiatry. And it would be very difficult to reconcile such concepts as Cosmic Consciousness, reincarnation, or spiritual enlightenment with the basic tenets of materialistic science. However, it is not impossible to bridge the gap between science and religion if both are correctly understood.

As we have seen, much confusion in this area is caused by serious misconceptions concerning the nature and function of science and scientific theories. What is presented as a scientific refutation of spiritual realities is often based on scientistic argumentation rather than science. An additional source of unnecessary problems concerning religion is a serious misunderstanding and misinterpretation of the spiritual symbolism in sacred scriptures. This approach is characteristic of fundamentalist movements in mainstream religions.

When scientism and fundamentalism collide, neither side seems to realize that many of the passages in spiritual scriptures around which the controversy revolves should not be understood as references to concrete personages, geographical places, and historical events, but as accounts of transpersonal experiences. Scientific descriptions of the universe and the stories in religious texts do not relate to the same realities, they do not compete for the same terrain. As mythologist Joseph Campbell pointed out in his inimitable style, “the immaculate conception is not a problem for gynecologists and the promised land is not a piece of real estate.”

The fact that modern astronomers have not found the images of God and angels on the photographs made by even the best of telescopes is not a scientific proof that they do not exist. Similarly, our knowledge that the inside of the earth consists of liquid iron and nickel does not in any way disprove the existence of the underworld and hell. Spiritual symbolism accurately portrays events and realities that we experience in holotropic states of consciousness and does not refer to occurrences in the material world of our everyday reality. Aldous Huxley made this very clear in his excellent essay “Heaven and Hell” (Huxley 1959). The only field that is capable of approaching the problem of spirituality scientifically is thus consciousness research focusing on systematic and unbiased exploration of nonordinary states of consciousness.

Many scientists use the conceptual framework of contemporary science in a way that resembles a fundamentalist religion more than it does science. They mistake it for a definitive description of reality and authoritatively implement it to censor and suppress all observations that challenge its basic assumptions. The worldview of materialistic science is clearly incompatible with the theologies of organized religions and the authority that science enjoys in our society certainly works in favor of its position. Since most people in our culture are not aware of the difference between religion and spirituality, the destructive influence of this kind of “science” affects not only religion, but extends to spiritual activity of any kind. If we want to achieve clarity concerning the basic issues involved in this conflict, it is essential to make a clear distinction not only between science and scientism, but also between religion and spirituality.

Spirituality and Religion

The failure to differentiate between spirituality and religion is probably the most important source of misunderstanding concerning the relationship between science and religion. Spirituality is based on direct experiences of nonordinary dimensions of reality and does not necessarily require a special place or an officially appointed person mediating contact with the Divine. It involves a special kind of relationship between the individual and the cosmos and is, in its essence, a personal and private affair. The mystics base their convictions on experiential evidence. They do not need churches or temples; the context in which they experience the sacred dimensions of reality, including their own divinity, are their bodies and nature. And instead of officiating priests, they need a supportive group of fellow seekers or the guidance of a teacher who is more advanced on the inner journey than they are themselves.

At the cradle of all great religions were visionary experiences of their founders, prophets, saints, and even ordinary followers. All major spiritual scriptures—the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Buddhist Pali canon, the Bible, the Koran, the Book of Mormon, and many others are based on direct personal revelations. Once religion becomes organized, it often completely loses the connection with its spiritual source and becomes a secular institution exploiting the human spiritual needs without satisfying them. Instead, it creates a hierarchical system focusing on the pursuit of power, control, politics, money, possessions, and other secular concerns.

Organized religion is institutionalized group activity that takes place in a designated location—a temple or a church—and involves a system of appointed officials who may or may not have had personal experiences of spiritual realities. Religious hierarchy tends to actively discourage and suppress direct spiritual experiences in its members, because they foster independence and cannot be effectively controlled. When this happens, genuine spiritual life continues only in the mystical branches, monastic orders, and ecstatic sects of the religions involved.

There is no doubt that the dogmas of organized religions are generally in fundamental conflict with science, whether this science uses the Newtonian-Cartesian model or is anchored in the emerging paradigm. However, the situation is very different in regard to spiritual experiences. In the last twenty-five years, systematic study of these experiences has become the main focus of a special discipline called transpersonal psychology. Spiritual experiences, like any other aspect of reality, can be studied scientifically; they can be subjected to careful, open-minded research. There is nothing unscientific about unbiased and rigorous study of these phenomena and of the challenges they represent for a materialistic understanding of the world. The critical question in this regard is the nature and the ontological status of mystical experiences. Do they reveal deep truths about some basic aspects of existence or are they products of superstition, fantasy, or mental disease?

The main obstacle in the study of spiritual experiences is the fact that traditional psychology and psychiatry are dominated by a materialistic philosophy and lack genuine understanding of religion and spirituality. In their emphatic rejection of religion, they do not make a distinction between primitive folk beliefs or the fundamentalists’ literal interpretations of sacred scriptures, on the one hand, and sophisticated mystical traditions or Eastern spiritual philosophies, on the other. Western materialistic science has indiscriminately rejected any spiritual concepts and activities, including those based on centuries of systematic introspective exploration of the psyche. Many of the great mystical traditions developed specific technologies for inducing spiritual experiences and combined observation and theoretical speculation in a way that resembled modern science.

An extreme example of this lack of discrimination is Western science’s rejection of Tantra, a system that offers an extraordinary spiritual vision of existence in the context of a comprehensive and sophisticated scientific worldview. Tantric scholars developed a profound understanding of the universe that has been in many ways validated by modern science. It included sophisticated models of space and time, the concept of the Big Bang, and such elements as a heliocentric system, interplanetary attraction, spherical shape of the earth and planets, and entropy.

Additional achievments of Tantra included advanced mathematics and the invention of the decimal count with a zero. Tantra also had a profound psychological theory and experiential method, based on maps of the subtle or energy body involving psychic centers (chakras) and conduits (nadis). It has developed highly refined abstract and figurative spiritual art and a complex ritual (Mookerjee and Khanna 1977).

Psychiatric Perspective on Religion

From the point of view of Western academic scientists, the material world represents the only reality and any form of spiritual belief reflects lack of education, primitive superstition, magical thinking, or regression to infantile patterns of functioning. The belief in any form of existence after death is not only refuted, but often ridiculed. From a materialistic perspective, it seems absolutely clear and unquestionable that the death of the body, particularly the brain, is the end of any form of conscious activity. Belief in the posthumous journey of the soul, an afterlife, or reincarnation is nothing but a product of wishful thinking of people who are unable to accept the obvious biological imperative of death.

People who have direct experiences of spiritual realities are in our culture seen as mentally ill. Mainstream psychiatrists make no distinction between mystical experiences and psychotic experiences and see both categories as manifestations of psychosis. The kindest judgment about mysticism that has so far come from official academic circles was the statement of the Committee on Psychiatry and Religion of the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry entitled “Mysticism: Spiritual Quest or Psychic Disorder?” This document published in 1976 conceded that mysticism might be a phenomenon that lies between normalcy and psychosis.

In the present climate, even the suggestion that spiritual experiences deserve systematic study and should be critically examined appears absurd to conventionally trained scientists. Showing serious interest in this area, in and of itself, can be considered a sign of poor judgment and blemishes the researcher’s professional reputation. In actuality, there exists no scientific “proof” that the spiritual dimension does not exist. The refutation of its existence is essentially a metaphysical assumption of Western science, based on an incorrect application of an outdated paradigm. As a matter of fact, the study of holotropic states, in general, and transpersonal experiences, in particular, provides more than enough data suggesting that postulating such a dimension makes good sense (Grof 1985, 1988).

At the cradle of all great religions of the world were powerful personal experiences of the visionaries who initiated and sustained these creeds—the divine epiphanies of the prophets, mystics, and saints. These experiences, revealing the existence of sacred dimensions of reality, were the inspiration and vital source of all religious movements. Gautama Buddha, meditating under the Bo tree, had a dramatic visionary experience of Kama Mara, the master of the world illusion, of his three seductive daughters trying to distract him from his spiritual quest, and of his menacing army attempting to intimidate him and prevent him from reaching enlightenment. He successfully overcame all these obstacles and achieved illumination and spiritual awakening. On another occasion, the Buddha also envisioned a long chain of his previous incarnations and experienced a profound liberation from karmic bonds.

Mohammed’s “miraculous journey,” a powerful visionary state during which archangel Gabriel escorted Mohammed through the seven Moslem heavens, Paradise, and Hell, was the inspiration for the Koran and for the Islamic religion. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, the Old Testament offers a dramatic account of Moses’ experience of Yahwe in the burning bush and the New Testament describes Jesus’ temptation by the devil during his stay in the desert. Similarly, Saul’s blinding vision of Christ on the way to Damascus, St. John’s apocalyptic revelation in his cave on the island Patmos, Ezechiel’s observation of the flaming chariot, and many other episodes clearly are transcendental experiences in nonordinary states of consciousness. The Bible describes many additional instances of direct communication with God and the angels. The descriptions of the temptations of St. Anthony and of the visionary experiences of other saints and Desert Fathers are well-documented parts of Christian history.

Western psychiatrists interpret such visionary experiences as manifestations of serious mental diseases, although they lack adequate medical explanation and the laboratory data supporting this position. Mainstream psychiatric literature contains articles and books that discuss what would be the most appropriate clinical diagnoses for the great figures of spiritual history. St. John of the Cross has been called a “hereditary degenerate,” St. Teresa of Avila dismissed as a hysterical psychotic, and Mohammed’s mystical experiences have been attributed to epilepsy.

Many other religious and spiritual personages, such as the Buddha, Jesus, Ramakrishna, and Sri Ramana Maharshi have been seen as suffering from psychoses, because of their visionary experiences and “delusions.” Similarly, some traditionally trained anthropologists have argued whether shamans should be diagnosed as schizophrenics, ambulant psychotics, epileptics, or hysterics. The famous psychoanalyst Franz Alexander, known as one of the founders of psychosomatic medicine, wrote a paper in which even Buddhist meditation is described in psychopathological terms and referred to as “artificial catatonia” (Alexander 1931).

Religion and spirituality have been extremely important forces in the history of humanity and civilization. Had the visionary experiences of the founders of religions been nothing more than products of brain pathology, it would be difficult to explain the profound impact they have had on millions of people over the centuries and the glorious architecture, paintings, sculptures, and literature they have inspired. There does not exist a single ancient or pre-industrial culture in which ritual and spiritual life did not play a pivotal role. The current approach of Western psychiatry and psychology thus pathologizes not only the spiritual but also the cultural life of all human groups throughout centuries except the educated elite of the Western industrial civilization that shares the materialistic worldview.

The official position of psychiatry in regard to spiritual experiences also creates a remarkable split in our own society. In the United States, religion is officially tolerated, legally protected, and even righteously promoted by certain circles. There is a Bible in every motel room, politicians pay lipservice to God in their speeches, and collective prayer is a standard part of the presidential inauguration ceremony. However, in the light of materialistic science, people who take seriously religious beliefs of any kind appear to be uneducated, suffering from shared delusions, or emotionally immature.

And if somebody in our culture has a spiritual experience of the kind that inspired every major religion in the world, an average minister will very likely send him or her to a psychiatrist. It has happened on many occasions that people who had been brought to psychiatric facilities because of intense spiritual experiences were hospitalized, subjected to tranquilizing medication or even shock treatments, and received psychopathological diagnostic labels that stigmatized them for the rest of their lives.

Holotropic States of Consciousness and the Image of Reality

The differences between the understanding of the universe, nature, human beings, and consciousness developed by Western science and that found in the ancient and pre-industrial societies is usually explained in terms of superiority of materialistic science over superstition and primitive magical thinking of native cultures. Careful analysis of this situation reveals that the reason for this difference is not the superiority of Western science, but the ignorance and naïvité of industrial societies in regard to holotropic states of consciousness.

All pre-industrial cultures held these states in high esteem and spent much time and energy trying to develop effective and safe ways of inducing them. They possessed deep knowledge of these states, systematically cultivated them, and used them as the major vehicle of their ritual and spiritual life. The worldviews of these cultures reflected not only the experiences and observations made in the everyday state of consciousness, but also those from deep visionary states. Modern consciousness research and transpersonal psychology have shown that many of these experiences are authentic disclosures of ordinarily hidden dimensions of reality and cannot be dismissed as pathological distortions.

In visionary states, the experiences of other realities or of new perspectives on our everyday reality are so convincing and compelling that the individuals who have had them have no other choice than to incorporate them into their worldview. It is thus systematic experiential exposure to nonordinary states of consciousness, on the one side, and the absence thereof, on the other, that sets the technological societies and pre-industrial cultures ideologically so far apart. I have not yet met a single individual who has had a deep experience of the transcendental realms and continues to subscribe to the worldview of Western materialistic science. This development is quite independent of the level of intelligence, type and degree of education, and professional credentials of the individuals involved.

Holotropic States of Consciousness and Human History

In this book, we have explored in some detail holotropic states of consciousness, their nature, content, and profound effect on the worldview, hierarchy of values, and strategy of existence. What we have learned from the study of holotropic experiences throws an entirely new light on the spiritual history of humanity. It shows that spirituality is a critical dimension of the human psyche and existence and takes authentic religion based on direct experience out of the context of pathology, where it has been relegated by materialistic science.

All the cultures in human history except the Western industrial civilization have held holotropic states of consciousness in great esteem. They induced them whenever they wanted to connect with their deities, other dimensions of reality, and with the forces of nature. They also used them for diagnosing and healing, cultivation of extrasensory perception, and artistic inspiration. They spent much time and energy trying to develop safe and effective ways of inducing them. As I described in the introduction to this book, these “technologies of the sacred,” mind-altering techniques developed in ancient and aboriginal cultures for ritual and spiritual purposes, ranged from shamanic trance-inducing methods of various indigenous cultures to so-phisticated practices of various mystical traditions and Eastern spiritual philosophies.

The practice of holotropic states can be traced back to the dawn of human history. It is the most important characteristic feature of shamanism, the oldest religion and healing art of humanity. Holotropic states are intimately connected with shamanism in several important ways. The career of many shamans begins with spontaneous episodes of visionary states, or psychospiritual crises, that the anthropologists call, with a typical Western bias, “shamanic illness.” Others are initiated into the shamanic profession by practicing shamans through similar experiences induced by powerful mind-altering procedures, particularly drumming, rattling, chanting, dancing, or psychedelic plants. Accomplished shamans are able to enter holotropic states at will and in a controlled way. They use them for healing, extrasensory perception, exploration of alternate dimensions of reality, and other purposes. They can also induce them in other members of their tribes and provide for them the necessary guidance.

Shamanism is quite ancient, probably at least thirty to forty thousand years old; its deepest roots can be traced far back into the Paleolithic era. The walls of the famous caves in southern France and northern Spain, such as Lascaux, Font de Gaume, Les Trois Frères, Altamira, and others, are decorated with beautiful images of animals. Most of them represent species that actually roamed the Stone Age landscape—bisons, wild horses, stags, ibexes, mammoths, wolves, rhinos, and reindeer. However, others like the “Wizard Beast” in Lascaux are mythical creatures that clearly have magical and ritual significance. And in several of these caves are paintings and carvings of strange figures combining human and animal features, who undoubtedly represent ancient shamans.

The best known of these images is the “Sorcerer of Les Trois Frères,” a mysterious composite figure combining various male symbols. He has the antlers of a stag, eyes of an owl, tail of a wild horse or wolf, human beard and penis, and paws of a lion. Another famous carving of a shaman in the same cave complex is the “Beast Master” presiding over the Happy Hunting Grounds teeming with beautiful animals. Also well known is the hunting scene on the wall in Lascaux. It shows a wounded bison and a lying figure of a shaman with an erect penis. The grotto known as La Gabillou harbors a carving of a shamanic figure in dynamic movement whom the archeologists call “The Dancer.” In addition, on the clay floor of one of the caves, the discovers found footprints in circular arrangement suggesting that its inhabitants conducted dances, similar to those that are still being performed by many aboriginal cultures for the induction of trance states.

Figure 6.

The Sorcerer of Les Trois Frères . A composite figure combining various male symbols—the antlers of a stag, the eyes of an owl, the tail of a wild horse or wolf, a human beard, and the paws of a lion.

Source: Reprinted from The Way of the Animal Powers by Joseph Campbell. Used by permission of Harper Collins Publishers, Inc. © Copyright 1989 by Harper and Row.

Figure 7.

Beast Master . An engraved figure from Les Trois Frères cave representing the “Animal Master,” a half-animal, half- human shamanic figure standing in the middle of the “Happy Hunting Ground” surrounded by wild animals.

Source: Reprinted from The Way of the Animal Powers by Joseph Campbell. Used by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. © Copyright 1989 by Harper and Row.

Figure 8.

Hunting Scene (Lascaux). A hunting scene from the Lascaux cave representing an eventrated bison bull and a man with bird-like features and an erect penis, very likely a shaman in a trance. Near him is a bird perched on a staff.

Source: Reprinted from The Way of the Animal Powers by Joseph Campbell. Used by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc © Copyright 1989 by Harper and Row.

Figure 9.

The Dancer. A dynamic shamanic figure from the cave called La Gabillou.

Source: Reprinted from The Way of the Animal Powers by Joseph Campbell. Used by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. © Copyright 1989 by Harper and Row.

Shamanism is not only ancient, it is also universal; it can be found in North and South America, in Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. The fact that so many different cultures throughout human history have found shamanic techniques useful and relevant suggests that the holotropic states engage what the anthropologists call the “primal mind”— a basic and primordial aspect of the human psyche that transcends race, sex, culture, and historical time. Shamanic techniques and procedures have survived until this very day in cultures that have escaped the profound influence of the Western industrial civilization.

The ritual and spiritual life in most native societies is practically synonymous with inducing holotropic states of consciousness in the context of healing rituals and various other sacred ceremonies held for a variety of purposes and occasions. Of special importance are the so-called rites of passage, first defined and described by the Dutch anthropologist Arnold van Gennep (1960). These are powerful rituals that have been performed in various pre-industrial cultures at the time of important biological and social transitions, such as circumcision, puberty, marriage, birth of a child, menopause, and dying.

Like the shamanic procedures, the rites of passage use powerful mind-altering technologies. The initiates have profound holotropic experiences that revolve around psychospiritual death and rebirth. This is then interpreted as dying in the old role and being born into the new one. Thus, for example, in one of the most important of such ceremonies, the puberty rite, the psychological death and rebirth of the adolescents is understood as death of boys and girls and birth of adult men and women. An important function of similar rituals is also to provide experiential access to the transcendental realm, validate the group’s cosmology and mythology, and establish or maintain the individual’s connection with other realities.

Holotropic states of consciousness also played a critical role in the ancient mysteries of death and rebirth, sacred and secret procedures in which initiates experienced powerful psychospiritual transformation. These mysteries were based on mythological stories about deities symbolizing death and transfiguration. In ancient Sumer, it was Inanna and Tammuz, in Egypt Isis and Osiris, and in Greece the deities Attis, Adonis, Bacchus, and Persephone. Their Mesoamerican counterparts were the Aztec Quetzalcoatl, or the Plumed Serpent, and the Hero Twins of the Mayan Popol Vuh. These mysteries were particularly popular in the Mediterranean area and in the Middle East, as exemplified by the Sumerian and Egyptian temple initiations, the Mithraic mysteries, or the Greek Korybantic rites, Bacchanalia, and the mysteries of Eleusis.

An impressive testimony for the power and impact of the experiences involved is the fact that the Eleusinian mysteries were conducted regularly and without interruption for a period of almost two thousand years and kept attracting prominent people from the entire ancient world. The cultural importance of the mysteries for the ancient world becomes evident when we realize that among their initiates were many famous and illustrious figures of antiquity. The list of neophytes included the philosophers Plato, Aristotle, and Epictetus, the military leader Alcibiades, the playwrights Euripides and Sophocles, and the poet Pindaros. The famous statesman Cicero, who participated in these mysteries, wrote a exalted report about their effects and their impact on the ancient civilization in his book De Legibus (Cicero 1987).

In the telestrion, the giant initiation hall in Eleusis, three thousand neophytes at a time experienced profound psychospiritual transformation. The exposure of such large numbers of people, including prominent philosophers, artists, and statesmen, to powerful holotropic states had to have an extraordinary impact on Greek culture and thus on the history of European culture in general. It is truly astonishing that this important aspect of the ancient world has remained largely unrecognized and unacknowledged by historians.

The specifics of the mind-altering procedures involved in these secret rites have remained for the most part unknown, although it is likely that the sacred potion kykeon that played a critical role in the Eleusinian mysteries was a concoction containing alkaloids of ergot similar to LSD (Wasson, Hofmann, and Ruck 1978) and that psychedelic materials were also involved in the Bacchanalia and other types of rites. Whatever “technologies of the sacred” were used in Eleusis, their effects on the psyche of the initiates had to be profound to keep the interest and attention of the ancient world alive for a period of almost two millennia.

Holotropic states have also played an important role in the great religions of the world. I mentioned earlier the visionary experiences of the founders that served as the vital source and inspiration for all the major religions. While these initial experiences were more or less spontaneous and elemental, many of these religions developed in the course of their history sophisticated procedures specifically designed to induce mystical experiences. Here belong, for example, different techniques of yoga, meditations used in VipassanA, Zen, and Tibetan Buddhism, as well as spiritual exercises of the Taoist tradition and complex Tantric rituals. We could also add various elaborate approaches used by the Sufis, the mystics of Islam. They regularly used in their sacred ceremonies, or zikers, intense breathing, devotional chants, and trance-inducing whirling dance.

From the Judeo-Christian tradition, we can mention here the breathing exercises of the Essenes and their baptism involving half-drowning, the Christian Jesus prayer (hesychasm), the exercises of Ignatius of Loyola, and various Cabalistic and Hassidic procedures. Approaches designed to induce or facilitate direct spiritual experiences are characteristic of the mystical branches of the great religions and of their monastic orders.

Ritual use of psychedelic plants and substances has been a particularly effective technology for inducing holotropic states of consciousness. The knowledge of these powerful tools reaches far back, to the dawn of human history. In Chinese medicine, reports about psychedelic plants can be traced back more than 3,000 years. The legendary divine potion referred to as haoma in the ancient Persian Zend Avesta and as soma in India was used by the Indo-Iranian tribes several millennia ago and was probably the most important source of the Vedic religion and philosophy.

Preparations from different varieties of hemp have been smoked and ingested under various names (hashish, charas, bhang, ganja, kif, marijuana) in the Oriental countries, in Africa, and in the Caribbean area for recreation, pleasure, and during religious ceremonies. They have represented an important sacrament for such diverse groups as the Brahmans, certain Sufi orders, ancient Scythians, and the Jamaican Rastafarians.

Ceremonial use of various psychedelic materials also has a long history in Central America. Highly effective mind-altering plants were well known in several Pre-Hispanic Indian cultures—among the Aztecs, Mayans, Olmecs, and Mazatecs. The most famous of these are the Mexican cactus peyote (Lophophora williamsii), the sacred mushroom teonanacatl (Psilocybe mexicana), and ololiuqui, seeds of different varieties of the morning glory plant (Ipomoea violacea and Turbina corymbosa). These materials have been used as sacraments until this day by the Huichol, Mazatec, Chichimeca, Cora, and other Mexican Indian tribes, as well as the Native American Church.

The famous South American yajé or ayahuasca is a decoction from a jungle liana (Banisteriopsis caapi) and various other plant additives. The Amazon area is also known for a variety of psychedelic snuffs. Aboriginal tribes in Africa ingest and inhale preparations from the bark of the eboga shrub (Tabernanthe iboga). They use them in small quantities as stimulants and in larger dosages in initiation rituals for men and women. The above list represents only a small fraction of psychedelic compounds that have been used over many centuries in ritual and spiritual life of various human groups all over the world.

Holotropic States in the History of Psychiatry

Holotropic states of consciousness played a very important role in the development of depth psychology and psychotherapy. Most books describing the early history of this movement trace its beginnings to the Austrian physician and mystic Franz Anton Mesmer. Although Mesmer himself attributed the changes in consciousness experienced by his patients to “animal magnetism,” his famous Paris experiments were forerunners of the extensive psychological work with clinical hypnosis. Jean-Martin Charcot’s hypnotic sessions with hysterical patients conducted in the Paris Salpetrière and the research in hypnosis carried out in Nancy by Hippolyte Bernheim and Ambroise Auguste Liébault played an important role in the professional development of Sigmund Freud.

During his study journey to France, Freud visited both Charcot and the Nancy group and learned to use hypnosis. He employed this skill in his initial explorations of the unconscious of his patients. But holotropic states had a critical role in the history of psychoanalysis in yet another way. Freud’s early analytical speculations were inspired by his work with a hysterical patient whom he treated jointly with his friend Joseph Breuer. This client, to whom Freud refers in his writings as Miss Anna O., experienced spontaneous episodes of holotropic states in which she repeatedly psychologically regressed into her childhood. The opportunity to witness the reliving of traumatic memories that occurred in these states and the therapeutic effects of this process had a deep influence on Freud’s thinking.

For a variety of reasons, Freud later radically changed his strategies. He abandoned the use of hypnosis and shifted his emphasis from direct experience to free association, from actual trauma to Oedipal fantasies, and from conscious reliving and emotional abreaction of unconscious material to transference dynamics. In retrospect, these changes were unfortunate; they limited and misdirected Western psychotherapy for the next fifty years (Ross 1989). As a consequence of this development, psychotherapy in the first half of this century was practically synonymous with talking—face to face interviews, free associations on the couch, and the behaviorist deconditioning.

As psychoanalysis and other forms of verbal psychotherapy gained momentum and reputation, the status of direct experiential access to the unconscious changed dramatically. Holotropic states that had been earlier seen as being potentially therapeutic and capable of providing valuable information about the human psyche became associated with pathology. Since that time, the prevailing practice in the treatment of these states, when they occur spontanously, has been to suppress them with all available means. It took many years before professionals began to rediscover the value of holotropic states and of direct emotional experience.

Holotropic States and Modern Consciousness Research

The renaissance of professional interest in holotropic states began in the early 1950s, shortly after the discovery of LSD-25, with the advent of psychedelic therapy. It continued few years later with new revolutionary developments in psychology and psychotherapy. A group of American psychologists and psychiatrists who were deeply dissatisfied with behaviorism and Freudian psychoanalysis felt and expressed the need for a new orientation in their fields. Abraham Maslow and Anthony Sutich responded to this call and launched a new branch of psychology that they called humanistic psychology. Within a short time, this movement became very popular.

Humanistic psychology provided the context for the development of a broad spectrum of innovative therapies. While traditional psychotherapies used primarily verbal means and intellectual analysis, these new so-called experiential therapies emphasized direct experience and expression of emotions. They also used various forms of body work as an integral part of the process. The best known among them, Fritz Perls’ Gestalt therapy (Perls 1976), has since become very popular and is widely used, particularly outside the academic circles.

In spite of these radical departures from mainstream therapeutic strategies, most of the experiential therapies still relied to a great degree on verbal communication and required that the client stay in the ordinary state of consciousness. However, some of the new approaches were so powerful that they were able to profoundly change the state of consciousness of the clients. Besides psychedelic therapy, this included some of the noe-Reichian techniques, primal therapy, rebirthing, holotropic breathwork, and a few others.

Although these new experiential methods have not yet been accepted by mainstream academic circles, their development and use started a new chapter in the history of psychotherapy. They are closely related to ancient and aboriginal psychospiritual technologies that have played a critical role in the ritual, spiritual, and cultural history of humanity. If, in the future, they are accepted and their value recognized, they certainly have the potential to revolutionize the theory and practice of psychiatry.

In the second half of this century, significant contributions to the technology of inducing holotropic states have come not only from clinical work, but also from laboratory research. Biochemists have been able to identify the active alkaloids of many psychedelic plants and produce them in the laboratory. The most famous among them are mescaline from peyote, psilocybine from the Mexican magic mushrooms, and ibogaine from the African eboga shrub. Less known but important are harmaline from ayahuasca, tetra-hydro-cannabinol (THC) from hashish, and the tryptamine derivatives found in the South American snuffs and in the skin secretions of certain toads.

Chemical research has also added to this already rich psychedelic armamentarium the extremely potent semisynthetic LSD-25 and a large number of synthetic substances, particularly MDA, MDMA (Ecstacy or Adam), 2-CB, and other amphetamine derivatives. This made it possible to conduct systematic clinical and laboratory research of the effects of these compounds on a large scale and to study the physiological, biochemical, and psychological processes involved.

A very effective way of inducing holotropic states is sensory isolation or deprivation, which involves a significant reduction of meaningful sensory stimuli. Its extreme form involves total immersion in a large, completely dark, and acoustically isolated tank and a custom-made waterproof mask with an airpipe. Similarly, sleep deprivation and even dream deprivation can profoundly change consciousness. Dream deprivation without sleep deprivation can be achieved by waking experimental subjects every time their rapid eye movements (REM) indicate they are dreaming. There also exist laboratory devices that make it possible to learn lucid dreaming.

Another well-known mind-altering laboratory procedure is biofeedback, a method that allows to guide the individual by electronic signals into specific experiential realms characterized by preponderance of certain frequencies of brainwaves. A rapidly growing market now offers a rich spectrum of mind-altering devices that can induce holotropic states of consciousness by combining in various ways acoustic, optical, and kinesthetic stimulation. The account of new avenues in consciousness research would not be complete without mentioning thanatology, a discipline focusing on the study of near-death experiences (NDEs). Thanatological research has been the source of some of the most remarkable observations in the entire transpersonal field.

The renaissance of interest in holotropic states that we have witnessed in the last few decades has generated an extraordinary amount of revolutionary data. Researchers of different areas of consciousness research have amassed impressive evidence that seriously challenges the theories of materialistic science concerning the nature of consciousness. It leaves little doubt that the current scientific worldview that assumes primacy of matter and sees consciousness as its derivative cannot be adequately supported by facts of observation.

As a matter of fact, the observations from transpersonal psychology directly contradict the current image of consciousness as a byproduct of neurophysiological processes in the brain. The existence of the “veridical out-of-body experiences” in near-death situations would alone be sufficient to topple this leading myth of materialistic science. These experiences show that disembodied consciousness is capable under certain circumstances of accurately perceiving the environment without the mediation of senses.

What is probably most remarkable in the present situation is the degree to which academic circles have managed to ignore and suppress all the new evidence that shatters the most fundamental metaphysical assumptions of materialistic science. The recognition of the limitations of the existing conceptual frameworks to assimilate the new revolutionary data prompted Abraham Maslow and Anthony Sutich, the two founders of humanistic psychology, to launch yet another psychological discipline that has become known as transpersonal psychology. This field studies the entire spectrum of human experience including the holotropic states and represents a serious attempt to integrate science and spirituality.

Conclusions

The main purpose for writing this final chapter was to establish that the cosmology described in this book is not incompatible with the findings of science, but with the philosophical conclusions that were inappropriately drawn from these findings. What the experiences and observations described in this book challenge is not science, but materialistic monism. I hope that I have been able to show that the materialistic worldview rests on a number of questionable metaphysical assumptions that are not adequately supported by facts and scientific evidence.

What characterizes true science is open-minded and open-ended application of the scientific method of inquiry to any domain of reality that allows it, no matter how absurd this undertaking might appear from a traditional perspective. I believe that pioneers in various areas of modern consciousness research have done exactly that. They have studied with great courage a wide spectrum of holotropic experiences and amassed in the process vast amounts of fascinating data. Many of the phenomena they have observed represent a crucial challenge to deeply ingrained beliefs that have long been falsely considered to be established scientific facts.

The more than four decades that I have spent in consciousness research have convinced me that the only way the proponents of materialistic science can maintain their present worldview is by systematically censoring and misinterpreting all the data concerning holotropic states. They have certainly successfully used this strategy in the past, whether the source of the challenging data was historical study, comparative religion, anthropology, or various areas of modern consciousness research. This certainly is true about parapsychology, psychedelic therapy, and experiential psychotherapies. Thanatology and the work with laboratory mind-altering techniques are additional examples.

I am convinced that this strategy cannot be continued indefinitely. It is becoming increasingly evident that the basic assumptions that represent the cornerstones of materialistic monism are at present not adequately supported by scientific data. In addition, the amount of evidence from consciousness research that has to be suppressed and ignored is rapidly growing. It is not enough to show that the claims of transpersonal psychology are incompatible with the worldview of materialistic science. To silence the conceptual challenges, it would be necessary to demonstrate that the observations from transpersonal psychology and consciousness research, including those described in this book, can be adequately accounted for and explained in the context of the materialistic paradigm.

I seriously doubt that mainstream materialistic critics would be more successful in accomplishing this task than the researchers in the transpersonal field have been themselves. I have the privilege of knowing most of them personally. They all have traditional academic backgrounds and had exerted great effort to find conventional explanations for their findings before they decided to seek a radical alternative. I know from my own experience that it was the disturbing and painful inadequacy of the old paradigm to account for the data and not iconoclastic zeal and delight that was responsible for the origins of transpersonal psychology.

It is important to emphasize that the cosmology described in this book is not in conflict with the facts and observations of any scientific discipline. What is being questioned and challenged is the appropriateness of the philosophical conclusions drawn from these observations. The ideas in this book do not change any of the specifics described by materialistic science. They simply provide an overarching metaframework for the phenomena constituting consensus reality. According to the materialistic worldview, the universe is a mechanical system that essentially created itself and consciousness is an epiphenomenon of material processes. The findings of transpersonal psychology and consciousness research strongly suggest that the universe might be a creation of superior cosmic intelligence and consciousness an essential aspect of existence.

There exist no scientific findings that demonstrate the priority of matter over consciousness and the absence of creative intelligence in the universal scheme of things. Adding the insights from consciousness research to the findings of materialistic science provides a more complete understanding of many important aspects of the cosmos for which we currently have unsatisfactory and unconvincing explanations. These include such fundamental questions as the creation of the universe, the origin of life on our planet, the evolution of species, and the nature and function of consciousness.

In addition, this new perspective on reality includes as its integral part the rich spectrum of holotropic experiences and related phenomena. This is a large and important domain of existence for which materialistic science has failed to provide reasonable and convincing rational explanations. After repeated frustrating attempts, I have myself given up hope that I would be able to explain my experiences and observations in the context of the conceptual framework that I received during my academic training. If any of the critics of transpersonal psychology succeed in presenting a convincing, sober, and down-to-earth materialistic explanation of the extraordinary world of holotropic experiences, I will be the first one to welcome it and congratulate them.